John Oates is opening up about his legal battle and ongoing feud with his collaborative partner Daryl Hall. He confirmed that he was indeed trying to sell shares of their company.
Speaking with Good Morning America, Oates went into the reason why he sold the shares. "When this whole situation got mired in legality and really complex legal wranglings, I got frustrated," he said. "And I said, 'You know what? Daryl has always wanted to be his own man.' I said, 'I'm gonna give him the opportunity to do that. If I sell my half, he can either, you know, he can do what he wants.'"
Oates said he just wanted to step aside. He didn't see it as a big deal. However, his collaborative partner certainly did. He continued, "And it was kinda ruining my life, to be honest with you...I wasn't happy. And I said, 'Well, I'll just step aside,' people do it all the time. I mean, you look at all the artists who are selling all their catalogs...it's pretty common...It's not that big a deal. But Daryl didn't like the idea that I would sell to a certain third party."
John Oates Speaks Out
Now, Hall is suing Oates for attempting to unauthorized sell the shares. Hall said he didn't give permission for Oates to sell the shares and sees it as the ultimate betrayal. He said he was blindsided by the news, and the decision pretty much killed their partnership. He called it a bad faith move.
Oates doesn't view it that way, saying, "Not at all. I don't." "Because we've always looked at ourselves as individuals working together," he continued. "And I felt like I had the right to do that. But, you know, he didn't."
Likewise, Oates pointed out that he hasn't created something new with Hall in several decades. "The only thing we did together was play concerts where we just went out there and trotted out the hits," he said.
Oates also said that he doesn't really interact with Hall much outside of performing at concerts. "We never really talked to each other very much," he recalled. "Over the past 20 years, we'd show up at a show individually, walk on stage, play, and then we'd go our separate ways...it really wasn't as tight as people might, you know, would like to imagine in their, kind of a fantasy imagination of our relationship."
