Don Felder’s house has a vault. Not just a metaphorical one—an actual vault of tapes, demos, and dusty DATs that sat untouched for decades, patiently waiting for the right storm of boredom and curiosity. “I hadn’t opened that thing in 20 years,” he says, grinning like a guy who knows what he found inside. The result: The Vault: 50 Years of Music, a new album pulling from every era of Felder’s half-century in rock, including early Eagles scraps, ‘80s dance detours, and brand-new tracks written straight into 2025.
But let’s not bury the lede: he also wrote that riff. Yes, the one from “Hotel California.”
Flash forward a few decades and suddenly Henley wants to unplug it. Literally. In the era of MTV Unplugged, the Eagles were jumping on the acoustic bandwagon for Hell Freezes Over, and that meant transforming the most iconic electric intro of the '70s into something that wouldn’t sound like “a bunch of hillbillies playing bluegrass,” as Felder so generously puts it. “I picked up a nylon string guitar and just started figuring it out,” he says. “Henley tells me, ‘It needs a special intro.’ I go, ‘What do you mean special?’ And he says, ‘Just make something up.’" To one of the most famous songs in the world. No pressure.
The Vault follows that same philosophy—salvage, update, improvise. “Some songs were just kernels,” he says. “You breathe life into them, and suddenly there’s an oak tree.” That includes “Move On,” a 1974 demo with slide guitar inspired by his friend Duane Allman, and “Hollywood Victim,” a song that didn’t fit on Hell Freezes Over but now sounds like it was tailor-made for a 2025 sync placement in a prestige HBO show.
He’s also gone full gym-rat when it comes to his vocals. “Back on my first solo record Airborne, my voice was mixed so low you could barely hear it. I was paranoid after singing with Henley and Glenn. But now? I do 90-minute shows. I sing along with my live tracks at home, even off-tour. It’s like going to the gym. Your voice is a muscle.”
On top of that, he’s taken “Heavy Metal” out of the analog attic and given it a new coat of distortion, re-recorded with session pros like Chad Cromwell and Nathan East. “I just thought it’d be fun to drag it from 1981 to today,” he says. “Now it actually sounds like heavy metal.”
And as if that weren’t enough: The Vault basically has Toto as a backing band. “Lukather plays on everything. David Paich. The singer came over to do harmonies. Honestly, half the time we’re just sitting around telling jokes for 45 minutes before we even touch a guitar.”
This summer, Felder’s heading out with Styx and Kevin Cronin, who’s in the middle of his own drama after getting the REO Speedwagon boot. Felder doesn’t flinch. “Kevin’s the voice of that band,” he says, pointedly. “I understand that kind of situation more than anyone.”
It’ll be a greatest-hits setlist all night long, with the fastest set changes on the planet—everything’s wireless, no amps to move. “You barely have time to get a beer before the next band starts,” Felder quips. “Which is good, ‘cause I’ve got a new song. Here it comes.”
Watch the full interview above and then check out the video below.
