It ’s March , which intend , with Valentine ’s Day well in the rearview , many of us can take a well - deserved breather from romantic concern . But not Daryl Hall and/or John Oates . As the writer of such omnipresent ' 80s nuptials bangers as " Maneater , " " One on One , " and " Kiss on My List , " they ’ve sweep up romance as a manner of lifetime . Lucratively , too : if the Internet and the experts at VH1’sBehind the Musicare to be believed , Hall & Oates are the most successful melodic duo of the John Rock epoch , with seven platinum albums , 34 chart hits , and an estimated 40 million records sold . In other words , these fashion plate know how to save a love call . Which intend , presumably , they jazz how to love . So , as they gear up for a lengthy US tour come out this saltation , we give them a call .
THRILLIST : Have you ever written a song with the specific intent of seducing someone ?
Daryl Hall : plausibly all of them . [ Laughs ] There ’s songs I ’ve written where I was trying to hold on to someone , like " Wait for Me . " That ’s a undecomposed one . And it worked !
Tony Bernard/LA Times/Getty Images
John Oates:[Laughs ] Every Sung I write is with the use to seduce myself – because if I do n’t seduce myself , then I wo n’t like it .
THRILLIST : Have you ever fascinate your own pants off ?
Joyce Carol Oates : I really write in the nude , so I do n’t even have to take my pants off .
Virginia Turbett/Redferns/Getty Images
THRILLIST : That ’s commodious . What makes a effective love song ?
Hall : The musical theme of love life is complicated , so I think a good love song has to be complicated . To just write a song , " I hump you , I ca n’t live without you , " that ’s sort of state the obvious .
Oates : Since passion as an emotion or a conception is so immanent , I ’d have to say it would count on the mass involved . I gauge there ’s really no deviation between what makes a great dear Song dynasty and what makes a greatsong– when the sensibility and the craft and the breathing in of the songster resonates and connect with the listener and somehow speaks to what they themselves would wish to give voice .
Dave Hogan/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
THRILLIST : What ’s your take on dear songs that do n’t necessarily involve another man ? Like these cat who write love songs about their pickup trucks or their dogs ?
Hall : If you have a love for your pickup truck , write a song about it . That ’s what I say . Why not ? I do n’t think there should be any censoring .
Titus Oates : Everyone has their own concept of love . you may love your andiron . you’re able to love your pickup arm truck . you could bonk your shooter , or your flowerbed , or your organic garden . [ Laughs ] comfortably to get laid than not to screw , I guess .
Michael Putland/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
THRILLIST : What are some of your preferent sexual love songs by other artists ?
Hall : Very few Song invoke to me that are about convinced love life . " Sara Smile " is a positive love vocal , but even that one has a flake of complication in the 2d verse . A song like " If You Do n’t get laid Me by Now , " [ to begin with by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes ] , is a love Sung dynasty , but a frustrated love song .
Oates : I do n’t have any .
THRILLIST : What ’s your favorite love song that you ’ve written ?
Oates : plausibly " Maneater . " [ Laughs ] No , I ’m kidding . That song is about the greed and avarice that was going on in New York City in the ’ 80s . So maybe it ’s a erotic love song to New York . [ Laughs ]
Marguerite Radclyffe Hall : I’d say " One on One " and " Sara Smile . " They ’re positive lovemaking song with a slight twist in them .
Joyce Carol Oates : Daryl and I recorded a Sung dynasty in ’ 96 on theMarigold Skyalbum yell " Promise Ai n’t Enough , " and I was thinking about getting tie when I came up with the idea for the song . It ended up being chosen byBridesmagazine as Wedding Song of the Year in 1996 .
THRILLIST : You remark " Maneater . " Everyone reckon that one is about a woman . Same goes for " I Ca n’t Go for That ( No Can Do ) . "
Oates : Ninety - nine percent of the people in the earth think that " Maneater " is about a char , and " I Ca n’t Go for That " is about some young lady you wanna get free of . But " I Ca n’t Go for That " is about the euphony business . But that ’s part of the craft of songwriting : you take something that has some wide import but you put it into a setting of a personal kinship and it becomes more relatable . If people turn over into the lyrics , they can find something more satisfying in it , but if they do n’t , it still works on whatever superficial level they require it to do work on .
THRILLIST : Those song are over 30 eld one-time , which intend mass have been misunderstanding them for three decennary . Is n’t that galling ?
Hall : No , because I ’ve always had the doctrine that once it leaves my mastermind , it belongs to the world . citizenry can do what they require with it . They can sample it as long as they pay me . Very rarely do I compose a song that has only one import .
Oates : Do you opine everyone understands a Bob Dylan song ? It ’s verse , it ’s metaphor , it ’s simile , it ’s imaging – that ’s what it ’s all about .
THRILLIST : I ’m approximate that you guys have had char make themselves at you since the 1970s . How did you deal with that when you were single , and how did you handle with that when you were n’t unmarried ?
Hall : In other days , I was just out there rocking and wheeling . I was n’t pay much attention to anything other than what was happening at the second . Over the years , my relationships have change and I changed as a person . I was married . I’mstillmarried , right now , technically , but I ’m in the process of divorce . So I ’m a single guy for real for the first clip in my biography . I do n’t make love , valet . I take every experience as it comes . I do n’t have any rules about it at all .
Oates : Well , I was tie concisely in the ’ 80s but I did n’t act like I was married . When I met my current wife in the other ' 90s , we decided – mostly it was her idea –that the only way we could make it solve in the dotty lifestyle I lead is to be together all the time and share it as a team . We did that , and we take up our son that way . He went on the route when he was five week quondam . I give [ my wife ] full credit for take the foresight to recognise that was the only direction it was gon na work .
THRILLIST : Did you two ever discuss your making love lives to issue forth up with fabric back in the day ?
Joyce Carol Oates : We would n’t even have to because we could actually live it – specially in the early solar day , when we were sharing apartments , traveling constantly together in a caravan . A song like " She ’s Gone " is a perfect example . I had a very occasional kinship with a little girl who did n’t show up for a escort on New Year ’s Eve . Daryl had a much deep detachment with an ex - married woman . We pooled our experiences and created this vocal .
THRILLIST : Do you ever feel like an sometime married couple ?
Hall : Not an old married duad – more like blood brother . I do n’t have a brother other than John , but it ’s one of those things where you may be out from each other for a long time and you do n’t really have to explain much . You guide your lifespan on an individual basis and when you come together , it ’s like no time glide by .
Joyce Carol Oates : It ’s like if you have a mob member that moves to a dissimilar part of the land and you do n’t see them except on holiday . You just be intimate each other so well – I know his family ; he knows my kinfolk . We both grew up in the same orbit in Pennsylvania . We both have young sisters who are roughly the same age . We both heed to the same medicine growing up . So even though we did n’t know each other in our former childhood , we had this commonality . It ’s the same now .
THRILLIST : Hall : What ’s the most romantic thing you ’ve ever done ?
Hall : Man , I live in aworldof love story . I do n’t know if there ’s any one thing , but I incline to think in romantic full term . I ’m the kind of person that chip in flower on special Day and things like that . I consider maybe the most romanticistic thing I ’ve ever done was dedicate my liveliness to a family and centre on that over everything else . It did n’t work out so well …
THRILLIST : What about you , Oates ?
Oates : I bought my wife some essence at the airport on the mode home from a show the other sidereal day . And Ihateperfume – I do n’t even like it when she wears it . But I knowshelikes it , so I buy it for her . I guess that was fairly quixotic .
THRILLIST : Sometimes romance is charter one for the squad .
Oates:[Laughs ] For me , love story is a pliable emotion that stretch out and contract with time and chemical science .
THRILLIST : Hey , that ’s pretty effective .
Oates : I’m gon na have to call back it , because I have no idea where it came from .
Sign up herefor our daily Thrillist email , and get your hole of the best in food / drink / playfulness .
J. Bennettis a author and musician living in Los Angeles . He delight pork barrel intersection , dressing in the manner of 1970s African dictator , and long walks on the beach . His work has appear inVice , Noisey , High Times , LA Weekly , andDecibel .
