About John Oates: John William Oates is an American rock, R&B and soul guitarist, musician, songwriter and producer best known as half of the rock and soul duo, Hall & Oates (with Daryl Hall).
If anyone looks back to the '70s, '80s with nostalgic rosy colored glasses and goes, 'Well, everything was awesome.' No, everything was not awesome!
With his passing, Dick Clark deserves to take his place at the top in the pantheon of popular culture icons.
When you really can't affect something, you almost don't wanna wish too hard, because it's just frustrating.
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.
The world has accelerated to the point that, as far as the album as a form, I don't know if it's going to last that much longer.
With Hall & Oates, honestly, after years and years of playing the same material, it's easy to coast. I can coast through a show.
The first record I bought myself could have been 'Oh Lonesome Me' by Don Gibson or 'Wake Up Little Susie' by the Everly Brothers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
When my song came on the radio for the first time, that was one of the heaviest things I remember.
Once you've made a record, you don't need to make it again. It's done, and it's out there forever, a moment in time that encapsulates whatever was happening in that moment.
It's the music that brings us together.
I think in music and a lot of creative fields, people's egos get in the way of their ability of seeing the big picture.
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.
I get to play with all these different players who don't necessarily approach music always the same way that I might. So I learn a lot.
Americana Music is about all sorts of different music. It's very free and open: a world where people just like authentic music.
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 it wasn't for music, I doubt whether we'd be friends.
I sense people respond more to the honest approach to making music instead of the manufactured approach.
