CONCERT PREVIEW
John Oates
7:30 (sold out) and 9:30 p.m. Nov. 24. $45. Eddie's Attic, 515-B N. McDonough St., Decatur. www.eddiesattic.com.
As the sable-hued half of Hall & Oates, John Oates has played to hundreds of thousands of people, crafted, with Daryl Hall, dozens of songs firmly wedged in pop music history and received some of the industry’s highest accolades.
But he isn’t the type to remain content with sold-out shows every year that spotlight those hall of fame tunes such as “Maneater,” “Rich Girl,” “I Can’t Go for That,” “Out of Touch,” “Say It Isn’t So,” “Private Eyes,” “Kiss on My List”… how much time do you have?
Oates, who splits his time between Nashville, Tenn., and Colorado, is a restless musician, one who might pop up at Nashville’s Bluebird Café with songwriter Victoria Shaw or enlist Vince Gill for last year’s solo album, “Good Road to Follow.”
On Tuesday, he’ll swing by Eddie’s Attic for a pair of solo concerts. A percussionist and guitarist will join him for what he calls a “spontaneous” show. Yes, he’ll play a couple of H&O favorites, but this isn’t about that.
“I hope they’re musically adventurous,” Oates, 67, said of the potential crowd.
Calling last week from Nashville, the candid and gregarious singer-guitarist discussed the balance between a solo career and his partnership with Hall, his upcoming memoir and hanging with doppelganger Baba Booey.
Q: You and Daryl played Music Midtown and Chastain this year. What’s it like to go from playing to 5,000 or 25,000 people to the intimacy of Eddie’s Attic?
A: I love it. That's exactly why I do it — to balance the thing I do with Daryl. That's big, it's powerful, it has history and weight behind it. My solo shows give me an opportunity — it's a selfish motivation — to showcase my new songs. The problem with Hall & Oates shows — and is this good problem — is that we have too many hits. I like old standards from the '20s and '30s, so sometimes (in my solo shows) I'll go back to my blues roots, things I was playing as a kid before I met Daryl, and show how that music informed what I'm doing today. But I hope that people don't come to hear a Hall & Oates show without Daryl Hall, or they might be disappointed. If you really want to hear those songs, you should come to a Hall & Oates show.
Q: A few nights after your Eddie’s shows, you’re back with Daryl. And he of course stays busy on his own with the TV series (“Live From Daryl’s House” online and on Palladia). How do you guys balance the solo work with the band work?
A: The emphasis over the past few years has shifted. Hall & Oates has gone crazy. It had this incredible resurgence. We just sold 9,000 tickets for a show at Madison Square Garden (in February) in one day. We've developed a younger audience. In the music business, you learn not to say no too often! It's a blessing to be able to do the music together. Even though we tour a lot as Hall & Oates, we do it in short, compact chunks.
Q: I hear you’re working on a memoir to come out next year.
A: That's really what I'm focusing on creatively this year. I've been working on it for about a year with (journalist) Chris Epting. It's not the Hall & Oates story without Hall. It's about when I was a kid, the kind of stuff that got me interested in music, the music I was playing. Everyone knows about Hall and Oates and the success, but do people know what it took to become what we became? The late '60s, early '70s when we met, that's a much more engaging story. I skip a lot of the well-trod info. It's not about who wrote "Rich Girl," it's not a tell-all. There's not a lot of dirt, but a lot of interesting stuff. It fast-forwards through the '80s to this low point in my life in the late '80s when I had to restructure my life through a divorce. I moved to Colorado. I had to lose the guy with the goofy mustache. It's pretty deep. … We were shooting to release (the book) in Christmas of 2016, but we're probably going for more like early 2017.
Q: It was great to finally hear you and Daryl on Howard Stern’s show together earlier this year.
A: Howard was in a really good mood. Daryl had done his show, but I didn't know what to expect. But when we got on there, Howard was really knowledgeable about us.
Q: And of course there was the inevitable discussion about your resemblance to Baba Booey (Stern show producer Gary Dell’Abate).
A: (Laughs) I've known Gary since the '80s, so whenever we see each other, we take a photo. I think it's something about the shape of our chins.
