A good mustache makes a man for many reasons.
John Oates
I have a great family, I live an amazing life.
I don't listen to music. I very rarely listen to music. I only listen for information. I listen when a friend sends me a song or a new record.
If you look over the years, the styles have changed - the clothes, the hair, the production, the approach to the songs. The icing to the cake has changed flavors. But if you really look at the cake itself, it's really the same.
It's the music that brings us together.
I don't care if it's a Cole Porter song, or George Gershwin, or Lennon/McCartney, or Elton John, or you know, whoever, Bob Dylan. Great songs are great songs, and they stand the test of time, and they can be interpreted and recorded with many points of view, but yet still retain the essence of what makes them good songs.
My mustache has become this weird iconic representation of a certain era.
You don't want to pitch a tent and live inside the Louvre. You want to check it out, appreciate it, and move somewhere else.
I couldn't wait to grow a mustache. I stopped shaving my upper lip the day I graduated from high school.
If anyone looks back to the '70s, '80s with nostalgic rosy colored glasses and goes, 'Well, everything was awesome.' No, everything was not awesome!
You may be embarrassed about the way you looked and the wacky clothes you wore when you were young, but normally, at least it's hidden in a box in the attic.
Dick Clark's 'American Bandstand' spread the gospel of American pop music and teenage style that transcended the regional boundaries of our country and united a youth culture that eventually spread its message throughout the entire world.
You have to know when to strike and when to retreat.
I'm bad at math.
I realized if I'm not really making an album, I don't have to be concerned about things like stylistic consistency, pacing, a coherent mood. All that stuff goes out the window.
To me, when a great band is playing together, it's amazing for me.
There isn't one album that says 'Hall & Oates.' It's always 'Daryl Hall and John Oates.' From the very beginning. People never note that. The idea of 'Hall & Oates,' this two-headed monster, this thing, is not anything we've ever wanted or liked.
The key, I think, from a business point of view, is to learn how to be efficient in making a record that's not too expensive, so that you're not going crazy spending tons of money making a product that might not ever return that money.
The bricks and mortar of the music business, they don't exist any longer.
The first record I bought myself could have been 'Oh Lonesome Me' by Don Gibson or 'Wake Up Little Susie' by the Everly Brothers.
'Maneater' is about N.Y.C. in the '80s. It's about greed, avarice, and spoiled riches.
With Hall & Oates, honestly, after years and years of playing the same material, it's easy to coast. I can coast through a show.
Jam Cruise is actually a comfortable place for me. My jamming skills and my improvisational skills have improved immensely as I've gone more solo, because I've had this opportunity.
I think it's kind of difficult to write a good Christmas song because you have a narrow framework of references that you have to work within, and at the same time you want to do something that's personally original and hopefully somewhat unique.
Back in the early '90s, I started going to Nashville to do a lot of co-writes. One of the first people I met there was Keith Follese. Keith and his wife Adrienne are both songwriters, and we wrote some songs together.
I'm really in such a fortunate position to have that foundation with Hall and Oates that lets me do whatever I want. That's the dream of a lot of creative people, and I don't take it for granted. I try to make the most of it.
I love what Alabama Shakes is doing - it's kind of like what grunge did to rock 'n' roll, they're doing to R&B.
I have such a wide variety of tastes in things that I like musically.
I'm an indie artist with major distribution, so one foot in the extreme major music business and one foot in the abyss of indie artists.
Personally, I've never really wanted to be a rock star. That wasn't my motivation in life. It kind of happened.
I was just glad to meet somebody outside of my group of small town friends who was into music. Somebody else who had aspirations to do something more than sing at a record hop.
In the days when regional music was very clearly defined and had a clear personality - Memphis, Detroit, Chicago, whatever - Philadelphia had a tradition that was very distinct and unique.
If I had to drop everything and just be a songwriter, I would be OK with that because that's the real joy.
I've been asked to do various types of cruises.
Well, before we met I had heard and seen him sing so I knew he was good.
I never finish a show without singing 'She's Gone.'
I couldn't begin to name names... in general I have found racers to be some of the most competitive people on the planet... and some of the nicest as well.
I may just keep releasing singles 'til I run out of music, which is kind of cool in a way - as long as people don't go, 'Oh my God, not another one!'
When I graduated from college in the spring of 1970, I decided to hitchhike around Europe with my guitar and my backpack. I was gone for about four months.
I think the key to making records generally is to make 'em for yourself, regardless of the climate in the business.
My songwriting has evolved, just as I've evolved as a person.
There's all sorts of soul. There's Irish soul and Native American soul. If it touches you and moves you, it's soul.
You've got to pay me to leave my house, spend the night in hotels and fly in airplanes. That's what I get paid for. Playing I actually do for free.
When albums gave way to CDs, people re-discovered their collection through their CDs.
The decline of the major labels has changed the audience. They aren't force-fed by a system any more. They can make their own decisions.
Well, because we're so different as people. And it's that difference that probably also makes it easy to stay together, because we don't get in each others way.
I have a lot of friends who are involved in everything from Americana to blues to R&B to pop to country.
I wish I could see over crowds and small groups of people.
With his passing, Dick Clark deserves to take his place at the top in the pantheon of popular culture icons.
Swimming upstream in the music business is a hard thing to do.
