Daryl Hall & John Oates: WEB EXTRAS

In the November issue of Performing Songwriter you’ll find our in-depth cover story on the most successful duo in pop history, Daryl Hall and John Oates. In these exclusive outtakes from our interviews with the two, each discusses his latest projects away from his longtime musical partner. Hall talks about the inception of his Internet series Live From Daryl’s House, as well as his interest in renovating homes. Meanwhile, Oates recounts the recording of his new solo album, 1,000 Miles of Life, and his immersion in the music-making community of Nashville.

DARYL HALL
Where did the idea for Live From Daryl’s House come from?
I won’t say I’m easily bored, but I like to keep moving. I like to keep changing things and evolving. I wanted to go beyond the idea that you’re just playing songs to an audience in a traditional way. I was looking for more interesting ways to do that, and what I decided is to bring the audience to me rather than go to the audience. I wanted to make the audience feel almost like one of the musicians in the room. From there, I said, “Well, maybe I should have some guests, because otherwise it’ll just be me, me, me.” That’s when it really took off, and I realized that that’s what I was looking for all along.

How do you figure out who’s going to be on with you?
I’ll give you an example. I have a 15-year-old stepdaughter who is a total musician, and she has the same tastes that I do. She’ll play me a song she likes and I’ll go, “OK, let’s call that guy up and see what happens.” Things generally happen like that. Someone will say, “Here’s an artist who’s influenced by you, or has mentioned you in the press or just sounds like you, or sounds like something you would relate to,” and I literally call them.  I try to keep managers out of this and get directly to the artist, person to person.

Have any of the collaborations particularly surprised you?
Every show is a surprise. They are all memorable, that’s what I love about the show. Every show is my favorite in a different way.

How did you get interested in renovating houses?
I’ve always been interested in antique architecture. I grew up in an historical area with old houses. My family owned and lived in historical houses, and they were also craftsmen. My grandfather was a stonemason, a brick chimney-maker and a sculptor, and did a lot of work on houses. My father built houses, including his own. So I’ve always been around construction sites.
 
This may be a corny question, but is there anything similar about that and songwriting?
That’s not a corny question at all—in fact, it’s absolutely true. I find a house-building project is very similar. As with any creative project, you get a broad idea, you get a team together and that team executes. You oversee its broad strokes and then pay attention to detail.

JOHN OATES
On this record you wrote with people like Jed Leiber and Bob Mayo. How have you adapted to writing with new collaborators?
It’s one of the most exciting things. Every person you collaborate with brings something different to the table. I’ve worked with a lot of different songwriters, and what I’ve found is it’s almost like therapy. You have to open up to another individual, and another individual has to open up to you. I think there has to be a lot of trust, because you have to feel that no idea is too stupid to throw out there on the table. Even if the idea sucks, it may lead to a thought process from the other person that could take you somewhere else. You also have to have a musical rapport. At least you have to be coming from the same place in terms of the direction of the song.

How did you get involved with the musical community in Nashville, where the new album was recorded?
In the early ’90s, Daryl and I weren’t touring very much. I was working with a guy named Jerry Lynn Williams, who passed away recently. He was one of the great American songwriters as far as I’m concerned—the beauty of how he could communicate an idea in a very simple way, that was just so on the money and so soulful. Jerry introduced me to a couple of publishers in Nashville and they asked if I wanted to come down and write. I learned a lot about the business of songwriting and how it works in Nashville, the agendas that artists and publishers have.

I had this misconception that I was writing country songs. But then I realized that they weren’t country songs, they were just John Oates songs. They were very personal, and I thought I had missed the target. In retrospect, I had really hit the target in a big way. One of the songs on the new album, “I Found Love,” I wrote in ’93 when I was getting ready to marry my wife. That song was so real and so personal. When I resurrected it this past year and looked at it again, I went, “Wow, that’s like an autobiography. No wonder no country artist picked it up—no one could sing it except for me.” It was one of those things where sometimes you don’t really know what you are doing.
Another example of that was a song that I wrote with two of the guys in Little Texas [Porter Howell and Dwayne O’Brien], “Promise Ain’t Enough,” around the same period. I thought was a great country song, but it never seemed to connect. Daryl liked it, and we were doing an album in 1996 called Marigold Sky. We adapted that song, changed the chords and some of the words, and all of a sudden it became a hit for Hall & Oates. So the Nashville experience for me was really good, but it didn’t turn out the way I expected it.
 
How have you gotten used to making all the decisions yourself about who to bring in and where to record?
That’s the freedom of doing a solo project. You just do exactly what you want. I knew that I was going to release it independently, therefore I had no record company. I knew that the way the world has gone, with radio not being as much of a factor as it used to be, I had no consideration for radio play. Frankly, the highly compressed, Pro Tooled approach of a lot of the songs on the radio is 180 degrees from where I wanted to go. I was looking to make a record with real people looking at each other in a room, recorded with a very high-quality, old-school recording approach. I didn’t want to compromise on any level.

The studio we chose wasn’t state of the art, but the vibe was unbelievable: It was Ronnie’s Place, which is Ronnie Milsap’s old studio. One of the reasons I chose it is because it was built in the ’70s, during the days when every recording was done by live rhythm sections in a room together. It had great isolation booths with great glass, so everyone could see each other. It had an amazing piano, which was Ronnie’s personal piano. What it lacked on the technical side was not as important to me as the feel in the room. It was the perfect choice. When everyone walked into the room, everything was just right.

Then I began to collect musicians, reaching out to people who I’ve never met but always respected like Jerry Douglas, Béla Fleck, Sam Bush and Steve Cropper. Then the studio musicians, guys like Michael Rhodes on bass and Dan Dugmore on guitar. Jonathan Yudkin, a string maestro who plays a million instruments, jumped on board as my bandleader. These guys are so good. Just listen to the dialogue between the instruments on something like “I Found Love”—it’s magical. I was sitting in the room, the hair on my arms was standing up, and I was thinking, “How did I get this lucky, to be in this room with these guys and having them play my song?” I just wanted to hug them.

Your own acoustic playing on this record might surprise people.
I started out as a folkie before I met Daryl. I did a lot of fingerpicking, a lot of Delta blues, traditional American music, bluegrass and stuff like that. I resurrected that style on this new album because I wanted to get back to those days, back to the kind of music I was playing and the approach to music that I had before Hall & Oates happened.
 
How do you see your solo career playing out from here?
I don’t know if I have another album in me right away. I don’t look that far ahead. I’m so satisfied and thrilled with the way this record came out, and I want people to hear it.

For more with Hall & Oates, get the latest Performing Songwriter, ISSUE No. 113