A decade ago, when the London-based musicians Andy Platts and Shawn Lee set out to create an album inspired by the lushly produced AOR of the 1970s and ’80s, they felt more than a bit daunted.
“We were looking at the super-high standard of our influences from the past and being like, ‘This is how good our music has to be,’” Lee says, referring to the likes of Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers. “‘This is what we are competing with. If we’re in this to win this, then we have to try to be at least as good. And if we can’t, then what’s the point?’”
Those would be rather lofty expectations for any musician, but Platts and Lee arguably delivered with their 2015 debut, West End Coast, and its 2018 successor, AM Waves. They struck a delicate balance, channeling the spirit of artists like Player and Boz Scaggs into their songcraft without surrendering to the captain’s-hat clichés that sink so much modern yacht rock.
Earlier this month, Young Gun Silver Fox dropped their fifth LP, Pleasure, yet another collection of elegant, hook-filled tunes ripe for soundtracking summer barbecues and sunset drives. Back in the fall of 2022, I spoke to Platts and Lee shortly after the release of their fourth album, Ticket to Shangri-La. During that interview—published here for the first time—they discussed their admiration for “apex recording studio assassins,” why Walter Becker and Donald Fagen “were winning on every level,” and the Steely Dan records they return to most often. The conversation is accompanied by a mixtape the duo curated; the playlist follows the Q&A.
In the early days of Young Gun Silver Fox, which artists and albums did you feel you had to measure up to?
Shawn Lee: Aja by Steely Dan is quite high up there. That’s one of those classic records that’s constantly at the top of the greatest records ever made in any genre. I hold the Michael McDonald era of the Doobie Brothers in just as high regard as Steely Dan. The difference is that the Doobie Brothers with Mike were a little bit warmer, whereas Steely Dan had that East Coast jaded, cynical, literary mindset. Livin' on the Fault Line, I think, is the most Steely Dan–ish of the Mike-era Doobie Brothers. It doesn’t have the same agenda as Steely Dan, but it’s equally as good in all the same ways.
