39 Quotes by Don Felder

Take a ride on heavy metal, it’s the only way that you can travel down that road.

You’ve got this piece of wood and some wires, pickups and some strings. How somebody uses that configuration to make something memorable, that’s what’s interesting to me.

Don't forget, Stephen Stills and I had a band in Gainesville called the Continentals when we were 15. And, of course, you had Lynyrd Skynyrd in Jacksonville.

I never challenged control of the band. Basically, all I did was start asking questions. There's an old adage in Hollywood amongst managers: 'Pay your acts enough money that they don't ask questions.' And I started asking questions.

For every album we worked on, I brought in reels of tape of somewhere between fourteen and eighteen songs - some of them completed, with lyrics and melodies, some of them basic tracks. Things came out of those products. Like, for 'Hotel California', I think I had a reel with sixteen songs on it.

Every once in a while, it seems like the cosmos part, and something great plops into your lap.

When the band first formed, everybody had been sidemen. So they said, 'In this band there are no sidemen,' and when I joined the band, it was still the same. There were some power struggles emerging, because Henley and Frey had sung all the hits at that point.

Your nerve coatings are only so thick. When they get worn really thin and frayed, that's when people say things, do things, misbehave.

I especially enjoyed some of the old hairstyles, with my hair down to my shoulders and a beard. And Henley's nickname used to be 'Furry Basketball' because he had that fro. It was fun to just look at what was going on in that era and how we presented ourselves on stage.