John Oates: 2025

This  FUV Live session is also available as a podcast, "FUV Live Sessions." We're elevating WFUV's long history of live sessions and interviews via a podcast that you can find on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.

Pop music legend John Oates has come knocking at the Studio A door with a new album, simply called OATES, in hand.

Yes, to coin the phrase, he is "feeling his Oates" with a bright set of new songs and in an energized stance as a solo artist. OATES puts John together with with (fellow Philadelphian) Devon Gilfillian, and the new "Real Thing Going On" is one of their soulful creations, and John's first solo-acoustic number in our FUV Live session.

He also performs "A Ways Away," written with Australian songwriter and guitarist Jed Hughes. The title came first — and out of a phone call where the common expression was dropped and it seemed like a great song idea.

Oates still records the "old fashioned way," citing the first two Hall & Oates albums made with Arif Mardin, and crediting the arranger and producer with teaching him "all he needed to know" about making a record.

Today, John's home base is Nashville, and with plenty of music mentorship at play. He notes that in living and working there, his virtual Rolodex of session players is rich and full, saying "it's not called 'Music City' for nothing: it's the real deal."

John and I first met many years ago, and I have interviewed him solo and in the company of his former collaborator Daryl Hall. For this updated conversation, we look back at five-year benchmarks between 1975 and 1985, going back in time through Hall & Oates participation in Live Aid and "We Are The World." We talk about their breakthrough 1980 album, Voices, where Oates sang lead on two key songs, and finally back to the watermark single release of "She's Gone," which John performs tenderly as his third Studio A performance.

We also speak candidly about the split between John and Daryl and in measured tones. Without rancor Oates speaks with gratitude for their amazing career together and with confidence for the solo path he has chosen going forward.

[Recorded: 8/19/25; Engineered by Jim O'Hara with Matthew Ellersick and Sage Rochetti. Produced by Meghan Suma. Videographers:Alena Godas, Bella Lipayon, Nikki Phillips and Olivia Iannaccone.]