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“I’m English so who cares about the Eagles really? I don’t give a fuck about them” Gavin Rossdale on owning the Jazzmaster played on Hotel California
“Everyone else was freaking out about it, but it didn’t really mean much to me.”
Image: Guitar World on YouTube
Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale has revealed how he got his hands on Joe Walsh’s Hotel California Fender Jazzmaster, and his feelings – or lack thereof – about the guitar’s iconic history.
In a recent interview with Guitar World, Rossdale shared that he first came across the instrument in “this fantastic guitar store in London” named Vintage and Rare.
“As a kid I used to go in there with no money,” he said. “I was one of those annoying customers who would never buy anything, so when I signed a record deal, I went there and bought a guitar. I tried every guitar in there. The Jazzmaster was in the window, funnily enough.”
It was love at first sight for the musician, who ended up circling back to the Jazzmaster after testing out the other guitars in the shop.
“I knew I loved the look of the purple Jazzmaster in the window but I wouldn’t let myself buy the first thing I saw — I had to try every guitar in the store. I came back to the Jazzmaster and it sounded great.”
“They told me Joe Walsh had previously owned it,” he continued. “I’m English, so who cares about the Eagles, really? I don’t give a fuck about the Eagles, but I can respect them even if I don’t listen to them. Everyone else was freaking out about it, but it didn’t really mean much to me.”
While the Jazzmasters’ history was hardly a source of wonder for the Bush guitarist, Rossdale noted that he did get the instrument verified by Walsh himself after the purchase — for reasons that lean more practical than fanatical though.
“I was actually being managed by [the Eagles’] manager for a long time,” Rossdale recalled. “So when I met Joe, I asked if he knew this guitar. He picked it up and started playing it, and then said, ‘Yeah, I actually used it for the verses on Hotel California!’”
“So I got him to sign a bit of paper to prove it and I told my kids to sell it the day I die – because I’d used it on [Bush’s debut studio album] Sixteen Stone, which has some history, but the massive bit of history is the fact that it had been used on Hotel California,” he added.
“And of course I respect that, even if I don’t care about it personally.”
Catch Rossdale and his purple Jazzmaster in action below.