“A real collaborative relationship - and it’s based on maturity”: Daryl Hall says that his creative partnership with Dave Stewart is “more meaningful” than the one he had with John Oates

Daryl Hall has seemingly put an end to any hope that he might one day reunite with former bandmate John Oates, saying that that ship hasn’t so much sailed as “gone to the bottom of the ocean”.

The two men became estranged when Hall filed a lawsuit and restraining order against Oates in 2023 after learning that his former creative partner was planning to sell his share of the duo’s publishing company, Whole Oates Enterprises, to Primary Wave Music.

Hall objected to the move and said in his declaration that this was a “completely clandestine and bad faith move” and “the ultimate partnership betrayal”.

Hall has now doubled-down on this claim in an interview with The Times. Discussing the breakdown of his relationship with Oates, he says: “I’ve had a lot of surprises in my life, disappointments, betrayals, so I’m kind of used to it.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Hall expresses his disappointment at the fact that - as he sees it - his domination of the songwriting in Hall and Oates wasn’t fully acknowledged. “The songs with his lead vocal are the songs he [Hall] wrote, and all the other ones, which is about 90 per cent, are the ones I wrote,” he says.

Hall was also asked if his creative partnership with Eurythmics star Dave Stewart, with whom he worked on his 2024 album, D, is more meaningful than the one he had with his long-time recording partner.

“It’s more meaningful, a real collaborative relationship - and it’s based on maturity,” he says.

Daryl Hall and Dave Stewart - Heart of Stone - YouTube

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Speaking last year about his decision to sell his share of Hall and Oates’ publishing company, Oates said: “We’ve always looked at ourselves as individuals working together, and I felt like I had the right to do that. But, you know, he didn’t.”

Oates also suggested that, although Hall and Oates have performed together in recent years, it’s been some time since they worked together in any other capacity, and that the bond between them wasn’t as strong as some fans might have thought.

“Over the past 20 years we’d show up at a show individually, walk on stage, play, and then we’d go our separate ways,” Oates confirmed. “It really wasn’t as tight as people might, you know, would like to imagine in their kind of a fantasy imagination of our relationship.”