By Rob Steen
The Independent
LONDON — Not before time, the man who did it again is doing it again. But, after nine years of soundtrack credits and precious little else, muffled is the only way to convey the re-emergence of Donald Fagen, aka Lester The Nightfly from WJAZ, the co-founder of the group Steely Dan, the Catcher in the Wry.
For one thing, the record that Fagen has broken his silence to promote, Live At The Beacon – by the sublime Rock & Soul Revue band he assembled last February (members including Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs) – does not so much as bear his name, merely an etching of someone who might be him. For another, he has a stinking cold and has just completed a madcap dash through the Manhattan traffic after oversleeping. His condition has the additional side effect of embellishing that adenoidal, sarcastic whine – the one Nick Kent of the New Musical Express once referred to as “that unique cartoon of a voice”.
For a writer who has expressed himself almost exclusively in the third person, Fagen is decidedly less detached than expected. It may be tucked away somewhere, but the infamous sneer is undetectable. The virtual silence since 1982’s autobiographical album The Nightfly is over, usurped by a zestful warmth unimaginable in someone who until last winter had not performed live in 16 years, let alone the man who, with help from his friend Walter Becker, had defined cynical pop while David Byrne was still in his art school napies.
These perceived changes have much to do with Fagen’s recovery from what was evidently a painful and protracted dose of existential angst. Now that he’s 43, a sly, fiendish grin supplies the sole clue to a legacy of scathing social dissections matched only by the songs of Randy Newman. Happily ensconced with his girlfriend and her teenage children in an apartment on New York’s East Side, muse intact, the eagerness to communicate is transparent. Heavens, on his upcoming solo album he and Becker are almost as one again.
The long sabbatical suggests otherwise, but Fagen did once contend that it was possible to compose in a vacuum. Does he retain that conviction? “No,” is the instantaneous reply, one cloaked with disbelief that he should ever have said such a thing. “I see now that I was writing from memory, which is not really a vacuum. I think you can write from memory, but that only lasts until your memories run out. That’s probably why I didn’t write much in the 1980s: I needed to assemble a new bunch of memories. After The Nightfly, I had a kind of a writer’s block. It took me a while to get over it and I did a lot of self-analysis. Mind you, the 1980s were also very boring.
“From 1972 to 1980, the fluctuating array of stellar session musicians orchestrated by Fagen and Becker produced an acutely original, immaculately manicured body of work that dared to weld jazz to pop and evolved into something best described as “bepop.” So effortlessly did they transcend the age barrier, that the septuagenarian scientist James Lovelock recently chose Steely Dan’s Haitian Divorce as his first selection on Desert Island Discs.
“If you don’t understand the words, you can always tap your foot,” advised one review of Can’t Buy A Thrill, Steely Dan’s debut. Yet tales of bodacious cowboys and big black cows were intrinsic to the whole, lending a touch of humanity to music so cool it nearly froze. That said, the messages were often obtuse. Fagen once claimed that “no one will ever get to the bottom of “Chain Lightning,”” one of three self-penned contributions to Live At The Beacon and originally recorded for 1975’s Katy Lied. “I think the lyrics were, er, a little less lucid early on,” he concedes. “That song was about a couple of guys going to a fascist rally — we had the Berchtesgaden in mind — and then remembering it 40 years later. We almost inserted a spoken part before the last verse saying “40 years later.” That might have made it clearer.”
Was working alone difficult? “Sure, I missed the spark we gave each other,” Fagen confesses. “But Walter and I needed a vacation from each other. After a couple of years we’d both changed a lot.” Becker’s luck certainly needed to: after breaking both legs in a car crash, he was later sued by a woman who held him responsible for the drug-induced death of her teenage daughter. Currently residing in Hawaii, he has recently produced records for Rickie Lee Jones, China Crisis and various artists from the Windham Hill “New Age” stable.
Now, though, he’s back with Fagen. “I asked Walter to co-produce my new album and he came to stay for a couple of months. We worked together every day, just as we used to. I would usually initiate the tune in those days, then show it to Walter and we’d do the rest together. It’s not exactly like that now because it’s my record, but we have some other projects that we’re working on. Steely Dan was part of its time, but we’ll come up with something.”
At least one collaboration — drawn from a wad of songs the pair wrote during a brief reunion in 1985 — will surface on a collection that Fagen, rarely a strict observer of deadlines, anticipates releasing next autumn. In the meantime, new converts are being offered the dubiously-title Steely Dan Gold (Extended Edition), containing only three tracks that do not figure on any of the three previous compilations. The forthcoming four-CD boxed set had better be more imaginative.
Fagen is none the less grateful for some interest from a new generation. “It’s great to know our albums still sell to college kids — the luxury of working only when I’m really inspired is made possible by that. But I’m not sure what exactly it is about those records — I know the early ones irritate me — aside from a certain amount of technical excellence. If we were ahead of our time it was simply because we grew up with a certain natural ironic stance which later became the norm in society.”
Insiders attest that Becker and Fagen were merciless perfectionists who even scripted solos note-for-note. “We didn’t usually chart them in their entirety,” Fagen insists gently, visibly embarrassed by the implications. “A cat would come in and just blow. If he had trouble with the chords or stylistically, we’d coach him along. Maybe every few bars we’d punch something in, or take a lot of different tracks and combine them. These things are exaggerated — it may have happened once or twice.
“On the song “Aja,” Wayne Shorter, as I recall, did two or three takes. The first was kind of a rehearsal, then he wrote down the changes because they were tough and hard to remember, so he wrote out the scales and did two more takes, which we later combined. If Larry Carlton found a guitar part complicated he’d play a bit and then we’d come up with a couple of suggestions. It seemed like we were doing a lot of takes, but we were recording on tape.”
What, then, of the alleged three remixes that supposedly delayed Aja’s release by nine months? Fagen pleads innocence: “I can remember doing two or three versions of “Babylon Sisters” for Gaucho, but we remixed very quickly. Coupla weeks tops.
“I wish I could push out albums quickly just to keep my career afloat, but I don’t know how. The only way I know is to let time pass and the record make itself. I have a happier domestic situation now, I’m happier within myself. I’ve resolved a lot of personal problems. I also let myself screw up more now. I just needed time to change.”
But in dispensing with his demons, might Fagen have shed some steel? “I certainly hope not.” Cue another throaty cackle, followed closely by a mock gesture of offence: “Do you mean, did I lose my edge? Well, I’m certainly not going to put out those Paul McCartney-type records full of cutesy love songs, that’s for sure.”
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