Enter the archive of a Steely Dan biographer
A new regular Expanding Dan series will mine Reelin' in the Years author Brian Sweet's extensive trove of interviews.
For months Brian Sweet had been trying desperately to get in touch with Walter Becker and Donald Fagen.
It was the early 1990s. On the strength of a dozen or so issues of his Steely Dan fanzine, Metal Leg, the Englishman had secured a contract to write what would be the band’s first proper biography. Despite his calls and letters to scores of agents and managers and publicists across the Atlantic, the book’s primary subjects remained as elusive as ever.
Late one night, Sweet answered the telephone at his home in Somerset in South West England. To his shock and delight, it was Becker, calling from Hawaii. In the brief conversation that followed, Becker listened as Sweet explained the scope and tenor of the book project, then he politely confirmed his and Fagen’s nonparticipation. “Carry on,” Becker advised his would-be biographer, “as if Donald and I were dead.”
And that’s just what Sweet did. In the face of the early setback, he would go on to talk to myriad people in Becker and Fagen’s orbit. Legendary studio collaborators like Paul Griffin, Bernard Purdie, and Chuck Rainey. Becker’s childhood guitar teacher, Randy California. Even Donald Fagen’s dear mother, Elinor. He also drew upon his vast personal archive of Steely Dan interviews, feature stories, and reviews that for years he had clipped out of magazines and newspapers and collected in a scrapbook.
It is a testament to Sweet’s labor and care that today, 30 years after its first printing, Reelin’ in the Years remains the essential biography of Steely Dan. One of my first orders of business after I launched Expanding Dan some 14 months ago was reaching out to Sweet. We have been in regular contact ever since, drawn together as we are by a kind of shared psychosis.
Last February, we collaborated on the publication of the rarely heard bootleg audio from Becker and Fagen’s 1977 appearance on late-night L.A. radio, a broadcast that happened to serve as the world premiere of both “Black Cow” and “Aja.” In recent months, Sweet and I began discussing joining forces to disentomb some of the dozens of interviews he conducted for the book that have been collecting dust for three decades. Just before Christmas, Sweet sent me a document containing more than 300 typewritten pages of transcripts that have never before been published. It was, I told him, the best present a razor boy could ever want.
To kick off the “From the Archives of Brian Sweet” series, I’m finally publishing my November 2022 interview with the esteemed author himself in which we discuss what he once thought of as his “all-encompassing obsession.”
Buy Reelin’ in the Years by Brian Sweet directly from the publisher, Omnibus Press.
Steely Dan, for many of us, has functioned as a type of gateway drug, not just to the music of Becker and Fagen but also to so much else—to great jazz and R&B, to offbeat literature and film. I gather they had that same effect on you?
Absolutely. If they name-checked something, I would seek it out. Donald was always going on about Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, so I bought that. Walter mentioned a book called Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson, so I went and got that. I got books by Nabokov, like Lolita and Pale Fire and so on. “Rose Darling” came from Lolita. Donald wrote the sleeve notes to a Steve Khan album [Arrows], so I’d have to get that.
When did you first hear Steely Dan?
In 1972, I was 13 years old. I was raised in Somerset, which is about 30 miles south of Bristol. I recall being in the back of my parents’ car on a Sunday afternoon in the summer, driving along the coast, and the radio was on. I heard this song “Do It Again,” which I thought was really interesting. The most interesting thing to me was the voice. Then, of course, came “Reelin’ in the Years” and so on. As time went on, I began to realize, Oh, that’s Steely Dan. I started getting the albums. In 1974, Steely Dan played in Bristol. I was only 15, and I’d not been to gigs at that point, so unfortunately I wasn’t there. I would’ve loved to have been there, but not quite.
At the time were you into things like T. Rex and David Bowie?
Yes. Bowie, T. Rex, quite a bit of a glam rock. I’m quite lucky because I have a brother who is 10 years older. So he helped expose me to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and the Who and so on. I felt I had a head start because of him, and I was ready for the music of the ’70s. I really liked R.E.M. in the ’80s. I’ve seen loads of gigs down the years—Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, McCartney, Squeeze, Elvis Costello. I saw Dylan later on. I’ve been over to the States many times to see Steely Dan. I was at Madison Square Garden in ’93 when they reunited. I consider myself quite fortunate, really.
What did it take to get the fanzine off the ground in the 1980s?
When I started Metal Leg in 1987, it was quite ironic, really, because Steely Dan didn’t really exist, having broken up after Gaucho. But fanzines were pretty popular then, and I had a large collection of stuff, like the KPFK interview they did from Los Angeles in 1977 just before Aja came out. So I thought I could begin to put some of it out there. The Dan have quite a cult following, so I thought there probably was a market. I began doing four issues a year. I took out ads in Rolling Stone and eventually got subscribers from all over the world. It was a nice little hobby. I had a day job, but Steely Dan was my all-encompassing obsession, and I loved every minute of it.
How did you get your hands on the bootleg radio interviews and other curiosities you published in Metal Leg?
I was importing magazines from the States containing reviews and interviews. I’d hear through the grapevine that Walter and Donald had been on some radio show and then try to track down the tape. I came out to the States in 1982 with some friends purely as a holiday, and I discovered Goldmine, the record-collecting magazine. I would plow through Goldmine and find information to purchase vinyl records that contained a Donald and Walter radio interview, like the Robert Klein Radio Show and things like that. Every time a package dropped on my mat, I was excited.
All of these Steely Dan magazine interviews and features and other materials, I would cut them out and stick them into a scrapbook in chronological order. Pieces from Melody Maker and Sounds, the New Musical Express, High Fidelity, the English papers, the New York Times, and other publications. In the early ’90s, I photocopied the whole thing and sent it to Walter in Maui. Later I got something from his rep, Bobbi Marcus, to say that Walter had received the scrapbook and loved it, and thanks very much.
How did you come to write the book?
The essence of the project was simple: I wanted to read a biography of Steely Dan, and there simply wasn’t one that existed. The next logical step after the fanzine was to try and do a bio. The book was a leap of faith on my part. I didn’t know whether I would be able to do it. I never was a full-time writer.
I wrote a letter to Omnibus Press in London, because they specialized in music books, and said, “I am a fan of Steely Dan. I’ve been doing this fan magazine. Would you be interested in a book?” And they were! They soon gave me a contract to do the book.
Later I learned that Dave DiMartino, who used to write for Creem and Rolling Stone, had a contract to do a book about the Dan in the 1980s. He had been in contact with Walter. Apparently what happened was that the editor who commissioned the book lost his job at that particular publisher, and the publisher decided it no longer wanted the book. [Editor’s note: DiMartino finally published the e-book, Do It Again: The Steely Dan Years, in 2009.]
You did so many interviews for the book. Which ones stand out in your mind?
I probably interviewed Roger Nichols three times because he was so chatty and friendly and forthcoming. He was very, very, very helpful. I went to Gary Katz’s house in Scarsdale, New York. He was fairly guarded. It was 1993, and Steely Dan was just getting back onto the road, so perhaps he didn’t want to piss anyone off. But while I was there, I told Gary, “I’d love to interview Denny Dias, seeing as he’s an original member of the band.” So while I was sitting there, he rang up Denny, who said, “I’d be happy to talk.”
Beyond your one brief call with Becker, did you ever have any other interactions with him and Fagen?
In 1989, Pete Fogel told me in advance that Donald was going to be playing at the Lone Star in New York. Nothing had been happening for years. So I actually flew to New York and went to the Lone Star gigs. In order to promote the gig, Donald was going to do an interview with Pat St. John on WNEW. So I went down to the radio station to sort of ambush Donald when he turned up. When Donald walked past on the sidewalk, he actually missed the entrance to the radio station. So I thought, well, this is my moment. I went up to him and pointed him in the right direction. I had my vinyl copy of Aja, which he signed for me. I also showed him a copy of Metal Leg. He was like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” and he went into WNEW like a rat into the drain. He only kind of looked at the cover. He might’ve thumbed through the issue very quickly. But I think he sort of thought, Who’s this guy? Is he a nutcase? He wanted to make himself scarce.
Several years later, in 1996, my friend Dave and I went to Dublin to see Steely Dan at the Point Theatre. We were in Tower Records, and I spotted Walter. I said to Dave, “Hey, Walter Becker is over there.” I stalked him a little bit around the store, chose my moment, and went up to introduce myself. He introduced me to his wife at the time and said, “We’re having a party in such-and-such a hotel tonight because it’s the final night of the tour, and if you’d like to come along, you can do so.” So we went to the party after the show and had some food and drinks on Steely Dan, which was great. Donald was there, hunched over, holding a Coke. This time I didn’t approach him.
Reelin’ in the Years has been updated three or four times since its original publication in 1994. The last update was after Walter passed away in 2017. Do you imagine you’ll update the book again?
I don’t know what Omnibus Press feels about it, but I would think maybe one more update if and when Donald passes, assuming he passes before I do. That would effectively close the Steely Dan chapter for me once and for all.
You told me you’re not as obsessed with Steely Dan these days, certainly not as much as you were when you were writing the book. What fills your days and nights?
Well, I’m retired now. My wife is looking after her elderly mother, and I stay occupied with films and books and other music. I do still follow what’s going on with Steely Dan’s tours and releases and so on.
Have you been surprised by the resurgence in the band’s popularity, especially among younger listeners? Since the early aughts, many critics have reappraised what was once written off as slick elevator music. When you were writing the book, could you ever imagine this happening?
I don’t think so. When Walter passed away in September 2017, it made the main BBC news here in the UK. I was very surprised watching the news that night and hearing them say that Walter Becker from Steely Dan had passed away—because it wasn’t Dylan or McCartney or Jagger. That showed me where Steely Dan are now in the culture. It seems like there’s a conveyor belt of new generations coming through who look back, maybe to see what all the fuss was about. Steely Dan are much, much bigger now than even I realized. The tentacles reach out very far and wide.
Wow, so delighted you have connected with Brian -- can't wait for more from his archives! His book is the definitive one for me, and very well-written. He and I exchanged some snail-mail letters way back in the 90s. I'll dig them out.
Walter’s death also made the main breakfast news channel here in Australia. Not the best way to start my working day…