Looking back on Steely Dan’s magnum opus, Aja, 16 months after its release, Gary Katz seems a bit shaken. “That was a difficult record to make for any number of reasons,” the producer says.
“It was ambitious,” he continues, “we were having business problems with record companies, and there was always something going on that had nothing to do with music. That really starts to get to you as you are starting to work and really don’t need record company people being, you know, record company people as they are. So in the midst of making this album, we had some real problems with some people at ABC who are no longer there, and it made the pressure of making the album greater on a daily basis. And it took a long time, this album, to make. And that in and of itself creates pressure because I have to see Donald and Walter every day, and they have to see me every day, and I don’t care what relationship you have with anyone, I mean, you need relief.”
In the third and final act of his 1979 conversation with WLIR-FM host Denis McNamara, Katz also discusses the “workshop theory” of Steely Dan’s recording process, the gentle art of dismissing session musicians, and Aja’s role in broadening radio playlists in the late ’70s.
Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of the interview. This piece is part of the series “From the Archives of Brian Sweet,” in which Expanding Dan joins forces with the author of the definitive Steely Dan biography, Reelin’ in the Years, to explore his extensive trove of unpublished and rare interviews.
