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Steely Dan
New York, New York 1999
page 3
It's not surprising that you work this way, because these stories are so rich and real seeming, as in "What A Shame About Me," which is like a little short story with a surprise ending. .
DF: Yeah, that's kind of like a five-minute play.
WB: That started with the title for the song.
DF: That's kind of a renovated blues idea. I think the ending of it was the last thing we wrote, I think, the ending.
WB: We had ourselves on the edges of our chairs until we got there. [Laughter] We just didn't know what was going to happen.
DF: We thought it was just too obvious for the guy just to go up with the girl --
WB: I would say, generally speaking, that songs on this album, we didn't know how the stories were going to end until we got there. Wouldn't you agree?
DF: Yeah, pretty much.
To be funny in songs can be tough, because jokes quickly get old. Yet your songs such as "Cousin Dupree" are funny without being jokey.
WB: Well, when Donald and I started writing together way back when we were in college and for several years after that, the songs that we wrote were humorous but in fact they were too humorous. They sort of, unfortunately, suffered from that very problem that you're describing, that they were just too jokey and sounded like novelty songs. But we realized that that was a liability and so we developed over time and we sort of tempered that idea, and honed into the idea of things having humor in them but a certain kind of humor and a certain amount of humor, along with other stuff. Because we were both definitely interested in humor as a central element of what we were doing, but we didn't want to write Tom Lehrer songs.
DF: "Cousin Dupree" is a song we had from a while back. That one had sort of been kicking around for a while. At one point we were talking about writing some country songs, and I think that one came out of the list of ideas for country tunes. Really parodies of country tunes.
Musically country?
DF: Well, we were thinking of doing that at the time but we didn't. Although "Cousin Dupree" does have a kind of rockabilly, Chuck Berry-ish quality to it. It's mainly the lyrics that are country.
It's hard to imagine you writing country music, because the kind of expanded chords you use are never heard in country. Years ago you referred to the "Mu chord," which is a major triad with a major second in it. Musicians also know of another "Steely Dan chord" -- Did you consciously choose to use these chords, and are they still a part of your vocabulary?
DF: Well, I think both of us have maybe been to the College of Musical Knowledge since then. [Laughter] So we know a lot more about harmony now. Those chords that we used then were some of the more interesting chords that hadn't been used that much in beat music at the time. So, yeah, I think we still use those chords -
WB: But there are so many others -
DF: It's not like we ever said, "I'm going to use this Mu chord here" -
WB: That was just a joke. We made that up just for the songbook. We never referred to it, before or after that day, as the "Mu chord" -
DF: No, we never did, we never did.
WB: It was just an invention. [To Donald] Do you know what he means by this other chord, this "Steely Dan chord"?
DF: Yeah, it's a minor seventh with a sharp-five.
WB: Yeah, right.
DF: It is a major chord, but with the third in the bass, you can call it a minor-seventh. [Laughter] It's really an inversion of a major chord with an added second-
WB: Right. And no third.
You're famous for getting the tightest rhythm tracks possible. Musicians now have machines which can create that kind of precision, but they rarely get the soulful grooves that you create. How do you do it?
DF: It comes out of the arrangement a lot. And the drummer. And in the last couple of years there has been a certain manipulation of the rhythm track. We started with live drums on every song.
WB: But then we edit. Essentially it's an editing process.
DF: Yeah, it's not only a live drum track, but actually a live band playing. We have a quintet or a sextet.
WB: Some of the later ones we did with a trio. Sometimes on some of the larger sections I wouldn't play.
DF: Walter was actually producing when we were having the bigger bands. I was playing outside and Walter was inside --
WB: Ordering take-out food. [Laughter]
The horn arrangements on this new album are remarkable. Are they part of the original conception of the song?
DF: It's usually one of the last things we put on. Of course, you listen to a track and say, "Oh, we can have horns do that." Generally speaking it has to do with where do you need a kick in a song. And I think that's good, because it keeps it kind of minimal that way. So you don't overwrite. Sometimes just a little horn goes a long way.
That to me seems a key to your production and arrangement style, that you have a lot going on, but everything comes in at the right time, so that you can hear all of the separate components.
DF: Yeah, that's the advantage of working on tape.
WB: We try to avoid the abuse of the bourgeois football technique. Where guys are just playing chords and holding them. We want more emotion in there, more contrapuntal movement -
DF: More air in the production. There are a particular bunch of guys, especially guitar players, who just want to play a chord and hold it through the bar. Which is something we try to avoid. Because it weighs down everything.
It's also common to sustain keyboard pads through the bar, which is something you never do. And that does create a feeling of space in the music.
DF: Yeah. In fact, because we don't do that much, then when we bring in the horn section, then it can serve as a little pad there or sustain section. You can do it at the end of the song without gunking the whole thing out.
To keep that space, are you also pretty sparing when it comes to the use of reverb and echo?
WB: Certainly by comparison to other people I think we are. We are shooting for a different end result than what a lot of people are. In general, people, when they are making rock and roll records, want a big, powerful, sort of massive sound. And we're thinking more in terms of being able to clearly hear the details. We're more influenced by good sounding jazz recordings of the late fifties and sixties and some subsequent things as well. So I think our things tend to be a little drier and clearer sounding and more up-front in general.
Unlike most bands who develop a distinctive sound over a series of albums, you had your sound complete from the first album. Did you two discuss what you wanted to do in terms of sound, before you accomplished it?
DF: We had been working at studios a little bit, and by the time we made the first record we had met Roger Nichols, and Roger was also a hi-fi buff and had a very compatible concept, and certainly we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do. And Roger knew how to do it, essentially.
WB: Roger was totally into doing whatever we wanted to do in terms of experimenting. We knew early on that he was the guy for us. It was essentially working on the Steely Dan albums with Roger where we first had the opportunity to go in and fool around with things and try different stuff, and play around with equipment, and mix a record, and so on.
Do you have favorite keys to work in, and do you feel that each key has its own character?
DF: Yeah, I do, in a funny way. I don't know if I can define it, exactly. With different keys it's almost as if they each have different smells. [Laughter]
WB: There is some kind of complex, synesthetic effect that each key has-
DF: Yeah. At least in relation to other keys. I'm sure if something was in D and then it was in E, I don't know if that would make as much of a difference if you heard it out of context. But if you heard the D one first and then the E one, then you could compare them.
WB: And forgetting about if keys in the abstract have some kind of color, if you are working on some particular musical instrument, they certainly are quite different.
DF: Also the way that keys affect range and inversion. That's not anything intrinsic to a key, but it does affect the way it sounds.
As the lead singer, do you gravitate towards certain keys that best suit your vocal range?
DF: No, I just usually make sure the highest note of the melody falls within my range.
WB: Or very nearly so.
DF: If not, then we decide if it's possible to have that be some kind of background part, so that we can get up higher. Sometimes we'll take the melody and say that it is going to be falsetto or a girl singing. And that's cool. I'll sing the lower part.
WB: Sometimes the verse needs to be in a certain key or not below a certain key, because we are modulating a lot up to the chorus, and that would place the chorus too high.
DF: In "Two Against Nature," we liked the verse in a certain key for my voice and the way it sounded on the keyboard. And we actually had the chorus in another key, but it didn't work out rangewise for my voice. We tried to get the same effect by putting the chorus in a different key.
WB: Often we'll have a series of possible different key relationships between verse and chorus, and we'll have to decide on one that is the best in terms of ranges. Sometimes there will be two or three modulations in one song. I know that was the case with "Two Against Nature."
DF: Right. We wanted the effect of the chorus to have a lift in a certain way. What is it?
WB: The verse is in A flat and the chorus is in D.
DF: The first relationship we had was similar. Maybe it was a third up. But we knew we wanted that kind of thing but the first thing we had just didn't work out from a range point of view. So we searched around for something that sounded pretty much as good that was singable.
The harmony vocals on Two Against Nature are wonderful. And more then ever you have a lot of counterpoint harmonies going against the melody.
DF: Yeah, I think that is one of the things we are doing a little different is the vocal parts. Because we used to do more block harmony. Now this is more interesting. I guess this is our classic period because we are going back to counterpoint.
WB: [Laughs] It's our Baroque period.
DF: Primitive counterpoint it might be, but counterpoint nonetheless. [Laughs]
You finished this album in 1999 to be released in 2000, which ensures that there will be good music in the next millennium. Any thoughts as to how your music applies to the next century?
WB: Well, we're still confused about how our music applies to the current century. [Laughs] We have been fortunate enough to do something that has always been out of the mainstream and yet have an audience for what we do. And I hope that continues to be true. I don't think what we are doing fits neatly into the context of what's happening now anymore than it did in the early seventies when we started doing it. We were fortunate at that time that radio was as wide open as it was that people doing something like what we were doing could sneak in there.
DF: We sneaked in a window of a couple of years when radio was willing to play something that didn't sound like something that had been played for the last forty years.
You are one of the only bands to never have been influenced by any trends.
DF: You know what it is, we're influenced by music from the last century.
WB: We're influenced by trends but they are only trends that we know about. [Laughter] They're secret trends.
Will there be more Steely Dan albums after this one?
WB: There could be. It depends on how long we live.
DF: Depends on the sales, really.
WB: [Laughter] It depends on demand.
DF: They're not going to let us make another one, you know, unless somebody buys it.
Having listened to it thoroughly in both New York and L.A., I can attest to the fact that it sounds great on both coasts.
WB: [Laughter] Well, that's really nice to know, but it's really the middle of the country we're worried about. If you find anyone in the middle of the country that likes it, please let us know.
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