Daryl Hall confirms Hall & Oates split amid legal battles: ‘People rewrite history’

Daryl Hall has confirmed the end of Hall & Oates, his decades-long partnership with bandmate John Oates, following a months-long legal battle.

In November 2023, Hall, 77, filed a lawsuit against Oates, 76, after the latter tried to sell his share of the duo’s jointly owned company, Whole Oats Enterprises LLP. Hall called Oates’s plan the “ultimate partnership betrayal”.

“It hit me by surprise,” Hall told Variety in a new interview. “All I can say is people change and sometimes you don’t really know someone like you thought you did.

“Difficulties can be made from things that aren’t difficult, and then it goes to a place where it can never come back from. It’s unfortunate and untimely, but some things just change. People rewrite history and harbor thoughts you had no idea about.”

Asked if fans had seen the last of his former group, he replied: “That is correct.”

“I haven’t had a creative relationship with John for at least 25 years,” he added. “We didn’t write songs together, we didn’t do anything together except perform live shows. We had an arrangement that I couldn’t play my solo songs onstage with Hall & Oates – and now I get to.”

The Independent has contacted Oates’s representative for comment.

On 21 June, Hall will release his sixth studio album, D, which will see him reunite with former collaborator Dave Stewart, who worked as a producer on his second solo record, 1986’s Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine.

Hall released his debut solo record, Sacred Hearts, in 1980, followed by Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine, 1993’s Soul Alone and 1996’s Can’t Stop Dreaming.

Formed in Philadelphia in the 1970s, Hall & Oates have been performing as a duo as recently as 2022 and have released 18 studio albums, including their 1972 debut, Whole Oates.

Their brand of “blue-eyed soul” has scored six No 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, including “Kiss on My List” and “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)”. They also achieved six platinum albums and many more Top 10 singles like “Sara Smile “and “She’s Gone.”

“You think John Oates is my partner? … He’s my business partner. He’s not my creative partner,” Hall said during a 2022 appearance on the Club Random with Bill Maher podcast.

“John and I are brothers, but we are not creative brothers. We are business partners,” continued Hall. “We made records called Hall & Oates together, but we’ve always been very separate, and that’s a really important thing for me.”