May 8, 2025 • 56 mins
Daryl Hall stands as one of the greatest pop songwriters in music history. As the iconic half of Hall & Oates, his classic tracks like "Sara Smile," "Rich Girl," and "Maneater" earned the duo coveted spots in both the Songwriters and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Yet beyond his chart-dominating success throughout the '70s and '80s, Daryl remains a profoundly gifted, soulful creator whose musical talents transcend genres.
On today's episode, Justin Richmond talks to the legendary Daryl Hall about his early career with Gulliver on Elektra Records—where he shared a label with The Doors—and diving into the creative process behind classics like "She's Gone" from the seminal album Abandoned Luncheonette. Daryl also talks about his latest artistic endeavor, D, a collaborative album he made with Eurythmics co-founder Dave Stewart.
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You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite Daryl Hall songs HERE.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Dare I say? Daryl Hall is one of the
great pop songwriters of our time, as half of the
duo Hall and Notes, who was all over the charts
in the seventies and eighties from Sarah Smile to Rich
Girl to You Make My Dreams and Man Eater, But
beyond the hits and the pop chart is a gifted,
(00:35):
soulful writer and player of all sorts of songs. In
this episode of Broken Record, I talked with Daryl Hall
about his early days entrenched in Phillies arm b scene,
his stint on Electra records with his band Gulliver that
found him being label mates with The Doors, how he
wrote classics like She's Gone Off, Abandoned, Lechonette, his partially
shelved album with Robert Fripp, and his latest album d
(00:57):
a collaboration between him and Dave Stewart of The Rhythmics.
This is Broken Record, real musicians, real conversations. This episode
is brought to you by Defender, a vehicle engineered to
meet challenges head on so you can explore with confidence.
Adventure Seekers and risk takers can explore the full Defender
(01:19):
lineup at land ROVERUSA dot com. Here's my conversation with
Daryl Hall. How you doing, I'm doing well. How are you?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I'm doing Okay? I overworked. I'm overworked, but I'm good.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
You got it. You gotta take some time to relax.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah. One I'd like to know when that is.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Do you do you find being busy or not having
it enough to do impacts your songwriting, your creativity.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, it's a funny thing. I'm either too busy or
I'm champion at the bit. It's one or the other.
I'm either sitting here reading my book and go on,
oh fuck, you know what am I doing? Or I'm
overworked and I'm might pull my hair out.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
You know what books do you typically read?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Oh? I read depending on my you know, if I
just want to relax, I read, you know, like Michael
Connolly books and things like that, James L. Roy, you know.
But you know I read for information. I read constantly.
Is what I do?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Is fiction a source of inspiration for you at all?
And when it comes to music, who.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Writing is a source of inspiration? A turn of phrase,
I might twist it around my own way, adapt it
to something I'm thinking about, use it in a song.
I do that all the time. I hardly ever, actually
basically never pull something directly from an author, but I'll
use it in some form that is part of the
(02:52):
expression that I'm trying to achieve in a verse or
even maybe sometimes in a chorus.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Is there an example that comes to mind? Oh?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, like say it is it? So that's an obvious one,
you know, It's just part of my And also I
log it in my head. I might read a phrase
and remember it. At some point, it'll come back to
me as i'm as I'm looking for looking for something
in a lyric.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
How often do you listen to music?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I am not a good audience. I don't really listen
to music. I make it. You know. I have so
much music in my head that I really don't care
to hear things for what for pleasure? I guess you'd
call it. I mean I hear I listen for information. Occasionally,
I hear things, you know, if I'm if I'm in
(03:46):
out and about and I hear something come on, I
might log in my head and listen to it, say oh,
that's pretty good, that kind of thing. But I don't
sit around and listen to the radio. I don't, like
I said, I'm not a very good audience around.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
When did you hit that saturation point where you're like,
I have enough music in my head that I don't
need to sit around listening anymore.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
It's hard to say, you know, I was when I
was a kid and a teenager or whatever, I was
a sponge. You know. All I did was was collect
records and listen to records and do it all that
kind of thing. I don't know. I guess it was
after a while where this became a way of life
and experiences and music in general and life experiences started
(04:28):
building in my head. That's when I stopped listening outside
of well I needed sometimes obviously with a life from
Darrels House, I listened to I listened to an artist
that's going to be on the show, and I listened
to their work and I try to get it inside
their head and figure out how they work. And in
that case, I am an audience. But I'm quite sure
(04:50):
when that all started happening.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Because like when you were a young kid, used to
hang out at like what wdas and just I was.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
A freak for music. I was the ultimate audience. I
listened to everything I was. I used to just hang
out at wdas and in the Uptep Theater places like that.
I mean I just lived there, literally lived there.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
What was it like getting signed to Elektra early on?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Well, Jack Holtzman was pretty cool. I have to say
I liked him. I was doing, you know, working at
Sigma Sound at Philly, and there was sort of an
offshoot of side men and a producer named Tommy Sellers
that we after hours. He asked me if I wanted
to join in, and we used to you know, kind
(05:39):
of come up with songs and do whatever. And we
got a body of work together. And then this fellow
that we all worked for named John Madera. He wrote
that the hop that's who he is. He wrote, you
don't own Me, you know. He wrote those kind of
songs from a real old school Philly and he started
shopping this group of songs around and Electra bit and
(06:03):
they called it Gulliver And it wasn't a band at all.
It was just a bunch of we were just writing songs.
So I kind of went up there. It was my
first experience outside of Philly working with or being involved
in sort of a New York a a big label.
You know. The doors were what Electra and everything and
It was an experience and interesting, but I wasn't really,
(06:25):
it wasn't real. It wasn't honest. I wasn't trying to
shop my work or a band that I was working
with or anything like that. So it was kind of
kind of a phony situation really.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
But you did you get to meet Jack Oldsman who
ran Electra.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
He was in those days. Man, those kind of guys
were very hands on. Amah was the same. Absolutely. I
was in used to hang out not a lot, but
I used to be in Jack Holtsman office and he
was really a nice guy. I have to say.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
But you didn't write any tunes for that for that record?
Correct Or am I wrong?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
I actually did every Day is a Lovely Day? They
was called something like that. But I didn't. My heart
wasn't in it. I was just doing it, you know.
It was wasn't really. I was doing a lot of
things to try and basically get in the quote business
and do things for money. You know. I was doing commercials.
I was I was doing Cidebend stuff. I was working
(07:22):
with the game on Hugh team, playing on records with
those guys. I was doing anything I could do really
to make a few bucks and that electric thing was
part of that whole scene, you know, and I was
sort of trying to find myself, to tell you the truth.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
By the time you get to Whole Oats, does that
start to feel like this is actually what I want
to do and this isn't just a way to get in.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
It was a way to get in, but it was
It was a little of both. I had met John
in school in Temple University, and I needed a roommate.
We were both sort of suburban, not we weren't suburban,
that's the wrong word, but we live we lived out
of town, and so I started sharing apartments with him,
and we always did things separately. I think that's the
(08:14):
whole mark of anything I ever did with Jhon Oates.
He had his own world. I have my own world,
and proximity pulled us together more than anything, even in
those days. So we decided, I remember the words, I said,
let's you know what, We'll share the stage. You do
your thing, I do my thing. And that was how
(08:37):
the Whole Oats thing happened. Because on the mailbox it's
their hall and Oates and we turned it into Whole Oats,
you know, really really creative, and we used to play
around Philly in these little places. There was a place
called World Control Headquarters that held about eighty people, and
we became fixtures there and we got and we started
(08:59):
getting a following, and then we'd play other places that
were similar and we started doing that, and that was
how the whole relationship with Oats got started, by doing
that and people enjoying it what we were doing, and
then we started looking around from record deal after that.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Did you recognize at the time what working with like
in a Reef Martin meant?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Absolutely? Because I was used to working with Tommy Bell
and one up, so I knew what good shit was.
I knew immediately that a Reef was something special. I
mean I was. I was familiar with his work first
of all. I mean, you know, he'd go from Carly
Simon to Aretha to Me to to you know, even
name it, to all these folk bands, all kinds of things.
(09:47):
He taught me fluency in a lot of musical languages.
I think I really learned that for the first time
from him. Before that, I was more like just straight
out in Philadelphia, you know, or at least by version
of it.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
What was his impression of your songs?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
He said that I reminded him of an English composer
that I can never remember the name. There was an
obscure English composer and it was something about what that
that was his frame of reference. But he saw something
in me that I think other people hadn't seen yet.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Did that encourage you at the time? Scare you?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
It didn't scare me, but it encouraged me because he again,
he was he was an encourager. So he tried to
bring it out. He tried to he tried to give
me confidence. He egged me on, and he was a cheerleader,
you know he was. He had a great sense of
you Bert too. But he kind of made me feel
legitimate in what I was, in what I was thinking
(10:47):
about and doing, and and to be unafraid to do things.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Do you remember an album like Abandoned Lunchonette, which is
the second Hollan Oats record he was He worked with
you guys on also the songs themselves sound leaps and
bounds more evolved past whole Oats, But then also just
the way that they were put together or the way
that they were arranged or orchestrated, and how much of
(11:14):
that was just you guys? Progressing as artists and you
progressing as an artist, Daryl, and how much of that
was working with a Reef and seeing the potential and
the songs that you were writing.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
The Whole Oats album was this grab bag of songs
that John Oates and I had written over the years,
like we were still in high school and college. You know,
we decided we were going to put him down one record.
To me, the Whole Oats record was it was a
Whole of Oats demo. It wasn't really a record. It
(11:47):
was in record form. It was sold as a record,
but it wasn't a record. It wasn't a thought, a band,
a luncheon that in my opinion, was our first record
and at the times dictated that kind of production. You know.
I think the involvement of a guy named Chris Bond,
Christopher Bond, was where it can't be discounted with it
(12:07):
because he he was a budding producer himself, and he
was unlike me or Reef, he was he was totally
a beatlemaniac, you know, and and I think he was
influenced by that kind of late late period beatle music
and you can always hear it in the songs where
there'll be whatever I'm doing or Ease is doing, and
(12:30):
then suddenly this kind of beatless thing will be attached
to it, you know, which bugs me a type of truth.
But I think if I don't know if it enhanced
the album, but I am very proud of that album,
and it was I think, I think the body of
work was really interesting. I think I consider it to
be the first Hall of Notes record, and maybe one
of the only real Hall of Notes records. What makes
(12:52):
you say that because we didn't really work together that
much after that we did that record, and then I
and then.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
I we did do that record with war Maybes album
Todd Rundgren that was basically being Todd, you know, and
then after that it really got very separate, where John
wrote some songs that he'd sing.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Them, you'd hear them one there, and his voice would
be the lead singer, and then I wrote whatever I wrote,
and that was that was the majority of it, and
that that that idea that continued all the way through
our career.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Really, so seventy two seventy three abandoned lunch and that
you guys are working actually together. What was it about
that time that allowed that to unfold that way.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I think a lot I had to do with we
were new It was us against the world because we
were still really kids, just out of college, and we
were sharing apartments and we moved in we moved from
Philly to New York, and we shared an apartment. We
were in the same house. So it was kind of
hard to not collaborate because you know, I'd be doing
something i'd he'd hear it, or he'd be doing like
(14:01):
She's Gone, for example, which is a real Hall had
notes song fifty to fifty all the way. He was
playing that kind of chorus riff, like a folky riff,
and I said, well, that's cool, that's kind of interesting,
and I sat down on the piano and I want
you know, you know, you know, I did that, and
(14:23):
that turned into She's Gone, and then we we wrote
the lyrics together, so that was a real hollan Old song.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Well you guys, proud of that song when you at
the time. I mean that is still to this day.
It's just a jaw dropper.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I'm newing it was good, but I okay. And then
we took that to a reef and talk abat jaw
drop his jaw dropped and I was just playing it
on a Fender Rhoads, And he's the one that came
up with that. And you know all about the progression
at the end of the song, which is really off
(14:58):
the wall, really and that, but that was his idea completely.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
That's interesting because that progression sounds almost like almost feels
like a signature at least of yours. Like I feel
like I that change that step up. I'm just shocked
that that came from him.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Well, I learned it from him and decided it was
a good idea.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Because that's one of those moments you're listening to that
you're like, oh, there's the hollow notes that I think
the majority of people think of when they think hallo notes,
you know, just a casual listener.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
I have a mixed feelings about modulation, but I like it.
Sometimes it's really effective. I think the She's Gone kind
of song. More more recently, I don't use so much
modulation anymore.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Why is that what causes the mixed.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
No, I just changed. My taste changed.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
It's not an intellectual thing, now.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
You know what it is to many too many shitty
songs modulated. A modulation is a trick to take something
mediocre and make it sound like it's better than it is.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
In a lot of cases, was there ever the thought
after abandon Lunchinette to do something more on your own?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
That's what I decided that I wanted. It's a strange
thing I started for getting that sort of Okay, I
want to go out there and do this on myself
at that period of time, but I was in an
environment with people who did not want to hear about it,
and they did everything they could over all those years
(16:30):
to stop me and stop my impulses to do that
and try and keep me He'd be aligned if you
want the truth to be, and keep me doing what
they were making money from.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Was that label pressure?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
It was label management everything.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
When did your relationship with Tommy Mottola start?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
It started back around that whole Oats period. Really. He
was working in Chapel Music and he had an office
the size of the closet, and we went up there
with John Madeira and we were doing something I don't
even know why. I guess John was trying and the
Lisa's lease is publishing or something, and I got started
(17:14):
talking to Tommy, and Tommy wanted to be a manager.
You know he had big ambitions, and I guess he
heard me play something or whatever, and he said, why
don't you you you don't want to stay in Philadelphia,
wants to let me manage it. And I went, well,
that's interesting, okay, sure, And he kept me laughing for
(17:34):
about fifteen years and then I woke up.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
When you write a song like Gino on the White album,
that's about Tommy.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Matola, right, I was speaking truth right there.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Did he find that funny at the time or.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
He acted like he was he thought it was funny.
I assume he was smart enough to realize what it
was about.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
How'd you come up with the course on that? That's
such a.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Strange used to say shit like that, hard works being
something you know and lift fast. I laughing, That's all
he did, just laugh all the time. No, no herd
of masking, nothing for nothing, and that's straight out of
his mouth.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
We'll be right back with more from Daryl Hall after
the break. I want to talk about Todd run Gren
and David Foster, because you do War Babies with Todd
run Gren, you do a couple of records with David Foster.
To hear you say that a reef kind of opens
you up and allows you to sort of put all
(18:36):
these different styles and kinds of music together. Makes sense
to me because it's very hard to make sense of
your career in the sense of it's so broad. It's
I mean, you make a record with the Reef, David Foster,
Todd Rundgren, Robert Fripp. I mean, like, it's just it's
it's insane, it's different, it's incredible.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Well, first of all, I I, as you can imagine,
I'm an adventurous soul and I and I'm not afraid.
I like to try things. I like to expand myself.
I like to put myself in sometimes uncomfortable situations, but
usually just in creatively, creatively exciting situations and see what
comes out of it. Todd was the first one that
(19:17):
I did like that. I mean, I have very mixed
feelings about the War Babies album. I mean, I think
there was a lot of great ideas on it. To me,
it sounds like squirrels on acid. I mean, I you know,
it's just sorry. You know, people talk about that album
like and I go, okay, well glad you like it.
But at least it was an attempt to break out
(19:39):
of something and be open to the world, be open
to the musical world. And I tried to keep that attitude.
And I certainly kept that attitude when I worked with Robert,
and that was the point, except that I was more
controlled within that. And I think what I did with
Robert was I was very happy with. And David Foster
(20:00):
that was another one that it was kind of suggested.
David was twenty two years old when I met him,
and he had done some things with Chicago. I think
we were the first bands that here were really produced.
We butted heads, but at the same time, I think
there was a lot of respect going on there and
on both sides, and we did we did some interesting things.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
When you're in a situation like that and you and
Oates maybe aren't as strong as a partnership as you
could be, and then and you're sort of button heads
with the producer also, that's gotta feel kind that's got
to be a bit isolating.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah, well, I mean again, it was I was dealing
with it like it was my show, and it was
the principal characters was being the producers. And I knew
what I wanted, I knew what I wanted to do,
and a guy like David. He's a he's a he
comes from the autocratic school where he's a great musician,
(21:00):
and he wants people to do it his way, and
I don't necessarily agree with that.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
All the time you mentioned you were really happy with
the Robert Frue record, it blew my mind. I looked
back at the dates, and you guys recorded that the
month after he wraps Heroes with David Powe, and then
he's in the sudo with you the next month, and
you guys are making what's your first solo record?
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I met Robert and uh. I was actually playing a
gig in Toronto, and Robert happened to be there and
he came backstage and we instantly clicked. And he was
right at the time going to he was very involved
with in the gurgiaf philosophy thing, you know, and and
he was going away to retreat and he said, I'm
(21:50):
going to you know, this is Robert's way. I'm going
to away to retreat for about six months, and then
when we come back, why don't you and I get
together and make some music together. And I said, sure, okay,
this sounds good. And he decided he was going to
move to New York City after the Gurgiaff thing and
sort of immerse himself in New York and that's what
(22:13):
Heroes happened and all that. And he and I started
paling around together really, and we recorded the Sacred Songs album.
I had a few songs and some of the songs
we recorded on the spot and just made up with
the spot and we did it in town in New York.
And then he said, Okay, well I want to make
a record. Let's do the same thing for my record.
(22:36):
So we made a record that became Exposure Robert record
called Exposure. And that was my first setback because we
recorded and wrote the songs together, and my label said
that they wouldn't allow me to use my vocals on
the record. I finally got them to let me use
(22:57):
I think two or three, and he had the task
of trying to find someone or people and who could
copy or have some kind of reasonable try to copy
the vocals that I had come up with on the record,
which luckily he found some people who were pretty good
(23:18):
to do it. But Mayam, was it frustrating. I realized
that I was really in trouble, that I was really
being locked into something that I didn't see having an
happy ending.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
It's wild that you say that, because it from the outside,
it doesn't trucking.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Keep on trucking. I had no choice. And here's the thing.
Not only did I keep on trucking because Robert was saying, Okay,
let's put a band together and start doing this for real.
And then suddenly I had a commitment to our cia,
to Gwin. And that's when Voices album happened, and the
whole fucking world blew up for Hall of Oates, and
(23:57):
then I was really stuck in the groove with the
situation I was in.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Did you hear any of that stuff he had been
doing with Bowie that Frip had been doing with Bowie
around that time?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah? Sure, I was pretty familiar with with that whole scene.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
I knew Brian, you know, and and uh and and
Robert and I got to know Peter Gabriel and I
worked with lou Reid and we actually hold us believe
it or not, we opened for a tour, a lou
Reed tour you did, so it's hard to believe what
we did. Yeah, and uh, and I knew David and
uh so, I mean, yeah, I'm much familiar with all
(24:33):
this stuff that was going on, right.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Because you guys opened for David Bowie too around seventy
two ish, really early.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
How was lou Reid on the tour?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
He was? It was the Sally Can't Dance No More tour,
I Can't dance no More? Uh yeah, And uh he
was strange, man. I mean, it's to say that, it's
just to be obvious. I lou was. Lou Is a
very unusual man, and I kind of liked him. I
(25:06):
liked I like this attitude. I liked the he was.
He just didn't give a fuck. You know, he was
a curmudgeon. But yet he wasn't you know. There was
a lot going on with lou Reid that I think
more than people even realize. And I wound up living
in New York City. I live next door to him,
So I mean, not only was I did I go
(25:28):
on tour with it, but I used to see him
walking his dog and things like that. And I wouldn't
say he was a friendly man, but you know.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Would you talk though, would you you know, keep a cordial.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
And he's like I'd say something to me, go, how
you doing?
Speaker 1 (25:45):
What do you make of a songwriting?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I was. I was just with Dave Stewart, and Dave
Stewart has a book of Lou Reed's lyrics, and I
was in between doing stuff that we were doing. This
just happened last week and I started reading his lyrics
and the early stuff, the de velovet stuff. I mean,
it's good, it's it's just it's it's completely different than
(26:07):
anybody else. I mean, you take a song like I
don't Know, Sister Ray or something like that. I mean,
the words are just amazing. It's like it's a slice
of life, but ugly life and a fucked up life.
But it's you know, he he managed to create a
mood that was based on something that really was and
(26:28):
I respect him.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I thought about him a bit when I was listening
back through your records because with Lou it always felt
like there was he knew how to write a pop
song and just subverted it out of it, you know,
and it felt like you could do either thing, Like
it felt like you could write the perfect pop song,
you could write the most subversive weird thing. With Robert Free,
(26:53):
i mean it's like and everything in between, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, I mean that's that describes by the way my
brain works I can. I can do it go both ways,
you know, or a lot of ways. I always say,
I speak a lot of musical languages. Yeah, do you remember?
Do you remember any of water Wheel? I remember, but
I would never be able to sing it because my
(27:17):
voice saying near that high anymore? Man, I hear you
call me that I wrote that. I was just out
of high school when I wrote that. You know the
Philly scene it was. It was a really strange thing.
There was a big folk scene going on too, and
I heard I heard something that made me want to
(27:39):
write that. I don't remember what it was, and it
was it was basically written in that tradition, and it
was certainly different than anything I was doing. When I say,
working with game.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
On of some It's interesting how nostalgic you can be
just out of high school.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Yeah, I know. I think all these songs I wrote,
I seem to be obsessed with writing songs about nostalgia
and being older and all that when I was just
a kid. I don't know why I thought that way,
don't ask me.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, but to be able to write a song like
water Wheel wasn't a hit, but sounds in so many
ways like a perfect pop song from that era of
when songs sounded like that. Then to be able to
go and do something like you know, I mean just
United State, you know, on voices, and then to do
(28:33):
I mean one of my favorites like I'm in a
Philly mood, you know, in like ninety three ninety four.
I mean that you have that kind of a range
and can write in all of these various styles, these
things that are just like deep and incredible. Is something else?
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, well, I mean I won't ask me why I
can do that, but I seem to have the ability
to do it. My ears are open and I have
I have that facility. I guess I would never be
able to explain that.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
And by the way, you just want to say you
put your voice down. But I watched the The Frip
live at Daryl's house, you and Robert Fripp and your
version of NYC and why that you did probably what
just two years ago sounds better than the record still
do that. We should talk about Dave Stewart because you
(29:26):
did a record with him in the eighties. I think
your third or second solo record. You guys just did
a record together last year. D How did you guys
come together.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Like many thinks, I met him. I just met him.
Somebody introduced me to him and they said, actually, somebody
said that you guys should get together. I think you
enjoy each other's company. And he was I've lived in
London for a lot of time. I don't live there
right now, but I for years and years I lived
in London. So I went up to his house at
(29:58):
the time, he was living up in made of Vale,
and I went in and we immediately started. I mean
I literally went into his house. He says, come downstairs,
and we started writing a all. That was the way
I met Dave Stewart. We've been friends ever since. You know,
we just get along. I don't know what it is.
And he makes me feel creatively. He's a very stimulating person.
(30:21):
He makes me feel alive. He's a gigantic bundle of energy.
And he's extremely smart and extremely full of ideas, like
I can't even tell you heaven and it never stops
with him, and I don't know, he's just fun to
be with and and so over the years we've we
(30:42):
made that record, we made the Three Hearts album and
I have a great time doing it. And then over
the years we've we've written a few things and done
things together, and he's played on some of the records
and done things with him. And more recently, I told
him about the place I live in the Bahamas and
he wound up buying a house down there, so we're
(31:05):
neighbors now. On top of it all, you know, it's family.
It's really come family with them.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
You might have figured out the life if you're moving
between New York, London and the bas that's a good triangle.
This might be the perfect triangle. His stuff with the
rhythmics is I mean his stuff in general, but I
mean that rhythmic stuff. To this day, I've been revisiting
it because I've been playing it for my kids, and
(31:32):
that stuff's mind blowing. Still.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
He wrote those songs you don't Yeah, And that's his productions.
And he's a great singer by the way, which doesn't
hurt you know. She sang the ship out of that stuff.
And yeah, I mean he he has a great body
of work.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
The sounds you guys got on the new record, like
the I mean the whole World's Better. Yeah, beautiful sound.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah, that song I love. I love playing that. Recently
in my latest tours, I'm starting the show with that
because there's just something about it. Then, you know, when
you just bang that thing out, you know that you
(32:16):
know it just wow, it just makes you stand up.
That song. I wrote that song about one subject and
I had most of that song and then it turned
into something else and it became anthemic, and that was
Dave's idea to put the you know, you know in
(32:38):
the end, and we just had people come in, friends
from the from the island, They come in and sang,
so it became a real communal, athemic kind of song.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
What was what was the song originally about?
Speaker 2 (32:50):
It was about like many of my songs, I had
a very tempestuous relationship with the with the my late
wife and I don't know, she was so moody with
what I would hear her singing in the kitchen. Everything
got better. That's where it started.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Is there an early version of that that you can
share a bit of.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
No, not really, because I had the chorus and that's
when that was. That was the original, and then I
had I had the chords of the song, but I
didn't have the words, and that's when it turned into
something else. You know, When when I was with Dave
and I had a melody without any words to go
with it, and and that we you know, I wrote
(33:35):
with his major help. I wrote the lyrics.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Would would you mind giving us a little of the
choruses because they gave us a bit and it's it's
too good to the choruses.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
When you snots again or when use nuts again?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Here it is.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
It's a moving song. It's a moving song. You know.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
It comes from a real emotion. Everything comes from something real.
And people ask me, what you know, your new new
musician in the world, what do you do? I said,
you got to believe it, you gotta you gotta live it.
You got it's got to be something that almost makes
you makes you want to cry inside, or does make
you cry inside?
Speaker 3 (34:25):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Just me playing that, I just got a feeling in
my throat because it brought back the memories of when
I wrote it. Uh yeah like that?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah? You know you mentioned your late wife Sarah Allen
Jena Allen were incredible inspirations and collaborators crowded Doubt along
your career, both Sarah and Jana.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
They played such a large part in the song from
the eighties Jada originated in private eyes. I mean and
she originated kiss on My List. I mean things like that.
We I mean they were complete collaborations and Sarah it
was it is a really good lyric really good lyricist.
Did she contributed a lot?
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Did they figure how to channel that from being around you?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Or I think so? I don't know if I just
gave it off. I mean there were both musical people,
and especially Jana. I mean, Janna is a guitar player
and a singer and all that. Sandy is a singer,
but you know, more just a music lover. And yeah,
I think proximity had to do with it. And I
don't know, something rubbed off and they just came up
(35:38):
with really good ideas and they would throw them out
and just to compliment things really add to the quality
of whatever it is that I was coming up with.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
How would Janna bring like a private eyes to you?
Speaker 2 (35:50):
She actually made a demo of that. The chorus was there,
but then I kind of fleshed out the verses. I
changed either that's a pretty complicated chord progression, all the chords,
and so that had to do with me and I
was doing that, but she came up with privatized Why
shouldn't you you removed. She she came up with that.
(36:11):
That was sir.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Can you play through a bit of those that chord
progression you were?
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Okay, let's see here. I can't believe that.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
I have to think about it, watching you, watching you,
watch and watching you, watching you, watching you.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Man. So she had those chords or she.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Came up with the chords. Well, okay, uh, watching you
watching you? That's me, you can tell right, I read
that she but her was a ship. She came up
with that.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Wow, what a gift.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Yeah, well she had one, and talk about you know,
I don't know man's tragedy sometimes. I mean, she died,
really she died. She got the leukemia and died. She
was thirty nine years old and I'm still misser.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Did that impact you and Sarah are working together? Oh?
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Sarah was my But did it impact it? I can't
say it didn't. It kind of put disruption in our family.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah, that kind of personal stuff. Would you put that
into music?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I do all the time. I'm not afraid to put
it all out there. The most obvious one is the
one that the album and the new album. I'd rather
be a fool, I mean, soar the end of that song.
I'm just saying it.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
When you put something like that down, does it ever
give you pause?
Speaker 2 (37:54):
I'm not afraid I put my emotions right out there
rather be a fool. It's a very direct version of that.
You can't look at my music without here and the
reality of it. It's just it's all in there.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Does it ever caused maybe not problems. Has it ever
caused friction with people that you're close to.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
I think I've made some people sad. I'm saying that
with a smirk of my face, which is terrible, so
I don't feel smirky about it. But I don't know.
I mean, the truth arts sometimes, and that doesn't mean
you can't speak the truth.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
I had a conversation with Michael McDonald about a year ago,
maybe a year and a half ago, and he told
a story about I think it was I can't remember
which Doobe's record it was now, but one of the
records wasn't doing so well, and one of the black
an hours at Warner said like, this should go on,
(38:54):
this should go on black radio, you know, living on
the fault line, that's what it was, and sending a
black radio. Black radio loved it and kind of saved
that version of the band. But it occurred to me, like,
you know, like the Doobies, there's a lot, there was
a number of groups like that that they they kind
of got eventually pigeonholed as yacht rock. But really what
(39:15):
it was was just they were just R and B guys.
They're just making R and B records, and they were white,
and so.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
This is something I don't understand. First of all, yacht
rock was a fucking joke by two jerk offs in California,
and suddenly it became a genre and I don't even
understand it. I never understood it. And I totally, man,
I'm glad you say that it's just R and B.
It's just another with some maybe some jazz in there.
(39:43):
It's mellow R and B. It's it's it's it's it's
smooth R and B. Yeah, I don't see what the
yacht part is.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Yeah, but it seemed like, you know, it seemed like
like with the Doobies, for instance, like they like because
they were white guys, they didn't know where to not
all of them, but the majority of Michael McDonald's white,
and it's like they didn't know where to put it.
It's like, well, I can't go on Black Bead because
the guys aren't black. But you know, the white audience
they want to hear, you know, whatever they want. But
it doesn't feel like you guys necessarily ever had that issue.
(40:15):
From my vantage point, I don't know if you feel
that way.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
I was more of a pioneer. I mean my music.
When I was I had a group called the Tenttones,
and and and I had a you know, pretty like
a top twenty hit in Philadelphia, you know, one w
Das and and Sarah's Smile broke on on on R
and B on on black radio. It had to make
its way to pop radio. That's how Hollanolds started. That
(40:40):
was that's our origins. And uh, people misjudged us and
and and and uh because they couldn't label us, and
they always they came up with all this kind of
crab soft rock and yacht rock and all this other nonsense.
And none of the none of it really describes anything
that I do, really, yeah, or doesn't describe it any
(41:01):
anybody does.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
I didn't realize sarah Smile broke on on black radio first, Yeah, out.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Of out of Ohio RB station in Ohio not Dayton,
but some place like that. Uh, and then it spread
through the ARMBA charts, and it wasn't until after it
was a it was a gigantic record in the arm
BAT charts that it went to. Uh pop radio makes sense.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
I mean that is that is a hell of a
soulful record. And listening to a recently, I've always played guitar,
so I was always taken by the guitar part, and
I love vocals, so I was always thinking about the vocal.
Hadn't paid proper attention to the bass till recently. But
I think it was Leland scar on there.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
I think it was.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
The guy that played that amazing guitar solo was Christopher
Bond and that is one of the most beautiful, amazing
introduction guitar solos ever written.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
It really is. I mean, the notes played, in the
way it's played, that the way he approaches it.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
What an amazing guy. He was a very unusual guy.
He's unfortunately that's anymore.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Your vocal runs on there too, are I mean, just
your your choices vocally are I mean?
Speaker 2 (42:09):
And I would just be in again just I don't
know that that can that that was a real that
was reality man. I wrote that song like a postcard
the Sandy Sarah Allen and oh there it is.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Yeah, we'll be back with the rest of my conversation
with Daryl Hall. How would you approach in the studio
like a song like a loan just thinking of that
album now, like a loone too Long? That was it?
That's a John song, right, that's a John song. How
much would you involve yourself with John songs? I guess
(42:43):
you know.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
I would do all all the backgrounds and everything. I
would fletch out. John would have the song, uh, and
this goes with any of his songs, so that the
world on a whole of this record like had I
Known You Better Than or something like that, and and
and Alone Too Long? And I would come up with
a vocal arrangement that would accompany his song, and and
(43:05):
do all the parts singing. If it was a three
part harm I'd sing three parts. And I mean, when
you listen to all of its records, that's all me singing.
Like kiss on my lists, that's all me sing in
the backgrounds. Occasionally John would sing apart on a record,
and sometimes he would I would sing the parts and
then tell him to sing over one of the parts.
(43:27):
That's how we did it. I mean I did it.
Excuse me?
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Was there anything in your view special about your blends?
Just the way your voices would blend.
Speaker 6 (43:36):
Well, the reason to blend, because it was all me.
If I could blend with myself, then when might you, though, decide?
John sing this? I got something for you? Sing this?
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Like?
Speaker 1 (43:49):
When would that occur to you?
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Because I wouldn't add is tambre to the to the background.
It was. It was one of those things. I mean,
John has a very.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Distinct voice, and it's not a bad voice either.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Hey I'm not putting that down. But and and on
stage you could tell we were working together. I mean
it was you wouldn't know in a million years. But
he was more of a take dictation kind of a singer,
you know, like sing this.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
I mentioned I'm in a Philly mood. That's one of
those songs that makes me wish I was actually from Philly,
which I could say I'm in a Philly mood the
whole record. But I mean that that song is incredible. Borderline,
you have a Mariah sing backgrounds on a song and
co wrote a song.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Yeah, she wrote what was that one?
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Helped me find a way.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
And the way to your heart. Yeah, yeah, that was
a sorry I wrote with Mariah Yet Philly Mood is
one of my favorite songs I ever wrote. I play
that every show. I love singing it. I like playing it.
It really describes the way I feel, the way I
felt and again the scenes that I was creating. And
boy is that real. That's a very emotional song to me,
(45:03):
kind of like Tony Bennett's I Left My Heart and
San Francisco. It's the mood man, It's that's it. Phill,
we moved.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
You worked with a couple of folks from the Family Stand,
which I feel like that group is sort of maybe
lost the time a bit.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
But they were really really cool. They were really cool.
I don't know why that didn't really stick around, you know.
They and and Peter and Jeff that's Peter Lord and
Jeff Smith. That was a really interesting combo that we
had going that was a talk about Philly Mood. You know,
Peter was really good. He egged me on, you know,
he really he brought a certain thing out of me
(45:40):
that I don't think anybody anybody else has, you know,
And I think that that sol Loan record sort of
reflects that, and he reflects the mood the thing that
he brought out in me.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Do you think you can put into words what he
brought out of you?
Speaker 2 (45:53):
No, I can't. It's it's just something that certain kind
of jazz soul thing that I occasionally do. But brought
that to the front.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
When you did. It helped me find a way heart
With Mariah. I think Emotions maybe had been a hit
at that point, but we were very familiar with her.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Oh yeah, yeah. It was Tommy Matola's girlfriend, right, I mean,
my god, And and she actually came up with with
she came up with a chorus of that and she
and she played it for me and then I went
from there.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
So that song started with her.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Yeah, she was. She sent me that, she sent me
a tape would help me find a way to your heart,
and then I, U, I kind of enhanced it.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
I always feel like people sleep on Mariah as a songwriter,
you know, as someone who can write a song.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
I think Mariah is a very talented person, as we
all know, and but I think that they she got
into that old diva thing and and you know, with
the big voice and and all over the place voice,
and but that kind of takes away from the source
of it, you know, the fact that she can put
(47:03):
together a good song. She's she's good Man. Mariah's happening.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Yeah, were you to do any more Live from Darryl's House?
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Zach going one on Tuesday? And I'm not going to
tell you with who because I never do. But yeah,
that's that's an ongoing project. I've been doing it for
a long time, and uh, I've decided instead of doing
whole season, so I'm just going to do occasional ones,
maybe in groups of one and two, three or something
like that, and just keep adding to my YouTube channel.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
What does that add to your life, your creative life
doing that show?
Speaker 2 (47:39):
I love it. I loved Life from Darrel's House. I
love doing it is It's the most stimulating experience that
you can imagine because we don't do any rehearsing, only
the most rudimentary of do. We know what's happening, and
so everybody is completely on their toes doing it for
the first time. There's an artist in there that may
(48:01):
or may not be comfortable, and I have to make
them comfortable. Sometimes they're you know, sometimes there's especially the
the heritage artists. They're stuck in their ways and I
have to unstick them. You know. There's there's so many
things going on, and then we have those amazing you know,
conversations around dinner and the whole thing. It's an amazing experience.
(48:22):
Usually takes me two days to recover from one.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Have you ever come out of one feeling like, oh,
maybe I should maybe we could do a whole a
whole record together, you know?
Speaker 3 (48:31):
Well?
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Yeah, I mean I I I've gotten a lot of people.
I mean, what I've been doing instead of making records together,
like Okay, I'm going out on the road. Glenn Tilbrook, uh,
and that I'm going to be working with him all year.
I think off and on and he's a he's an
LFDH lift Darrel's House to alumni at this point, you know.
So I think that I came up with this idea
(48:54):
based on the how we work together that way, and
there's anumber. You know, there's a lot of artists like that.
Howard Jones is another one that I've done. Todd obviously,
I mean, that's that's what I do on stage now.
I do a version of life from Darrel's House.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
And that's maybe more because I just think I mean
that that that you can get and must especially heritage artists,
that you can get them to come and play in
that way that you do and get them comfortable, but
also sort of be on the edge a bit of
we don't exactly know what we're doing, but we know
exactly you know what we're doing. Like that's like, that's
(49:28):
that's it. I mean, you're basically producing these people, and
that's not something that I think they're always accustomed to.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
You know, I am, I am doing exactly that on
the spot, and you're right, they're people aren't accustomed to it.
Oddly enough, the brand new artists are the easiest ones
because they don't know what's going on. They're just like
puppy dogs. They're like, yeah, let's go, let's do it.
You know, you're taking a guy who's been around for
as long as me, and he's like, am I doing
the right thing here? My fucking up? You know, this
(49:56):
isn't the way I always sing this song.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
I mean, it was interesting even seeing the Fruit I
just watched it. I didn't really know that Robert Frup
had been on that. I didn't know why how I
missed that one, But I was watching that last week,
and even he seemed a little you know, me as
a interest as they come, but even he seemed a
little a little nervous.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
You know, Well Robert is a very controlled person, but
with an amazing sense of humor. I got to add,
but but I know he was he was good. He
was he was fine. I think he just was really
he wanted to He'd been wanting to do this for
a long time, is what it was. Is we been
trying to get together for years and it finally happened.
(50:32):
And maybe that that showed, you.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
Know, seeing you guys, do I think it's NYC And
why that hasn't like just insane opening riff?
Speaker 2 (50:40):
It didn't really really how did he come up with that?
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
He's insane and he's like, you know, I haven't done
this in forty something year, you know, just like oh this,
that's the level of his genius, is that he's just
these things are just coming out of them. You know.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
He's unbelievable, is what he is.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
If I wrote that riff, I would never stop playing it.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
He just was up with that ship. That's just another
riff for you know, were you into King Crimson?
Speaker 1 (51:08):
In the day.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
Oh yeah, yeah, I was very much into that to
his version of progressive rock. Well, I was into him.
This is what I was into. I mean, you know,
we did do red From on the show, and I'm
so proud of my band. They just played that now.
Roberts said, I have never been in any organization that
(51:30):
ever played that song that it didn't take at least
three days to learn it. And these guys just play it.
They just listened to it at home by themselves. We
got together and we played the Motherbucker, you know. I mean,
it's one band I got, but that comes you know,
my love for King Crimson comes from back then. The
Lark's tungun aspect and all that stuff. I mean I heard,
(51:51):
I heard the power and the soul in it, and
I heard the the Stravinsky in it. I heard everything
in it. I think that he's a very unique musician.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
I don't want to keep it too much longer, but
I do want to return to I feel like maybe
I glossed over Christopher Bond. We mentioned him a couple
of times during the conversation, so he comes in in
during the band in lunchonette. Was it a reef that
brought him in.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
No, he was. He's a Philly guy. He was. He
was in our band, John and I had our little quartet,
and he was. He was. He was one of the guys.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
He was in your bad. I didn't realize he was
in yeah in the in the beginning, Yeah, someone else
from Philly. I was just scurious what happened to Jim Hellner,
who was the drummer Gulliver played on Whole Oats incredible
drum parts on that record.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
I know it was good. I lost track of Jim.
I lost track of all those guys. I know Tim
Moore he was, he was a songwriter, guitar player. He
was a woodstock. That's all I know. But I don't
know anything. I have no idea what happened to Jim.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Just wander well, I have you. I just that always
bugged me. Just did into what happened to him.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Definitely the first person ever asked me about Jim mill
Which is cool.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
Just bat and clean up here. I do want to
ask you about G. E. Smith too. How important do
you feel he was to that version of Holland Oates.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
I think he added his very large personality to things.
I think that his guitar work on the records that
he played on on holl Ofotes Records, Well, it was
really really exceptional, I did. I think he did a
lot of things that were really amazing. He didn't get
the way he added the ge sound to it, you know.
(53:33):
I mean, I'm again a great guitar.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
Player, and that the ge sound wasn't really you know,
a thing that I'd been on records like that before,
you know. I mean, you guys really were the first
to get him like that. Yeah, oh, give me.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
A brand new He was straight out of He's from Stroudsburgh, Pennsylvania. Yeah, yeah,
and I met him when he had just moved out
of there.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
Basically, did you just let him go or was there
much shaping? Would you talk through parts with him?
Speaker 2 (54:01):
Or I'd let him go, but I would let him
go within a controlled situation, you know, I mean and
tell him what I thought. And if he did something
I didn't like, I'd say tell him that too. You know.
He usually did the right thing.
Speaker 1 (54:14):
Is that a good relationship overall?
Speaker 2 (54:16):
Or we had a we had a Leslie good relationship
because he's he's uh, he's a strange guy.
Speaker 1 (54:23):
Man.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
I mean, he I don't know how to put it. Personality,
his personality of mine weren't exactly in line. That's the
best way I'll put it. I could put it.
Speaker 1 (54:35):
I think that's a way that everyone can understand. Yeah,
it doesn't diminish the talent. Yeah, at this point, set
list wise, when you go do dates, how are you
picking a set list?
Speaker 2 (54:47):
I do a little. Well, I'm I'm going to try
and emphasize the d album, but I think I'm going
to do about four songs from that. That's that's that's
my plan. Well, I'm already I've already been doing that.
And uh, other than that, I play things from whatever,
you know, from whatever my history is. And there's certain
(55:11):
songs that you have to play. I mean I have
to play Sarah Smile, which is fine with me. You know.
I mix it up. I play Philly Mood, I play
all kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
Well, Daryl Hall, thank you so much for talking about
all of this. I mean, it's a hell of a
musical history. So I mean, thank you well, thanks for
having me man. In episode description, you'll find a link
to a playlist of our favorite Darryl Hall tracks. Be
sure to check out YouTube dot com, slash Broken Record
to see all of our video interviews and be sure
(55:44):
to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod.
You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken
Record is produced by Leah Rose with marketing help from
Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tollinday.
Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you
love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to
(56:05):
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And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate,
and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's
by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.
Pushkin. Dare I say? Daryl Hall is one of the
great pop songwriters of our time, as half of the
duo Hall and Notes, who was all over the charts
in the seventies and eighties from Sarah Smile to Rich
Girl to You Make My Dreams and Man Eater, But
beyond the hits and the pop chart is a gifted,
(00:35):
soulful writer and player of all sorts of songs. In
this episode of Broken Record, I talked with Daryl Hall
about his early days entrenched in Phillies arm b scene,
his stint on Electra records with his band Gulliver that
found him being label mates with The Doors, how he
wrote classics like She's Gone Off, Abandoned, Lechonette, his partially
shelved album with Robert Fripp, and his latest album d
(00:57):
a collaboration between him and Dave Stewart of The Rhythmics.
This is Broken Record, real musicians, real conversations. This episode
is brought to you by Defender, a vehicle engineered to
meet challenges head on so you can explore with confidence.
Adventure Seekers and risk takers can explore the full Defender
(01:19):
lineup at land ROVERUSA dot com. Here's my conversation with
Daryl Hall. How you doing, I'm doing well. How are you?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I'm doing Okay? I overworked. I'm overworked, but I'm good.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
You got it. You gotta take some time to relax.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah. One I'd like to know when that is.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Do you do you find being busy or not having
it enough to do impacts your songwriting, your creativity.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, it's a funny thing. I'm either too busy or
I'm champion at the bit. It's one or the other.
I'm either sitting here reading my book and go on,
oh fuck, you know what am I doing? Or I'm
overworked and I'm might pull my hair out.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
You know what books do you typically read?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Oh? I read depending on my you know, if I
just want to relax, I read, you know, like Michael
Connolly books and things like that, James L. Roy, you know.
But you know I read for information. I read constantly.
Is what I do?
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Is fiction a source of inspiration for you at all?
And when it comes to music, who.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Writing is a source of inspiration? A turn of phrase,
I might twist it around my own way, adapt it
to something I'm thinking about, use it in a song.
I do that all the time. I hardly ever, actually
basically never pull something directly from an author, but I'll
use it in some form that is part of the
(02:52):
expression that I'm trying to achieve in a verse or
even maybe sometimes in a chorus.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Is there an example that comes to mind? Oh?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, like say it is it? So that's an obvious one,
you know, It's just part of my And also I
log it in my head. I might read a phrase
and remember it. At some point, it'll come back to
me as i'm as I'm looking for looking for something
in a lyric.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
How often do you listen to music?
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I am not a good audience. I don't really listen
to music. I make it. You know. I have so
much music in my head that I really don't care
to hear things for what for pleasure? I guess you'd
call it. I mean I hear I listen for information. Occasionally,
I hear things, you know, if I'm if I'm in
(03:46):
out and about and I hear something come on, I
might log in my head and listen to it, say oh,
that's pretty good, that kind of thing. But I don't
sit around and listen to the radio. I don't, like
I said, I'm not a very good audience around.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
When did you hit that saturation point where you're like,
I have enough music in my head that I don't
need to sit around listening anymore.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
It's hard to say, you know, I was when I
was a kid and a teenager or whatever, I was
a sponge. You know. All I did was was collect
records and listen to records and do it all that
kind of thing. I don't know. I guess it was
after a while where this became a way of life
and experiences and music in general and life experiences started
(04:28):
building in my head. That's when I stopped listening outside
of well I needed sometimes obviously with a life from
Darrels House, I listened to I listened to an artist
that's going to be on the show, and I listened
to their work and I try to get it inside
their head and figure out how they work. And in
that case, I am an audience. But I'm quite sure
(04:50):
when that all started happening.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Because like when you were a young kid, used to
hang out at like what wdas and just I was.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
A freak for music. I was the ultimate audience. I
listened to everything I was. I used to just hang
out at wdas and in the Uptep Theater places like that.
I mean I just lived there, literally lived there.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
What was it like getting signed to Elektra early on?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Well, Jack Holtzman was pretty cool. I have to say
I liked him. I was doing, you know, working at
Sigma Sound at Philly, and there was sort of an
offshoot of side men and a producer named Tommy Sellers
that we after hours. He asked me if I wanted
to join in, and we used to you know, kind
(05:39):
of come up with songs and do whatever. And we
got a body of work together. And then this fellow
that we all worked for named John Madera. He wrote
that the hop that's who he is. He wrote, you
don't own Me, you know. He wrote those kind of
songs from a real old school Philly and he started
shopping this group of songs around and Electra bit and
(06:03):
they called it Gulliver And it wasn't a band at all.
It was just a bunch of we were just writing songs.
So I kind of went up there. It was my
first experience outside of Philly working with or being involved
in sort of a New York a a big label.
You know. The doors were what Electra and everything and
It was an experience and interesting, but I wasn't really,
(06:25):
it wasn't real. It wasn't honest. I wasn't trying to
shop my work or a band that I was working
with or anything like that. So it was kind of
kind of a phony situation really.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
But you did you get to meet Jack Oldsman who
ran Electra.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
He was in those days. Man, those kind of guys
were very hands on. Amah was the same. Absolutely. I
was in used to hang out not a lot, but
I used to be in Jack Holtsman office and he
was really a nice guy. I have to say.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
But you didn't write any tunes for that for that record?
Correct Or am I wrong?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
I actually did every Day is a Lovely Day? They
was called something like that. But I didn't. My heart
wasn't in it. I was just doing it, you know.
It was wasn't really. I was doing a lot of
things to try and basically get in the quote business
and do things for money. You know. I was doing commercials.
I was I was doing Cidebend stuff. I was working
(07:22):
with the game on Hugh team, playing on records with
those guys. I was doing anything I could do really
to make a few bucks and that electric thing was
part of that whole scene, you know, and I was
sort of trying to find myself, to tell you the truth.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
By the time you get to Whole Oats, does that
start to feel like this is actually what I want
to do and this isn't just a way to get in.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
It was a way to get in, but it was
It was a little of both. I had met John
in school in Temple University, and I needed a roommate.
We were both sort of suburban, not we weren't suburban,
that's the wrong word, but we live we lived out
of town, and so I started sharing apartments with him,
and we always did things separately. I think that's the
(08:14):
whole mark of anything I ever did with Jhon Oates.
He had his own world. I have my own world,
and proximity pulled us together more than anything, even in
those days. So we decided, I remember the words, I said,
let's you know what, We'll share the stage. You do
your thing, I do my thing. And that was how
(08:37):
the Whole Oats thing happened. Because on the mailbox it's
their hall and Oates and we turned it into Whole Oats,
you know, really really creative, and we used to play
around Philly in these little places. There was a place
called World Control Headquarters that held about eighty people, and
we became fixtures there and we got and we started
(08:59):
getting a following, and then we'd play other places that
were similar and we started doing that, and that was
how the whole relationship with Oats got started, by doing
that and people enjoying it what we were doing, and
then we started looking around from record deal after that.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Did you recognize at the time what working with like
in a Reef Martin meant?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Absolutely? Because I was used to working with Tommy Bell
and one up, so I knew what good shit was.
I knew immediately that a Reef was something special. I
mean I was. I was familiar with his work first
of all. I mean, you know, he'd go from Carly
Simon to Aretha to Me to to you know, even
name it, to all these folk bands, all kinds of things.
(09:47):
He taught me fluency in a lot of musical languages.
I think I really learned that for the first time
from him. Before that, I was more like just straight
out in Philadelphia, you know, or at least by version
of it.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
What was his impression of your songs?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
He said that I reminded him of an English composer
that I can never remember the name. There was an
obscure English composer and it was something about what that
that was his frame of reference. But he saw something
in me that I think other people hadn't seen yet.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Did that encourage you at the time? Scare you?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
It didn't scare me, but it encouraged me because he again,
he was he was an encourager. So he tried to
bring it out. He tried to he tried to give
me confidence. He egged me on, and he was a cheerleader,
you know he was. He had a great sense of
you Bert too. But he kind of made me feel
legitimate in what I was, in what I was thinking
(10:47):
about and doing, and and to be unafraid to do things.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Do you remember an album like Abandoned Lunchonette, which is
the second Hollan Oats record he was He worked with
you guys on also the songs themselves sound leaps and
bounds more evolved past whole Oats, But then also just
the way that they were put together or the way
that they were arranged or orchestrated, and how much of
(11:14):
that was just you guys? Progressing as artists and you
progressing as an artist, Daryl, and how much of that
was working with a Reef and seeing the potential and
the songs that you were writing.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
The Whole Oats album was this grab bag of songs
that John Oates and I had written over the years,
like we were still in high school and college. You know,
we decided we were going to put him down one record.
To me, the Whole Oats record was it was a
Whole of Oats demo. It wasn't really a record. It
(11:47):
was in record form. It was sold as a record,
but it wasn't a record. It wasn't a thought, a band,
a luncheon that in my opinion, was our first record
and at the times dictated that kind of production. You know.
I think the involvement of a guy named Chris Bond,
Christopher Bond, was where it can't be discounted with it
(12:07):
because he he was a budding producer himself, and he
was unlike me or Reef, he was he was totally
a beatlemaniac, you know, and and I think he was
influenced by that kind of late late period beatle music
and you can always hear it in the songs where
there'll be whatever I'm doing or Ease is doing, and
(12:30):
then suddenly this kind of beatless thing will be attached
to it, you know, which bugs me a type of truth.
But I think if I don't know if it enhanced
the album, but I am very proud of that album,
and it was I think, I think the body of
work was really interesting. I think I consider it to
be the first Hall of Notes record, and maybe one
of the only real Hall of Notes records. What makes
(12:52):
you say that because we didn't really work together that
much after that we did that record, and then I
and then.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
I we did do that record with war Maybes album
Todd Rundgren that was basically being Todd, you know, and
then after that it really got very separate, where John
wrote some songs that he'd sing.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Them, you'd hear them one there, and his voice would
be the lead singer, and then I wrote whatever I wrote,
and that was that was the majority of it, and
that that that idea that continued all the way through
our career.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Really, so seventy two seventy three abandoned lunch and that
you guys are working actually together. What was it about
that time that allowed that to unfold that way.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I think a lot I had to do with we
were new It was us against the world because we
were still really kids, just out of college, and we
were sharing apartments and we moved in we moved from
Philly to New York, and we shared an apartment. We
were in the same house. So it was kind of
hard to not collaborate because you know, I'd be doing
something i'd he'd hear it, or he'd be doing like
(14:01):
She's Gone, for example, which is a real Hall had
notes song fifty to fifty all the way. He was
playing that kind of chorus riff, like a folky riff,
and I said, well, that's cool, that's kind of interesting,
and I sat down on the piano and I want
you know, you know, you know, I did that, and
(14:23):
that turned into She's Gone, and then we we wrote
the lyrics together, so that was a real hollan Old song.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Well you guys, proud of that song when you at
the time. I mean that is still to this day.
It's just a jaw dropper.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I'm newing it was good, but I okay. And then
we took that to a reef and talk abat jaw
drop his jaw dropped and I was just playing it
on a Fender Rhoads, And he's the one that came
up with that. And you know all about the progression
at the end of the song, which is really off
(14:58):
the wall, really and that, but that was his idea completely.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
That's interesting because that progression sounds almost like almost feels
like a signature at least of yours. Like I feel
like I that change that step up. I'm just shocked
that that came from him.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Well, I learned it from him and decided it was
a good idea.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Because that's one of those moments you're listening to that
you're like, oh, there's the hollow notes that I think
the majority of people think of when they think hallo notes,
you know, just a casual listener.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
I have a mixed feelings about modulation, but I like it.
Sometimes it's really effective. I think the She's Gone kind
of song. More more recently, I don't use so much
modulation anymore.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Why is that what causes the mixed.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
No, I just changed. My taste changed.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
It's not an intellectual thing, now.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
You know what it is to many too many shitty
songs modulated. A modulation is a trick to take something
mediocre and make it sound like it's better than it is.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
In a lot of cases, was there ever the thought
after abandon Lunchinette to do something more on your own?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
That's what I decided that I wanted. It's a strange
thing I started for getting that sort of Okay, I
want to go out there and do this on myself
at that period of time, but I was in an
environment with people who did not want to hear about it,
and they did everything they could over all those years
(16:30):
to stop me and stop my impulses to do that
and try and keep me He'd be aligned if you
want the truth to be, and keep me doing what
they were making money from.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Was that label pressure?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
It was label management everything.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
When did your relationship with Tommy Mottola start?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
It started back around that whole Oats period. Really. He
was working in Chapel Music and he had an office
the size of the closet, and we went up there
with John Madeira and we were doing something I don't
even know why. I guess John was trying and the
Lisa's lease is publishing or something, and I got started
(17:14):
talking to Tommy, and Tommy wanted to be a manager.
You know he had big ambitions, and I guess he
heard me play something or whatever, and he said, why
don't you you you don't want to stay in Philadelphia,
wants to let me manage it. And I went, well,
that's interesting, okay, sure, And he kept me laughing for
(17:34):
about fifteen years and then I woke up.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
When you write a song like Gino on the White album,
that's about Tommy.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Matola, right, I was speaking truth right there.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Did he find that funny at the time or.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
He acted like he was he thought it was funny.
I assume he was smart enough to realize what it
was about.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
How'd you come up with the course on that? That's
such a.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Strange used to say shit like that, hard works being
something you know and lift fast. I laughing, That's all
he did, just laugh all the time. No, no herd
of masking, nothing for nothing, and that's straight out of
his mouth.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
We'll be right back with more from Daryl Hall after
the break. I want to talk about Todd run Gren
and David Foster, because you do War Babies with Todd
run Gren, you do a couple of records with David Foster.
To hear you say that a reef kind of opens
you up and allows you to sort of put all
(18:36):
these different styles and kinds of music together. Makes sense
to me because it's very hard to make sense of
your career in the sense of it's so broad. It's
I mean, you make a record with the Reef, David Foster,
Todd Rundgren, Robert Fripp. I mean, like, it's just it's
it's insane, it's different, it's incredible.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Well, first of all, I I, as you can imagine,
I'm an adventurous soul and I and I'm not afraid.
I like to try things. I like to expand myself.
I like to put myself in sometimes uncomfortable situations, but
usually just in creatively, creatively exciting situations and see what
comes out of it. Todd was the first one that
(19:17):
I did like that. I mean, I have very mixed
feelings about the War Babies album. I mean, I think
there was a lot of great ideas on it. To me,
it sounds like squirrels on acid. I mean, I you know,
it's just sorry. You know, people talk about that album
like and I go, okay, well glad you like it.
But at least it was an attempt to break out
(19:39):
of something and be open to the world, be open
to the musical world. And I tried to keep that attitude.
And I certainly kept that attitude when I worked with Robert,
and that was the point, except that I was more
controlled within that. And I think what I did with
Robert was I was very happy with. And David Foster
(20:00):
that was another one that it was kind of suggested.
David was twenty two years old when I met him,
and he had done some things with Chicago. I think
we were the first bands that here were really produced.
We butted heads, but at the same time, I think
there was a lot of respect going on there and
on both sides, and we did we did some interesting things.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
When you're in a situation like that and you and
Oates maybe aren't as strong as a partnership as you
could be, and then and you're sort of button heads
with the producer also, that's gotta feel kind that's got
to be a bit isolating.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah, well, I mean again, it was I was dealing
with it like it was my show, and it was
the principal characters was being the producers. And I knew
what I wanted, I knew what I wanted to do,
and a guy like David. He's a he's a he
comes from the autocratic school where he's a great musician,
(21:00):
and he wants people to do it his way, and
I don't necessarily agree with that.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
All the time you mentioned you were really happy with
the Robert Frue record, it blew my mind. I looked
back at the dates, and you guys recorded that the
month after he wraps Heroes with David Powe, and then
he's in the sudo with you the next month, and
you guys are making what's your first solo record?
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I met Robert and uh. I was actually playing a
gig in Toronto, and Robert happened to be there and
he came backstage and we instantly clicked. And he was
right at the time going to he was very involved
with in the gurgiaf philosophy thing, you know, and and
he was going away to retreat and he said, I'm
(21:50):
going to you know, this is Robert's way. I'm going
to away to retreat for about six months, and then
when we come back, why don't you and I get
together and make some music together. And I said, sure, okay,
this sounds good. And he decided he was going to
move to New York City after the Gurgiaff thing and
sort of immerse himself in New York and that's what
(22:13):
Heroes happened and all that. And he and I started
paling around together really, and we recorded the Sacred Songs album.
I had a few songs and some of the songs
we recorded on the spot and just made up with
the spot and we did it in town in New York.
And then he said, Okay, well I want to make
a record. Let's do the same thing for my record.
(22:36):
So we made a record that became Exposure Robert record
called Exposure. And that was my first setback because we
recorded and wrote the songs together, and my label said
that they wouldn't allow me to use my vocals on
the record. I finally got them to let me use
(22:57):
I think two or three, and he had the task
of trying to find someone or people and who could
copy or have some kind of reasonable try to copy
the vocals that I had come up with on the record,
which luckily he found some people who were pretty good
(23:18):
to do it. But Mayam, was it frustrating. I realized
that I was really in trouble, that I was really
being locked into something that I didn't see having an
happy ending.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
It's wild that you say that, because it from the outside,
it doesn't trucking.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Keep on trucking. I had no choice. And here's the thing.
Not only did I keep on trucking because Robert was saying, Okay,
let's put a band together and start doing this for real.
And then suddenly I had a commitment to our cia,
to Gwin. And that's when Voices album happened, and the
whole fucking world blew up for Hall of Oates, and
(23:57):
then I was really stuck in the groove with the
situation I was in.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Did you hear any of that stuff he had been
doing with Bowie that Frip had been doing with Bowie
around that time?
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah? Sure, I was pretty familiar with with that whole scene.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
I knew Brian, you know, and and uh and and
Robert and I got to know Peter Gabriel and I
worked with lou Reid and we actually hold us believe
it or not, we opened for a tour, a lou
Reed tour you did, so it's hard to believe what
we did. Yeah, and uh, and I knew David and
uh so, I mean, yeah, I'm much familiar with all
(24:33):
this stuff that was going on, right.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Because you guys opened for David Bowie too around seventy
two ish, really early.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
How was lou Reid on the tour?
Speaker 2 (24:46):
He was? It was the Sally Can't Dance No More tour,
I Can't dance no More? Uh yeah, And uh he
was strange, man. I mean, it's to say that, it's
just to be obvious. I lou was. Lou Is a
very unusual man, and I kind of liked him. I
(25:06):
liked I like this attitude. I liked the he was.
He just didn't give a fuck. You know, he was
a curmudgeon. But yet he wasn't you know. There was
a lot going on with lou Reid that I think
more than people even realize. And I wound up living
in New York City. I live next door to him,
So I mean, not only was I did I go
(25:28):
on tour with it, but I used to see him
walking his dog and things like that. And I wouldn't
say he was a friendly man, but you know.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Would you talk though, would you you know, keep a cordial.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
And he's like I'd say something to me, go, how
you doing?
Speaker 1 (25:45):
What do you make of a songwriting?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I was. I was just with Dave Stewart, and Dave
Stewart has a book of Lou Reed's lyrics, and I
was in between doing stuff that we were doing. This
just happened last week and I started reading his lyrics
and the early stuff, the de velovet stuff. I mean,
it's good, it's it's just it's it's completely different than
(26:07):
anybody else. I mean, you take a song like I
don't Know, Sister Ray or something like that. I mean,
the words are just amazing. It's like it's a slice
of life, but ugly life and a fucked up life.
But it's you know, he he managed to create a
mood that was based on something that really was and
(26:28):
I respect him.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I thought about him a bit when I was listening
back through your records because with Lou it always felt
like there was he knew how to write a pop
song and just subverted it out of it, you know,
and it felt like you could do either thing, Like
it felt like you could write the perfect pop song,
you could write the most subversive weird thing. With Robert Free,
(26:53):
i mean it's like and everything in between, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, I mean that's that describes by the way my
brain works I can. I can do it go both ways,
you know, or a lot of ways. I always say,
I speak a lot of musical languages. Yeah, do you remember?
Do you remember any of water Wheel? I remember, but
I would never be able to sing it because my
(27:17):
voice saying near that high anymore? Man, I hear you
call me that I wrote that. I was just out
of high school when I wrote that. You know the
Philly scene it was. It was a really strange thing.
There was a big folk scene going on too, and
I heard I heard something that made me want to
(27:39):
write that. I don't remember what it was, and it
was it was basically written in that tradition, and it
was certainly different than anything I was doing. When I say,
working with game.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
On of some It's interesting how nostalgic you can be
just out of high school.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Yeah, I know. I think all these songs I wrote,
I seem to be obsessed with writing songs about nostalgia
and being older and all that when I was just
a kid. I don't know why I thought that way,
don't ask me.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, but to be able to write a song like
water Wheel wasn't a hit, but sounds in so many
ways like a perfect pop song from that era of
when songs sounded like that. Then to be able to
go and do something like you know, I mean just
United State, you know, on voices, and then to do
(28:33):
I mean one of my favorites like I'm in a
Philly mood, you know, in like ninety three ninety four.
I mean that you have that kind of a range
and can write in all of these various styles, these
things that are just like deep and incredible. Is something else?
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, well, I mean I won't ask me why I
can do that, but I seem to have the ability
to do it. My ears are open and I have
I have that facility. I guess I would never be
able to explain that.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
And by the way, you just want to say you
put your voice down. But I watched the The Frip
live at Daryl's house, you and Robert Fripp and your
version of NYC and why that you did probably what
just two years ago sounds better than the record still
do that. We should talk about Dave Stewart because you
(29:26):
did a record with him in the eighties. I think
your third or second solo record. You guys just did
a record together last year. D How did you guys
come together.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Like many thinks, I met him. I just met him.
Somebody introduced me to him and they said, actually, somebody
said that you guys should get together. I think you
enjoy each other's company. And he was I've lived in
London for a lot of time. I don't live there
right now, but I for years and years I lived
in London. So I went up to his house at
(29:58):
the time, he was living up in made of Vale,
and I went in and we immediately started. I mean
I literally went into his house. He says, come downstairs,
and we started writing a all. That was the way
I met Dave Stewart. We've been friends ever since. You know,
we just get along. I don't know what it is.
And he makes me feel creatively. He's a very stimulating person.
(30:21):
He makes me feel alive. He's a gigantic bundle of energy.
And he's extremely smart and extremely full of ideas, like
I can't even tell you heaven and it never stops
with him, and I don't know, he's just fun to
be with and and so over the years we've we
(30:42):
made that record, we made the Three Hearts album and
I have a great time doing it. And then over
the years we've we've written a few things and done
things together, and he's played on some of the records
and done things with him. And more recently, I told
him about the place I live in the Bahamas and
he wound up buying a house down there, so we're
(31:05):
neighbors now. On top of it all, you know, it's family.
It's really come family with them.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
You might have figured out the life if you're moving
between New York, London and the bas that's a good triangle.
This might be the perfect triangle. His stuff with the
rhythmics is I mean his stuff in general, but I
mean that rhythmic stuff. To this day, I've been revisiting
it because I've been playing it for my kids, and
(31:32):
that stuff's mind blowing. Still.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
He wrote those songs you don't Yeah, And that's his productions.
And he's a great singer by the way, which doesn't
hurt you know. She sang the ship out of that stuff.
And yeah, I mean he he has a great body
of work.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
The sounds you guys got on the new record, like
the I mean the whole World's Better. Yeah, beautiful sound.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah, that song I love. I love playing that. Recently
in my latest tours, I'm starting the show with that
because there's just something about it. Then, you know, when
you just bang that thing out, you know that you
(32:16):
know it just wow, it just makes you stand up.
That song. I wrote that song about one subject and
I had most of that song and then it turned
into something else and it became anthemic, and that was
Dave's idea to put the you know, you know in
(32:38):
the end, and we just had people come in, friends
from the from the island, They come in and sang,
so it became a real communal, athemic kind of song.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
What was what was the song originally about?
Speaker 2 (32:50):
It was about like many of my songs, I had
a very tempestuous relationship with the with the my late
wife and I don't know, she was so moody with
what I would hear her singing in the kitchen. Everything
got better. That's where it started.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Is there an early version of that that you can
share a bit of.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
No, not really, because I had the chorus and that's
when that was. That was the original, and then I
had I had the chords of the song, but I
didn't have the words, and that's when it turned into
something else. You know, When when I was with Dave
and I had a melody without any words to go
with it, and and that we you know, I wrote
(33:35):
with his major help. I wrote the lyrics.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Would would you mind giving us a little of the
choruses because they gave us a bit and it's it's
too good to the choruses.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
When you snots again or when use nuts again?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Here it is.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
It's a moving song. It's a moving song. You know.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
It comes from a real emotion. Everything comes from something real.
And people ask me, what you know, your new new
musician in the world, what do you do? I said,
you got to believe it, you gotta you gotta live it.
You got it's got to be something that almost makes
you makes you want to cry inside, or does make
you cry inside?
Speaker 3 (34:25):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Just me playing that, I just got a feeling in
my throat because it brought back the memories of when
I wrote it. Uh yeah like that?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah? You know you mentioned your late wife Sarah Allen
Jena Allen were incredible inspirations and collaborators crowded Doubt along
your career, both Sarah and Jana.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
They played such a large part in the song from
the eighties Jada originated in private eyes. I mean and
she originated kiss on My List. I mean things like that.
We I mean they were complete collaborations and Sarah it
was it is a really good lyric really good lyricist.
Did she contributed a lot?
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Did they figure how to channel that from being around you?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Or I think so? I don't know if I just
gave it off. I mean there were both musical people,
and especially Jana. I mean, Janna is a guitar player
and a singer and all that. Sandy is a singer,
but you know, more just a music lover. And yeah,
I think proximity had to do with it. And I
don't know, something rubbed off and they just came up
(35:38):
with really good ideas and they would throw them out
and just to compliment things really add to the quality
of whatever it is that I was coming up with.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
How would Janna bring like a private eyes to you?
Speaker 2 (35:50):
She actually made a demo of that. The chorus was there,
but then I kind of fleshed out the verses. I
changed either that's a pretty complicated chord progression, all the chords,
and so that had to do with me and I
was doing that, but she came up with privatized Why
shouldn't you you removed. She she came up with that.
(36:11):
That was sir.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Can you play through a bit of those that chord
progression you were?
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Okay, let's see here. I can't believe that.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
I have to think about it, watching you, watching you,
watch and watching you, watching you, watching you.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Man. So she had those chords or she.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Came up with the chords. Well, okay, uh, watching you
watching you? That's me, you can tell right, I read
that she but her was a ship. She came up
with that.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Wow, what a gift.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
Yeah, well she had one, and talk about you know,
I don't know man's tragedy sometimes. I mean, she died,
really she died. She got the leukemia and died. She
was thirty nine years old and I'm still misser.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Did that impact you and Sarah are working together? Oh?
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Sarah was my But did it impact it? I can't
say it didn't. It kind of put disruption in our family.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah, that kind of personal stuff. Would you put that
into music?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
I do all the time. I'm not afraid to put
it all out there. The most obvious one is the
one that the album and the new album. I'd rather
be a fool, I mean, soar the end of that song.
I'm just saying it.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
When you put something like that down, does it ever
give you pause?
Speaker 2 (37:54):
I'm not afraid I put my emotions right out there
rather be a fool. It's a very direct version of that.
You can't look at my music without here and the
reality of it. It's just it's all in there.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Does it ever caused maybe not problems. Has it ever
caused friction with people that you're close to.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
I think I've made some people sad. I'm saying that
with a smirk of my face, which is terrible, so
I don't feel smirky about it. But I don't know.
I mean, the truth arts sometimes, and that doesn't mean
you can't speak the truth.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
I had a conversation with Michael McDonald about a year ago,
maybe a year and a half ago, and he told
a story about I think it was I can't remember
which Doobe's record it was now, but one of the
records wasn't doing so well, and one of the black
an hours at Warner said like, this should go on,
(38:54):
this should go on black radio, you know, living on
the fault line, that's what it was, and sending a
black radio. Black radio loved it and kind of saved
that version of the band. But it occurred to me, like,
you know, like the Doobies, there's a lot, there was
a number of groups like that that they they kind
of got eventually pigeonholed as yacht rock. But really what
(39:15):
it was was just they were just R and B guys.
They're just making R and B records, and they were white,
and so.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
This is something I don't understand. First of all, yacht
rock was a fucking joke by two jerk offs in California,
and suddenly it became a genre and I don't even
understand it. I never understood it. And I totally, man,
I'm glad you say that it's just R and B.
It's just another with some maybe some jazz in there.
(39:43):
It's mellow R and B. It's it's it's it's it's
smooth R and B. Yeah, I don't see what the
yacht part is.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Yeah, but it seemed like, you know, it seemed like
like with the Doobies, for instance, like they like because
they were white guys, they didn't know where to not
all of them, but the majority of Michael McDonald's white,
and it's like they didn't know where to put it.
It's like, well, I can't go on Black Bead because
the guys aren't black. But you know, the white audience
they want to hear, you know, whatever they want. But
it doesn't feel like you guys necessarily ever had that issue.
(40:15):
From my vantage point, I don't know if you feel
that way.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
I was more of a pioneer. I mean my music.
When I was I had a group called the Tenttones,
and and and I had a you know, pretty like
a top twenty hit in Philadelphia, you know, one w
Das and and Sarah's Smile broke on on on R
and B on on black radio. It had to make
its way to pop radio. That's how Hollanolds started. That
(40:40):
was that's our origins. And uh, people misjudged us and
and and and uh because they couldn't label us, and
they always they came up with all this kind of
crab soft rock and yacht rock and all this other nonsense.
And none of the none of it really describes anything
that I do, really, yeah, or doesn't describe it any
(41:01):
anybody does.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
I didn't realize sarah Smile broke on on black radio first, Yeah, out.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Of out of Ohio RB station in Ohio not Dayton,
but some place like that. Uh, and then it spread
through the ARMBA charts, and it wasn't until after it
was a it was a gigantic record in the arm
BAT charts that it went to. Uh pop radio makes sense.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
I mean that is that is a hell of a
soulful record. And listening to a recently, I've always played guitar,
so I was always taken by the guitar part, and
I love vocals, so I was always thinking about the vocal.
Hadn't paid proper attention to the bass till recently. But
I think it was Leland scar on there.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
I think it was.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
The guy that played that amazing guitar solo was Christopher
Bond and that is one of the most beautiful, amazing
introduction guitar solos ever written.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
It really is. I mean, the notes played, in the
way it's played, that the way he approaches it.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
What an amazing guy. He was a very unusual guy.
He's unfortunately that's anymore.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Your vocal runs on there too, are I mean, just
your your choices vocally are I mean?
Speaker 2 (42:09):
And I would just be in again just I don't
know that that can that that was a real that
was reality man. I wrote that song like a postcard
the Sandy Sarah Allen and oh there it is.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Yeah, we'll be back with the rest of my conversation
with Daryl Hall. How would you approach in the studio
like a song like a loan just thinking of that
album now, like a loone too Long? That was it?
That's a John song, right, that's a John song. How
much would you involve yourself with John songs? I guess
(42:43):
you know.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
I would do all all the backgrounds and everything. I
would fletch out. John would have the song, uh, and
this goes with any of his songs, so that the
world on a whole of this record like had I
Known You Better Than or something like that, and and
and Alone Too Long? And I would come up with
a vocal arrangement that would accompany his song, and and
(43:05):
do all the parts singing. If it was a three
part harm I'd sing three parts. And I mean, when
you listen to all of its records, that's all me singing.
Like kiss on my lists, that's all me sing in
the backgrounds. Occasionally John would sing apart on a record,
and sometimes he would I would sing the parts and
then tell him to sing over one of the parts.
(43:27):
That's how we did it. I mean I did it.
Excuse me?
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Was there anything in your view special about your blends?
Just the way your voices would blend.
Speaker 6 (43:36):
Well, the reason to blend, because it was all me.
If I could blend with myself, then when might you, though, decide?
John sing this? I got something for you? Sing this?
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Like?
Speaker 1 (43:49):
When would that occur to you?
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Because I wouldn't add is tambre to the to the background.
It was. It was one of those things. I mean,
John has a very.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Distinct voice, and it's not a bad voice either.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Hey I'm not putting that down. But and and on
stage you could tell we were working together. I mean
it was you wouldn't know in a million years. But
he was more of a take dictation kind of a singer,
you know, like sing this.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
I mentioned I'm in a Philly mood. That's one of
those songs that makes me wish I was actually from Philly,
which I could say I'm in a Philly mood the
whole record. But I mean that that song is incredible. Borderline,
you have a Mariah sing backgrounds on a song and
co wrote a song.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Yeah, she wrote what was that one?
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Helped me find a way.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
And the way to your heart. Yeah, yeah, that was
a sorry I wrote with Mariah Yet Philly Mood is
one of my favorite songs I ever wrote. I play
that every show. I love singing it. I like playing it.
It really describes the way I feel, the way I
felt and again the scenes that I was creating. And
boy is that real. That's a very emotional song to me,
(45:03):
kind of like Tony Bennett's I Left My Heart and
San Francisco. It's the mood man, It's that's it. Phill,
we moved.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
You worked with a couple of folks from the Family Stand,
which I feel like that group is sort of maybe
lost the time a bit.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
But they were really really cool. They were really cool.
I don't know why that didn't really stick around, you know.
They and and Peter and Jeff that's Peter Lord and
Jeff Smith. That was a really interesting combo that we
had going that was a talk about Philly Mood. You know,
Peter was really good. He egged me on, you know,
he really he brought a certain thing out of me
(45:40):
that I don't think anybody anybody else has, you know,
And I think that that sol Loan record sort of
reflects that, and he reflects the mood the thing that
he brought out in me.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Do you think you can put into words what he
brought out of you?
Speaker 2 (45:53):
No, I can't. It's it's just something that certain kind
of jazz soul thing that I occasionally do. But brought
that to the front.
Speaker 1 (46:03):
When you did. It helped me find a way heart
With Mariah. I think Emotions maybe had been a hit
at that point, but we were very familiar with her.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
Oh yeah, yeah. It was Tommy Matola's girlfriend, right, I mean,
my god, And and she actually came up with with
she came up with a chorus of that and she
and she played it for me and then I went
from there.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
So that song started with her.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Yeah, she was. She sent me that, she sent me
a tape would help me find a way to your heart,
and then I, U, I kind of enhanced it.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
I always feel like people sleep on Mariah as a songwriter,
you know, as someone who can write a song.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
I think Mariah is a very talented person, as we
all know, and but I think that they she got
into that old diva thing and and you know, with
the big voice and and all over the place voice,
and but that kind of takes away from the source
of it, you know, the fact that she can put
(47:03):
together a good song. She's she's good Man. Mariah's happening.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Yeah, were you to do any more Live from Darryl's House?
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Zach going one on Tuesday? And I'm not going to
tell you with who because I never do. But yeah,
that's that's an ongoing project. I've been doing it for
a long time, and uh, I've decided instead of doing
whole season, so I'm just going to do occasional ones,
maybe in groups of one and two, three or something
like that, and just keep adding to my YouTube channel.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
What does that add to your life, your creative life
doing that show?
Speaker 2 (47:39):
I love it. I loved Life from Darrel's House. I
love doing it is It's the most stimulating experience that
you can imagine because we don't do any rehearsing, only
the most rudimentary of do. We know what's happening, and
so everybody is completely on their toes doing it for
the first time. There's an artist in there that may
(48:01):
or may not be comfortable, and I have to make
them comfortable. Sometimes they're you know, sometimes there's especially the
the heritage artists. They're stuck in their ways and I
have to unstick them. You know. There's there's so many
things going on, and then we have those amazing you know,
conversations around dinner and the whole thing. It's an amazing experience.
(48:22):
Usually takes me two days to recover from one.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Have you ever come out of one feeling like, oh,
maybe I should maybe we could do a whole a
whole record together, you know?
Speaker 3 (48:31):
Well?
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Yeah, I mean I I I've gotten a lot of people.
I mean, what I've been doing instead of making records together,
like Okay, I'm going out on the road. Glenn Tilbrook, uh,
and that I'm going to be working with him all year.
I think off and on and he's a he's an
LFDH lift Darrel's House to alumni at this point, you know.
So I think that I came up with this idea
(48:54):
based on the how we work together that way, and
there's anumber. You know, there's a lot of artists like that.
Howard Jones is another one that I've done. Todd obviously,
I mean, that's that's what I do on stage now.
I do a version of life from Darrel's House.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
And that's maybe more because I just think I mean
that that that you can get and must especially heritage artists,
that you can get them to come and play in
that way that you do and get them comfortable, but
also sort of be on the edge a bit of
we don't exactly know what we're doing, but we know
exactly you know what we're doing. Like that's like, that's
(49:28):
that's it. I mean, you're basically producing these people, and
that's not something that I think they're always accustomed to.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
You know, I am, I am doing exactly that on
the spot, and you're right, they're people aren't accustomed to it.
Oddly enough, the brand new artists are the easiest ones
because they don't know what's going on. They're just like
puppy dogs. They're like, yeah, let's go, let's do it.
You know, you're taking a guy who's been around for
as long as me, and he's like, am I doing
the right thing here? My fucking up? You know, this
(49:56):
isn't the way I always sing this song.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
I mean, it was interesting even seeing the Fruit I
just watched it. I didn't really know that Robert Frup
had been on that. I didn't know why how I
missed that one, But I was watching that last week,
and even he seemed a little you know, me as
a interest as they come, but even he seemed a
little a little nervous.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
You know, Well Robert is a very controlled person, but
with an amazing sense of humor. I got to add,
but but I know he was he was good. He
was he was fine. I think he just was really
he wanted to He'd been wanting to do this for
a long time, is what it was. Is we been
trying to get together for years and it finally happened.
(50:32):
And maybe that that showed, you.
Speaker 1 (50:34):
Know, seeing you guys, do I think it's NYC And
why that hasn't like just insane opening riff?
Speaker 2 (50:40):
It didn't really really how did he come up with that?
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (50:47):
He's insane and he's like, you know, I haven't done
this in forty something year, you know, just like oh this,
that's the level of his genius, is that he's just
these things are just coming out of them. You know.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
He's unbelievable, is what he is.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
If I wrote that riff, I would never stop playing it.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
He just was up with that ship. That's just another
riff for you know, were you into King Crimson?
Speaker 1 (51:08):
In the day.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
Oh yeah, yeah, I was very much into that to
his version of progressive rock. Well, I was into him.
This is what I was into. I mean, you know,
we did do red From on the show, and I'm
so proud of my band. They just played that now.
Roberts said, I have never been in any organization that
(51:30):
ever played that song that it didn't take at least
three days to learn it. And these guys just play it.
They just listened to it at home by themselves. We
got together and we played the Motherbucker, you know. I mean,
it's one band I got, but that comes you know,
my love for King Crimson comes from back then. The
Lark's tungun aspect and all that stuff. I mean I heard,
(51:51):
I heard the power and the soul in it, and
I heard the the Stravinsky in it. I heard everything
in it. I think that he's a very unique musician.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
I don't want to keep it too much longer, but
I do want to return to I feel like maybe
I glossed over Christopher Bond. We mentioned him a couple
of times during the conversation, so he comes in in
during the band in lunchonette. Was it a reef that
brought him in.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
No, he was. He's a Philly guy. He was. He
was in our band, John and I had our little quartet,
and he was. He was. He was one of the guys.
Speaker 1 (52:22):
He was in your bad. I didn't realize he was
in yeah in the in the beginning, Yeah, someone else
from Philly. I was just scurious what happened to Jim Hellner,
who was the drummer Gulliver played on Whole Oats incredible
drum parts on that record.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
I know it was good. I lost track of Jim.
I lost track of all those guys. I know Tim
Moore he was, he was a songwriter, guitar player. He
was a woodstock. That's all I know. But I don't
know anything. I have no idea what happened to Jim.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Just wander well, I have you. I just that always
bugged me. Just did into what happened to him.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Definitely the first person ever asked me about Jim mill
Which is cool.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
Just bat and clean up here. I do want to
ask you about G. E. Smith too. How important do
you feel he was to that version of Holland Oates.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
I think he added his very large personality to things.
I think that his guitar work on the records that
he played on on holl Ofotes Records, Well, it was
really really exceptional, I did. I think he did a
lot of things that were really amazing. He didn't get
the way he added the ge sound to it, you know.
(53:33):
I mean, I'm again a great guitar.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
Player, and that the ge sound wasn't really you know,
a thing that I'd been on records like that before,
you know. I mean, you guys really were the first
to get him like that. Yeah, oh, give me.
Speaker 2 (53:48):
A brand new He was straight out of He's from Stroudsburgh, Pennsylvania. Yeah, yeah,
and I met him when he had just moved out
of there.
Speaker 1 (53:56):
Basically, did you just let him go or was there
much shaping? Would you talk through parts with him?
Speaker 2 (54:01):
Or I'd let him go, but I would let him
go within a controlled situation, you know, I mean and
tell him what I thought. And if he did something
I didn't like, I'd say tell him that too. You know.
He usually did the right thing.
Speaker 1 (54:14):
Is that a good relationship overall?
Speaker 2 (54:16):
Or we had a we had a Leslie good relationship
because he's he's uh, he's a strange guy.
Speaker 1 (54:23):
Man.
Speaker 2 (54:23):
I mean, he I don't know how to put it. Personality,
his personality of mine weren't exactly in line. That's the
best way I'll put it. I could put it.
Speaker 1 (54:35):
I think that's a way that everyone can understand. Yeah,
it doesn't diminish the talent. Yeah, at this point, set
list wise, when you go do dates, how are you
picking a set list?
Speaker 2 (54:47):
I do a little. Well, I'm I'm going to try
and emphasize the d album, but I think I'm going
to do about four songs from that. That's that's that's
my plan. Well, I'm already I've already been doing that.
And uh, other than that, I play things from whatever,
you know, from whatever my history is. And there's certain
(55:11):
songs that you have to play. I mean I have
to play Sarah Smile, which is fine with me. You know.
I mix it up. I play Philly Mood, I play
all kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
Well, Daryl Hall, thank you so much for talking about
all of this. I mean, it's a hell of a
musical history. So I mean, thank you well, thanks for
having me man. In episode description, you'll find a link
to a playlist of our favorite Darryl Hall tracks. Be
sure to check out YouTube dot com, slash Broken Record
to see all of our video interviews and be sure
(55:44):
to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod.
You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken
Record is produced by Leah Rose with marketing help from
Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tollinday.
Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you
love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to
(56:05):
Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers
on its content and ad free listening for four ninety
nine a month. Look for Pushing Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions.
And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate,
and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's
by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.
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