The Eagles are an American rock band formed 1971 with the founding members Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner. The Eagles were one of the highly successful music groups of the 1970s. Eagles are one of the world's best-selling bands, having sold more than 200 million records, including 100 million albums sold in U.S alone. Hotel California was our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles. It was really about the excesses of American culture and certain girls we knew. But it was also about the uneasy balance between art and commerce. - Don Henley. In the words of Sal Manna, author of the CD liner notes of the band's 1994 album Hell Freezes Over, "no one knew quite what 'California rock' meant – except perhaps that, because in California anything was possible, music that came from that promising land was more free-spirited and free-ranging."
Hotel California
I had to stop for the night
There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself,
'This could be Heaven or this could be Hell'
Glenn Frey: "That record explores the under belly of success, the darker side of Paradise. Which was sort of what we were experiencing in Los Angeles at that time. So that just sort of became a metaphor for the whole world and for everything you know. And we just decided to make it Hotel California. So with a microcosm of everything else going on around us."
Don Henley: "We were all middle-class kids from the Midwest. Hotel California was our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles.
Don Henley in the London Daily Mail November 9, 2007 said: "Some of the wilder interpretations of that song have been amazing. It was really about the excesses of American culture and certain girls we knew. But it was also about the uneasy balance between art and commerce."