Reject what you don't want. Get rid of dead wood.
Daryl Hall
To write a good song, an artist has to drawn from reality. There has to be some spark from realism that communicates a real feeling to someone else. You have to be real. Or you have to be a really good storyteller.
I have gone from one relationship to a marriage and stepchildren.
Like all soul singers, I grew up singing in church but sometimes I would leave early and sit in the car listening to gospel band, The Blind Boys of Alabama. Hearing their lead singer Clarence made me connect the idea of church and show business and see how I could make a career singing music that stirred the soul.
If Paul McCartney tells me that so-and-so song is his favorite song, what do I care? What do I care what anybody else says?
Late 20th century music was a really important thing. It changed the world, and I'm part of that, and now I'm part of the museum that celebrates that.
I hear a lot of people singing in funny voices and singing like they're stupid. Singing in a deliberately fey and dumb and childish way. And I find it to be a disturbing trend.
I wanted to show the world, and myself too, what I can do. I came up in the world of Philadelphia soul, but I'm fluent in a lot of languages musically and I like working with different people from different generations.
If you're African American, you are forced into making different choices, in a lot of cases, than you are as a white person.
I've been watching RFD-TV for a few years. As a person who lives mostly in the country, I appreciate a network that shows the many facets of rural life.
I'm not a big fan of any video, especially my own. In a word, I hated the Hall & Oates videos.
Americans think that if you're popular, there must be something wrong with you.
I think an artist's true worth comes through an inter-generational thing - when you go beyond your own time, and start influencing people in a greater way than just what surrounds you.
All artists have insecurity.
I knew that I would be making music for my whole life; as far as how many people respond to it, you can't plan for that.
I'm in the trenches; I do the best work I can always do. Having said that, the way that what I do converges with the outside world is fascinating to me. Because it ebbs and flows. People's interest and understanding, it changes all the time.
The 'Daryl's House' thing has made me into a live musician even more than I ever was, and even in the way I record.
Traditionally, duos get accused of lots of things.
My fan base is really expanding into an inter-generational thing - it's what every artist probably hopes for.
I always say the same thing - believe in what you do, do it, and don't veer away from the truth of it.
I was very inspired by my mother. She was a vocal teacher and sang in a band, and my first memories of her were going out with her on the local circuit.
Nixon was the beginning of people not trusting politics.
I was just like a 21st century person waiting to be born, and this is the medium that I thrive in. And I feel stronger now than I did any time since I've been a teenager - I mean, musically, creatively.
I've been traveling around the world forever.
In my Philly neighborhood, black and white kids hung together without even thinking about it. The spirit of Martin Luther King was alive and well.
When you're playing in front of people, everything is external. It's all going from you out to an audience. When you're in a studio, it's very internalised, it's going from the air through you into this meticulously crafted, layered piece of work.
Smokey Robinson is one of my heroes as a singer and songwriter; a major influence on my own music from the very start.
I've always been a guy who likes to stretch my limits - to find out if I have any, really.
I'm used to the egos in the 1960s, '70s and '80s where people just expected massive success and thought it was their birth right to be successful.
I never felt entitled to anything. I'm the hardest worker I know.
I think there are people who really always have and always will care about the quality of music in general, about the sound of the music, things like that.
I'd like to see more crossover between white and black music. That's something I've been advocating for years.
Some artists are nervous - most of them are, to tell you the truth, and they have different ways of exhibiting that. Some of them are boisterous, some are really quiet.
When I was a kid, I always looked up to people like B.B. King and Ray Charles.
The Internet allows me to be more free.
For years and years, I was beset with snide remarks by certain members of the press, where they would turn John Oates into a joke, or they would trivialize what I do, which never really bothered me all that much.
I'm quite an eclectic musician.
Being at college, I think that's the time when you really start searching for things outside yourself.
Any song I don't feel good about, I shelve. Anything you ever hear me sing, it's because I want to.
I had the idea of 'Live From Daryl's House' way before I contracted Lyme disease.
The Philadelphia/New York world of the music business is a tough place to be.
I don't really strain my voice.
I'm always interested in what fans think.
I was a pioneer in MTV and I was there from the very beginning. So I saw how that developed and how loose it was and how much fun it was in its looseness. And I was influenced a lot by that.
I love antique architecture, so if I have any indulgences, I have owned and renovated and reconstructed a lot of old houses.
I returned to upstate NY where I just laid in bed for days with a fever that just wouldn't go away. After more of this, I grew increasingly sure that this was not simply the flu!
As I got older, my voice got better.
Art is a continuum.
I'm constantly on my toes and re-examining my own music.
I grew up in a very racially integrated place called Pottstown. It was an agricultural / industrial town which has since become a suburb of Philadelphia. I grew up basically in a black neighborhood.
