John Oates
John Oates
John William Oates is an American rock, R&B and soul guitarist, musician, songwriter and record producer best known as half of the rock and soul duo, Hall & Oates...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth7 April 1948
CountryUnited States of America
early good life month personal record run songs videos year
We had a good run in the '70s but we got really big in the early '80s, ... It was a whirlwind. It was non-stop demands. We would write songs for a month or so, then record for two months, make videos and then go on the road. We put out a record a year from 1971 to 1985. We had more than one record some years. My personal life was my professional life. There was no down time.
There's always a personal satisfaction in writing a song by yourself. You get the inspiration, and see it through, and you're done. It's focused and very personal.
people
When albums gave way to CDs, people re-discovered their collection through their CDs.
christmas
The Christmas genre is a field that's been well-ploughed.
artist business extreme foot indie major music
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.
guy shaved
The mustache represented the old John; I didn't want to be that guy anymore, so I shaved it off. It was ritualistic in a way.
bands certainly embraced
I think social media is so important; the young bands have certainly embraced that and used that to their advantage.
egos music seeing
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.
ok
If I had to drop everything and just be a songwriter, I would be OK with that because that's the real joy.
coherent goes realized stuff stylistic
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.
alabama love shakes
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.
became component decade persona
Having a mustache and never smiling became a permanent component of my persona through the quaintly self-important decade of the seventies.
came heaviest radio time
When my song came on the radio for the first time, that was one of the heaviest things I remember.
helps intense keeps minds
It keeps us loose. You go out here and everybody's intense and the expectations are so big, it just relaxes us a little bit. It helps take our minds off of things a little bit.