Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, this is Justin Richmond from the Broken Record podcast.
Speaker 1: Join me this June for a live taping of Broken
Speaker 1: Record at the Tribeca Festival, where I'll be in conversation
Speaker 1: with Infinity Song, a New York based soft rock band
Speaker 1: comprised of four siblings who will also be doing a
Speaker 1: couple of songs for us. You'll hear the artist and
Speaker 1: a career spanning conversation about their inspirations and dynamic styles.
Speaker 1: We'll be at the SVA Theater on June twelve at
Speaker 1: eight thirty pm. Defind tickets. Visit tribecafilm dot com slash
Speaker 1: Broken Record all lowercase. That's tribecafilm dot com slash Broken Record.
Speaker 1: Hope to see there. Dare I say? Darylhall is one
Speaker 1: of the great pop songwriters of our time as half
Speaker 1: of the duo Hall and Oates, who was all over
Speaker 1: the charts in the seventies and eighties from Sarah Smile
Speaker 1: to Rich Girl to You Make My Dreams and Man Eater,
Speaker 1: But beyond the hits and the pop chart is a gifted,
Speaker 1: soulful writer and player of all sorts of songs. In
Speaker 1: this episode of Broken Record, I talk with Daryl Hall
Speaker 1: about his early days entrenched in Phillies armb scene, his
Speaker 1: stint on Electra records with his band Gulliver that found
Speaker 1: him being label mates with The Doors, how he wrote
Speaker 1: classics like She's Gone Off, Abandoned, Leschenette, his partially shelved
Speaker 1: album with Robert Fripp, and his latest album d a
Speaker 1: collaboration between him and Dave Stewart of the Rhythmics. This
Speaker 1: is broken record, real musicians, real conversations. This episode is
Speaker 1: brought to you by Defender, a vehicle engineered to meet
Speaker 1: challenges head on so you can explore with confidence. Adventure
Speaker 1: Seekers and risk takers can explore the full Defender lineup
Speaker 1: at land ROVERUSA dot com. Here's my conversation with Daryl Hall.
Speaker 1: How you doing, I'm doing well.
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 3: I'm doing okay? I overworked. I'm overworked, but I'm good.
Speaker 3: Got it.
Speaker 1: You gotta say some time to relax.
Speaker 3: Yeah. One, I'd like to know when that is.
Speaker 1: Do you do you find being busy or not having
Speaker 1: it enough to do impacts your songwriting, your creativity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a funny thing. I'm either too busy or
Speaker 3: I'm a champion at the bit it's one or the other.
Speaker 3: I'm either sitting here reading my book and go on,
Speaker 3: oh fuck, you know what am I doing? Or I'm
Speaker 3: overworked and I'm might pull my hair out.
Speaker 1: You know what books do you typically read?
Speaker 3: Oh? I read Jesus depending on my you know, if
Speaker 3: I just want to relax, I read, you know, like
Speaker 3: Michael Connelly books and things like that, James L. Roy,
Speaker 3: you know. But you know I read for information. I
Speaker 3: read constantly. Is what I do?
Speaker 1: Is fiction a source of inspiration for you at all?
Speaker 1: And when it comes to music.
Speaker 3: Who is writing is a source of inspiration? A turn
Speaker 3: of phrase, I might twist it around my own way,
Speaker 3: adapt it to something I'm thinking about, use it in
Speaker 3: a song. I do that all the time. I hardly ever,
Speaker 3: actually basically never pull something directly from an author, but
Speaker 3: I'll use it in in some some form that is
Speaker 3: part of the expression that I'm trying to achieve, in
Speaker 3: a verse or even maybe sometimes in a chorus.
Speaker 1: Is there an example that comes to mind? Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, like say it isn't So that's an obvious one,
Speaker 3: you know, It's just it's just part of my and
Speaker 3: also I log it in my head. I might read
Speaker 3: read a phrase and remember it. At some point, it'll
Speaker 3: come back to me as I'm as I'm looking for
Speaker 3: looking for something in a lyric.
Speaker 1: How often do you listen to music?
Speaker 3: I am not a good audience. I don't really listen
Speaker 3: to music. I I make it. You know, I have
Speaker 3: so much music in my head that I I only
Speaker 3: don't care to hear things for what? For pleasure? I
Speaker 3: guess you'd call it. I mean I listened for information. Occasionally,
Speaker 3: I hear things. You know, if I'm in out and
Speaker 3: about and I hear something come on, I might log
Speaker 3: in my head and listen to it, say, well that's
Speaker 3: pretty good, that kind of thing. But I don't sit
Speaker 3: around and listen to the radio. I don't, Like I said,
Speaker 3: I'm not a very good audience around.
Speaker 1: When did you hit that saturation point where you're like,
Speaker 1: I have enough music in my head that I don't
Speaker 1: need to sit around listening anymore.
Speaker 3: It's hard to say. You know, I was when I
Speaker 3: was a kid and a teenager or whatever, I was
Speaker 3: a sponge. You know, all I did was was collect
Speaker 3: records and listen to records and do it all that
Speaker 3: kind of thing. I don't know, I guess it was
Speaker 3: after a while where this became a way of life
Speaker 3: and experiences and music in general, and life experiences started
Speaker 3: building in my head. That's when I stopped listening outside
Speaker 3: of well I need to sometimes. I obviously with life
Speaker 3: from Darrels House, I listened to I listened to an
Speaker 3: artist that's going to be on the show, and I
Speaker 3: listened to their work and I try to get it
Speaker 3: inside their head and figure out how they work. And
Speaker 3: in that case, I am an audience. But I'm quite
Speaker 3: sure when that all started happening, because.
Speaker 1: Like when you were a young kid used to hang
Speaker 1: out at like what wdas and just.
Speaker 3: It was a freak for music. I was the ultimate audience.
Speaker 3: I listened to everything I was. I used to just
Speaker 3: hang out at w BAS and in the upteen theater
Speaker 3: places like that. I mean I just lived there, literally
Speaker 3: lived there.
Speaker 1: What was it like getting signed to Elektra?
Speaker 3: Early on, Well, Jack Holtzman was pretty cool. I have
Speaker 3: to say I liked him. I was doing, you know,
Speaker 3: working at Sigma Sound at Philly, and there was sort
Speaker 3: of an offshoot of side Men and a producer named
Speaker 3: Tommy Sellers that we after hours. He asked me if
Speaker 3: I wanted to join it, and we used to, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of come up with songs and do whatever. And
Speaker 3: we got a body of work together. And then this
Speaker 3: fellow that we all worked for named John Madera. He
Speaker 3: wrote that the hop that's who he is. He wrote,
Speaker 3: you don't own me, you know. He wrote those kind
Speaker 3: of songs from a real old school Philly and he
Speaker 3: started shopping this group of songs around and Electra bit
Speaker 3: and they called it Gulliver And it wasn't a band
Speaker 3: at all. It was just a bunch of we were
Speaker 3: just writing songs. So I kind of went up there.
Speaker 3: It was my first experience outside of Philly working with
Speaker 3: or being involved in sort of a New York a
Speaker 3: a big label. You know. The doors were run Electra
Speaker 3: and everything, and it was an experience and interesting, but
Speaker 3: I wasn't really it wasn't real. It wasn't honest. I
Speaker 3: wasn't trying to shop my work or a band that
Speaker 3: I was working with or anything like that. So it
Speaker 3: was kind of kind of a phony situation really.
Speaker 1: But you did you get to meet Jack Oldsman who
Speaker 1: ran Electra.
Speaker 3: He was in those days. Man, those kind of guys
Speaker 3: were very hands on. Amah was the same. Absolutely. I
Speaker 3: was in used to hang out, not a lot, but
Speaker 3: I used to be in Jack Holtsman office and he
Speaker 3: was really a nice guy. I have to say.
Speaker 1: But you didn't write any tunes for that for that record?
Speaker 1: Correct Or Am I wrong?
Speaker 3: I actually did every Day is a Lovely Day. I
Speaker 3: think it was called something like that, But I didn't.
Speaker 3: My heart wasn't in it. I was just doing it,
Speaker 3: you know, it was It wasn't really. I was doing
Speaker 3: a lot of things to try and basically get in
Speaker 3: the quote business and do things for money. You know.
Speaker 3: I was doing commercials, I was I was doing sidebend stuff.
Speaker 3: I was working with the game on Hugh team, playing
Speaker 3: on records with those guys. I was doing anything I
Speaker 3: could do really to make a few bucks. And that
Speaker 3: electric thing was part of that whole scene, you know,
Speaker 3: And I was sort of trying to find myself, to
Speaker 3: tell you the truth.
Speaker 1: By the time you get to whole Oats, does that
Speaker 1: start to feel like this is actually what I want
Speaker 1: to do and this isn't just a way to get in.
Speaker 3: It was a way to get in, but it was
Speaker 3: it was a little of both. I had met John
Speaker 3: in school in Temple university and I needed a roommate.
Speaker 3: We were both sort of suburban, not we weren't suburban,
Speaker 3: that's the wrong word. But we lived out of town,
Speaker 3: and so I started sharing apartments with him, and we
Speaker 3: always did things separately. I think that's the whole mark
Speaker 3: of anything I ever did with John Oates. He had
Speaker 3: his own world. I have my own world, and proximity
Speaker 3: pulled us together more than anything, even in those days.
Speaker 3: So we decided, I remember the words, I said, let's
Speaker 3: you know what, We'll share the stage. You do your thing,
Speaker 3: I do my thing. And that was how the whole
Speaker 3: Oats thing happened, because on the mailbox it's their haul
Speaker 3: and Oates and we turned it into whole Loats, you know,
Speaker 3: really really creative. And we used to play around Philly
Speaker 3: in these little places. There was a place called World
Speaker 3: Control Headquarters that held about eighty people, and we became
Speaker 3: fixtures there and we got and we started getting a following,
Speaker 3: and then we'd play other places that were similar and
Speaker 3: we started doing that, and that was how the whole
Speaker 3: relationship with Oates got started, by doing that and people
Speaker 3: enjoying it what we were doing. And then we started
Speaker 3: looking around from record deal after that.
Speaker 1: Did you recognize at the time what work in with
Speaker 1: like in a Reef?
Speaker 3: Martin meant absolutely because I was used to working with
Speaker 3: Tommy Bell and One Huff, so I knew what good
Speaker 3: shit was. I knew immediately that a Reef was something special.
Speaker 3: I mean I was I was familiar with his work
Speaker 3: first of all. I mean, you know, he'd go from
Speaker 3: Carly Simon to Aretha, to me to to you know,
Speaker 3: even name it, to all these folks bands, all kinds
Speaker 3: of things. He taught me fluency in a lot of
Speaker 3: musical languages. I think I really learned that for the
Speaker 3: first time from him. Before that, I was more like
Speaker 3: just straight out of Philadelphia, you know, or at least
Speaker 3: by version of it.
Speaker 1: What was his impression of your songs?
Speaker 3: He said that that I reminded him of an English
Speaker 3: composer that I can never remember the name. There was
Speaker 3: an obscureor English composer, and it was something about what
Speaker 3: that was his frame of reference. But he saw something
Speaker 3: in me that I think other people hadn't seen yet.
Speaker 1: Did that encourage you at the time? Scare you?
Speaker 3: It didn't scare me, but it encouraged me because he
Speaker 3: again he was He was an encourager, so he tried
Speaker 3: to bring it out. He tried to he tried to
Speaker 3: give me confidence. He egged me on, and he was
Speaker 3: a cheerleader, you know he was. He had a great
Speaker 3: sense of you, Burt too, But he kind of made
Speaker 3: me feel legitimate in what I was, in what I
Speaker 3: was thinking about and doing, and to be unafraid to
Speaker 3: do things.
Speaker 1: Do you remember an album like Abandoned Lunchonette, which is
Speaker 1: the second Holland Oats record, was he worked with you
Speaker 1: guys on Also the songs themselves sound leaps and bounds
Speaker 1: more evolved past Whole Oats, but then also just the
Speaker 1: way that they were put together or the way that
Speaker 1: they were arranged or orchestrated, And how much of that
Speaker 1: was just you guys progressing as artists and you progressing
Speaker 1: as an artist, Darryl, And how much of that was
Speaker 1: working with a reef and seeing the potential and the
Speaker 1: songs that you were writing.
Speaker 3: The Whole Oats album was this grab bag of songs
Speaker 3: that John Oates and I had written over the years,
Speaker 3: like we were still in high school and college, you know,
Speaker 3: we decided we're going to put him down one record.
Speaker 3: To me, the whole Oats record was. It was a
Speaker 3: Hall of Oats demo. It wasn't really a record. It
Speaker 3: was in record form. It was sold as a record,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't a record. It wasn't a thought a band. Eluchenet,
Speaker 3: in my opinion, was our first record and at the times,
Speaker 3: dictated that kind of production. You know. I think the
Speaker 3: involvement of a guy named Chris Bond, Christopher Bond was
Speaker 3: it can't be discounted with it because he well he
Speaker 3: was a budding producer himself, and he was unlike me
Speaker 3: or reef he was. He was totally a beatlemaniac, you know,
Speaker 3: and and I think he was influenced by that kind
Speaker 3: of late late period beatle music. And you can always
Speaker 3: hear it in the songs where there'll be whatever I'm
Speaker 3: doing or eas is doing, and then suddenly this kind
Speaker 3: of beatless thing will be attached to it, you know,
Speaker 3: which bugs me to type the truth. But then I
Speaker 3: think if I don't know if it enhanced the album,
Speaker 3: but I am very proud of that album, and it
Speaker 3: was I think I think the body of work was
Speaker 3: really interesting. I think I consider it to be the
Speaker 3: first Hall of Notes record and maybe one of the
Speaker 3: only real Hall of Notes records. What makes you say
Speaker 3: that because we didn't really work together that much after
Speaker 3: that we did that record, and then I and then
Speaker 3: I we did that record with.
Speaker 4: War Babies album Todd Rundgren that was basically being Todd,
Speaker 4: you know, and then after that it really got very separate,
Speaker 4: where John wrote some songs and he'd.
Speaker 3: Sing them, you'd hear them one there, and his voice
Speaker 3: would be the lead singer, and then I wrote whatever
Speaker 3: I wrote, and that was that was the majority of it,
Speaker 3: and that that that that idea that continued all the
Speaker 3: way through our career.
Speaker 1: Really, so seventy two seventy three abandoned lunch and that
Speaker 1: you guys are working actually together. What wasn't about that
Speaker 1: time that allowed that to unfold that way?
Speaker 3: I think a lot of it had to do with
Speaker 3: we were new. It was us against the world because
Speaker 3: we were still really kids, just out of college, and
Speaker 3: we were sharing apartments, and we moved and we moved
Speaker 3: from Philly to New York and we shared an apartment.
Speaker 3: We were in the same house, so it was kind
Speaker 3: of hard to not collaborate because you know, I'd be
Speaker 3: doing something I'd heat hear it, or he'd be doing
Speaker 3: like She's Gone, for example, which is a real hall
Speaker 3: hall had Oats song fifty to fifty all the way.
Speaker 3: He was playing that kind of chorus riff, like a
Speaker 3: folky riff, and I said, well, that's cool, that's kind
Speaker 3: of interesting, and I sat down on the piano and
Speaker 3: I went, you know, you know, you know, I did that,
Speaker 3: and that turned into She's Gone, and then we we
Speaker 3: wrote the lyrics together, so that was a real haul
Speaker 3: and Oats song.
Speaker 1: Were you guys proud of that song when you at
Speaker 1: the time, I mean, that is still to this day
Speaker 1: it's just a jaw dropper.
Speaker 3: I'm doing it was good, but I okay. And then
Speaker 3: we took that to a reef and talk about jaw drop.
Speaker 3: He is what jaw dropped and I was just playing
Speaker 3: it on a Fender Rhoads and he's the one that
Speaker 3: came up with that. And you know all about the
Speaker 3: progression at the end of the song, which is really
Speaker 3: off the wall really and that but that was his
Speaker 3: idea completely.
Speaker 1: That's interesting because that progression sounds almost like I almost
Speaker 1: feels like a signature at least of yours, Like I
Speaker 1: feel like I, uh that change, that step up. I'm
Speaker 1: just shocked to that came from from him.
Speaker 3: Well, I learned it from him and decided it was
Speaker 3: a good idea.
Speaker 1: Because that's one of those moments you're listening to that
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, there's the hollow notes that I think
Speaker 1: the majority of people think of when they think hallo notes.
Speaker 1: You know, just a casual listener.
Speaker 3: I have a mixed feelings about modulation, but I like it.
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's really effective, lifing the Shees Gone kind of song.
Speaker 3: More more recently, I don't use so much modulation anymore.
Speaker 1: Why is that what causes the mixt No.
Speaker 3: I just changed my taste changed.
Speaker 1: It's not an intellectual thing now, you know what it is?
Speaker 3: Too many, too many shitty songs modulated. A modulation is
Speaker 3: a trick to take something mediocre and make it sound
Speaker 3: like it's better than it is in a lot of cases.
Speaker 1: Was there ever the thought after abandon Lnchinette to do
Speaker 1: something more on your own?
Speaker 3: That's what I decided that I wanted. It's a strange
Speaker 3: thing I started for getting that sort of Okay, I
Speaker 3: want to go out there and do this on myself.
Speaker 3: At that period of time, but I was in an
Speaker 3: environment with people who did not want to hear about it,
Speaker 3: and they did everything they could over all those years
Speaker 3: to stop me and stop my impulses to do that,
Speaker 3: and try and keep me. He'd be aligned if you
Speaker 3: want the truth to be, and keep me, keep me doing.
Speaker 3: What they were making money.
Speaker 1: From was that label pressure.
Speaker 3: It was label management everything.
Speaker 1: When did your relationship with Tommy Mottola start?
Speaker 3: It started back around that whole Oats period. Really, he
Speaker 3: was working in Chapel Music. He had an office the
Speaker 3: size of the closet and we went up there with
Speaker 3: John Madeira and we were doing something I don't even
Speaker 3: know why. I guess John and was trying to lease
Speaker 3: his liase, his publishing or something. And I got started
Speaker 3: talking to Tommy, and Tommy wanted to be a manager,
Speaker 3: you know, he had big ambitions, and I guess he
Speaker 3: heard me play something or whatever, and he said, why
Speaker 3: don't you do You know you don't want to stay
Speaker 3: in Philadelphia, watch let me manage it. And I went, well,
Speaker 3: that's interesting, okay, sure, And he kept me laughing for
Speaker 3: about fifteen years, and then I woke up.
Speaker 1: When you write a song like Gino on the White album,
Speaker 1: that's about Tommy Mattola right.
Speaker 3: I was speaking truth right there.
Speaker 1: Did he find that funny at the time or he.
Speaker 3: Acted like he was he thought it was funny. I
Speaker 3: assume he was smart enough to realize what it was about.
Speaker 1: How'd you come up with the course on that? That's
Speaker 1: such a strange.
Speaker 3: Used to say shit like that, hard works being something
Speaker 3: you know and lift fast style laughing. That's all he
Speaker 3: did was laugh all the time. No herd him asking
Speaker 3: nothing for nothing, and that's straight out of his mouth.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more from Daryl Hall after
Speaker 1: the break. I want to talk about Todd run Green
Speaker 1: and David Foster, because you do war Babies with Todd
Speaker 1: run Gren, you do a couple of records with David Foster.
Speaker 1: To hear you say that a reef kind of opens
Speaker 1: you up and allows you to sort of put all
Speaker 1: these different styles and kinds of music together. Makes sense
Speaker 1: to me because it's very hard to make sense of
Speaker 1: your career in the sense of it's so broad. It's
Speaker 1: I mean, you make a record with the reef, David Foster,
Speaker 1: Todd Rundgrend, Robert Fripp. I mean, like it's just it's
Speaker 1: it's insane, it's different, it's incredible.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, I I, as you can imagine,
Speaker 3: I'm an adventurous soul and I and I'm not afraid.
Speaker 3: I like to try things. I like to expand myself.
Speaker 3: I like to put myself in in sometimes uncomfortable situations,
Speaker 3: but usually just in creatively, creatively exciting situations and see
Speaker 3: what comes out of it. Todd was the first one
Speaker 3: that I did like that. I mean, I have very
Speaker 3: mixed feelings about the War Babies album. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think there was a lot of great ideas on it.
Speaker 3: To me, it sounds like squirrels on acid. I mean,
Speaker 3: I you know, it's just sorry. You know, people talk
Speaker 3: about that album like and I go, okay, well, ld
Speaker 3: you like. But at least it was an attempt to
Speaker 3: break out of something and be open to the world,
Speaker 3: be open to the musical world. And I tried to
Speaker 3: keep that attitude. And I certainly kept that attitude when
Speaker 3: I worked with Robert And that was the point, except
Speaker 3: that I was more controlled within that. And I think
Speaker 3: what I did with Robert was I was very happy with.
Speaker 3: And David Foster that was another one that it was
Speaker 3: kind of suggested. David was twenty two years old when
Speaker 3: I met him, and he had done some things with Chicago.
Speaker 3: I think we were the first bands that he were
Speaker 3: really produced. We butted heads, but at the same time,
Speaker 3: I think there was a lot of respect going on
Speaker 3: there and on both sides, and we did some interesting things.
Speaker 1: When you're in a situation like that and you and
Speaker 1: Oates maybe aren't as strong as a partnership as you
Speaker 1: could be, and then and you're sort of button head
Speaker 1: to the producer, all so that's got to feel kind
Speaker 1: that's gotta be a bit isolating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean again, it was I was dealing
Speaker 3: with it like it was my show, and it was
Speaker 3: the principal characters was being the producers, and I knew
Speaker 3: what I wanted. I knew what I wanted to do.
Speaker 3: And a guy like David, he's a he's a He
Speaker 3: comes from the autocratic school where he's a great musician
Speaker 3: and he wants people to do it his way, and
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily agree with that.
Speaker 1: All the time you mentioned you were really happy with
Speaker 1: the Robert Fripp record, it blew my mind. I looked
Speaker 1: back at the dates, and you guys recorded that the
Speaker 1: month after he wraps Heroes with David Bowie and then
Speaker 1: he's in the studio with you the next month and
Speaker 1: you guys are making what's your first solo record?
Speaker 3: I met Robert and Uh. I was actually playing a
Speaker 3: gig in Toronto, and Robert happened to be there and
Speaker 3: he came backstage and and we instantly clicked. And he
Speaker 3: was right at the time going into he was very
Speaker 3: involved with in the gurdgif philosophy thing, you know, and
Speaker 3: and he was going away to retreat and he said,
Speaker 3: I'm going to know, this is Robert's way. I'm going
Speaker 3: to away to retreat for about six months, and then
Speaker 3: when we come back, why don't you and I get
Speaker 3: together and make some music together. And I said, sure, okay,
Speaker 3: this sounds good. And he decided he was going to
Speaker 3: move to New York City after the Gurdgiff thing and
Speaker 3: sort of immerse himself in New York. And that's what
Speaker 3: Heroes happened and all that, and he and I started
Speaker 3: paling around together really and we recorded the Sacred Songs album.
Speaker 3: I had a few songs and some of the songs
Speaker 3: we recorded on the spot and just made up with
Speaker 3: the spot and we did it in Town in New York.
Speaker 3: And then he said, okay, well I want to make
Speaker 3: a record. Let's do the same thing for my record.
Speaker 3: So we made a record that became Exposure to Robert
Speaker 3: record called Exposure, and that was my first setback because
Speaker 3: we recorded and wrote the songs together, and my label
Speaker 3: said that they wouldn't allow me to use my vocals
Speaker 3: on the record. I finally got them to let me
Speaker 3: use I think two or three, and he had the
Speaker 3: task of trying to find someone or people and who
Speaker 3: could copy or have some kind of reasonable try to
Speaker 3: copy the vocals that I had come up with on
Speaker 3: the record, which luckily he found some people who were
Speaker 3: pretty good to do it. But Maya, was it frustrating.
Speaker 3: I realized that I was really in trouble, that I
Speaker 3: was really being locked into something that I didn't see
Speaker 3: having an happy ending.
Speaker 1: It's wild that you say that, because it from the outside,
Speaker 1: it doesn't fucking.
Speaker 3: Keep on trucking. I had no choice. And here's the thing.
Speaker 3: Not only did I keep on trucking because Robert was saying, Okay,
Speaker 3: let's put a band together and start doing this for real.
Speaker 3: And then suddenly I had a commitment to our SIA,
Speaker 3: to Gwin and that's when Voices album happened, and the
Speaker 3: whole fucking world blew up for for Hall of Oates,
Speaker 3: and then I was really stuck in the in the
Speaker 3: groove with the with the situation I was in.
Speaker 1: Did you hear any of that stuff he had been
Speaker 1: doing with Bowie that Frip had been doing with Bowie
Speaker 1: around that time?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Sure, I was pretty familiar with with that whole scene.
Speaker 3: You know, I knew Brian Eno and and uh and Robert,
Speaker 3: and I got to know Peter Gabriel and I worked
Speaker 3: with lou Reid and we actually hauled us. Believe it
Speaker 3: or not, we opened for a tour, a lou Reed
Speaker 3: tour you did, so it's hard to believe what we did. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and uh, and I knew David and uh, so, I
Speaker 3: mean yeah, I'm was familiar with all this stuff that
Speaker 3: was going on, right.
Speaker 1: Because you guys opened for David Bowie too around seventy
Speaker 1: two ish, really early.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: How was lou Reid on the tour?
Speaker 3: He was It was the Sally Can't Dance No More tour,
Speaker 3: so I can't dance no more? Uh? And uh, he
Speaker 3: was strange, man. I mean it's to say that it's
Speaker 3: just to be obvious. I mean, Lou was lou Is
Speaker 3: a very unusual man, and I kind of liked him.
Speaker 3: I liked I liked his attitude. I liked he was
Speaker 3: he just didn't give a fuck. You know, he was
Speaker 3: a curmudgeon. But yet he wasn't you know? There was
Speaker 3: a lot going on with Lou Reid that I think
Speaker 3: more than people even realize. And I wound up living
Speaker 3: in New York City. I live next door to him,
Speaker 3: So I mean, not only was I did go on
Speaker 3: tour with him, but I used to see him walk
Speaker 3: his dog and things like that. And I wouldn't say
Speaker 3: he was a friendly man, but you know.
Speaker 1: Would would you talk though? Would you you know, keep
Speaker 1: a cordial.
Speaker 3: As I'd say something to me, go away? How you doing?
Speaker 1: What do you make of a songwriting?
Speaker 3: I was. I was just with Dave Stewart, and Dave
Speaker 3: Stewart has a book of Lou Reed's lyrics, and I
Speaker 3: was in between doing stuff that we were doing. This
Speaker 3: just happened last week, uh, And I started reading his
Speaker 3: lyrics and the early stuff, the development stuff. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's good, it's it's just it's it's completely different than
Speaker 3: anybody else. I mean, you take a song like I
Speaker 3: don't Know Sister Ray or something like that. I mean,
Speaker 3: the words are just amazing. It's slight, it's a slice
Speaker 3: of light, but ugly life and a fucked up life.
Speaker 3: But but it's you know, he he managed to create
Speaker 3: a mood that was based on something that really was
Speaker 3: and uh, I respect him.
Speaker 1: I thought about him a bit when I was listening
Speaker 1: back through your records because with Lou it always felt
Speaker 1: like there was he knew how to write a pop
Speaker 1: song and just subverted the lout of it, you know,
Speaker 1: and it felt like you could do either thing, Like
Speaker 1: it felt like you could write the perfect pop song,
Speaker 1: you could write the most subversive weird thing. With Robert Free,
Speaker 1: I mean it's like and everything in between, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's that describes by the way my
Speaker 3: brain works. I can I can do go both ways,
Speaker 3: you know, or a lot of ways. I always say,
Speaker 3: I speak a lot of musical languages.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you remember Do you remember any of water Wheel?
Speaker 3: I remember, but I would never be able to sing
Speaker 3: it because my voice saying near that high anymore? Man,
Speaker 3: I hear you call me. I wrote that I was
Speaker 3: just out of high school when I wrote that, you know,
Speaker 3: the Philly scene it was. It was a really strange thing.
Speaker 3: There was a big folk scene going on too, and
Speaker 3: I heard I heard something that made me want to
Speaker 3: write that. I don't remember what it was, and it
Speaker 3: was it was basically written in that tradition, and it
Speaker 3: was certainly different than anything I was doing. When I say,
Speaker 3: working with game.
Speaker 1: On, it's interesting how nostalgic you can be just out
Speaker 1: of high school.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, I think all these songs I wrote,
Speaker 3: I seem to be obsessed with writing songs about nostalgia
Speaker 3: and being older and all that when I was just
Speaker 3: a kid. I don't know why I thought that way,
Speaker 3: don't ask me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but to be able to write a song like
Speaker 1: water Wheel wasn't a hit but sounds in so many
Speaker 1: ways like a perfect pop song from that era of
Speaker 1: when songs sounded like that. Then to be able to
Speaker 1: go and do something like you know, I mean just
Speaker 1: United States, you know, on voices, and then to do
Speaker 1: I mean one of my favorites like I'm in a
Speaker 1: Philly mood, you know, in like ninety three ninety four.
Speaker 1: I mean that you have that kind of a range
Speaker 1: and can write in all of these various styles, these
Speaker 1: things that are just like deep and incredible is something else?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean I won't ask me why I
Speaker 3: can do that, but I seem to have the ability
Speaker 3: to do it. My ears are open and I have
Speaker 3: that facility. I guess I would never be able to
Speaker 3: explain that.
Speaker 1: And by the way, you just want to say you
Speaker 1: put your voice down. But I watched the Frip live
Speaker 1: at Daryll's house, you and Robert Fripp and your version
Speaker 1: of NYC and why that you did probably what just
Speaker 1: two years ago sounds better than the record still do that.
Speaker 1: We should talk about Dave Stewart because you did a
Speaker 1: record with him in the eighties. I think your third
Speaker 1: or second solo record. You guys just did a record
Speaker 1: together last year. D How did you guys come together?
Speaker 3: Like many things, I met him, I just met him.
Speaker 3: Somebody introduced me to him and they said, actually, somebody
Speaker 3: said you guys should get together. I think you enjoy
Speaker 3: each other's company. And he was I've lived in London
Speaker 3: for a lot of time. I don't live there right now,
Speaker 3: but I for years and years I lived in London.
Speaker 3: So I went up to his house at the time
Speaker 3: he was living in made of Bale and I went
Speaker 3: in and we immediately started. I mean I literally went
Speaker 3: into his house. He says, come downstairs, and we started
Speaker 3: writing a song. That was the way I met Dave Stewart.
Speaker 3: We've been friends ever since. You know, we just get along.
Speaker 3: I don't know what it is. And he makes me
Speaker 3: feel creatively, he's a very stimulating person. He makes me
Speaker 3: feel alive. He's a gigantic bundle of energy, and he's
Speaker 3: extremely smart and extremely full of ideas, like I can't
Speaker 3: even tell you haven't. He never stops with him and.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: He's just fun to be with. And so over the
Speaker 3: years we've we made that record, we made the Three
Speaker 3: Hearts album, and we have a great time doing it.
Speaker 3: And then over the years we've we've written a few
Speaker 3: things and done things together, and he's played on some
Speaker 3: of the records and done things with him. And more recently,
Speaker 3: I told him about the place I live in the
Speaker 3: Bahamas and he wound up buying a house down there,
Speaker 3: so we're neighbors now. On top of it all, you know,
Speaker 3: it's family. It's really become family with them.
Speaker 1: You might have figured out the life if you're moving
Speaker 1: between New York, London and the bass.
Speaker 3: That's a good triangle.
Speaker 1: This might be the perfect triangle. His stuff with the
Speaker 1: rhythmics is I mean his stuff in general, but I
Speaker 1: mean that rhythmic stuff. To this day, I've been revisiting
Speaker 1: it because I've been playing it for my kids, and
Speaker 1: that stuff's mind blowing. Still.
Speaker 3: He wrote those songs you don't and that's his productions.
Speaker 3: And he's a great singer, by the way, which doesn't hurt,
Speaker 3: you know. And she sang the ship out of that stuff.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I mean he he has a great body
Speaker 3: of work.
Speaker 1: The sounds you guys got on the new record, like
Speaker 1: the I mean the whole World's Better. Yeah, beautiful sound.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that song I love. I love playing that recently
Speaker 3: in my latest tours, I'm starting the show with that
Speaker 3: because there's just something about it. And you know, when
Speaker 3: you just bang that thing out, you know that you
Speaker 3: know it just wow, it just makes you stand up.
Speaker 3: That song. I wrote that song about one subject, and
Speaker 3: I had most of that song and then it turned
Speaker 3: into something else and it became anthemic. And that was
Speaker 3: Dave's idea to put the you know you know in
Speaker 3: the end, and we just had people come in, friends
Speaker 3: from the from the island, they come in and sang.
Speaker 3: So it became a real communal, athemic kind of song.
Speaker 1: What was what was the song originally about?
Speaker 3: It was about, like many of my songs, I had
Speaker 3: a very tempestuous relationship with with the my late wife
Speaker 3: and I don't know she was so moody with what
Speaker 3: I would hear her saying in the kitchen everything got better.
Speaker 3: That's where it started.
Speaker 1: Is there an early version of that that you can
Speaker 1: share a bit of.
Speaker 3: No, not really, because I had the chorus and that's
Speaker 3: when that was. That was the original. And then I
Speaker 3: had I had the chords of the song, but I
Speaker 3: didn't have the words. And that's when it turned into
Speaker 3: something else, you know, when when I was with Dave
Speaker 3: and I had a melody without any words to go
Speaker 3: with it, and and then we you know, I, with
Speaker 3: his major help, I wrote the lyrics.
Speaker 1: Would would you mind giving us a little of the courses?
Speaker 1: Because you gave us a bit and it's it's it's
Speaker 1: too good to the choruses.
Speaker 2: Or when notts again? When youse snots again?
Speaker 3: Here it is.
Speaker 5: It's a moving song. It's a moving song, you know,
Speaker 5: it comes from a real emotion. Everything all right, comes
Speaker 5: from something real. And people ask me, what you know,
Speaker 5: your new new musician in the world, what do you do?
Speaker 5: I said, you got to believe it, you gotta you
Speaker 5: gotta live it. You got It's got to be something
Speaker 5: that that almost makes you makes you want to cry inside,
Speaker 5: or does make you cry inside?
Speaker 3: Uh? Just me playing that, I just got a feeling
Speaker 3: in my throat because it brought back the memories of
Speaker 3: when I wrote it. Uh, yeah like that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know you mentioned your late wife. Sarah Allen
Speaker 1: Jena Allen were incredible inspirations and collaborators crowded out along
Speaker 1: your career.
Speaker 3: Both Sarah and Jana. They played such a large part
Speaker 3: in the song from the eighties. Jana originated private Eyes,
Speaker 3: I mean, and she originated kiss on My List, I mean,
Speaker 3: things like that. I mean, they were complete collaborations. And Sarah,
Speaker 3: it was it is a really good lyricist, really good lyricist,
Speaker 3: and she contributed a lot.
Speaker 1: Did they figure how to channel that from being around you?
Speaker 3: Or I think so? I don't know, if I just
Speaker 3: gave it off. I mean, they were both musical people,
Speaker 3: and especially Jana, I mean, Janna is a guitar player
Speaker 3: and a singer and all that. Sandy is a singer,
Speaker 3: but you know, more just a music lover. And yeah,
Speaker 3: I think proximity had to do with it. And I
Speaker 3: don't know, something rubbed off and they just came up
Speaker 3: with really good ideas and they would throw them out
Speaker 3: and just to compliment things really add to the quality
Speaker 3: of whatever it is that I was coming up with.
Speaker 1: How would Jana bring like a private eyes to you?
Speaker 3: She actually made a demo of that. The chorus was there,
Speaker 3: but then I kind of fleshed out the verses. I changed.
Speaker 3: You know, that's a pretty complicated chord progression. All the
Speaker 3: chords and so and that that had to do with
Speaker 3: me and I was doing that, but she came up
Speaker 3: with private eyes. Watch didn't you they see your every move?
Speaker 1: She came up with that, sir, can you play through
Speaker 1: a bit of those that chord progression? You were?
Speaker 3: Okay, let's see here. I can't believe it. I have
Speaker 3: to think about it, watching watching you, watch, watching you,
Speaker 3: watch you.
Speaker 1: Man. So she had those chords or.
Speaker 3: She came up with the chords, Well, okay, uh watch
Speaker 3: and watch that's me you can tell right, read that.
Speaker 1: She but her was a ship.
Speaker 3: She she came up with that.
Speaker 1: Wow, what a gift.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well she had one and talk about you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know man's tragedy sometimes. I mean she died
Speaker 3: really young. She died, she got the leukemia and died.
Speaker 3: She was thirty nine years old. And I'm still misser.
Speaker 1: Did that impact you and Sarah are working together? Oh?
Speaker 3: Sarah was. But did it impact it? I can't say
Speaker 3: it didn't. It kind of put disruption in our family. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that kind of personal stuff. Would you put that into music?
Speaker 3: I do all the time. I'm not afraid to put
Speaker 3: it all out there. The most obvious one is the
Speaker 3: one that d album and the new album one I'd
Speaker 3: rather be a fool. I mean, soar the end of
Speaker 3: that song. I'm just saying it.
Speaker 1: When you put something like that down, does it ever
Speaker 1: give you pause.
Speaker 3: I'm not afraid. I put my emotions right out there.
Speaker 3: Rather be a fool. It is a very direct version
Speaker 3: of that. You can't look at my music without here
Speaker 3: and the reality of it. It's just it's all in there.
Speaker 1: Has it ever caused maybe not problems that has ever.
Speaker 1: Has it ever caused friction with people that you're close to.
Speaker 3: I think I've made some people sad. I'm saying that
Speaker 3: with a smirk of my face, which is terrible, So
Speaker 3: I don't feel smirky about it. But I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, the truth hurts sometimes, and that doesn't mean
Speaker 3: you can't speak the truth.
Speaker 1: I had a conversation with Michael McDonald about a year ago,
Speaker 1: maybe a year and a half ago, and he told
Speaker 1: a story about I think it was I can't remember
Speaker 1: which Doobe's record it was now, but one of the
Speaker 1: records wasn't doing so well and one of the black
Speaker 1: an hours at Warner said like, this should go on,
Speaker 1: this should go on black radio, you know, living on
Speaker 1: the fault line, that's what it was, and setting a
Speaker 1: black radio. Black radio loved it and kind of saved
Speaker 1: that version of the band. But it occurred to me, like,
Speaker 1: you know, like the Doobiest, there was a number of
Speaker 1: groups like that that they kind of got eventually pigeonholed
Speaker 1: as yacht rock, but really what it was was just
Speaker 1: there were just R and B guys. They're just making
Speaker 1: R and B records, and they were white, and.
Speaker 3: So this is something I don't understand. First of all,
Speaker 3: yacht rock was a fucking joke by two jerk offs
Speaker 3: in California, and suddenly it became a genre. And I
Speaker 3: don't even understand it, never understood it. And I totally man,
Speaker 3: I'm glad you say that it's just R and B.
Speaker 3: It's just another with some maybe some jazz in there.
Speaker 3: It's mellow R and B. It's it's it's it's it's
Speaker 3: smooth R and B. Yeah, I don't see what the
Speaker 3: yacht part is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it seemed like, you know, it seemed like
Speaker 1: like with the Doobies, for instance, like they like, because
Speaker 1: they were white guys, they didn't know where to or
Speaker 1: not all of them, but the majority of Michael McDonald's white,
Speaker 1: and it's like they didn't know where to put it.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, I can't go on black rad because
Speaker 1: these guys aren't black, but you know, the white audience
Speaker 1: they want to hear, you know, whatever they want. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like you guys necessarily ever had that
Speaker 1: issue from my vantage point. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: feel that way.
Speaker 3: I was more of a pioneer. I mean my music.
Speaker 3: When I was I had a group called the Tumtones,
Speaker 3: and and I had a you know, pretty like a
Speaker 3: top twenty hit in Philadelphia, you know one W Das
Speaker 3: and Sarah's Smile broke on on on R and B
Speaker 3: on on Black Race. It it had to make its
Speaker 3: way to pop radio. That's how Hollanolds started. That was
Speaker 3: that's our origins. And uh, people misjudged us and and
Speaker 3: and and uh because they couldn't label us, and they
Speaker 3: always they came up with all this kind of crap
Speaker 3: soft rock and yacht rock and all this other nonsense
Speaker 3: and none of the none of it really describes anything
Speaker 3: that I do, really, yeah, or doesn't describe it any
Speaker 3: anybody does.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize there were a Smile broke on on
Speaker 1: black radio first.
Speaker 3: Yeah, out of out of Ohio RB station, Ohio, not Dayton,
Speaker 3: but some place like that. Uh. And and then it
Speaker 3: spread through the ARMBA charts. And it wasn't until after
Speaker 3: it was a it was a gigantic record in the
Speaker 3: arm Bach charts that it went to. Uh, pop radio
Speaker 3: makes sense.
Speaker 1: I mean that is that is a hell of a
Speaker 1: soulful record. And listening to a recently, I've always played guitar,
Speaker 1: so I was always taken by the guitar part, and
Speaker 1: I love vocals, so I always thinking about the vocal,
Speaker 1: hadn't paid proper attention to the bass until recently. But
Speaker 1: I think it was Leland scar on there.
Speaker 3: I think it was Uh. The guy that played that
Speaker 3: amazing guitar solo was Christopher Bond And that is one
Speaker 3: of the most beautiful, amazing introduction guitar solos ever written.
Speaker 1: It really is. I mean, the notes played, in the
Speaker 1: way it's played, that the way he approaches it.
Speaker 3: What an amazing guy. He was a very unusual guy.
Speaker 3: He's unfortunately that anymore.
Speaker 1: Your vocal runs on there too, are are? I mean
Speaker 1: just your your choices vocally are?
Speaker 3: I mean I was just being again just I don't
Speaker 3: know that that that that was a real That was reality, man.
Speaker 3: I wrote that song like a postcard to Sandy and
Speaker 3: Sarah Allen and oh there it is.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with
Speaker 1: Daryl Hall. How would you approach in the studio like
Speaker 1: a song like a lone just thinking of that album
Speaker 1: now like alone too long?
Speaker 3: That was it?
Speaker 1: That's a John song, right, That's a John song. How
Speaker 1: much would you involve yourself with John songs?
Speaker 3: I guess you know I would do all all the
Speaker 3: backgrounds and everything. I would fletch out and John would
Speaker 3: have the song. And this goes with any of his songs,
Speaker 3: so there were on a whole of its record like
Speaker 3: had I Known You Better Than or something like that,
Speaker 3: and and alone too Long? And I would come up
Speaker 3: with a vocal arrangement that would accompany his song and
Speaker 3: do all the parts sing. If it was a three
Speaker 3: part harmony, I'd sing three parts. And I mean, when
Speaker 3: you listen to all of Oats records, that's all me
Speaker 3: singing like kiss on my lists, that's all me sing
Speaker 3: in the backgrounds. Occasionally John would sing a part on
Speaker 3: a record, and sometimes he would I would sing the
Speaker 3: parts and then tell him to sing over one of
Speaker 3: the parts. That's how we did it, you know I
Speaker 3: did it. Excuse me?
Speaker 1: Was there anything in your view special about your blends?
Speaker 1: Just the way your voices would blend well, the.
Speaker 3: Reason to blend, because it was all me. If I
Speaker 3: can blend with myself, then.
Speaker 1: When might you, though, decide? John, sing this? I got
Speaker 1: something for you? Sing this? Like? When would that occur
Speaker 1: to you?
Speaker 3: Because I wouldn't add is tambre to the to the background.
Speaker 3: It was. It was one of those things. I mean,
Speaker 3: John has a very distinct voice, and and it's not
Speaker 3: a bad voice either. Hey I'm not putting that down.
Speaker 3: But and and on stage you could tell we were
Speaker 3: working together. I mean it was you wouldn't know in
Speaker 3: a million years, but he was more of a take
Speaker 3: dictation kind of a singer, you know, like sing this.
Speaker 1: I mentioned I'm in a Philly Mood. That's one of
Speaker 1: those songs that makes me wish I was actually from Philly,
Speaker 1: which I could say I'm in a Philly Mood that
Speaker 1: whole record, But I mean that that song is incredible. Borderline,
Speaker 1: you have a Mariah sing backgrounds on a song and
Speaker 1: co wrote a song, yeah, she wrote what was that?
Speaker 3: One?
Speaker 1: Helped me find a Way and the.
Speaker 3: Way to your Heart? Yeah, yeah, that was a sorry
Speaker 3: wrote with Mariah. Yet Philly Mood is one of my
Speaker 3: favorite songs I ever wrote. I play that every show.
Speaker 3: I love singing it. I like playing it. It really
Speaker 3: describes the way I feel and the way I felt
Speaker 3: and again the scenes that I was creating. And boy
Speaker 3: is that real. That's a very emotional song to me,
Speaker 3: kind of like Tony Bennett's I Left my Heart in
Speaker 3: San Francisco. It's the mood, man, It's that's we mood.
Speaker 1: You worked with the couple of folks from the Family
Speaker 1: stand which I feel like that group is sort of
Speaker 1: maybe the lost of time of it. But they were really,
Speaker 1: really cool.
Speaker 3: They were really cool. I don't know why that didn't
Speaker 3: really stick around, you know, they and and Peter and
Speaker 3: Jeff that's Peter Lord and Jeff Smith. That was a
Speaker 3: really interesting combo that we had going That was a
Speaker 3: talk about Philly mood. You know. Uh, Peter was really good.
Speaker 3: He egged me on, you know, he really He brought
Speaker 3: a certain thing out of me that I don't think
Speaker 3: anybody anybody else has, you know. And I think that
Speaker 3: that sol a Loan record sort of reflects that, and
Speaker 3: he reflects the move the thing that he brought out
Speaker 3: in me.
Speaker 1: Do you think you can put into words what he
Speaker 1: brought out of you?
Speaker 3: No, I can't. It's it's just something that's certain kind
Speaker 3: of jazz soul thing that I occasionally do. But brought
Speaker 3: that to the front.
Speaker 1: When you did. It helped me find a way to
Speaker 1: heart with Mariah. I think emotions maybe had been a
Speaker 1: hit at that point, But were you very familiar with her.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, it was Tommy Motola's girlfriend, right, I mean,
Speaker 3: my god. And she actually came up with with she
Speaker 3: came up with the course of that and she and
Speaker 3: she played it for me and then went from there.
Speaker 1: So that song started with her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she she sent me that, she sent me a
Speaker 3: tape to help me find a way to your heart,
Speaker 3: and then I I kind of enhanced it.
Speaker 1: I always feel like people sleep on Mariah as a songwriter,
Speaker 1: you know, as someone who can write a song.
Speaker 3: I think Mariah is a very talented person, as we
Speaker 3: all know. And uh, but I think that they she
Speaker 3: got into that old diva thing and and you know,
Speaker 3: with the big voice and and all over the place voice,
Speaker 3: and but that kind of takes away from the source
Speaker 3: of it, you know, the fact that she can put
Speaker 3: together a good song. She's she's good. Man. Mariah's happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you gonna do any more Live from Darryl's House?
Speaker 3: That going one on Tuesday? And I'm not gonna tell
Speaker 3: you with who because I never do. But yeah, that's
Speaker 3: that's an ongoing project. I've been doing it for a
Speaker 3: long time, and uh, I've decided instead of doing a
Speaker 3: whole season So I'm just gonna do occasional ones, maybe
Speaker 3: in groups of one and two, three or something like that,
Speaker 3: and just keep adding to my YouTube.
Speaker 1: Know what does that add to your life, your creative
Speaker 1: life doing that show?
Speaker 3: I love it. I loved life from Darryl's House. I
Speaker 3: love doing it. It's the most stimulating experience that you
Speaker 3: can imagine, because we don't do any rehearsing, only the
Speaker 3: most rudimentary of do. We know what's happening, and so
Speaker 3: everybody is completely on their toes doing it for the
Speaker 3: first time. There's an artist in there that may or
Speaker 3: may not be comfortable, and I have to make them comfortable.
Speaker 3: Sometimes they're you know, sometimes there's especially the heritage artists,
Speaker 3: they're stuck in their ways and I have to unstick them.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: There's there's so many things going on, and then we
Speaker 3: have those amazing you know, conversations around dinner and the
Speaker 3: whole thing. It's an amazing experience. Usually takes me two
Speaker 3: days to recover from one.
Speaker 1: Have you ever come out of one feeling like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe I should maybe we could do a whole record together,
Speaker 1: you know, Well, yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, I I've got a lot of people. I mean
Speaker 3: what I've been doing instead of making records together, like okay,
Speaker 3: I'm going out on the road Glenn Tilbrook, uh, and
Speaker 3: that I'm going to be working with him all year,
Speaker 3: I think, off and on, and he's a he's an
Speaker 3: LFDH left Darrel's House to alumni at this point, you know.
Speaker 3: So I think that I came up with this idea
Speaker 3: based on the how we work together that way, and
Speaker 3: there's anomber. You know, there's a lot of artists like that.
Speaker 3: Howard Jones is another one that I've done. Todd obviously,
Speaker 3: I mean, that's that's what I do on stage Now,
Speaker 3: I do a version of life from Daryl's House.
Speaker 1: And that's maybe more rewarded because I just think, I
Speaker 1: mean that that that you can get and most especially
Speaker 1: heritage artists, that you can get them to come and
Speaker 1: play in that way that you do and get them comfortable,
Speaker 1: but also sort of be on the edge a bit
Speaker 1: of we don't exactly know what we're doing, but we
Speaker 1: know exactly you know what we're doing. Like that's like,
Speaker 1: that's that's it. I mean, you're basically producing these people
Speaker 1: and that's not something that I think they're always accustomed to,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: I am. I am doing exactly that on the spot,
Speaker 3: and you're right, people aren't accustomed to it. Oddly enough,
Speaker 3: the brand new artists are the easiest ones because they
Speaker 3: don't know what's going on. They're just like puppy dogs.
Speaker 3: They're like, let's go, let's do it. You know. You
Speaker 3: take a guy who's been around for as long as me,
Speaker 3: and he's like, am I doing the right thing? Here?
Speaker 3: My fucking up? You know, this isn't the way I
Speaker 3: always sing this song.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's interesting even seeing The Fruit. I just
Speaker 1: watched it. I didn't really know that Robert Frupp had
Speaker 1: been on that. I didn't know why how I missed
Speaker 1: that one. But I was watching that last week, and
Speaker 1: even he seemed a little you know, me as adventurous
Speaker 1: as they come, but even he seemed a little a
Speaker 1: little nervous. You know.
Speaker 3: Well, Robert is a very controlled person, but with an
Speaker 3: amazing sense of humor. I got to add, But but
Speaker 3: I know he was he was good, he was fine.
Speaker 3: I think he just was really he wanted to He'd
Speaker 3: been wanting to do this for a long time, is
Speaker 3: what it was. Is We've been trying to get together
Speaker 3: for years and it finally happened and maybe that that showed, you.
Speaker 1: Know, and you guys do I think it's NYC And
Speaker 1: why that has that like just insane opening riff?
Speaker 3: You know it? How did he come up with that?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: He's insane and he's like, you know, I haven't done
Speaker 1: this in forty something year, you know, just like oh this,
Speaker 1: that's the level of his genius is that he's just
Speaker 1: these things are just coming out of them.
Speaker 3: You know, He's unbelievable, is what he is.
Speaker 1: If I wrote that riff, I would never stop playing it.
Speaker 3: He just over that shit. That's just another riff for
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Were you into King Crimson in the day, Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was very much into that to his version
Speaker 3: of progressive rock. Well, I was into him. This is
Speaker 3: what I was into. I mean, you know, we didn't
Speaker 3: do red From on the show, and I'm so proud
Speaker 3: of my band. They just played that now. Roberts said,
Speaker 3: I have never been in any organization that ever played
Speaker 3: that song that it didn't take at least three days
Speaker 3: to learn it, and these guys play it. They just
Speaker 3: listened to it at home by themselves. We got together
Speaker 3: and we played the motherbucker, you know. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: one band I got, but that comes, you know, my
Speaker 3: love for King King Crimson comes from back then. The
Speaker 3: Lark's tunging aspect and all that stuff. I mean, I
Speaker 3: heard the I heard the power and the soul in it,
Speaker 3: and I heard the the Stravinsky in it. I heard
Speaker 3: everything in it. But I think that he's a very
Speaker 3: unique musician.
Speaker 1: I don't want to keep it too much longer, but
Speaker 1: I do want to return to I feel like maybe
Speaker 1: I glossed over Christopher Bond. We mentioned him a couple
Speaker 1: of times during the conversation, so he comes in during
Speaker 1: the band in lunchinette. Was it a reef that brought
Speaker 1: him in?
Speaker 3: No, he was. He's a Philly guy. He was. He
Speaker 3: was in our band, John and I had our little
Speaker 3: quartete and he was.
Speaker 1: He was.
Speaker 3: He was one of the guys.
Speaker 1: He was in your bad.
Speaker 3: I didn't realize he was in yeah, in the in
Speaker 3: the beginning, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Someone else from Philly. I was just scarious what happened
Speaker 1: to Jim Helmer, who was the drummer Gulliver played on
Speaker 1: Whole Oats incredible drum parts on that record.
Speaker 3: I know it was good. I lost track at Jim.
Speaker 3: I lost track of all those guys. I know, Tim
Speaker 3: Moore was, he was a songwriter, guitar player. He was
Speaker 3: a woodstock. That's all I know. But I don't know anything.
Speaker 3: I have no idea what happened to Jim.
Speaker 1: Just wanted, well I have you. I just that always
Speaker 1: bugged me. Just didn't know what happened though.
Speaker 3: Definitely the first person to ever asked me about Jim Milan,
Speaker 3: which is cool.
Speaker 1: Just bat and clean up here. I do want to
Speaker 1: ask you about G. E. Smith too. How important do
Speaker 1: you feel he was to that version of Holland Oates.
Speaker 3: I think he added his very large personality to things.
Speaker 3: I think that his guitar work on the records that
Speaker 3: he played on on holl Of Oats Records, well it
Speaker 3: was really really exceptional. I did. I think he did
Speaker 3: a lot of things that were really amazing. He didn't
Speaker 3: get the way he added the ge sound to it.
Speaker 3: You know, I mean, I'm again a great guitar.
Speaker 1: Player, and that the ge sound wasn't really you know,
Speaker 1: uh a thing that I'd been on records like that before,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, you guys really were the first
Speaker 1: to get him like that. Yeah, oh, give me a.
Speaker 3: Brand new He was straight out of He's from Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I met him when he had just moved out
Speaker 3: of there. Basically, did you just.
Speaker 1: Let him go or was there much shaping? Would you
Speaker 1: talk through parts with him?
Speaker 3: Or I'd let him go, But I would let him
Speaker 3: go within a controlled situation, you know, I mean and
Speaker 3: tell him what I thought. And if he did something
Speaker 3: I didn't like, I'd say tell him that too. You know,
Speaker 3: he usually did the right thing. Was that a good
Speaker 3: relationship overall? Or we had a we had a Leslie
Speaker 3: good relationship because he's he's a He's a strange guy, man.
Speaker 1: I mean he.
Speaker 3: I don't know how to put it. Personality, His personality
Speaker 3: of mine weren't exactly in line. That's the best way
Speaker 3: I'll put it. I could put it.
Speaker 1: I think that's a way that everyone can understand. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't diminish the talent. Yeah, at this point, set
Speaker 1: list wise, when you go do dates, how are you
Speaker 1: picking a set list?
Speaker 3: I do a little. Well, I'm I'm going to try
Speaker 3: and emphasize the d album, but I think I'm going
Speaker 3: to do about four songs from that. That's that's that's
Speaker 3: my plan. Well, I'm already I've already been doing that.
Speaker 3: And other than that, I play things from whatever, you know,
Speaker 3: from whatever my history is. And there's certain songs that
Speaker 3: you have to play. I mean, you know, I have
Speaker 3: to play Sarah Smile, which is fine with me. You know,
Speaker 3: I mix it up, I play Philly Mood, I play
Speaker 3: all kinds of things.
Speaker 1: Well, Darryl Hall, thank you so much for for for
Speaker 1: talking about all this. I mean, that's a hell of
Speaker 1: a musical history. So I mean, thank you, well, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. Manis description, you'll find a link to
Speaker 1: a playlist of our favorite Darryl Hall tracks. Be sure
Speaker 1: to check out YouTube dot com slash broken Record to
Speaker 1: see all of our video interviews, and be sure to
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Speaker 3: I'm justin Richmond.