Los Angeles

From Melody Maker, written by Harvey Kubernik

Steely Dan are over at ABC studios working on two albums with a March deadline. The songs waxed so far signal a new direction for the brilliant Don Fagen/Walter Becker songwriting team, "Shanghai Breakdown," "Here At The Western World," and "The Gaucho" show the music getting more complicated. Ed Green, Jim Keltner and Steve Gadd have all done time behind the skins for Dan this last session. "The music is getting more erotic," says Fagen. "For the most part the tunes cut so far are pop songs with little things added to make it interesting."

Steely Dan Ready to Hit the Road Again

From The Los Angeles Times, written by Richard Cromelin

More often than not, the news on Steely Dan is no news. Compulsive recordmakers Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, the group's creative core, are usually ensconced in the studio, rejecting the conventional wisdom that a band must perform to survive. Finally, though, the first Steely Dan tour in well over two years appears on the horizon, and if the performing-makes-hits theorem proves true, it could give Steely Dan its first big-seller since '74's "Rikki, Don't Lose That Number." Not that Becker and Fagen care that much.

"I really thought that single was gonna go. It didn't." Fagen betrays only mild disappointment at the near-miss of "Kid Charlemagne" and a trace of amusement at the followup, a disco parody from "The Royal Scam." "They've put "The Fez' out, hoping they could get a disco hit... Well, you can dance to parts of it, you just have to stop in the middle once in a while."

Fagen, pacing the studio floor prior to putting the vocals on the latest Steely Dan tracks, inadvertently sheds some light on why he and his partner Walter Becker have trouble fighting through the welter of "Boogie Fevers" and "Shake Your Bootys" that occupy the Top 10 these days.

"There's this song we've been thinking about writing," he announces in his thick New York accent, "about the Congress of Vienna, which sealed Napoleon's tomb, so to speak. Which would be working from the angle of Napoleon being the reincarnation of the spirit of ancient Rome, the Roman state which wanted to unite the world, and the Congress of Vienna going back to the divisive thing.

"In translating that into a pop song, of course," he adds, "you have to really get down to the bones of it and simplify it so much that probably no one will understand what it's about anyway, so..."

Becker and Fagen, viewing the pop scene with a mixture of bemusement and contempt, aren't the sort to compromise their peculiar muse. Steely Dan having become a proven quantity with a steady following, they can count on enough album sales to insure that they'll be allowed to make another, which is really their primary concern. Fagen, between bites on his pre-session hamburger, discusses the current state of Steely Dan's jazz-influenced rock.

"Before, we used to knock off two in an evening and that was that, but now it's really hard. Now when we come into a session the sheets are like this" - he stretches his thin arms to maximum wingspread. "We're not trying to be more complicated or anything. They're still almost pop song forms, but there's little things you can do to make it interesting by way of development of the themes that are stated in the 'popular' part of the song.

"That's where the interest lies. Once you state your theme, then you have to do something with it or it's just static popular music. That's what's interesting about classical music and jazz Jazz music is spontaneous - the guy's making up notes on the spot, you've got lots of knowledge and experience behind it. Rock 'n' roll is just how much energy you can put into it. Most of the guitar work you hear, the hard-rock things, there's no thought behind it."

The Becker-Fagen personality is such that News-week headlined its Steely Dan story "Recluse Rock." Fagen protests, calling the label an exaggeration, but the team's long absence from the performing stage has furthered its somewhat contrary and mysterious aura. Actually, they were ready to start rehearsals with a new touring group after "The Royal Scam," but were forced back into the studio by a new two-album March deadline. The albums (after which, Fagen suggests, a new, more sophisticated Steely Dan style will emerge) will fulfill their contract with ABC, and the industry rumors have it that they'll follow their producer, Gary Katz, to Warner Brothers.

"We'll go out on tour eventually," Fagen promises, "as soon as we get all this business stuff straight. Do maybe 20 dates. I don't like to travel, but I'd like to do 20 dates. We'll see how it goes. If it's a good band we'll probably take it out again. It depends on how sick I am after the 20 dates."