Quotes

[on beating Lyme Disease] I'm optimistic that I want to beat it, and I don't have nearly as bad as a lot of people get it.

[When asked if Lyme Disease would kill him] The more I read about it, the more I heard about it, the more it scared me.

[on childhood friend Todd Rundgren] Todd and I grew up almost in the same neighborhood and as kids we listened to and were influenced by pretty much the same musicians that were part of the creation of the sound of Philadelphia.

[on the death of Michael Jackson] When videos first started, we didn't know what to do, we just jumped around in front of a camera. Michael was the first one to take it seriously and said, "Okay, I'm gonna make these extravaganzas". He raised the bar for everybody in the '80s. On "We Are the World", we were all in the room together. He sort of clung to Diana Ross pretty much but, at one point, I was off to the side and he came over to me and said, "I hope you don't mind, but I stole 'Billie Jean' from you", and I said, "It's all right, man, I just ripped the base line off, so can you!" Michael Jackson created a style that was unique to him, he was incredible. And he didn't lip synch. While he was doing all those dances, he was singing, everybody else should take note.

[on the death of Mike Berniker] I remember Mike's mischievous sense of humor. He had the vision to sign Hall & Oates in the very early days, when we were relatively unproven. In regards to the music business, Mike was one of the good guys.

This truly is a highlight of my career... Smokey Robinson is one of my heroes as a singer and songwriter, a major influence on my own music from the very start. To be able to join forces on "Live from Daryl's House" is a real treat.

[on recording a song with John Oates for the first time in years] It's the song that first brought John and I together as teenagers to form a group. We shared a love for the tune, which, in my mind, is true American folk music.

[In 1982] Well, it was 2 years, in-between, '77-'78 was "Rich Girl" and "Voices" was '80. So, those 2 years [were] really kind of stepping out of the pressure in the limelight and to get a really strong band unit, and do some creative things within the format to try and evolve a little bit, and you can't really do that when you're under the gun, so, you have to step away from it. It's very hard to do it when people are constantly expecting things from you. It's very hard for us to do it now. We have a certain kind of evolution that we're doing within the format that we're working on now. But if we wanted to do something really radical, we have to step outside for a while.

[In 2009] It's an amazing thing. Every artist, either secretly or overtly, wants to be across generations, and that's the true test. You can make it and be big in your own day, but if you cross it and you become part of, I guess, history, and you start crossing through generations - that's the cool thing. That's the most exciting thing to me. It spawned this whole idea for me with my Internet show, and I do interact with new bands, especially ones that have talked about being influenced by John and me, and we're putting that talk into reality. It's really happening. There is that sort of interplay between these brand-new artists and veterans like me.

[After producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff offered both he and John Oates a new contract in 1973] I thought about it, and I said, "Thank you, but we really have our own version we need to explore in our own way".

[on the artists he truly admired] Everybody who I ever cared about has told me that they like my music: Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Al Green, The Spinners, Smokey Robinson. Everybody that matters.

[In 1981] I always thought the duos I heard as a kid were corny. We are more like co-soloists.

Traditionally, duos get accused of lots of things. We just shrugged it off.

I grew up in a very racially integrated place called Pottstown. It was an agricultural / industrial town which has since become a suburb of Philadelphia. I grew up basically in a black neighborhood. So my early influences musically were a mix of European- and African-rooted music, which is very typical of people from the Philadelphia area. Then when I became a teenager, I moved into Philadelphia proper and started working with local musicians who in those days were all doing the same things I was doing. And over time we sort of together formulated "The Sound of Philadelphia". And, when I say "we", it was me, Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, Thom Bell, The Delfonics, The Stylistics... We all knew each other, and we were all working together.

[on bands that had performed at Sun City in Apartheid South Africa then being booked to play at Live Aid (1985)] I think that anybody that has played there, I don't wanna... actually, I will mention names, Rod Stewart and Queen and people like that have played there, are jerks for doing it. They were more than aware of what they were doing and I think they should be called out for it.