(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Wed 20 August 2025 21:00, UK
Let’s play a quick game of word association: if I asked you to name the first thing that pops into your mind when I mention the Eagles, the answer is likely to be Hotel California.
Regularly cited as the band’s greatest achievement, their fifth studio album is seen as being a masterpiece and one of the best soft rock records to have come out in the 1970s. With Glenn Frey and Don Henley on top form with regards to songwriting, and their ever-changing lineup arguably being at its strongest with Randy Meisner, Joe Walsh and Don Felder bolstering the group with their expert musicianship, the band truly hit their peak with Hotel California.
However, the very categorisation of the record leads you to believe that it would have had to have been created in the most tranquil of environments. If you’re aiming to create a ‘soft rock’ masterpiece, then the target word is ‘soft’, and nothing about it is going to have the same sense of abrasiveness or bombast that a more standard rock album would, let alone a metal one. Soft rock is meant to calm the listener and lull them into a place of comfort, so ideally, the environment in which it was created ought to be as zen as possible.
When the group set up their gear to record, ironically in Miami, far away from the eponymous location, they must have had the idea of scorching hot beaches and delightfully laid-back vibes, and nothing being too intense. So, if you’ve constantly got guitars being played at maximum volume blaring in your ears, then it’s likely to disrupt the peace and throw you into a less calm state of mind than would be demanded.
In the studio, things couldn’t have been less peaceful, and the group were thrown off by the fact that they had some disruptive neighbours who were creating the most heinously noisy music, far from the gentle and breezy climes that the Eagles were looking to emulate. What’s more, the guilty party seemingly took great pleasure in disturbing the band, while the mellower group were slowly going insane.
It was, in fact, the rowdy Midlands metal pioneers Black Sabbath, who were recording in the room next to the Eagles, and this was far from the ideal situation to be in. Tony Iommi would later comment on how they managed to rattle the Eagles’ nest, and seemingly enjoyed the fact that they were seen as a nuisance that disturbed them.
“We went to Miami to record Technical Ecstasy at Criteria Studios,” Iommi recalled to Classic Rock in 2011. “Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. We all stayed in a place right on the beach, and I’d go down to the studio, and nobody would be there. The Bee Gees were recording there too. I spent a lot of time hanging out with Barry Gibb. And the Eagles were there, too, in the room next to us. The Eagles had to pack up and go because we were too loud!”
Of course, like any more respectful neighbours, the Eagles could have held out an olive branch towards Black Sabbath, and been more cordial with the group like the Bee Gees had seemingly done. However, the sounds that Sabbath were making proved to be far too much for the band to stomach, and they quickly shut up shop and relocated back to California to finally get the peace they needed.
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