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Q: Welcome to "One Hour Sale, A Conversation with Steely Dan,", featuring songs from their new album "Everything Must Go", available as of June 10th, 2003. "Everything Must Go" is Steely Dan's ninth studio album, only their second studio album in the last quarter century and their first since 2000's "Two Against Nature," which earned them four Grammys, including one for Album of the Year.
I'm Jody Denberg and I'm in Santa Monica with Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan.
Gentlemen, I know you are East Coast natives, but Steely Dan formed here in LA. Where do you make your homes now?
A: (Fagen) Well, I still live in New York. We were out here from '71 to '78 making the Steely Dan albums that were on ABC Records. We came out here in '71 from New York and moved back in '78.
A: (Becker) Well, I split my time between New York and Hawaii, at this point.
Q: And the record was recorded in New York, the new album.
A: (B) Little bit in Hawaii, but almost all in New York.
Q: Did your location affect the writing or recording of "Everything Must Go?"
A: (F) I don't think so. I think we have a -- kind of a Steely Dan room in our minds where these things are conceived. The only thing that made this one different maybe was that the -- 9/11 happened during the recording of this album.
Q: So much of "Everything Must Go" is recorded live to analog tape, which is, I guess, a different way of working for Steely Dan. Why did you go that route?
A: (B) Well, we found ourselves working in a studio other than our usual studio. And it was a little place that -- called Sear Sound that we discovered after we got there had once been the Hit Factory where Don and I had worked on an album back in 1969 or 1970. Anyway, it was still sort of an old-style studio. Small control room, same type acoustic treatment in the playing room and great little tracking room. And they didn't have any digital machines. They had a lot of great, old vintage mics and tube equipment and analog machines. And we just started working on these analog machines. And we loved the way it sounded.
Q: The new album is full of grooves. I mean, there's these deep musical groves on it. It seems like it would take forever to get them in the pocket when you're recording live.
A: (F) Well, actually, we got lucky. We started working with this drummer that we discovered -- he played on "Two Against Nature" on a cut. And his name is Keith Carlock Everything we threw at him, he was able to pick up on really quick. So by the end of the day or sooner, we'd have a track. I mean, he was just a great groove -- groove drummer. And he's also unusual in that he's a great groove drummer and he's also a very good jazz drummer, as well. So he's got both the jazz technique and, you know, the happening backbeat.
Q: Who are some of the other main musical menches who were involved on "Everything Must Go?"
A: (B) I like that "main musical menches" thing you know.
A: (F) Yeah.
A: (B) I'm going to use that myself later tonight at dinner or something.
A: (F) I think part of the reason we had as much success getting things happening was we had a whole rhythm section. We had a six-guy band. Two guitar players, two keyboard players, bass and drums that -- where everybody really felt things the same way and was able to, you know, get on the same wavelength and really define rhythmic parts and come up with cool parts and all that. And so the other guys in the band -- Donald played keyboards, of course. And I played bass. John Herrington played guitar. Hugh McCracken played guitar. John we'd played with before, we'd toured with and recorded with before. And of course, Hugh we've been recording with since the '70s. And Ted Baker was the second keyboard player. Great musician that we played with on our last tour and on the last album.
Q: So much of "Everything Must Go" seems to address the current state of affairs here in the US of A. Was there a point after the last album when the two of you got together to brainstorm where you were going lyrically with "Everything Must Go," or were these just the songs that poured out?
A: (B) As I recall, we did talk about certain kind of thematic things that we were going to write about before we started writing the songs. But they had nothing to do with the things that actually happened in the country. They were more sort of personal themes or -- motivations for the characters in the songs or back stories for the characters in the songs. And I think, to some extent, you know, the preoccupation, if there is one, with social order is just -- is more a product of sort of our growing fascination and horror at what we see around us and what's happening in the world and so on.
Q: So many times the lyrics to Steely Dan songs are like puzzles that could have different solutions. Does it bug you when people ask you what the songs are about?
A: (F) Well, I think it's kind of defeating for us to just give any explanation of the songs, because I think part of what makes them interesting is associations that they spring in the listener's mind. But, you know, we certainly have something in mind when we write them that's, you know, maybe specific. Although sometimes I'm not sure if we even get down to the real details. You know, they're songs. We're not writing a novel or a film, so we don't have to know everything about a character and we don't have to know everything about the situation the character's in. But we have a general idea. But I think that the listeners, generally speaking, even if they get something else from the song than what we intended, it's usually pretty close, especially as to the feeling of it.
Q: Well, the song that opens the album is The Last Mall. And it seems like the beginning of the end. Are we sure the beginning of the end of what?
A: (B) Well, but it's a very swinging beginning of the end. It's a hard grooving, hard rocking beginning of the end, you know. And I think that matters as much as anything, don't you? If we're going to go, let's go out rocking - that's what I say.
A: (F) Apocalypse Wow.
SONG: THE LAST MALL
Q: That was The Last Mall from Steely Dan's new album "Everything Must Go". And this is "One Hour Sale, A Conversation with Steely Dan." The Last Mall ends really suddenly. That abrupt ending may be a case of the musical making a conceptual point?
A: (F) Well, yeah, actually, it has a sort of standard ending that musicians who play at the end of a blues -- well, with some altered chords, but the last chord is absent. So I guess that does reinforce the idea of the Apocalypse Wow theme we were referring to earlier.
Q: Wow. The Yin and Yang of the Dan often happy music, contrasted with bleak stories. I'm thinking of Black Friday. I'm thinking of Jamie Runaway. But on this album, the dichotomy seems really apparent. I mean, is it just that the new lyrics are really dark and the new music is really happy?
A: (B) Well, I think -- I don't think that they lyrics are necessarily darker than many others that we've written over time. Even in the more subdued or hypnotic groove things on the album, because of the way the band played them and because of the fact that they were real collaborations of us with the band to make these things, they have a -- they have an energy and a, enthusiasm and -- that they transmit, which comes through.
Q: It swings, man.
A: (F) Yeah, we couldn't really get them to play joyless. Even when we wanted them too, you know.
A: (B) Yeah, we tried to, like, all of our usual stuff to like, you know, grind them down to a consecrated nub. But these guys were just, you know, in some cases, too young and strong.
A: (F) Too tough for us.
A: (B) Yeah, they just outlasted us. What can we say?
Q: Did winning four Grammys, including the Grammy for Album of the Year for the last album, "Two Against Nature," affect your lives beyond having to answer this question?
A: (F) Not to any great extent. We -- it affected our -- we had to travel out to Los Angeles to go to the Grammys. We were household names for about three days across the country.
A: (B) That's right.
A: (F) But then after that everything pretty much settled into the -- you know, the usual grind.
Q: The next song we're going to hear from "Everything Must Go" during this "One Hour Sale..." is Things I Miss the Most. Could be the saga of a recent divorcee or the tale of -- I was thinking and hoping maybe some corporate corrupt executive who was stuck in jail. Am I warm?
A: (B) Oh, absolutely. I think all of those things are plausible, you know.
A: (F) It's, you know, the -- how low the mighty have fallen type of a, type of a thing, that's true.
A: (B) I could have been a contender.
SONG: THINGS I MISS THE MOST
Q: From Steely Dan's new album "Everything Must Go:" Things I Miss the Most. If you had to be separated from your prize possessions, what would be the things you'd miss the most, Walter?
A: (B) Well, I've got a guitar or two that I kind of like. I wasn't kidding about the '54 Strat, you know what I mean? And by the way, if anybody happens to have my '54 Strat out there, I'd appreciate returning it. There would be a small reward. No questions asked.
Q: Donald, what would you miss the most?
A: (F) Well, I think, you know, first of all, I'd grab my wife, 'cause…and she is portable. And then after that, I don't know. I guess -- see the problem is the piano isn't portable. So maybe I'd take like a melodica or something, you know, some little keyboard instrument to keep myself occupied.
A: (B) Could you carry one of my guitars if, if -- I mean, since you're not going to take the piano?
A: (F) In the other hand, yeah, okay.
A: (B) Something like that.
A: (F) Okay. It's a deal.
A: (B) Maybe your wife could carry one, too?
A: (F) Okay.
Q: I'm guessing, then, one of the things you wouldn't rush to save is your Rock And Roll Hall of Fame award. There was a hilarious and sarcastic campaign that you had to be elected into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame online. And then, low and behold, Steely Dan was inducted. And then I saw you auctioning off at least one of your awards. What were some of the better bids that you had on the awards?
A: (B) I think my favorite bid was the -- our keyboard player, Ted Baker, offered to trade it for his Bunsen prize plaque that we gave him at a concert in the year 2000. And I thought about that one pretty seriously. And then I turned him down. Donald, I believe, left his Hall of Fame statuette in the hall overnight on the very night it was given to him.
A: (F) That's true that -- on the day after, there was a knock on my door. And it was a neighbor who I had, you know, left my Hall of Fame plaque out in the hall by mistake. I guess I had a few things I was carrying. But he returned it to me.
A: (B) Yeah, that's a real honor code building over there that Donald's in.
Q: So the awards do both reside with both of you still. They did not receive winning bids, is what I'm --
A: (B) No, they did not. We have them -- we have them in New York. We had some very generous offers, but in the end, you know, you've got to like package (the) thing. You've got to get the money order from the guy or -- you know, the girl has to fly into town. She's got to see a doctor. It just was too much trouble.
A: (F) But, you know, I think the fans like to see us get awards because it ratifies their tastes over a long period of years. So there was something nice about getting these awards. I mean, for us too. No kidding.
A: (B) That's right. The main reason for even accepting or considering accepting any awards like this for us, aside from the shallow, you know, gratification it affords us and whatever money we can squeeze out of the thing one way or the other, is for the greater glory of our fans, which is always on our minds.
Q: Are there songs on the new album that were germs of songs that were never completed before or are all of these post-"Two Against Nature?"
A: (B) "Germs" is a good word.
A: (F) Yeah, we have a lot of songs that, you know, have a kind of a bacterial or infectious quality to them that… in all of the worst possible sense. But I'm thinking that these were all songs that we wrote after "Two Against Nature." We had some songs leftover and we even tracked at least one of them and got a good track. But for one reason or another, we picked this particular set and they were all new ones.
Q: There's a phrase I've heard used for someone who's unemployed. They say that person is "on the beach." And the song Blues Beach on "Everything Must Go" speaks of the early resigned. During the 20 years that Donald Fagen and Walter Becker didn't record together as Steely Dan, did either of you think that your band was eternally kaput?
A: (F) Well, our band, I guess, actually was on the beach, as you say, as of about 1974, our steady band. After that, we started using a group of players, both in New York and Los Angeles that we tried to adapt to their various styles. But I don't think we were on the beach, really. Walter was literally on the beach for part of that in Hawaii.
SONG: BLUES BEACH
Q: "Everything Must Go" is the new album from Steely Dan. And we're having a "One Hour Sale, A Conversation with Steely Dan." That song was Blues Beach. First, what in the world is a paranymphic glider?
A: (B) See, this is why we don't like to give the reviewers printed copies of the lyrics. Because that might have just slipped by, although now that I think about it, even people who have listened have asked that question. Paranymphic glider is an imaginary vehicle that you would take an imaginary girl on an imaginary date with.
A: (F) A particularly hot date.
A: (B) A very hot imaginary date.
Q: Are they for sale on your website or --
A: (B) No, but it's --
A: (F) We have a prototype. They'll be available soon.
Q: There was a time when Steely Dan, like some of the characters in the song -- we just heard Blues Beach -- was early resigned. And then there were a series of events that ultimately led to Steely Dan rearing its head again. Donald, you played some Steely tunes on the New York Rock and Soul Review. And Walter, you produced "Kamakiriad," Donald's solo album.
A: (F) That's right.
Q: Then you joined the New York Rock and Soul Review on the road.
A: (F) That's right. |
Listen to a clip from the Steely Dan interview
