Daryl Hall is happy to remain out of touch with John Oates – the musician has said he will never mend his differences with his former bandmate.
The Hall & Oates stars have been embroiled in a rivalry ever since November 2023 when Oates attempted to sell his shares of their jointly owned company, Whole Oates Enterprise. Hall, 78, responded by suing Oates for what he called “the ultimate partnership betrayal” and called time on their music partnership for good.
Now, more than a year on, Hall has revealed whether they would ever reunite and perform together again.
“That ship has gone to the bottom of the ocean,” Hall said in a new interview, telling The Times: “I’ve had a lot of surprises in my life, disappointments, betrayals, so I’m kind of used to it.”
Hall also hit out at Oates, 76, when discussing his musical partnership with Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, with whom he worked on his most recent album, D.
He described their partnership as a “more meaningful” one than he ever had with Oates, stating: “It’s a real collaborative relationship – and it’s based on maturity.”
Hall & Oates formed their double act in 1970 and have released 18 studio albums, including their 1972 debut Whole Oats.
Those albums produced a string of hit singles, including “Maneater”, “Out of Touch”, “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)”,“You Make My Dreams” and “Rich Girl”. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 and their latest album, Home for Christmas, was released in 2006.
In May 2024, Oates explained why he tried to sell his shares in the joint partnership he’d had with Hall.
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“When this whole situation got mired in legality and really complex legal wranglings, I got frustrated,” he told Good Morning America.
“And I said, ‘You know what? Daryl has always wanted to be his own man.’ I said, ‘I’m gonna give him the opportunity to do that. If I sell my half, he can either, you know, he can do what he wants.’
“And it was kinda ruining my life, to be honest with you. I wasn’t happy. And I said, ‘Well, I’ll just step aside.’ People do it all the time. I mean, you look at all the artists who are selling all their catalogues, it’s pretty common. It’s not that big a deal. But Daryl didn’t like the idea that I would sell to a certain third party.”
In legal filings, Hall accused Oates and his co-defendants of trying to go forward with the transaction “completely behind my back and without my written approval”. Hall said the attempted transaction was unauthorised because he had not given Oates his consent, which he said was required.
Hall also noted in the lawsuit that documents show negotiations between Oates and the third party “began, at latest, on 2 October 2023 when a nondisclosure agreement was signed”. He claimed that he hadn’t learnt about the deal until 20 October 2023. He called Oates’s move “completely clandestine” and in “bad faith”.
When asked if he sees the situation in the same way, Oates said he did not.
“Because we’ve always looked at ourselves as individuals working together,” he said. “And I felt like I had the right to do that. But, you know, he didn’t.”
Oates added that they hadn’t worked together creatively in more than 20 years. “The only thing we did together was play concerts where we just went out there and trotted out the hits,” he said.
“We never really talked to each other very much,” Oates said. “Over the past 20 years, we’d show up at a show individually, walk on stage, play, and then we’d go our separate ways… it really wasn’t as tight as people might, you know, would like to imagine in their, kind of a fantasy imagination of our relationship.”
When asked if the pair would ever perform together again, Oates responded: “Not from my point of view, but you need to ask Daryl how he feels about it.”
It seems like he has his answer.
