John Oates remains proud of all of Hall & Oates' decades of music — and is far from embarrassed of the the duo's commercial heyday in the 1980's. Oates, who's prepping an upcoming tour with Daryl Hall and special guests Squeeze in the coming months spoke to Mojo about the duo's gold and platinum era, saying “Don’t judge me by our music of the ’80s, because you don’t know who I really am.”
He went on to recall, “We enjoyed success and what came with it, but I’d missed out a lot on life. The only place left to go was down — no one can sustain that level of popularity. When it all ended, it also felt amazing. I remarried, had a kid, (and) built a house in Colorado.”
Although Hall & Oates have been recording together since 1972, and scored several hits during the “me” decade, it was the release of 1980's Voices and their subsequent '80s albums that made them household names.
With a thriving solo career and happy family life, John Oates admitted that he's far happier with the state of his career now, than during Hall & Oates' peak years during the 1980's: “The most difficult thing to deal with that accompanies success is a demand on your time. So during the '80s, we never stopped. It was writing, recording, making videos, touring. And it was an endless cycle for five or six-years-straight, and it was like a blur. I mean, I can't honestly say that that I enjoyed those huge pop star years — as much as I enjoyed some of the other years where maybe we weren't quite so popular. They were just a blur and a constant cycle of work, basically. I was kind of to step out of it and step aside.”