Daryl Hall has been having trouble sleeping as of late.
“I was up all night last night because my mind did not want to rest,” Hall tells SLM while playing a few notes of his self-penned and ultra-vulnerable song “Rather Be a Fool.” “That’s a typical situation for me. Sometimes I dread that I can’t turn my mind off. And sometimes, I’m excited that I can’t turn my mind off. It just depends on the night.”
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Certainly, sparks always seem to go off in the creative mind of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, who long served as the ultimate force behind the legendary duo Hall & Oates, every time he walks into St. Louis’ historic Stifel Theatre.“It is a real pleasure to go to work in a place like that,” says Hall, a self-proclaimed history and renovation buff. “My favorite places to play are in the places from that era. I mean, you could not even begin to recreate these sorts of places now in the modern world.”
If time allows, Hall can often be found wandering around venues such as the Stifel Theatre in the hopes that the creative aura of all those there before begins to rub off on him. “These places are museums of art,” he says. “Architecturally, it was such an unusual era.”
Sitting in the drawing room of his renovated 18th-century house in Connecticut., Hall is quick to mention on this particular day that he is working on rehabbing a home in the Bahamas. But as always, the music comes first.
“Songs have different meanings in different times,” explains the 78-year-old. “Take a song such as [1982 chart-topper] ‘I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do),’ which I’ve been playing since, God knows, the ‘80s. That song morphs with the time. It’s a floating sociopolitical song.”
Hall’s career is full of lyrical chameleons, many of which will find their way onto the setlist of Hall’s March 30 show in St. Louis. “There are so many songs, and so many songs that people want to hear,” reflects Hall. “So, I have to mix that idea up with the fact that I want to keep things fresh and surprise people and play new things as well.”
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The “new things” will likely come straight from Hall’s 2024 album, D, his first solo album in 13 years and a true musical masterpiece. The Pennsylvania native recorded D alongside the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart. It is on this album that the truthful “Walking in Between Raindrops,” written with Stewart, now lives.
“I had that phrase written down somewhere,” Hall says. “We created a whole landscape around that lyrically, and yeah, it’s one of my favorites.”
Perhaps it’s a favorite because it hits home for Hall.
“That whole idea of walking between raindrops is that basically you’re trying to avoid disaster and make your way through life depending on whatever life throws at you,” says Hall, who has spent recent years mixed up in legal battles with his former Hall & Oates bandmate, John Oates. “And trying to walk between raindrops can be futile, but you got to try.”
