Why Daryl Hall Refuses to Ever Reunite Hall & Oates and Join Bandmate John Oates

Daryl Hall is closing the door on the possibility of reuniting with Hall & Oates bandmate John Oates.

“That ship has gone to the bottom of the ocean,” Hall, 78, told The Times in an interview posted on Friday, February 28.

Hall was granted a restraining order against his former creative partner in 2023, preventing Oates, 76, from selling his portion of the band’s publishing rights without permission (such a sale was allegedly a violation of the terms of Hall & Oates’ business contract). Hall & Oates last performed together in October 2022 at the Laughlin Event Center in Nevada before cancelling all future touring plans.

In his new interview, Hall said of his split from Oates: “I’ve had a lot of surprises in my life, disappointments, betrayals, so I’m kind of used to it.”

The dispute between the former bandmates also hinges on songwriter credits, as Hall has complained about Oates performing their songs at his solo shows.

“The songs with his lead vocal are the songs he wrote, and all the other ones, which is about 90 percent, are the ones I wrote,” Hall claimed.

Hall has moved on to another musical partnership with former Eurythmics frontman Dave Stewart, who produced Hall’s 2024 album D. The two have intermittently worked together over the past 40 years, including on Hall’s 1986 solo breakthrough Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine.

“It’s more meaningful, a real collaborative relationship — and it’s based on maturity,” Hall said of working with Stewart.

In December 2023, Oates appeared more hopeful about an eventual reunion with Hall, telling Entertainment Weekly that he’d “never say never” to working together again.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, but … right now, I’m focused on where I am in life and leading the best life I can and moving forward,” Oates said.

Oates later defended his business decision to split from Hall in a May 2024 segment with Good Morning America host Michael Strahan, where he insisted he had not betrayed his former musical collaborator.

“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 went on: “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.”

Hall has performed many of the group’s classic songs during his own recent solo tour, including playing their 1977 No. 1 hit “Rich Girl,” “Private Eyes” and “You Make My Dreams,” among others, during his show at the Borgata Event Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey in December 2024.

The singer-songwriter is set to head back out onto the road for a 2025 tour beginning March 22 in Houston, Texas at the Arena Theater, whereas Oates is headlining at The Majestic Ventura Theater in Ventura, California on March 13.