The stories of Fagen and Becker's "obsession" are legion. As five-time Grammy winner, and a man renowned for sonic excellence, even Scheiner marvels at the extent to which the Dan duo have an "obsession with sonic detail".
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Photo: Mick Hutson / RedfernsElliot Scheiner has worked with Steely Dan since their fifth album, 1976's The Royal Scam, and is arguably the most highly regarded engineer in the US, with credits ranging from Van Morrison and Toto to Fleetwood Mac and Barbra Streisand. The simple reason is that since they emerged in the early 1970s, Steely Dan have been famous/notorious as visionary/rabid (depending on your point of view) musical perfectionists and sonic pioneers. Despite being a relic from the time of analogue, the Dan fit strikingly well in the digital era. The former is defined by the band's return to live-in-the-studio and analogue recording, the latter by the many formats EMG is released on: vinyl, standard CD, special edition CD/DVD, and DVD-Audio. What does emerge from the interviews and the massive amount of press Steely Dan's ninth studio album has received is that Everything Must Go is both as retro and as 21st century as they come. For instance, Becker remarks: "Our interest in surround and high sample rates and DVD technologies and stuff like that represents a solemn prayer for world peace." Fagen explains: "I finally realised what these things are good for: we're going to add helicopter and gunshot sounds to our old tapes and put them in the back speakers.
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The Ktistec machine is a recurring theme, and some of the other tangents Fagen and Becker go off on see them seemingly trying to unpromote their new album, or at least the DVD/5.1 version of it. "I can do a pretty nice defibrillation with the Ktistec machine," adds Becker, helpfully. So would yours truly come out of this Dan interview in one piece? "We've never lost anyone yet," laughs Fagen, not entirely convincingly. According to the former, the Dan guys have "mellowed" and are now "more easy-going". To put more flesh on them, additional details were sourced from two engineers who were pivotal to the latest Steely Dan album Everything Must Go: Elliot Scheiner and TJ Doherty. Things went along comparable lines when SOS spoke to the Dan duo but while they served up their banquet of the bizarre, Becker and Fagen did occasionally throw your reporter a few tasty bones. "Has anyone ever suggested you might be difficult to interview?" asked an exasperated Mojo interviewer in 1995, while in a recent interview feature in the Guardian the writer sighed, "each question is teased and twisted into absurdity." Instead of answering questions straight, Becker and Fagen prefer to go off on endless absurd tangents with their trademark sarcastic sense of humour.
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In preparation for this Steely Dan interview, conducted via conference call with Fagen and Becker at their respective homes in New York City and Hawaii, yours truly had noted that all published Steely Dan interviews run along similar lines. "Spelled k-t-i-s-t-e-c."Ĭome again? Clearly, the two musicians who make up Steely Dan are doing their best to uphold their reputation for being awkward interviewees. "Well, the Ktistec machine, for instance." "We're planning to use some new techniques on our summer tour," he asserts. Perhaps Donald Fagen will be more forthcoming. "He doesn't look old enough! There are very strict child labour laws in the UK, aren't there?" "Your house looks very nice!" interrupts Walter Becker, apparently looking at pictures of the author's family and residence on the Web. So Walter, about your studio in Hawaii, Hyperbolic Sound. For their new album Everything Must Go, however, they've returned to analogue tape and live band recording.
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Photo: Mick Hutson / Redfernsp class="introtext">When Steely Dan ended a 20-year hiatus with 2000's Two Against Nature, they took full advantage of today's digital recording tools.
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Donald Fagen and Walter Becker on the recent Steely Dan tour.