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Image via Wikimedia Commons
While the whole internet eagerly awaits the latest from Frank Ocean, Don Henley of Eagles is still angry at Ocean for interpolating “Hotel California” into “American Wedding,” which appeared on Ocean’s debut release, Nostalgia, Ultra. Around three years ago, Henley threatened to sue Ocean for performing the song, and then followed-up the potential lawsuit a few years later by saying he was “not impressed” with the song, and that Ocean “needs to come up with his own ideas and stop stealing stuff from already established works.”
His biting words and general lack of understanding regarding samples and interpolations in his interview with The Daily Telegraph got a lot of attention, and now he’s revealed in an interview with The Guardian that he’s still angry at Ocean for the song. In the interview, Henley said that when he first heard the song he thought he was a “talentless little prick,” adding that he still thinks he is. “Some of these young kids have grown up in a world that doesn’t understand or respect copyright material or intellectual property.”
Sounding once again like a disgruntled old man not entirely understanding of modern society, Henley says that he’d be just as mad if Kanye West had sampled or interpolated one of his songs: “I’d be just as pissed off. I don’t like him, either. He won’t be president. He’s either incredibly arrogant or incredibly insecure, or some combination of the two.” Read the whole interview with Henley here.
