A&E

Hall & Oates’ John Oates talks new memoir and … scrunchies?!

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Yes can do. Oates plays T-Mobile on July 21, with Hall, or course.
Photo: Chris Pizzello / AP
Annie Zaleski

Daryl Hall and John Oates had no shortage of hits in the 1980s—“Kiss on My List,” “Maneater” and “Private Eyes,” to name a few. Upon reading Oates’ new memoir, Change of Seasons, it becomes clear that the duo’s decade could have evolved in an entirely different direction, had a potential deal involving hair scrunchies panned out.

“When I was driving race cars, a very good friend of mine had a business opportunity,” Oates explains in a phone interview with the Weekly. “He said, ‘I’d like to talk to you and Daryl about helping with this business opportunity,” and he came and presented this idea of the scrunchie. He had found a woman, I think somewhere in Connecticut, who had invented it on her sewing machine. He wanted to do something with MTV and promote it to young girls. He thought we would write a song. And we were like, ‘The heck are you talking about?’ Little did we know.”

Culled from journals Oates started keeping in spring 1970, the year he graduated college, Change of Seasons is an entertaining look back at his life of musical endeavors, missed opportunities and unqualified triumphs. The book is written in a conversational, tough-talking Philly voice, a stylistic choice Oates says came by design. “I purposely did not read a lot of music memoirs, because I didn’t want to be influenced by a style or the way other people did things,” he says. “I really wanted to have a unique approach to it. The biggest challenge for me was, ‘How do I tell my personal story?’ at the same time my personal story is entirely wrapped up with this partnership, this Hall & Oates thing, that has dominated my adult life.”

That pairing has been especially present for Oates during the past few months, while he and Hall have been co-headlining arenas with Tears for Fears. During the H&O set, attendees can expect plenty of hits and the occasional album cut, like the sprawling, psychedelic War Babies cut “Is It a Star.” “We have this fantastically amazing problem that we have a lot of hits,” Oates says. “And that means we gotta pretty much play those hits, because people come to hear those, and we understand that. We love those songs as well. But we always like to add deep cuts from our catalogs.”

Although the duo isn’t presently collaborating on new music together, Oates is working on a new album, Hurt, with a band in Nashville; it’s due in 2018. “It started out as a tribute to [bluesman] Mississippi John Hurt, who was one of my idols growing up,” he says. “I started doing a traditional blues album, and then it began to morph into this progressive Americana record where I began to include ragtime and old songs, swing songs. But with this incredible band, it’s approaching it in a very unique way. It’s very hard to describe, but I’m really excited about it.”

Hall & Oates with Tears for Fears, Allen Stone. July 21, 7 p.m., $50-$150. T-Mobile Arena, 702-692-1600.

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