by Kevin Ritchie

Hall & Oates’ Daryl Hall talks to realscreen about swapping the pretensions of pop stardom for a pair of unscripted TV shows: the Webby Award-winning Live from Daryl’s House, and his upcoming DIY Network series Daryl’s Restoration Over-Hall.

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Staying relevant in pop culture is an art form in and of itself, especially among those who experience success early on and then struggle to retain it later in life.

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One musician that has managed to pull off a career re-invention is Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates, the mega-selling pop duo that maintained a constant presence on MTV and the Billboard charts with hits like “Private Eyes” and “Maneater” throughout the 1980s.

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Five years ago, Hall was looking for a way to reinvigorate his craft and decided to invest his own money in Live From Daryl’s House, a free web series in which he invites musicians – new blood and legends – over to his house to play music. It’s a simple idea that offers a glimpse into the creative process minus the pretension that can come with performance.

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He has since produced 62 episodes featuring artists such as Smokey Robinson, Todd Rundgren, Cee Lo Green, Chromeo and Minus the Bear, and won a Webby Award. Cable net VH1 aired the most recent season on Saturday mornings, and the series now airs on HD channel Palladia, and Rural Media Group-owned networks RFD-TV and FamilyNet.

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Next year, Hall will bring his other passion – antique architecture – to the small screen via the DIY Network series Daryl’s Restoration Over-Hall, which will follow the music veteran as he restores a 1700s Connecticut farm house and transforms it into a family home.

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Why are you interested in doing television at this stage of your career?
The old paradigm is dead as a doornail. No matter what stage of your career – whether you’re starting out or you’re a person like me who has been doing it a long time – relying on radio and how many records you sell and all that nonsense isn’t the way to get across to people anymore. Five years ago, I realized that. I wanted another way to put music out there and expand on my music by interacting with other people.

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When did you realize Live From Daryl’s House could be a new way forward?
I knew it right away for a number of reasons. One, because anybody in an official position didn’t understand it so I knew I was doing something that hadn’t been done before.

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You mean record label and TV execs?
Exactly. The suits don’t understand new things. If they say things like ‘this is too clever’ or ‘this is too smart for the public’ I know I’m doing the right thing. I’m lucky enough to be in a time when one door closes, another door opens. If you have the funding – and I put my own money into this and luckily got somebody to help me – you can do what you want. The Internet is an open field. We show a side of music that nobody ever sees and that has an amazing resonance with people.

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What side of music is that?
The way musicians act when nobody is watching. The way we do it is so unobtrusive: everybody is just sitting in the house, telling stories, drinking wine and playing good music. It’s such a natural experience. You get to hear stories from people who you may have been interested in for years and didn’t know who they really are.

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Why do you think that side of music hasn’t traditionally been emphasized?
Music has always revolved around a musician on stage with an audience watching. When there’s an audience, there’s a fourth wall. People don’t act exactly like themselves when they’re on the stage. You just do it differently. One of my first things was no audience. That really changes things because they’re not doing their act.

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What lessons did you learn from your days at MTV in the 1980s that are still relevant today?
I was there in the very beginning – literally the first day. They were not quite sure what they were doing. Again, it was a brand new thing and they really didn’t have as much content as they needed so I remember John [Oates] and I – or sometimes just myself – would go on TV and they’d just say, ‘Be a VJ for three hours.’

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I’d say, ‘Well, what do you want me to do?’ They’d say, ‘We’ll give you a list of videos to play and then just talk and do whatever you want in between.’ We would do anything we could think of. I remember one time [Hall & Oates bassist] T-Bone fried eggs and made breakfast. I learned how to be quick on my feet without a script. Those days on MTV really prepared me for what I’m doing now.

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Why do certain artists continue remain relevant? Is there a trick to it or is it something that just happens naturally?
I don’t think it happens naturally. Most artists of my generation – and I’ve never really felt a part of my own generation – feel entitled. The world is theirs and they deserve it. Everything they did was the greatest thing in the world.

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The ‘I’ve seen the history of rock n’ roll’ bulls**t. They didn’t have to worry about anything. They had the whole f*****g machine behind them so they could just make, in my opinion, mediocre music or sometimes inspired music. But whatever they did, it was easy. And they got paid outrageous amounts of money to do it.

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Now it’s all changed and they’re all little babies going ‘I don’t know what to do, I don’t sell records anymore.’ Not as many people are coming to the concerts and because of their attitude, they’re not shifting generations and they’re watching diminishing returns. They have no wit, no ability to rethink things or step out of the box.

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To switch to the DIY show, how did your interest in historic restoration arise?
I grew up in Chester County, Pennsylvania, which has some of the best antique architecture in the United States. I come from a very old family and my grandfather and my uncles were all construction people, in that they built houses and repaired old houses. I grew up taking music lessons and hanging around on construction sites. I have a dual experience in my life because family gave me these interests in preserving old houses. I love it. Old houses are the most direct ties that we have to the past.

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What format will the show take?
I have a house that is a 1780s house in Connecticut that I bought and is in disrepair. It’s also small for our family so the show is about bringing this house back to its original life. It’s the story of how to bring an old house back to its purity and how it exists in the modern world.

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Is there a connection between your music and your construction work?
It’s funny because I’ve done a number of these projects and it’s not that different from making an album. I look at myself as the producer/artist like I do in music. Then I hire a good engineer. I hire musicians who are master carpenters with various expertise. You have an idea and a story and you make it real. It’s not that different from making a record.

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What effect have these projects had on your relationship with your fans?
I came up with this pop stardom in the Eighties and people really had no clue what I was all about, which is common. Again, I was this figure on stage and very much an object in people’s minds. With these shows, there is no barrier between what you see and the way I really am. When I’m in the world – which I am all the time – people relate to me as if they know me. And they do.

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I’ve never had such a rush of goodwill from people who are thrilled and interested in what I’m doing, and in the right way too. They get it. What I’m doing now beats the hell out of what I was doing in the Eighties and I’m very happy about it.

August 15, 2013

Twenty-one albums and over 80 million units after their 1972 debut Whole Oats, Hall & Oates is still touring their impressive catalogue of hits. Though most of their new music is relegated to solo projects - at the moment John Oates is releasing a song a month at johnoates. com, each tune a collaboration with a music industry pro - with a set list that includes Rich Girl, Kiss On My List, Private Eyes and many more, no one's going to complain when the best-selling duo in pop history plays the Queen Elizabeth Theatre Thursday night. We caught up to John Oates during a Seattle tour stop a few days before the scheduled show.

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Q: Hall & Oates has so many hits, are you able to incorporate any of the more obscure tracks into your set.

JO: I would love to do a deep tracks tour. But we have this incredibly good problem, we have too many hits. When we play, people want to hear those songs. And after we've played those songs, we've basically played a full set. So it's kind of tough to integrate some of the other stuff. It's an insanely good problem to have.

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Q: Are there any songs that you think should've been hits?

JO: There's a few. I think some of the songs I sang lead on had a lot of potential. But because Daryl's voice was so outstanding, his voice really became the sound of the band. It was really tough to crack through the radio with a different-sounding lead vocal. A song like Alone Too Long (from Hall & Oates' 1975 self-titled album), that song is just getting picked up by HBO for a new series called Hello Ladies, so that it may have a whole new breath of life 30 years later. I always thought the song Portable Radio (X-Static, 1979) was pretty cool.

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Q: What was it like to move from a more organic sound to a glossier new wave sound in the 1980s?

JO: When we first started in the Philadelphia in the late 60s early 70s, it was the hippie singer/songwriter movement and we were very into that. As soon as we moved to New York after the Abandones Luncheonette album (1973), we went on tour with a very acoustic laid-back kind of style. When we got on the road we realized we wanted to up the energy level so we immediately went electric. We did an album with Todd Rungren, War Babies - the point being we had moved to New York, we were absorbing the sound and the feel and the vibe of New York, and that's really what happened along the way. We'd been living in New York for 10 years, and new wave was everywhere. We weren't trying to ape it, we were in it.

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Q: Funny, I've always thought of you as an L.A. band.

JO: No, no way. We did two-and-a-half albums in L.A. and we hated it. We were never comfortable there, we never lived there. Every other album has been made in New York.

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Q: You seem to have eclectic tastes, looking at the collaborators you've been working with on Good Road to Follow. How far in advance is it planned?

JO: Rather than think of it as an album, with a consistent vibe and flow and style, there were just so many people I wanted to reach out to, from Hot Chelle Rae to Sam Bush - who does bluegrass and everything in between - I just thought, I like all that music, why not try to integrate it into those styles?

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Q: That's a very current business model - release the songs, build interest, release an album.

JO: It is. It kind of hearkens back to the old days where you release the single and wait to see what happens. The singles now seem to be what's driving what's left of the music industry.

I think it's really cool, I love singles. Daryl and I built our entire career on hit singles. At the same time I love the album, something with a flow and consistency.

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Q: So will there ever be an album of new Hall & Oates material?

JO: I don't know. I would never say never. There's no plan at all. Daryl and I are so busy doing other things. I feel like, getting back to the beginning of our conversation, we haven't even tapped the music we've made. I believe there's a new album in some of our older material. And that might happen.

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Q: Now, you live on a rescue ranch in Colorado, right?

JO: My wife grew up on a farm, her dad's a working farmer. Her whole life was all about pot-bellied pigs and miniature goats. When I met her she had a pet fox in her apartment so this is nothing new. We have this place in Woody Creek, Colo., and we have emus and alpacas and llamas and most were going to be destroyed. We just kind of took everything in.

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Q: Woody Creek - were you ever Hunter S. Thompson's neighbour?

JO: His closest neighbour, actually. Right across the road. I got plenty of stories.

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Q: You must have some stories from that era.

JO: I have plenty of stories. Tons. If you go on my Facebook page, there's a story I wrote for an Aspen magazine about Hunter S. Thompson.

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Q: So where's the memoir?

JO: Maybe that's the next thing. I'm still too busy with the music.

As long as Mr. Oates is getting his due as well, I ain't mad at either of them for living life to the fullest.