Daryl Hall on how MTV ruined a huge Hall and Oates hit: ‘It was really, really frustrating’

Share this:

Though they came of age in the singer-songwriter 1970s, Hall and Oates found their biggest successes in the video-obsessed decade that followed. Suddenly, the visuals came to mean more than the music itself — something that was particularly galling for a duo who had worked so hard to take control of their own destiny.

That meant insisting on using their own band in time for 1978’s Along the Red Ledge, and producing themselves beginning with 1980’s Voices. MTV, however, changed everything. Suddenly, Hall and Oates were at the mercy of videographers. It all became obvious how wrong things had suddenly gone during the filming for 1984’s “Out of Touch,” Hall and Oates’ final of six No. 1 singles.

“It’s a song about interpersonal relationships, and stress and all of these other things,” Daryl Hall tells VH-1, “and it’s being depicted visually by John Oates doing cartwheels around the room and me running around in a dog suit, busting out of 40-foot drums. It’s a circus. It distracts from any of the subtlety — not even the subtlety, the meaning of the song. [Laughs ruefully.] We became puppets to the visual world, and it was really, really frustrating.”

At one point, it was 3 in the morning, and Hall and Oates were trapped in a giant bass drum, doing yet another take. Unsurprisingly, it isn’t a period they look back on fondly.

“I hated rock videos,” Daryl Hall says. “John and I took over our music; we got rid of all the deadwood, right? Now, the next thing I know, I’m hanging out with some director, stuffing his fucking face with cocaine, keeping me up all night running around like a hamster on a wheel. I’m trying to be real, and this is the image that’s getting thrown out there — antithetical to what we are trying to do. This is how people are perceiving us. Not a good thing.”

Something Else!