Hall & Oates are in the midst of a hush-hush legal battle that has led Daryl Hall to obtain a restraining order against his former music partner John Oates.
It’s unclear what the legal complaint entails, as the Nashville court records are sealed, but based on a Nov. 16 court filing, Hall is suing the other half of Hall & Oates. The lawsuit is coupled with Hall requesting a restraining order against Oates, which was granted the day after the suit was filed.
The five solo albums Hall released, starting with “Sacred Songs” in 1980, include two Top 40 singles. But together Hall & Oates have had 29 hit songs, making them widely known as the bestselling singing duo of all time.
The two met in 1967 while escaping a shooting between rival gangs near Philadelphia. They had both separately fled to a service elevator with their respective bands at the time and became friends, then roommates, then music partners.
Despite their success as partners, Hall told The Times last year that being part of a music duo is “quite annoying.”
“I don’t like it. John and I call our touring company Two-Headed Monster, because it is that,” Hall said. “It’s very annoying to be a duo, because people always say, ‘Oh, you’re the tall one, you’re the short one. You’re the one that sings, you’re the one that doesn’t sing.’ You’re always compared to the other person. It works with comedy entities, like Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello, but with music, it’s f— up, actually.”
Hall said being part of a duo strips a person of individuality, because everything either one does is juxtaposed against the other. The “Someone Like You” hitmaker further griped about the public’s perception that if a duo is “not working, they must be fighting.”
During an appearance on the “Club Random” podcast last year, host Bill Maher touched on the duo no longer duo-ing, to which Hall replied, “John and I have a long, long history together and and we are brothers, we really are. I will never ever negate that. But we are very separate.”
As the episode was coming to a close, after Maher had been taking drags off a cigar and steadily sipping tequila, he told Hall that he still gets emotional that Hall and “his boyfriend” aren’t together, and said he wants to see them fishing together.
“Get the f— over it,” Hall jested in response.
