David Gilmour’s opinion on the Eagles

One of the most influential guitar players of all time, David Gilmour entered Rock history as a crucial member of Pink Floyd, the most successful Progressive Rock band ever. However, he never liked to categorize their music that way. Gilmour has never been a big fan of other Prog Rock groups and always had a broad musical taste.

Throughout his career, he has not spoken often about other bands, but he has shared his opinion on a few of them, including the Eagles, whose classic lineup featured Joe Walsh, Glenn Frey, Don Felder and Don Henley.

What is David Gilmour’s opinion on the Eagles

David Gilmour is such a big fan of the Eagles that he once nearly lost his voice after going to see them live and singing along to every song on the setlist. “I deliberately tried to make it as intimate as I could (Gilmour said about a show he did). It felt fantastic, really liberating. But it’s much more frightening. The audience are right there in front of you and you can see the whites of their eyes. And my voice was really shot. I’d foolishly been to an Eagles show three or four nights before, and sung along to every song and it did my throat in a bit,” he told The Telegraph in 2002.

A couple of years before that, he had already praised the band when talking about the music created in the 1970s. He believed the music from that decade was too safe. However, he noted that the Eagles had released “really good records” during that decade. “Music in the 70s was too safe. Punk was in the 70s, the Sex Pistols, they were played pretty safe, you know. Lots of people say that it was all crap in the 70s. Fleetwood Mac put out ‘Rumors,’ and we put out ‘Dark Side of the Moon,’ and ‘The Wall,’ in the 70s.”

David Gilmour continued:

“I think the criticism of the 70s followed after the euphoria of the 60s, where people were saying how wonderfully new and exciting a lot of it was. I don’t think people who criticize the 70s really have looked at the great stuff that came out. The Eagles put out really good records in the 70s,” he told TLV in 1995. (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).

Curiously, Pink Floyd and the Eagles sit side by side on the list of the best-selling albums of all time. These days, “The Dark Side of the Moon” (1973) occupies the fourth position with an estimated 45 million copies sold. The Eagles come right after in fifth place with their “Greatest Hits (1971–1975)” album, which has sold more than 44 million copies. When it comes to total record sales, Pink Floyd sold more than 250 million and the Eagles more than 200 million.

David Gilmour played with Timothy B. Schmit and Don Henley with Roger Waters

David Gilmour once had the chance to appear on a song alongside a member of the Eagles when he took part in Ringo Starr’s 2003 album “Ringo Rama.” One of the guests invited by the Beatle for the record was Eagles bassist Timothy B. Schmit. He who played bass on “Missouri Loves Company,” the same track on which Gilmour performed a guitar solo.

One year later, Gilmour took part in “The Strat Pack”, a concert marking the 50th anniversary of the Fender Stratocaster guitar. Although he and Eagles’ Joe Walsh were part of the event, they did not play together that night. It’s interesting that both bands originally had different guitar players. It was only after bringing in Gilmour and Walsh that the magic between them happened, resulting in their best-selling albums.

A few years earlier, in 1992, Don Henley sang on Roger Waters’ third solo album “Amused to Death.” The two duetted on the track “Watching TV.”

Nick Mason said he can’t stand listening to “Hotel California” anymore

While David Gilmour is a big fan of the Eagles, his bandmate, drummer Nick Mason, grew a bit tired of their biggest hit, “Hotel California.” Curiously, he even recorded a cover of the song with a tribute band called The Illegal Eagles. However, when Pink Floyd was touring the United States in the mid-70s, the song was being played everywhere. So at least until 2020, he was still tired of hearing it.

“It’s a great song, let’s make that clear. I’ve actually recorded it for someone. This terrific tribute band called The Illegal Eagles, we recorded it for a friend’s party. But it was so popular when we were touring America that every car we got into, every radio station was playing it on repeat more or less. Because we were in the car quite often for some hours, it was one of those things where you thought: ‘I really could live without hearing that song again.’ You thought the world was changing and the Eagles were gonna run it,” Nick Mason told NME in 2020.