It's certainly curious that John Oates has titled his upcoming new solo album Reunion, when pretty much of the opposite of a reunion is happening with his apparently former band of 50-plus years, Hall & Oates, the most successful duo in pop history. "It's over, as far as I'm concerned. The songs will live on. They're still the soundtracks of people's lives. The two guys aren't," he says matter-of-factly when speaking with Music Times.
Oates declines to discuss his ongoing court battle with ex-bandmate Daryl Hall, saying, "It's boring. It's a bunch of lawyers jabbering back and forth and a bunch of legal minutiae, and I don't think it's that interesting." But he also never condemns Hall, stressing that his former creative partner's "contribution and his great talent is a major, major component of the fact that I'm where I am right now."
And where Oates is right now, judging by his upbeat demeanor while chatting with Music Times, is a pretty great place to be.
What the singer-songwriter is excited to discuss is Reunion, out May 17, which boasts an all-star lineup of collaborators like AJ Croce, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Béla Fleck, and Sierra Hull. The Americana record signifies an artistic rebirth now that Oates, having realized at age 76 that he "couldn't afford to waste any more time," is finally free to entirely focus on his solo career, without any lingering professional obligations to be a "good team player."
"I started thinking about how I was reuniting with my true self, with this new creative freedom that I found myself experiencing and reveling in and really enjoying, and realizing that there was a new future ahead of me," he says with a smile.
Oates understands that the more casual, early MTV-era fan probably always considered Daryl Hall the primary face and voice of Hall & Oates, but that also doesn't bother him these days. "I wouldn't say I was marginalized, but I was definitely not taken seriously. But I'm not doing this [solo music] to change that," he insists. "I am just happy to have a forum where I can be myself and let people make their own decisions about it. I always knew the kind of talent I had, but never felt I had the format to really showcase it. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing now."
Below, Oates opens up about how his 100-year-old father's ill health and an impending sense of his own mortality inspired Reunion, his new John Prine cover released this week, his amusing stint as the instantly identifiable Anteater on The Masked Singer, and what's next for him, as he happily declares, "I'm on my way to somewhere new."
We have a lot to discuss about your new album, Reunion, but before that, I want to gloat about the fact that I completely guessed that you were the Anteater on The Masked Singer last year. I clocked you from episode one! And it was so crazy that right when your season was airing, Hall & Oates's legal battle was very much in the news.
JOHN OATES: Yeah, to say that the stress level was ratcheted up would be an understatement. But I'm pretty tough and I've been around a long time, so I like to pride myself in being a professional. I do what I got to do, and I deal with what I got to deal with.
It's interesting for you to call your new album Reunion, given what's going on with your former band. What's the symbolism of that title? Is it about getting back to yourself, getting back to your roots?
Yes, quite. You're 100 percent right. The actual authentic and original inspiration was my father. My father's [age] 100. He looked like he was ready to take the next step. He was really pretty bad, and he was musing and reflecting and very melancholy, talking about reuniting with Mom who had passed away a number of years ago. And I thought about the idea of him having a reunion on a much deeper, more emotional, and more metaphysical level, I guess you'd say. And when I started thinking about it, then I started thinking about myself, and I started thinking about how I was reuniting with my true self, with this new creative freedom that I found myself experiencing and reveling in and really enjoying, and realizing that there was a new future ahead of me.
So, [the title] really had nothing really to do with what was happening with Daryl and I, but of course you can't help but try to make some connection. And I guess subtly, and maybe more than subtly, there is a connection there. But for me personally, it was really about finding my true self. ... I had no intentions of trying to lead people down an Easter-egg path or anything like that. I'm definitely not in the Taylor Swift category of leading fans on! But no, it had nothing to do with that. You couldn't help but make assumption that maybe there was something to it, but it wasn't. Maybe that's how ironically life works.
You seem on a real creative tear these days. Last year you rolled out one new single a month, and now you're releasing a full new album. Is this sort of a "one door closes, another door opens" sort of situation?
Yes, it is. What people perhaps don't realize, unless you really followed me closely, is I've been making music... this would be eight solo albums over the past 20 years. But the most important difference [with Reunion] is that every time I would do a [solo] project, it was shoehorned in between my commitment to Hall & Oates. And I was very loyal and I felt like I needed to be a good team player. I needed to be a good partner. I needed to be a good band leader and businessman, all the things that are entailed in a partnership and a collaboration. I prided myself in that, and I wanted to give myself 100 percent to it. At the same time, I had this creative tug that made me want to do something else, but I was squeezing it in with the Hall & Oates commitments, and it became very hard for me. I felt like I was leading two lives. It was like, I take one hat off and I put another hat on. So, I felt like I couldn't really commit to my solo projects and the things I really wanted to do individually.
Then I got to the point where life started dictating things to me. My father aging and ready to pass. Me becoming older, and seeing that the horizon was not that far off in the distance for me personally. And seeing my contemporaries passing away, becoming ill, not being able to perform or to create anymore, or being debilitated in some way. These things are things that you don't think about when younger, but these are things you definitely start thinking about when you're older. And I'm at that point now. I started to see this as a reality, and I couldn't afford to waste any more time. I had to commit to something where I could really be 100 percent committed and invest my energy, my time, my focus on that, because the way I looked at it, there's no more time for rehearsals for me. It's showtime every day. And that's what I needed to do, and that's what precipitated the realization that I had to commit and be 100 percent invested in me. Now, it sounds selfish, it sounds self-indulgent, maybe. But I don't care.
Am I hearing you correctly that the ending of the Hall & Oates chapter of your career coincides with these epiphanies about your life?
Absolutely. And the business issues, which are really purely, purely business issues and legal issues, just they precipitated it and they made me realize that, "OK, now I'm really being distracted and my energy and my focus and my emotions are being really siphoned away on another level." And that's not good either. And so, I needed to rectify it. I needed to solve whatever issues were points of contention and move on, and that's what I did. ... Quite frankly [discussing Hall & Oates's legal dispute] is boring. It's boring. It's a bunch of lawyers jabbering back and forth and a bunch of legal minutiae, and I don't think it's that interesting. But it was something that needed to be dealt with, and now it's being dealt with.
Well, you're in a great position of privilege. Some artists have to keep that commitment and keep touring, even if their heart's not in it or they don't get along with their bandmate, because they need to make a living. They can't afford to step away. You're so lucky that you aren't trapped in a bad situation.
Listen, I'm very cognizant of that fact, and I'm also very respectful of it. I'm very appreciative that the success of Hall & Oates has enabled me to be where I am. I don't take that for granted one iota. And Daryl Hall's contribution and his great talent is a major, major component of the fact that I'm where I am right now. I have an incredible amount of respect for the body of work that we created, which will live on and endure. And in a way, it feels like it doesn't need to be restated. I don't need to go out there and be singing those [Hall & Oates] songs again. Those songs are forever. I love the fact that people feel like they're part of the soundtrack of their lives. Well, guess what? They always will be. Whether Daryl and I are standing onstage doing it or not is immaterial to that fact. Those songs will live forever, and I'm very fortunate and very appreciative of that.
On the subject of soundtracks to people's lives, you have couple of covers on Reunion, like John Prine's "Long Monday," out this week. What made you want to do that song?
Every song on this album is intentional. There's nothing that's put on this album just on a whim. Everything has a personal connection to me. What people don't realize about John Prine is that he was making his first album at the same time Daryl and I were making our first album — in the same studio, with the same producer, at the exact same time. We would cross paths in the hallway going from his session to our session or whatever, and we used the same producer, the great Arif Mardin, one of the best producers of all time. So, there's this connection. [Prine] and I weren't that close as the years went on, but I did get to sit in with him here and there, so when I was asked to celebrate his birthday celebration at the Ryman [Auditorium, in Nashville], I was asked to do a song and I picked "Long Monday." And I just loved playing it. The reaction I got when I played it live, with John Prine's band, was amazing, and his widow Fiona came up to me after the show and said she really loved my interpretation of that song. And I thought, "Wow. OK. This means something."
Why did you cover "Dance Hall Girls" by Alan Fraser?
When I was in Europe before Daryl and I got together, we were friends, we knew each other, but we weren't working together. I came back and ["Dance Hall Girls"] was one of the first songs that lit my fire in terms of songwriting. There was something that captured me about that song. It was like 1970 or '71. I thought, "One day, I'm going to record this." Now, of course, Daryl and I immediately began to work together around that time, and that song didn't resonate with what we were trying to do; we were creating something new. But in the back of my mind, I always knew that I'd record that song one day. So, it brings me back to the immediate time prior to Daryl and I getting together. In a sense, it was an ending of a certain period of my life, which I kept way in the background but never forgot about.
When you mention intentionality, there are some originals on this album that were written years ago, even as far back as 1996. Why didn't these songs come out earlier?
Because I never had a place for them. But I never forgot those songs. And all of a sudden, I began to assemble this body of work that started to have a coherent quality. And then I went, "Oh, now's the time."
One of the newer songs, "Reunion," was written with AJ Croce, Jim's son. How did that come about? Did you know him before?
No, we had never met. In fact, here again with the concept of being intentional, I met him at the John Prine celebration at the Ryman because we were put in the same dressing room with each other! We just found ourselves together hanging out, and we started talking about old music songs from the '20s and '30s. He was describing how he inherited his father's extensive vinyl collection and how he loved all that. And I'm like, "Wow, what an interesting guy." And when I came up with the idea for "Reunion," I had some key lines, and I knew what I wanted to do, and I knew the direction I wanted to go, but I didn't have a musical framework for it. And I thought, "You know what? This guy might be the guy." And I just took a wild chance and I came to his house and I said, "I got this idea for a song. I don't know where we're going with it. Let's see what happens." And he was the right guy. He did an amazing interpretation of it, and interestingly enough, he just recorded it with his band, and he will be putting it out on an upcoming album for himself.
You've lived in Nashville for about 20 years. Did the songwriting and artist community there welcome you right away ?
I first went there in the '90s. I started going around '96, '97. A friend of mine was a songwriter and said, "You need to come to Nashville and write songs." And I thought, "OK, I'll just bang out a couple of country hits. No problem!" Well, that didn't work out too well. What I realized by going there was that really, Nashville was completely different in those days, and it was kind of like an old boys' club. It was like, "Are you really committed to this? Are you really here? Or are you just kind of this pop guy who just drops in and drops out?" What I realized was if I really wanted to be part of that musical community, I needed to be part of it and live here. So, during the early 2000s, my wife and I got an apartment, and that changed everything. ... All of a sudden I became part of the Americana Music Association. I was playing with these guys and they were lighting my fire, reigniting my fire for the folk and bluegrass and blues and acoustic music that was really my real musical DNA. And I realized what I could do was I could rediscover my past and use it as a springboard to create something new for myself in the future.
In the past decade or so, I noticed a critical turning of the tides, a new wave of long-overdue respect, for Hall & Oates. It's bit of a loaded question, but now with you being in Nashville and making all of this solo music, have you noticed a critical turning of the tide for you, specifically? Sometimes with a duo — especially if one member is primarily the lead singer, or the face of the band to the average casual fan — the other member gets short shrift.
Yeah, I think so. I'm sure the casual fan couldn't care less. Daryl's voice is so outstanding, and is so much so tied to the big hits and the imagery that MTV was so powerful to plant in people's minds during that era, that yes, someone like me... I wouldn't say I was marginalized, but I was definitely not taken seriously. But I'm not doing this [solo music] to change that. I am just happy to have a forum where I can be myself and let people make their own decisions about it. I always knew the kind of talent I had, but never felt I had the format to really showcase it. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing now.
You're a great singer as well. There's a reason why everyone recognized you at the Anteater so quickly! I recall you said doing The Masked Singer was one of your best career experiences because you could perform without any preconceptions.
That was one of my motivations for doing it. When they asked me to do it, I wasn't really sure I wanted to do it. I thought it was a little bit hokey and maybe a little cartoonish, really. But I thought, "OK, this will be this weird kind of experiment to see, because people don't really recognize my voice — at least they haven't up until maybe now." I wanted to see what was going to happen. So, it was interesting. I loved what Nicole [Scherzinger] said, and Jenny [McCarthy-Wahlberg] and the judges. They were all saying, "It sounds like home." I remember they said something like that. They said there was something about [my voice] that touched them, which was really satisfying for me.
I've never actually thought about this, but since Hall & Oates were a duo with two great, albeit different-sounding, vocalists, why did Daryl do most of the lead singing in the band?
I know exactly why. Back in the mid/early '70s, we released a couple of singles with me singing lead, and they did not connect. They did not resonate and connect with radio. The moment Daryl started singing, his voice immediately connected at radio. And once that happened, it was fait accompli. I mean, that was it. And look, you can't take anything away from that. He's one of the greatest singers of all time. I stood next to him for 50 years, so I know for a fact that he's just an amazing singer.
Yes, true, but did that rejection from radio bother you or dent your confidence? I'm reminded of Tears for Fears, who Hall & Oates once toured with. Roland Orzabal did a lot of singing for Tears for Fears, but most of their biggest hit singles were sung by Curt Smith. It's a weird situation.
Yeah, there's a lot of parallels between those two guys and Daryl and I in that regard. No, it didn't bother me. I felt like my strong point was handling a lot of the stuff that the public would never know about: production, behind the scenes, the band, the equipment, the nuts-and-bolts kind of stuff. I'm a pretty nuts-and-bolts kind of guy, and I don't mind that because I'm good at it. So, I thought, "OK, what's the best contribution I can make to making sure we're very successful?" And I think I made a huge contribution.
Yeah, obviously!
It's just not the type of contribution that the average person will ever notice or know about.
And you don't really care if people give you the credit for that?
No. My ego is not that needy!
Well, those nuts-and-bolts skills probably serve you quite well now, since you're kind of a one-man shop now. You're independent; you put out your own stuff. You're in a good position to be able to do that.
Yeah, I had a 50-year internship. [laughs]
You seem very at peace with the end of Hall & Oates. You had a long run and achieved so much — historically, commercially, critically. And you're enjoying this great new career chapter. But so many Hall & Oates fans were devastated by the breakup news. People were making jokes on the internet, saying, "Say it isn't so! I can't go for that!" — but they were genuinely sad about this end of an era. Were you surprised by that reaction?
I don't know. I mean, the Beatles broke up. Led Zeppelin broke up. Come on, folks. What's the big deal? People have business disagreements. It's over, as far as I'm concerned. The songs will live on. They're still the soundtracks of people's lives. The two guys aren't.
So, what's next for you? Obviously this Reunion album is coming out, but it sounds like you're not going to rest after that.
No, I'm on my way. I'm on my way to somewhere new.
What is your dream project?
Oh, it's all over the place. ... I'm headlining the Philadelphia Folk Festival [in August], which is a crazy bucket-list thing for me, because when I was a kid I went to the Philadelphia Folk Festival and sat in front of the stage watching Mississippi John Hurt and Doc Watson. Now all of a sudden I'm going to go back and headline the festival that was so important to me as a kid growing up, and I'm going to play some of those same songs that I heard the originators play. It's going to be cool. ... And I just worked with a guy named Devon Gilfillian. He's a new singer, an R&B singer from Philadelphia, young guy. He's great. We wrote an incredible vintage soul song and we're going to release it this fall. So, it's just a wide-open palette. Whatever happens, happens.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Watch John Oates's full conversation in the split-screen video above.
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