Don Felder is renowned as a former lead guitarist for The Eagles, one of the most popular and influential rock groups of all time. A band member for 27 years, Don co-wrote the group’s biggest hit—the iconic “Hotel California”—as well as fan favorites such as “Victim of Love” and “Those Shoes.” In addition to songwriting, he’s well known for his lyrical, signature guitar work on “Hotel California” and other legendary songs like “One of These Nights,” “New Kid In Town,” and numerous others.

Since leaving The Eagles, Don has written a best-selling book about his time with the band, and released the solo album Road to Forever, which features guest appearances by Randy Jackson, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Steve Lukather, and other greats. The single “You Don’t Have Me”—which includes a melodic guitar solo played by Don through a Roland MICRO CUBE amp—went on to become a Number One song on the Classic Rock Radio charts.

What are your earliest musical influences?

I first saw Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show, and I saw about 500 young girls screaming at him and I realized right then and there that that’s what I wanted to do. But once I really got into understanding music and learning to play, I would say my earliest influences were people like B.B. King, Chet Atkins, people that really had a masterful hand in both blues, country, unique techniques. Later, obviously, it was people like Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and those that have really unique rock and roll styles. Eric Clapton was a big influence along the way. But my earliest influences were B.B. King and Chet Atkins.

You have a bit of a Spanish influence in your playing. How did you develop that?

I was actually living in Boston, working in a studio from nine to six. I’d get out of that studio, get on a train, go to downtown Cambridge, and I would play nylon-string guitar in the Holiday Inn while people were eating dinner and ordering wine, like everybody else works at a gig. And I developed being able to play movie themes, just about anything on that gut-string guitar by myself.

Back in the kitchen I had a fake book, so if someone asked me for a special song for their anniversary, I’d go, “I’ll do this right after I get back from my next break.” I’d go back in the kitchen, open up the fake book, learn how to play the song, go back out and dedicate it to them for their anniversary, and I’d get a five-dollar tip. So it was a great way for me to be able to develop those skills of playing nylon-string guitar and make a few extra bucks at the same time.

What is your favorite guitar?

Of all the guitars in my collection that I love the most, it’s got to be a ’59 Les Paul sunburst. I just loved that guitar when I first picked it up, and I still have it today. As a matter of fact, it’s the one I used on “Hotel California” and many Eagles records, and I still record with it. I don’t tour with it anymore, because I’m afraid it’ll either be lost or damaged or stolen. But I do still love the feel of that guitar.

Tell us about writing “Hotel California.”

I actually recorded the music for that on a TEAC four-track tape recorder in my one-year-old daughter’s bedroom, which was my temporary demo studio. When she was awake, I’d go in and write tracks for what was going to become the Hotel California record. I had finished about 16 or 17 different song ideas. One of them became a song called “Victim of Love,” and another became “Hotel California.”

I put all those ideas on a cassette—if anybody remembers what a cassette is—and gave copies of it to everybody in the band. And a few days later, Don Henley called me and said, “You know, I like that track that kind of sounds like a Mexican reggae.” And it was obviously the only one on that tape that sounded like “Hotel California.”

So we started talking about the idea that nobody in the band was from California; we all drove here from different parts of the country. The imagery we have in our minds of what California is, which is palm trees, bathing suits, surfers, stars on Hollywood Boulevard, the entertainment business, movie stars, music business, all of that stuff that worldwide is a concept of what California is. Don was brilliant and came up with the concept of “Hotel California,” finished the lyrics, and that’s how that song came about.

You used a MICRO CUBE amp for a song on your last solo record. How did that come about?

I was working in my [home] studio trying to write a guitar solo for this song called “You Don’t Have Me.” I was playing with the track, and I came up with what I thought was a really good solo idea. I had a MICRO CUBE sitting on the floor, and I just grabbed the vocal mic that I’d been singing into, shoved it in front of this little MICRO CUBE, and recorded that solo. I put a harmony on it, and just kind of pieced it together as a scratch demo, thinking that when I got into the studio, I would re-record it.

When I got into the studio and played it for everybody, they said, “Why do you want to re-record that? That’s got a great tone. It sounds really good.” I said, “No, no, no. Let’s set up some amps and we’ll try to do it again.” And we tried re-recording the solo, and it just didn’t have that unique sound, which was a small, little amp sounding like a really big amp. So it wound up staying on the record as the final solo on “You Don’t Have Me.”

You had the opportunity to check out the Roland Blues Cube Artist combo amp when it was first developed. How did you like it?

In an amplifier, it’s really important to me to have clarity, reliability, and quality. You have to have variety as well, so it can provide you with a lot of different tones, a lot of different textures, a lot of different features. [The Blues Cube] amp has really all of that going on at the same time. And it’s small and light, so you don’t have to lug some huge half-stack around with you to get that sound.

It sounds very much like a tube amp, and it’s got a great clarity. The space—the “tonal bloom” that you might want to call it—in this amp is really nice. It’s [got a] very comfortable, clean, clear, sincere tone in it.

What advice do you have for aspiring musicians?

The first thing that’s the most important for any aspiring musician is you have to love what you’re doing. Don’t think about the money, don’t think about the fame, don’t think about success. You have to really love what you’re doing and be very passionate about it. That will drive you, as it did me and everybody else that I know that’s successful in the music business, to become somewhat obsessed with perfecting your art, whether it’s writing, playing, singing, whatever it is you’re doing. You have to be able to just be obsessed with it and put in the 10,000 hours, per se, to master it the point where you really stand head and shoulders above a lot of people in your business.

The first thing that you have to really decide is, “Is this something I really love doing?” If it’s not something that you really love doing, stop right now and just go watch people in a show or something. But if you really, truly love it, then you’re going to be doing not work, but what you love to do. To me, that’s the key to being successful in this business.