Episode 42 - John Oates (3-7-17)

never knew that. And now I feel ridiculous because I've been saying it from my whole life. Everybody says that everybody you know, come on, you gotta put you gotta put things in a convenient box. But if you look on every album we've ever made, it says Darryl Hall and John Oates, and we we were very adamant about that. And I know it seems kind of a silly thing to be a stickler about, but you know what, we we always have seen ourselves as two guys who worked together,

and we made a point of that. And even though knowing everyone ignores it doesn't matter, but it's it's a thing when I say Hey, guess who's here from hauling otes? Do you cringe a little bit or anymore? Did you did? And we used to we used to try to fight it back in the day, you know. We we try to like, you know, it's there a hole in John notes, you know, and we make a point of it with our ads and things like that. When you hear the like the concert advertisements and things, it says Darryl hole

on John Notes, you know. So we make a point of it when we can. But you know, hey, man, people are gonna always, you know, truncate whatever they want to. That blew my mind. John I was I was reading. I was like, and I've had you on my radio show before, and I was like, yeah, John from Hall. And I was like, oh, if I hated me, he probably left him. Was like, no, no, no, no, hey, listen, the last night on the TV show, at the radio show that we did, the fella called me John Hall twice.

So does that happen a lot because you're it's two people and you guys have pretty generic first and hand, Well, there's a number of things that happened. First of all, um, do you remember Group Orleans? Remember John Hall? Well, he used to go around wearing a T shirt and said I'm not Darryl Oates. Okay. And then one one time years ago, I remember I was sitting in a dressing room by myself and a guy poked his head in and he went, which one of you guys is Hall

of Notes? And I looked around. I was the only one in the room, so I went, I guess that's to me. The guy and one of the guy on my radio show, like he does nothing about music, right, And so he was like, oh, cool, you're having Holland Oats up and I was like, no, no, not even he thought your first name was Holland. Holland. Yeah, we got a lot of that. Another really funny one was

years ago we were playing with Dot. We played on double bill with Dr John at a Chicago theater and as we pulled up to the theater, it said if you look at the marquee, it said doctor John across the top and underneath it it said Halling Notes. So it looked like doctor Hall and John Oates. So we called Darryl doctor Hall for quite a while. Yeah. This book, and I gotta say I'm I was already a fan. And the book is called change of seasons and it's a memoir. How long take you to write this thing?

Almost two years? So you write the book and as I'm reading through it, first of all, I like out it's written because for me, I'm a d D. And it's like it was quick. It was quick. It was like it was like like every three three or four pages or so like boom. Well, it was designed that way. I wanted it to be designed so that it was. It read like a series of short stories, so if you wanted to flip it open, and also in a way, you don't have to read it from stem to stern,

so to speak. You can just pick it up anywhere. And there's a story that stands on its own. So and I want to go and how we do this. We kind of start in the now and then we go back to the beginning and then make our way back up to the now. And so the good thing is all in the book, so we can talk about whatever. Which, By the way, the book you can preorder it now, depending on when you hear that, you can pre order it right now Amazon, Amazon, that's right, and that's you know,

the universal place. But the book comes out in March, so that's when you go to the bookstores or you can come by my house because I have a copy and if you swing by you can get it. You've got the advanced reader's copy, so it's got worts, warts and all on that one. There's a a few things about the on the final copy that change, but not much.

I was blown away, like I said, and I wanted to start with that that you were never called Halt and notes, and I like, I mean, my whole head was because that's like, I know the catalog, I know the songs, and it makes sense because like, let's go to the Silver Album, which was just your names, Daryl Hall and Johnes, which wasn't your first album. It was your first album that really popped, would you Is that fair to say? Yes? It was. It was the first

album that had a hit single. Okay, So, and it's called the Silver Album because that was the color of the album and it didn't have a title other than our name than your name's on him and so on that. So this is an interesting thing for me as someone who likes to break music. Um, the first you had on that record was Sarah Smiles. Okay, now, Sarah Smile, I'm gonna play this song here because and if I started singing along, just let just let me go for

a second. I love himself. So here's Sarah Smile. Oh damn, babies are made to this. Oh my god, come on, if you feel like leaving, you know you can go. So how did this song become the singles in the most weird way? We had released two singles from this album. We released Camellia and another one I can't remember which one. They both went into the top forty. So it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't like panic time. It was pretty cool. And we were on tour in Europe for the first time.

We were touring England and in Toledo, Ohio, at an R and B station, a DJ played Sarah Smile as an album cut was not released as a single, and as they said in the old radio days, the phones lit up and we got this call that this DJ called our c A Records in New York and said, people are going nuts over this song. You got to release it as a single. And we had almost given

up on the album after two singles. You know, we're kind of ready to move on, and we got a call from our manager saying, hey, we got some action on this song Sarah Smile, So let's we're gonna release it, and sure enough it hits again. Do you hear age and voice? He sounds young good so some some random DJ. Yeah, we actually got to meet him, uh years years later and uh we gave him, give him a bunch of cool stuff. And you know it was it was a

cool thing. That's awesome. It was a cool thing that he would just go out on a limb and just give it, give an album track a shot. Listen to this, Oh, this is the first hit. Now that correct me if I'm wrong, because party, I'm going from the book and partly I'm going from from knowledge. She's gone Now. That song actually was released before Sarah Smile, but didn't do anything really a little bit. But again, as you said, there were two singles that were put out that didn't

do a whole lot. But then you re released it after Sarah Smiles. That right, Well, it's even more convoluted. It came out on an album we did in It wasn't the same album, no different. It came out on an album and seventy three called Abandoned Luncheonett and it was the lead single on that album, and it went into the top forty and here again we moved on quickly, and two albums later, a group called Varus copy cut this. They covered She's Gone and had a number one R

and B record with it. It's a number one on the R and B chart. So did you make money off a songwriter? A songwriter did, so that was a big deal and that was a cool thing for us because you know, we always been basically an R and B act anyway. So, uh, then after Sarah Smile I'll hit Atlantic, Atlantic Records said, wait a minute, we've got to rerelease She's Gone. And they released She's Gone and went to number two. I believe, man, what a crazy

story here it is She's Gone. But how did they rerelease it because it was already on a previous album. Did they put it out as just a single? Well, we had already changed labels to Our c A, so Atlantic still had the rights to that song and that record, so they just released it as a single. They said, want to capitalize on their on their success. So you were Gone, but your old labeled put it out well a little bit where you like, come on, guys, we

were thrilled. We always believed in this song. We thought this was the song that would really put us on the map. And to be honest with you, it is the song that that kind of introduced us to the world. What do you hear when you hear this right now? I hear the perfect confluence of the right song, the right production, the right players, the right producer, in the right room at the right time. You talk about players in a room. It was just recorded so much differently

than right. Well, you know the records I'm making right now in Nashville, I make exactly like I made that one. You make them with people, with real people all around in the looking at each other and play. I do the exact same thing. And what I learned from Reef Martin, who produced that, was surround yourself with great players and let them do what they do and just guide them. I gotta I've took so many notes from this book.

By the way, if you like Hall and Oates or is they like to call themselves Dard, I have so many notes that took from this book because I was running through it and I was just like, I didn't know this. I didn't know this, So bear with me as I go through some of this stuff, go go, go right on. So let's try to go somewhat in order. So let's go linear. So you're born raised in Pennsylvania. Okay, So I was born New York, raised in Pennsylvania. When

did you make the move? When I was were years old, my parents moved to from New York City to Pennsylvania, small town called North Wales, Pennsylvania. Do you remember, I don't have any memory before five. I do. I remember the day we left New York City and that's one of my first memories. Some of my friends and like Kenny John, they think they can remember coming out of the womb. They tell me that, like, do you belive do you like? Do you believe that? Okay? I don't.

I think that three is like the earliest. So you moved to Pennsylvania and you grew up. What kind of family? How would you describe the family? Um? Lower middle class to middle class family uprooted from My parents were city people. They were New York City natives and ethnic you know, Italian,

and my father was Spanish and English and uh. We moved into a little Pennsylvania Dutch town where they didn't know anybody and my dad had moved because of his his his work transferred to Pennsylvania, so he went along with the job. And Um, they were lonely. And we lived in a little rented house near the railroad tracks. And it was a small town. And every weekend we drove to New York City to visit with the with the family, an extended Italian family, and that was that

was kind of my experience growing up. Then they became, of course more comfortable in that little town, and we moved into a uh, they bought a house and with a g I bill and all that, And I grew up in Pennsylvania, a small town. There was a sheep farm right behind the house, woods and fields, and I went from being born in a city to being a country kid. Basically, So, as you grow up, what kind

of music is surrounding you in your house? Big band music most for the most part, Um, early early mostly big band and very very early rock and roll Johnny Ray, Um, Lionel Hampton, Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, um, that kind of stuff. And your parents were okay with you listening to rock and roll? Yeah, they were kind of really supportive. I

began to sing when I was four years old. I made my first record when I was four and at Coney Island in a little phone like a booth recording booth, and I sang, I sang, here comes Peter Cotton Tale. And about two or three years later I went back and sang all shook up the Elvis tun and people don't know, but here Comes Peter Cotton Tell was rereleased. I went number one right after She's gone. For you guys, it's an amazing story. I might re release it again.

Atlantic had it and they put it out and it was the whole thing. So you grow up and your parents and the musical at all, like did they play No, not at all. But I just sang. I don't know why. I just naturally sang. And my mother became a bit of a stage mother. So they really supported me in every way. Uh gave me vocal lessons when I was five, guitar lessons when I was six, and um, I never looked back. How much school did you get done? I was okay in school. I wasn't a great student, but

I was okay high school. I went to a public high school. Um, you know, and it was it was the days before you know, drugs, and revolution and long hair. It was very quiet and conservative, and the moment I graduated from high school, I went straight to Philadelphia. And so for you, it was you knew, you always knew what you wanted to do. I never you know, it's funny.

Someone asked me about this today in an interview about why they think I became a musician, and I, first of all, I think I was just somehow born to do it. But every time I did something musical, people seem to like it, and it never There was never a time when I feel like if they kept clapping, I kept singing and playing. If they ever stopped, I

might have reconsidered, but I never did. Was there some affirmation that you're missing in your life that you think you got from an audience that made you continue to go back? No, because playing live is not necessarily my favorite thing to do. I enjoy it and I'm good at it because I've done it for like my whole life, literally so, but I like the songwriting process, and I like the playing, and I like recording. To me, that's

where it all comes together. The playing live is is really fun, and it's there's something in the immediacy of it you know, musicians are one of the few artists UH categories that does something and gets an immediate response.

You know, if you're an actor, you might work on a film for six months or a year, and then it goes into editing, and then all of a sudden it comes out a year later, and you're you don't have a really response from the audience other than the fact that you might walk down a red carpet someday and you know, at the Oscars or something like that.

If you're a painter, you you know, you kind of live in solitude and you paint your paintings and eventually maybe they go up in a gallery, but there's there's not that immediate feedback. And even in writing the book, I found it a little frustrating writing the book because I was so used to instant gratification. You write a song, you pick up your guitar, you play it. People you can tell if they like it or if they don't like it. So it's kind of a little bit spoiled

on the instant graviication part of the deal. And writing the book was such a long to year process that I never did get feedback along the way. It's not until right now when people are fine only reading it that I'm like starting to feel this amazing, you know, satisfaction that maybe I did something good here? Did you

feel like? Because I wrote a book by a year and a half ago, and when I turned it in it was really And I'm someone who's very vulnerable on the air and on stage joined stand up, but when I turned the book in it was such a vulnerable thing because I had worked so long on it and it was time to get opinions on something. Yeah, I had put so much time into I was nervous about it. To be honest with you, I'm never nervous about my music because I kind of have I'm pretty good self editor.

I know if it's happening or not, and if it's not happening, I'm not gonna play it or you know, get an exposure. But the book, I didn't know. I really didn't know. I felt good about it. I know, I worked really hard on it. UM had a great collaborator, as fellow named Price Epting, who really guided me through the process. Um, but boy, I was I was nervous. I didn't know what it's like to to bury soul in a book that's there forever and and to put

it all out there. I felt like, as you talk and you say, you know, you don't performed for the love of the crowd and the immediate love that were you, it sounds like you were loved as a kid. Would you say that's fair? Yeah? I had a very I had a really really nice, solid upbringing. My parents my parents are still together. Um, you know my mom My dad's ninety four, my mom's ninety two. Um, and uh, yeah, it was a good it was a good upbringing. They

were They were very supportive. So you're a small town of Pennsylvania. You had to filly with what on your mind getting out of that small town. Just like a million other kids, you know, and a million other musicians get into the city, find out what what what? What was there? Um? You know, spread my wings getting into a more professional music scene. What do you want to find? I wanted to find someone who uh maybe could be

my equal take me someplace new, and I did. Which is an interesting story too, and I've heard it before, but when I read it in the book, there was a little more detail because I don't aways heard that you and Darryl were at a radio station together or you know, at an event in someone in some shots were fired and all of a sudden, the next thing you know, here they are there band. But it wasn't

it wasn't quite that. No, no, no, no, talk about that for a second, because you moved to Philly and we're you're at a radio station in nineties sixty seven. My high school band had been together some oh for about four years, and we had various names, as most high school bands do, and we we saved up our money. We went down to Philly and we made a record. We went to Virtue Recording Studio on North broad Street where um a guy named Frank Virtue owned the studio.

He had a he had a big hit in the fifties cold Guitar Boogie Shuffle with his own group called the Virtues. It was an instrumental record, and we basically paid him a few hundred dollars. We hired a guy named Bobby Martin who was a brand young arranger who I found in the Yellow Pages, and he went on to arrange and co produce stuff for gamblin Huff like uh backstabbers and you know, a bunch of for the love of Money with the o Js, you know, incredible guy,

but he was just starting out as well. He was probably a few years older. And we went to front to Virtue Sound and we uh, you know, we we didn't have have a clue what we were doing, and he helped us make our first record. After we we put the record out independently with a little label from

Philadelphia called Crimson. At the same time, not I didn't know this, of course, but Darryl Hall's group called the Temp Tones was doing the exact same thing in a different studio, and our records were being played on w h A T and w D A S, which were the two R and B stations in Philadelphia at the same time. So we were both aware of each other and this, you know, Philly was a pretty small music scene. So before you move all we keep talking about R

and B stations. So it was the mostly white artists on R and B stations and we were the only ones. You just had a lot of soul, but you two white guys had a lot of souls, I guess. So hey, listen, they played us on their station. So whatever that means, it is what it means. Um, you know, I don't know. All I know is it got on the radio and that was enough for me. It's at eighteen years old.

I was thrilled, you know, beyond and uh then um, we both got asked to do a record hop for this guy named Jimmy Bishop who was a big DJ on w D A S. And he had a Sunday afternoon teenage dance at a place called the Adelphi Ballroom in West Philadelphia, a pretty bad neighborhood. So here's these you know, two little white groups, you know, kind of cruising up to this place and backstage was was the

five stair Steps. Um. They had a song called in My World Fantasy and a guy named Howard Tate who had a single call look at Grandy Run Run, which is a really cool tune. And so we're back there and I was I was a bit intimidated, and uh a gang fight broke out in the audience and we got into the service elevator went down and we were like, hey, man, I dig your song. Yeah. Gang fight like literally shots were five yeah yeah in the in the audience. We

were backstage and we we split. The guys who were with from the record company just took us out and so you and Darrell end up in the same place. Yeah. So, so basically our entire relationships based on fear and a little bit agreed. Do you okay, now, let me let me ask you this. I guess it'll go a little more philosophical. Do you think that you and Darrel were supposed to meet right there? I guess so I have. I don't think of it that way. Um, but you know,

something happened. I mean, we were there in the same place at the same time, making the same kind of music, and we met. So you meet and you say, what because you didn't join I knew that. I knew that his group and the guys in his group, they were a vocal group, like a doo wop street corner harmony group. I knew they went to Temple University and I was

going to Temple University, and I knew that. And I think that's what we said to each other more was like, hey, man, you know, yeah, I'll see you it around, you know, on the street or in campus or whatever. And we did. We kind of ran into each other at the student union or something, and we just started talking and hanging out. And what had what had happened was Darryl's group, since it was a vocal doo wop group. They didn't out they needed a backup band, and they lost their backup band.

So I plucked um my drummer and my bass player from my band, which was kind of they were basically, you know, falling apart, uh, and we backed Darryl's vocal group up for a very short period of time. Then my bass player got drafted into Vietnam and Uh, Darryl's group broke up, and he and I just gravitated towards each other and we started hanging out, sharing apartments and that was it. So you get together, but and you're out performing together, do you just go out? We're not performing,

you were you were just hanging out there. So it didn't start with you too, like we were. No, we weren't writing songs. Were Darryl had a Darryl had a job with a with a bar band in New Jersey called Pale and the Prophets, and he worked from like ten o'clock at night to like three in the morning. UM. I was playing folk music and teaching folk guitar lessons and playing blues and jamming with some blues bands, but mostly playing in coffee houses. A lot of traditional Delta

blues and stuff like that. So at what point into you guys relationship, was it we actually kind of click musically, we should well forward think we hung out a lot and we had a lot of laughs and did a lot of crazy stuff which you've probably read in the book or will read. Um. But I went to Europe when I graduated from college nine in the in the spring of nineteen seventy, and I took all the money

I had saved it up. I had about four or five and I sub let my apartment to Daryl's sister and her boyfriend, and I took off for for Europe. And I spent four months in Europe with a backpack and a guitar. And when I came back from Europe in October of nineteen seventy, I went to my apartment and it was a padlock on the door, and um, they had been evicted because they didn't pay the rent. And I had nowhere to go, and I had no money,

and I had a backpack and a guitar. So I walked over to where Daryl was living in this little tiny place down near South Philadelphia, and I OpEd on the door and I said, hey, man, your sister kind of screwed me here. I'm like, I'm on the street. He goes, come on, want you to stay here? And I moved into the third floor, little room in the third floor of that little tiny house, and uh, that's where his piano was and books in a fireplace, and we started writing songs. First of all, you guys ever

wrote it was, it was? It was pretty bad ter. In fact, the first song we wrote, we went up to Temple University and we snuck into the radio television film department and we put it on tape and it sounded so bid. We sounded so bad together that we said, you know what, well, let's just hang out. This is not never gonna work. But we just kind of kept chipping away, and really one of the things that happened

was we almost from that experience. We we didn't sing together, but what we decided to do instead was accompanying each other. And that's best. That's the basis of our relationship. He would play a song and I'd play guitar and I'd sing some backgrounds. I would sing a song. He'd played piano, and he'd sing with me. And that's kind of how it really was. And that's really exactly how it always is. So then what triggered the Okay, we should really try this then, because so far sounds like a lot of

hanging out and I was successful, noise. There was a lot of fun, a lot of fun, but you gotta pay the bill. Well, we didn't have any money. We I never had any money. I got if I could scraunge together a cheese steak, kogi or or a soft pretzels or tasty cake, you know, the the the Philadelphia food staples at those times and those days, that was

a big deal. So it was tough. I played in some blues bands, you know, and I scraped together some money, and you know, it was always a little bit of hash and stuff that you could, you know, sell a dime here and there. Did you make good money? No doing that, because I have a lot of a lot of friends and they make good money doing I've never been a successful salesman on any level. Had some friends

are really a good salesman growing up? Well not me. Uh, we're gonna The book is called Change of Seasons, and man, it's so good. I mean, if you're a music fan, if you're can I just say hold on note to that you being mad, whatever you feeling, not at all. Hey man, we got a limited amount of time. We've got a lot of ground cover. Hold notes is good. Let go Taryll haul and John notates. Let me talk

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could actually be something. We'll we're together and we can do this, and let's go and try this together. Well, what would we do is we would? Um. I started. I started sitting on the steps in front of the house, and I would have my guitar and I'd be playing. I played a lot of Doc Watson in that Mississippi genre and that kind of stuff. And Darryl was like first because his piano was up on the third floor and he couldn't very well carry it downstairs, so he

wanted to learn how to play mandolin. And he's such a good musician he kind of picked it up pretty quick, just you know, basic stuff. So we'd sit on the steps and we like just play and I would teach him these traditional American you know, country and blue grass and stuff like that, and then we somehow started to meld it into this weird thing and people would stop and listen, and we were literally sitting on the steps

in front of our house. And then we went to a place called the World Control Studio, which was kind of a tongue in cheek thing because it was this little hovel, this little tiny room with about four people or fifteen people could sit there, and um, we booked a gig and we said, let's just go and play. So we dragged his piano out, we carried it down the street, literally set it up and and carried it,

like physically carried it. And then we had excused the guitar and we said we're going to play a gig, and we kind of spread the word through our neighborhood. And when the night came through the gig, all the people and who we would see on street during day, we're just sitting there. So it was a really weird thing. It was like we were playing for the same people that we saw every day, and and um, people seem

to like it. And then we got a chance to do a there was a telethon for a charity in Philadelphia. It was on local television and they were asking for local performers to do it, and we said, let's go over and do it. See if we can do it. And we went on TV and we played a couple of these these kind of new songs that we were working on. And the next day it was like everything changed. People would stop us on the street. TV the power of television and we It literally changed in one day.

People said, oh my god, we heard you guys, We saw you guys on TV. It was really cool. And then we started going to a There was a remember Underground Radio FM radio when it was called Underground. There was a great, great show on Sunday nights. UH fellow named Gean Shay who had a folk show on Sunday night, a singer songwriter show, and he, you know, it was freewheeling. He would play, play anything and h he invited us

to come and play on his show. So on a Sunday night, we went up there at about midnight and I think he was on from like eleven to two in the morning, and we went and dragged up Darrel's piano up there and we sat and played for a few hours, and between doing that radio show and that telethon, all of a sudden we were we were a thing in Philadelphia. And that's kind of how it started. So how do you become a thing in Philadelphia? Turned that

into a thing? Getting a record deal? Like does someone say, hey, you should hear these guys and the guys shows up and watches and goes youah, the next a lot of hard work. No, no, no, it didn't quite work like that. We actually signed to a production company as songwriters in Philadelphia, a guy named John Madera who had an office on the fourth floor of the Super Theater building. On the sixth floor, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff had their offices. Uh,

they were just starting out as well. And um, John Madari was known for stuff he did with the Dovel's like the Bristol Stomp, Um, Lenn Barry one to three, Um, you known't owe me, Leslie Gore, things like that, that old you know that kind of sixties early rock and roll thing. And he paid he paid us twenty five dollars a week to write songs and basically would write songs and he would put his name on them and that's kind of how it worked. So you wrote the songs,

but he got the credit. Well he we were credited, but Sosie. So you wrote the songs, but he also wrote the songs according to this is music Business one or one old school style, Philadelphia style. You know you talk about that too, and not to dig us too much, but in your book you talk about how when you would get what's like up front money, they would pay you, and the more they would pay you, the more rights

they would take. That comes way later. But yes, and again not anyone I don't want to pull from the time on here, but I read that. I was like wow, because again, do you take more money and give up more of your soul? You have to put yourself in the time and the place where you are in your life when you don't have any money and you don't have anything, and the opportunity to have large amounts of cash and to be a pop star and run around the world and screw screw off and just be a

complete irresponsible kid, you pretty much take it. And that's what we did. And we should have been more aware, we should have been where savvy, like a lot of the young performers are today. But we weren't, and we in a way we suffered for it, but in a way it was the best thing that ever happened because it changed me, forced me to become the person I am today. But we're jumping away, yeah again. Like I said, I read the book and I got so many of these thoughts on my head because I like read it

like three days. Right, So okay, let's go back your filly. I want to go to the first record now, because you made two before the Silver record, that's three, you made three. Yeah. We made an album called Whole Oats, which was basically our folky singer songwriter Whole Oats, like just like Quaker Oats, you know, but it sounds like whole. We actually toured as Whole Notes as a band. We called ourselves Whole Notes. We did Run to Um and then we made the Abandoned Luncheonette album and we called

ourselves by our own names. And then when the Abandoned Luncheonette album didn't connect, we left our Atlantic Records and went to our CIA and we didn't no, I'm sorry. We stayed on Atlantic and we did an album with Todd Rundgren called war Babies, and that didn't connect. So now we had made three albums. They were all distinctly different. One was folky, one was kind of an acoustic R and B, and one was an experimental rock album. And nothing was working at that point. Are you like, Okay,

we're just not gonna work. We know, we never gave up on ourselves, but we were afraid that the world would give up on us. So we went to l A with a guy from Philadelphia who worked on who was actually in our touring band. He had gone to l A and he had become a studio musician and he got familiar with the In the mid seventies, l A was really the place to be in terms of recording.

A lot of great players were there. You know, you had the singers and writer cult with Jackson Brown and Joni Mitchell and you know the Eagules and Linda runs that we're all starting to happen. Um. So he convinced us to go to l A. And we made that silver album, the one you refer to that has Sarah Smile on it. We made that in l A and um that that album connected, and that was really the

beginning of us kind of coalescing a sound. I think, so you make this record, and you know we were talking about earlier and Sarah Smile gets played by DJ and here it is, get your first hit. I'm just hearing yourself on the radio. I'm assuming your rate to play live goes up a little bit, a little bit. I got a little bit of money. You want to hear a funny story about John Sposito, I do. And by the way, John Esposito right now is the head of Warner and Asheville. By the way, he's I love

John Esposito just at background. He's also run a hip hop label and he's very He's just a music guys. Yes, you can tell me a story about John. He was a student at Indiana State University in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Darrel and I were set to perform there and we had a contract and he was the he was the he was the student talent buyer and he uh, he loved our band of Lunchinet album and he booked us. He booked us for a very low amount of money,

right before Sarah Smile became a hit. So when the date rolled around that we were supposed to play, um, I supposed to play this show um. Our manager called him and told him that we weren't coming unless he like quadrupled the price. And s Spo was just a kid, he was a student. And I don't know if you know anything about our manager, but he was a guy named Tommy Mattola, and he was like, I know, tommytol

For those who don't know, tom Attolo, sony huge. You know, he has a whole other you know, he became something. He became. Yes, well he had a tough street kind of demeanor, let's put it that way. So he started telling Espo John Esposito that he was gonna come brake his legs, and Espos stood his ground and he got us for the price, the original price, and to this day is what I think, it's what spos proudest moments. So, I mean, quite an investment. He vote you before and

then you hit in the middle play the song. So, so is this the first song that when you would travel out of your comfort zone that people with stinking back to you and you were like, wow, it's kind of weird. Yes, and no, it was actually She's gone because the hardcore fans. We had built this hardcore college fan base and they love She's Gone. It was known as in those days they called it a turntable bait

because it didn't connect on radio. But everyone loved it, and in colleges across the country, this song was just a standard and this was the one that they really like. And of course Sarah Smart too on the front of the of the silver record. Now, I'm thinking of the picture here, right, I know, I know what you're thinking of.

You guys had makeup on talking about in the book to how they made you look like women, you know, in the same guy did Bowie So but I'm too, and you had facial hair so you could tell you were a dude. But if I was looking for the first time, I would have thought Darren was a woman. Daryl. Daryl makes a joke about it. He said, he said, he looks like he looks like the girl which he could date. Yeah, like kind of hot. I was like,

who's the hunch with John. So they come to I'm assuming did you I shouldn't assume did you have final say over that cover or did the record lable to say this is it? We're putting it up. Here's how it worked. We were living in Greenwich Village. It was the beginning of the glam rock era. We were hanging out with Mick Jagger and Todd Rundgren and Bowie and all these people, and that's what was happening and everyone

was doing. If you look at the albums from those days, look at Edgar Winner, Rick Derringer, Todd run Green, you know, everyone had makeup on. It was that's kind of you know, and bisexual era, and especially down in the village, and so we got caught up in it. It would seem like a cool thing to do. And Pierre Laroche was a very flamboyant like guy. He he was in the high fashion world, you know, with all the models and all that stuff, and he said one night over dinner,

he goes, I will immortalize you. And that's exactly what he did. Because to this day that's the only album covers anyone ever asked us about. So there you go. I just was looking in the book. Came up again and I went and looked at it again because I've seen it a hundred times. And then after I heard the story, I was like, yeah, Darrel looks like a hot chick again. You had the facial hairs, all that kind of hard kind of dude, you know what I'm saying.

So uh talking about da have a boy for a second. So you had a personal relationship outside of music. Yes, we we opened the show for him on his first tour because you opened though, and and there's a lot of music. Sometimes you don't get to hang with well, you didn't hang with David Bowie, especially doing a Laddin saying when he was doing Ziggy Stardust. There was no

hanging involved. It was crazy. You know, it's hard to even describe how crazy the early seventies were, um in terms of let's just put it this way, if I would have done what I did in the early seventies today, I'd be in prison. So there were no cell phones, no records of anything happening social media. It was crazy, and but it was fun. What was social media say about you if it existed then, Like, what would have

been the big headline? Be in prison? I'm not going there's a lot of things you got to prison for, I know, but I'm not going any further than that. Did you, guys whenever did you do the hotel hotel trashing thing? Because that seemed to be quite the phace for for a minute, No, you never you never just trashed the hotel if you if you really want to know, I mean, i'd say the only thing we trashed was a lot of bed sheets. Let's just leave it at that.

You don't have to leave it at that. You said it all like it Okay, there's interesting a lot of ye. There are a lot of questions that follow that that. Mom, I don't think you need to ask any more questions about that. I think you just let your imagination run. Why did you ever get tired of that? It? Was there ever a point in your life we're like, Okay, I've just been looking up a lot and I'm tired of this because listen, I was like, I've never got girls, right,

so I never This is like the opposite. I never got girls, and I was tired of never getting girls, and then finally now I have a good job and all of a sudden, good did you ever get to the point where were like, I'm just tired of this and you can say no because that's totally cool because I know, okay, good, Okay, So let's talk about the yes at a certain point. Yes, I did when I finally got married to my wife of today, of twenty four years today. Yes, what was it about her though

that made it different? Because I well, it was a combination of meeting her and realizing that not only was she a great person and someone I wanted to spend more time with and be more responsible with, but it was also it coincided with this whole change of life that occurred because of what happened to me in New York. I got divorced, had a financial collapse, I lost my manager, moved to Colorado, and I basically wanted to start over and reinvent myself, and I knew that in order to

do that, I had to become a different person. There was no way that I could live the life I had been leading for all those years and survive and have any kind of meaningful relationship. So really that's what changed it for me. On a place that these number one for a second, just one here for example, girl

well Um Darryl's girlfriend Sandy Sarah Allen Sarah Um. I had a friend from college who was the heir to a fast food fortune, and he was this dude who was very irresponsible and completely whacked out of his brain. And he came over to the house one day and UH was just acting like a complete lunatic. And after he left, Darrell literally sat down and wrote that song. Uh, Darrell wrote that and he he said, you're a rich boy.

You've gone too far. You can rely on your old man's money because he lived on his on a trust fund. And of course, you know, after having come up with that hook, he went, well, that's ain't I ain't gonna cut it. Let's just turn it to rich girl. And that was it. Now that I have heard that, I'm gonna do it again. Of all that, and I've got, you know, an entire library of music here. But what song fell out? You know some artists say, you know what a set down, and it's fell out of mean it,

Mac'm a huge hit. She's gone, she's gone. Absolutely, I'll keep going back to that. But there's a reason for it. It's this quintisential Homewood songs and it's a it's something where we both shared this common experience and we wrote the song like in a fever dream. Uh. It literally wrote itself. It took about as long to write as almost as it took the play. And you and you knew something specially, Let's do the opposite then of definitely

number one. But of your big songs that people know, like casual fans will call that, which song just was so grueling and you're like, this is it just took forever? Yeah, there was a couple. There was a few that took a while to kind of marinate. Let's put it that way.

Man Eater was one. Um. I got the idea from man Eater um when when I was down in Jamaica and uh I came back to New York and uh I had this experience with a bunch of my friends hanging out at After Hour's restaurant and this woman came in and she was just completely gorgeous and so beautiful, but she had the fouless mouth that you've ever heard in your life. And I just looked at her and I went, oh, man, she would shoot you up and

spit you out. And it stuck in my head. So I got home and I wrote chorus for man Eater as a reggae song, and then I had a writing session with Edgar Winner uptown and he lived on Park Avenue and I went up to Edgar Winner's house and we started fooling around with some ideas and I said, well, I got this one idea, and I played him this reggae thing that I was working on. It was, oh, here's she comes, watch that brought you to you, but

in a reggae style. And he wasn't into reggae, you know, Edgar Winner was a blues player, and he kind of just kind of ignored the idea and said, you know that's not for me or whatever, and uh so I hear again. I kind of lodged my brain and I got together with Darryll and played it for him too, and he said, he said, now, man, you gotta just change the groove. He goes, it's cool, idea, Let's just

change the groove. And he was the one that came up with the motown groove kind of bom bomp bomp, bomp bump, and so being a tough one, it took a while. I mean it took like three or four different attempts in different styles before we landed on that motown groove and then finished the song in that style. When you hit the motown group, we're like, all right, this one's it. Yeah. Well it felt good right away. We didn't know it was it or not, but it

felt pretty good. What was the biggest surprise that you guys had where you were like, I can't believe the song is doing so freaking good. Um, I can't go for that really jam. But the thing is, there's only two inchs three instruments on the song. There's a keyboard, a guitar, and sex a drum machine. It's one of the first records ever to be a hit on a drum machine? Is that right? And you couldn't believe this thanking? Was it? We thought? We thought it was just a

kind of a cool little jam. It is a cool little jam. That's why. So who convinces you then that that's a great song, because if you guys route it into a cool little jam? Like by time that song came out, we were on such a role in the eighties that it seemed like everything we released turned into a hit. It was just one of those things where radio was in sync with our sound. Our sound was the sound that radio liked, and they just gobbled everything up. It was almost too easy in a in a weird way.

At what age were you able to look at your bank account and have a million dollars? Do you remember I have a million dollar check set in plexiglass on my desk at home. It was my first million dollar check. But the funny thing about it is that I've never got any of the money, but I had to check. Well, it disappeared into this black hole of debt, of crazy ship that we were if we were living. I don't

know where it went. All I know is they gave us this check and they said, here's a million dollar check, and I went, oh cool. And I had encased in plexiglass and I always look at it and I laughed because to me, it's just a it's a one with six numbers. When did you become a millionaire? At? What age? Um? And what you spending? Like crazy? Before you even reached that. No, I wasn't spending before, but the moment we started making money,

I definitely started spending. I started buying cars. That was my first thing. That's what everyone does. You buy a car. That's like the classic thing. In fact, it's always funny when I see when I see young performers and people I know here in Nashville, I was I was the first thing I always do when I when I see them having some success, like I always asking what kind of car they're driving because I know it's pretty much the first purchase, um and it should be. It's you know,

it's kind of write of passage. I don't know, um Man. In the seventies we started getting these advances and that's when this whole house of cards started to get build bigger and bigger, and just pull one joker from the bottom and the thing it's gonna fall apart. Tell me

about Private Eyes. Well, the Private Eyes was actually written by a gal named Jane Allen, who was sarah sister, younger sister, and she was hanging out with us, and uh, she was a great girl and she wanted to she was learning to play the tour and she had a really cool pop sensibility. She came with that idea and she was working with a guy named Warren Pass who actually lives here in Nashville. Uh, and uh, they actually played it for Darryl, and Darryl kind of took their

idea and recrafted. So as I was, by the way, again, I recommend fully this book if you're a Hall and Oates fan, or if you're a Darryl Hall and John Oates fan, or if you're just a music fan, one of the three any other three. Yeah, because again one, it's all it's it's like a history of music, but too it's easy to read, especially for someone like me, because again I was I was so because when I got I was like, man, I want to kind of go.

Then I was like, oh, this is cool because chapters are like four pages and it's like on the next story exactly. You can fall asleep in bed, can read a chapter and fall and you can move around too. Quite frankly, you can bounce around exactly. You don't have to read it. And you know from beginning then I made a lot of notes here, so we knew all that from my heart. I made pages I was making. It's like, listen, I just appreciate the fact that you

read it. Made twenty albums, all all all done? Right? About twenty albums maybe more with live albums and compilations. Does that count to you though? Live albums and compilations in your heart? The live out we've made we've made to live albums. Uh yeah, you know they're kind of extra, kind of extra curricular activity. Over sixty million records sold,

and I was thinking about this. That's a big number. Yeah, I mean it's is it weird to go into countries that you've never been before, not even because the cool thing for me is I get to go into like places. For example, I went into um like Cedar Rapids, never been sed Rapids. Before I go up, you stand up. And people are a big fans because because my shows all over the country, and it's cool for me to go into towns and relate to these people that I've

never met. I've never been to their town, but you would go to different parts of the world. How crazy to go to a different part of the world and they know who you are. It's it's it's pretty heavy. It's a heavy experience. It's it's tough not to let it go to your head and to let it get out of control, and unfortunately it happens to a lot

of people, you know. I think Darrel and I were very We're not the same in a lot of ways in our personal lives, but we have the same work ethic and we both kind of stay in control enough to keep doing what we're doing. I think that was kind of a kind of a kind of an overriding kind of trait that we both seem to have. The Voices album for a hundred weeks that changed everything it was, it was on It was on the jar for a hundred weeks. That's first album we produced ourselves, a hundred weeks.

I'm telling that you don't know this about hundred weeks. I have no idea. Yeah you don't. I'm breaking news to you right now. A hundred of weeks. Okay, is that a long that's a long time. Let me tell you how many weeks during a year and then you tell me like basically two years that things on the chart. Wow, well, it's pretty good record it I would agree with that, Dave, talk about that for a second. You know what, that that was our That was our rebirth in the eighties.

That that led that album was the thing that that made the eighties happen for us. What had happened was all through the seventies. We're still in that mindset of in the old record you know, in the old record days, uh, an artist had to have a producer. It was just you didn't go into recording studio without our producer, kind of like your you know, kind of your you know, big brother, your dad, your overseer making sure he could report back to the record company, make sure everything was right.

And we had gotten to the point where we just we realized we were making our own records. But we had record producers sitting in the room and it wasn't it didn't feel right, and we just said, you know what, let's just produce ourselves. And that was the album where we decided to produce ourselves. And that record changed everything and it really set the tone for the rest of the eighties. So again, I'm gonna go from memory. So I messed up stop me here, but on that record,

like this, this was a total fluid flup. Okay, Well, Jane Allen came up with this idea the same Galet came up with the idea for Private Eyes, and she brought it to Darryl, and Darryl didn't want her um. He wanted to help her, just to help her finish the song. So he sat down to piano after hours after one of our recording sessions, and he said, you know what, he said, I gotta do this demo for Jana, just so you know, we'll have a little song for her. So he turned on the drum machine and he played

the piano and sang the song. The engineer said, well, you know, if this is just a demo, why don't we just recorded a fest Now that means inches per second In the old days, when you're recording the tape, the fast of the tapes speed, the better quality recording you tap. Um. So we would normally record a thirty i p s. But he said, well, let's save tape. You know, tapes expensive, Let's just do it at fifteen.

So we slowed the tape machine down. Daryl played the thing and he took it in and our manager heard it and said, what's that. He said, it's a little demo made for for Jenna, and that's it. Came a huge hit record. So the demo, the demos at ips. So it's got this warbly quality to it that you wouldn't have had if we've done it at thirty, or if we would have actually thought about it, like in terms of recording it as a single. Did this song

start slower than you guys maybe thought it would. Yeah, this kind of it just yeah, we didn't know that this would even happen. Um. Yeah, I can't remember if it was the first single or the second or third, but we had about four singles off that end. Again, I'm just going from memory. I think it was the first it might have been, because did You Make My Dreams Come True? Was the second or third? To me?

The reason that it sticks out to me because Voices was such a big record it was not for two years, was that that was such a big record even though the song was and again it could have been second. Again I'm going from memory, but that it was. It took a while, and usually wasn't that takes a while. At first you don't see the whole project turned into a monster, but it did turn into a monster. Well,

we had You Make My Dreams Come True? And we had um uh, the Righteous we covered the Righteous brothers. You lost that love and feeling, which also was a total fluke. That was a crazy fluke. Well, we had finished the album. We thought we had finished the album, and um we had in those days what we would do when we finished an album. We never let the record company into the recording studio while we were playing because we didn't want any interference. We just wanted to

do what we wanted to do. And um, so we had something we always traditionally had something called listening party where when we were done the album, we'd bring everyone of the recording studio, our friends, you know, hangers on whoever, the record company agents, and we would literally have a listening party. We'd have some wine and some food and we played the record. So we played the record and every woe's digging it and we felt really good about it.

And afterwards we went out to pizza place in the village right next to the studio to get a bite to eat, and Darren and I would both looked at each other. We said, you know, the record is not quite done. There's something missing. We didn't know what it was. And at that very moment, and God's honest truth is so weird. The Righteous Brother's original version of you Lost that Love and Feeling came on the jukebox and we

just looked at each other. Let's cut that, and we went in the next day we cut we with the band, we cut it live, We sang it, and we were finished in about three hours. And there you go, you're reading hanging out and you heard it. Something was missing. We added on the record. On that same record, this song comes out. This is one of those songs they continue to stay cool. It does, and it's it's one

of those songs that just seems to everyone. It's just a happy, great groove, and you know, it didn't really it wasn't really a big hit when it came out. I think it was a big hit it came it went to number five or four or something like that, so it wasn't like a huge number one record, but it was still a song that people liked. And then in the past ten years it's gone nuts and Five Days of Summer, you know what. I went to see that.

Everyone was telling me, hey, you guys got a tune in Five Days of Summer, this little kind of indie film, right, And I was like, yeah. So one day, my my son and my wife and I were at the Grove in l A on a tour. We had a day off, and he said, hey, that movie Five Minute Days of Summer is playing. Let's go in, and was in the afternoon.

There was no one in the theater. There were a few girls in the theater and um teenage girls, and we sat down and when it came on in that scene, the girls started clapping and I was like, oh my god, yeah, they went nuts. And I think, honestly, I think it's one of the best marriages of film and music that I've ever seen. And the Little Bird, everything about it

is right. The way the director handled it, the fact that he chose that song, the fact that he said it in that setting, and it's just this little love affair in the park and it's just this beautiful summer afternoon. I mean, it's a perfect compliment. First song, Like, I really like the song. Right then when the movie came out, I found myself let's like, well, that's the power of the filmmaking. I think. I think, like I said that,

the directors just he he nailed it. Of all of your song, which song do you think made you the most money? M hmm. I probably say I can't go for that or at a touch perhaps, So if you go I can't go for that, is it because it's being used in a lot of places. Well, add a touch and you make my dream I mean, I'm sorry, I can't go for that, and you make my dreams come true. Have done the best in terms of sinks,

licenses for film commercials and things like that. If your song gets picked for a commercial, like that's pretty good money right in this day and age, It's really quite good considering there's not many income streams left in the

music business. You know, you guys and I was driving down and I saw that you were playing and it said you know Daryl Hall and yes, and I was like, okay, so they're playing UM the show and again I'm an idiot, and I was like, I wonder why they're not a constut Hall notes they they changed businesses and now you know, trying to um. So from whenever the nineties come around, because the eighties, like you guys dominated, the nineties come around,

but also comes a shift. Just like every generation, a shift of music happens, and you go from that eighties sound in the eighties look too well grunge will say, the grunge moves in the Nirvana's Pearl James, the Seattle based music comes in. Does that totally cut your legs out from underneath you? You know, it would have if we would have tried to compete with it, but we didn't. We had we had sense to know that it was

not our time anymore. We knew that there was a seismic shift as you exactly as you just described, and it was kind of a shift back to primitive rawness that grunge kind of represented. And it was not about melody, it was not about chords, and it was not about singing, which is what we're all about. And we knew that our time it was not our time, and we we had the common sense to kind of back off and we continued to record, but we we began to think

of ourselves in a different way. We said, what can we do now, Okay, we're not going to be these pop stars forever. One way or the other. It's going to end, whether you know it ends because we get too old, or we don't deliver anymore or whatever, or the world just doesn't want to hear the kind of music we make. And we knew that, and so what we did was we we kind of went back to our songwriter roots and we said, let's just write good

songs and we'll play them for our fans. And that's when we became independent artists, when we actually left the major label. To our credit and I will you kind of blow our collective horn here a little bit um, we were one of the first classic artists or a big time artists to actually leave the major labels and say we don't need a label anymore. And we released everything from on as an independent artist. We've never had a label since. So did you see as that came in.

Could you look back and see when you're when you came, because you guys were a new sound. When something comes in like that on you, then can you look back and go, Wow, we did this, And maybe I didn't appreciate the fact that we were the new sound and we knocked some people out. Interesting, You're right, I know when you're when you're kicking ass and taking names and trying to make it, you don't think like that. All you care about is is the road ahead. As you

look back though, now, can you see it? And I can see it? Yes. In fact, I wrote a song about that. I wrote a song. I was coming back from New Orleans and I was sitting in first class and I was sitting next to Frankie Valley and we we talked on the airplane and we had never met before, and I was I was a in but he I could tell, you know, his error was over. And this is way pre Jersey Boys. You know, I'm talking about an era of time when he this was the seventies.

It was in the middle of him being a real singing star and Jersey Boys. It wasn't that the middle, but there was no Broadway show that that kind of you know, elevated, and he was an oldies guy, and I was kind of on the way up, you know, and I saw myself and him in a little in some way, and it wasn't you know. I didn't feel sorry for him and anyway. It's just I could see that, Hey, you can be a huge star and you can also

fall down. Maybe your time is over. And I wrote a song called back Together Again, and the song was about really about him in a way. It was back together again, back together again, singing the same old story. Back together again, the old songs never end, gives you something to believe in, and I kind of got the inspiration to write the song about about him. Everyone thinks it's about getting back here for your girlfriend or whatever,

but it's not. It's about you and Franky validating again. Yes, having a date in first class on a on a flight from New Orles. Yeah, so you get the call to be in the Rock Corroll Hall of Fame again. I'm gonna go for a memory twenty yes. So, and I remember watching it on television and I remember you guys, And it's funny now that we're talking here all these things, because you guys were in the same class that Nirvana was in the same guys, that kind of change the

sound that you were in. Yeah, you know what, I never thought about that, But that's that's very very interesting point that you you picked up on. I'm a great interview with John. I'm enjoying that. I'm enjoying this thoroughly. I'm just such a music fan and I think I can sit here and talk to you for four hours about every everything and in the book. To me was again of everything in the book. And I hope people

listen to this. And if you're reader, and if you're even if you're not a reader and you're like music. That's why I say it's easy to read. I want people to know that, um is that I do write on a sixth grade level. You know, you're a piece of music. You're you're a piece of music history, Like you're the highest that you can pull. You're in the Rock and All Hall of Fame, Like that's the top one percent. That's nowhere else to go, right, there's nowhere

else to go except down. Huh do you ever go down? Or do you? Just like I don't you go in and you have all these people honor you and talk about who inducted you, Um quest love from roots. That's cool. I thought that would It made a lot of sense because Philly guy, you know you know his father? Do you know his father was in a group called Lee Andrews and the Hearts. Okay, when I was a kid, I love Lee Andrews and the Hearts. They were a

doo wop group. And just so amazing that his father was actually in a group that I idolized when I was a young kid. Wow, it's like everything comes back sleeping, Like five things we've talked about that liked here come back around life. Someone If someone comes up to you says, hey, you have to and I'm sure you get it all the time, but it's like, give give me some advice because you can give the best advice because you've done at all the loaves the super Highs. Don't suck up.

But that's so wide at what though? Now? You know? I mean I can't give people advice. You know, be true to your school? How about that one? You know? And and by that I mean that symbolically, Um, be true to yourself, be find out who you are, find out what you have to offer, and and take that

path and own it and and believe in it. Um, learn from your learn from the people you admire, the people you and emulate the here your heroes, and try to take what you love about them and somehow make it your own and and see if something original can can come from it. That's the best advice I can give. Who did you meet throughout your career that as you're a big star, you meet maybe they may be younger than you are, just coming up and you were like, holy crap, this person is so good and you can

kind of predict their success. So many, so many I do so don't even know where to begin. Who comes to mind first? One comes to mind, Um Brittany Howard, Jim James, uh Uh, Brett Eldridge, Um, Charlie Worsham. Charlie was in here last week, like like the next level. Yeah, he's so fantastic. Um, you know what about And like that sand Bush Jerry Douglas an artist that comes up when you're like you saw them, You're like, they're about to be a megastar before they were a megastar. Um

in Excess. They opened for us, They opened a tour for us, and from the moment they started playing on that tour, I knew this was the last time they were ever going to open for anybody. They were fantastic. It was an amazing tour with the two of us, But I knew that they were just they were just about to just take off. And what a tragic story. Huh. Yeah. We also we also had a band called Till Tuesday opened for us with a girl named Amy Man, and she was really talented, and I knew that she had

a future. And you know, Amy Man is a great singer songwriter. She's out there still playing performing to this day. How is it that some bands make it the full? Like here you are, you're here to talk about you wrote a book, you were in the Hall of Fame, you live in life. You look healthy, everything seems good. But it's like either it's it's one way or the other. It's like you go down quick and in a flame, or you roll all the way through. This is not

this is not a business for sissy's. Um. You've got to have a thick skin, you gotta want it, and you've gotta work really hard. UM. I have a I have a very UM. I have a good work ethic. Maybe I got it from my parents from that generation. You know, growing up as a baby boomer, you know, right after World War Two. Um, it's I'm I'm of that generation where it's just ingrained in me. Um and uh, you know, I just uh, I just hope, I you know, instilled. I think I think I've been able to instill that

in my son, who's just turning twenty one. And in a way, he's a he's a hard worker. He's not he's not of his millennial generation for some reason. Does he get what you have accomplished? Yeah, he does, and he specifically has gone in a completely different world and a different route. And I'm I'm really actually more proud of that fact than almost anything else, because he thought for himself and he realized that he didn't want to follow in his father's footsteps. He wanted to carve his

own path. And I'm really actually very proud of that. So over the years, I mean, I assume you've met just about anybody cool that you wanted to meet. But I'll just ask you some some names here. Yeah, Paul McCartney, him, sure, give me a word for these guys. Paul McCartney. He just like the most bubbly and kind of happy and like up kind of guy. Um, I'm a huge fan. I saw a set at Bonnaroo in two thirteen when we're there to do the super Jam, and he blew me away. He did a two and a half hour set.

He was the band was amazing, the production was amazing. Everything was so good, the sound, the lights. Because when I see a show, I don't just listen to the music and watch the performer and check out what he's wearing. I'm looking at everything. I'm looking at the nuts and the bolts of the show. I'm looking at the lights, the production, the quality of the sound, the mix, the performance of the band, UM, the staging, uh, the pattern

in between the songs. I'm looking at everything and in a kind of a you know, in an analytical way, but still enjoying it. His show was one of the most perfectly well crafted shows. But it didn't feel stiff. UM, that's my Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson came at backstage when we were playing UM Universal Lampith Theater in l a And he came back into our dressing room and before Billy Jean, and he said, I love to dance.

I can't go for that in my bedroom in front of my mirror, and if you listen to Billy Jean, you can hear the same groove as I can't go for that, Um, but I have so much. I had so much respect for him. He was just so good and I felt sorry. I always felt sorry for him because I understood, you know, being a bit of a child performer, but not on the level of that he was. He was a superstar from the time he was six

years old. Um, you can't be a superstar from the time you're six years old and live in a normal world. Your world will never be normal. And the fact that he his life path took him where it took him to me in a way, I understand it. I don't. I don't condone it necessarily, but he couldn't possibly be normal, and it's a shame in a way. But at the same time, he was a supremely talented person. Freddie Mercury I never met him. I saw his show at the

Beacon Theater. I saw Queen play at the Beacon Theater in New York one time, and I said, for some crazy reason, I was sitting in the front row and that was a huge mistake. They were so freaking aloud. I actually couldn't stand it. I had to leave and go into the back and watch it from the back. On the more contemporary guys, how about a guy like John Mayer. Have you met John at all? I met him. I met him standing out in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Um. Yeah, he seems really cool guy. Um.

We didn't talk very much. It was just like kind of a quick high and he was on his way. I'm gonna make sure I'm missing in my notes, John, because I made a lot of notes. Let's say, already talked to him and all of that, and most of stuff I knew from my mind. But if you leave here and I'm like, God didn't, that's gonna I'm gonna punch myself right in the all right, Uh, my day. Anything you want? As John, we are going back on tour this summer. What song is still fun for you

to play? You know what? I'll tell you what. I know. This is gonna sound stupid, but all of them. Uh, we don't play any songs we don't like, and we have we are really fortunate. We have a lot of hits and we in a way it's kind of a ball and chain in the best possible way. It's like we're a prisoner of our own success in terms of I feel like, I I know I have a professional responsibility to play those hits for the people who come

to see us. But at the same time, we have four hundred songs and some of them are really cool, and we've got deep album tracks that are so cool, but we really almost can't fit them into the set um. But you know what, it's a really amazing problem to have. And so I honestly, God, if a song starts feelings

a little stale will drop it. Maybe we're many years we we had we never played Private Eyes for about five years, and we sometimes drop We're gonna add a few songs on this this tour that we're going out with this summer with Tears for Fears, and Tears Fears are great. You know, they've got a great catalog of hits, and I think it's gonna be a really amazing show. Do you ever punched on the faith? We've never had a fight, like, no, no, you ever never punched in

the face, never had a fight. We've had disagreements and we kind of just walk away. We walk away and let it settle. Out and then we figure out a way of working it out. Who's your most famous personal close friend do you would call once a month? Jim Lauderdale, Jim Lauderdale, M from Nashville. Who's your most famous friend that people would like to be like, Oh that's cool,

Jim Lauderdale. Darryl Hall. Now you just messed with with John. Really, he's probably my closest personal friend that I actually talked to regular. Do you guys have conversations? Can you guys go to dinner and just hang out and chat even after only only when we're on tour. Yeah, one one on tour we do all the time. Yeah. Because you don't hate each other. I mean, so many groups we don't hate each other. We we just we we know. It's like brothers. I mean we met, it's seventeen years old,

so we grew up together. We experienced the same thing from our teenage days through twenties, thirtifties, sixties, so we we know each other so well, we know each other's families so well. It's like we don't even have to talk. We never really need to talk, and we can get together and it's like as if time stopped. We just carry on right where we left off. It's it's the

weirdest thing. There's a book it's called Change of Seasons by John Oates and it comes out in March March, and you can pre order it if it's before Mary or I suggest you buy it. And there's there's a cover and he's on it and he's holding a guitar. He can't miss it. And let me read some of the reviews here. Now this is your quote. Never mind, I was gonna read them in the back of the boat, but you should read my reviews. Is you're pretty good? Uh,

really great book. Thank you so much. I appreciate you for the music. Geek. Great book and for first I've said like eight times, but for me, it's just really cool. It's man, how many times do you get a rock and roll Hall of Famer in your house? Let me tell you just one the house. You've got a view, thought a cool view. It's a view I've never seen him Nashville. I love it. Yeah, pretty cool man. Well, thank you very much, thanks for having me. I hope

everybody gets the book. And uh, you know, when you write another one, we'll come back and do that. You know. I got to write the second volume about my Nashville experience. Yeah, what you live? Why do you live? We're out of time here, but give me why do you live Nashville? Now? Come on? It's the only place where there's music. It is really you know, you're right. It is the only

place where's music. And when I when I started making solo albums and I realized that I was going to go back to my earliest influences, which my folk influences, I knew this was the place that where I could realize that, and that's why I came in. It's been a real pleasure. Man, Did you enjoy it? I've got an interview in mind. Come on, you bet you just want to hear that, right, And I'm telling you that's the truth. You know you're good man. Just put me in.

You know you got me in this chair man. I was like, okay, now we're gonna ease into this league. I get to talk to everybody. And I was most nervous. And and I've had you on my radio show before, but that's different. That's like, let's do eight minutes. It's bam bam babad. But I was I was nervous about this because you have such a story to tell, and I didn't want to and I'll go I'll kick myself later for not asking if your questions. I was like, how often do I get to sit for an hour

and talk? John Hoats say, well, you know what, if you want to have me back, we got more to talk about, or I'll just come to your house. We'll just jack all right, Thank you guys for hanging out. John notes change of seasons pre order on Amazon Now to be out late March. Mary, So thanks John, thank you all right. Episode I Have so forty two is over all right, Thank you guys,