“I was not impressed [with it],” the Eagle told The Daily Telegraph in 2014. “He needs to come up with his own ideas and stop stealing stuff from already established works.”
In a new interview with The Guardian, Henley offered much harsher criticism.
“I didn’t think he was cool,” Henley said. “I thought he was a talentless little prick. And I still do. Some of these young kids have grown up in a world that doesn’t understand or respect copyright material or intellectual property. They look at songs as interactive playthings.”
And Don Henley doesn’t seem to be very open to compromising—or very familiar with tact.
Henley co-wrote “Hotel California” with Don Felder. Felder was the Eagles’ lead guitarist from 1974 to 2001, when he was fired from the band after questioning a contract that he would subsequently agree to. In the same interview, Henley dissed his former bandmate for about the 173rd time.
“A lot of people on the outside believe a lot of the bullshit in Don Felder’s book, and believe Glenn Frey and I are some kind of tyrants,” Henley said in the interview. “The fact is, we are largely responsible both for the longevity and the success of this band, because we did it our way, and a lot of people didn’t like that… Felder’s just bitter because he got kicked out of the group, so he decided to write a nasty little tell-all. Which I think is a really low, cheap shot. I mean, I could write some stuff about him that would make your mustache curl.”
So this is obviously a guy who enjoys taking shots at contemporaries past and present. Suing Ocean, firing Felder and ripping them in the media afterwards proves there’s no limit to Henley’s pettiness. After Henley was asked whether or not a bigger artist such as Kanye West sampling his music would be more preferable than Ocean, the “Boys of Summer” singer doubled down on the disrespect.
“No, I’d be just as pissed off,” Henley said. “I don’t like him, either.”
“He won’t be president,” he added, referring to Yeezy’s tongue-in-cheek bid for the White House. “He’s either incredibly arrogant or incredibly insecure, or some combination of the two.”