Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen Spent the Pandemic Writing Songs for a New Album
At the start of the pandemic, Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen joked to IndieLand that he was spending quarantine “hangin’ tight in the Apple, baby, gargling Clorox under a sunlamp.” Luckily it turns out he also found time to write songs for a new solo album that will be his first since 2012’s Sunken Condos.
“After [the pandemic] went on for a while, I ended up writing almost an album’s worth of tunes for a solo record,” Fagen says in a new interview. “It was actually a really good period for me.”
Fagen says it’s still too early to reveal too many details, but he says he’s already made a few demos for the new songs. “I’m really excited about it,” Fagen says, adding of the tunes, “Some of them are personal. There’s one I particularly like called ‘The Stellar Bartender.’ [Laughs] About a very empathetic bartender.”
Fagen recently released a pair of new live albums, Northeast Corridor — which boasts a smattering of Steely Dan songs — and a full live version of his 1982 solo record, The Nightfly. He’s also set to return to the road with Steely Dan next month, with a run of shows kicking off October 25th in Baltimore, Maryland (a handful of previously scheduled shows for earlier in October were recently pushed to 2022).
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Fagen says the band will kick off rehearsals in the coming weeks, but despite more than a year off the road, he’s confident there won’t be too much rust to shake off. “We’re just going to brush up on some stuff, maybe add a few new things to dress up the show a little bit,” he says, before adding with a laugh: “It’s really a convenience that everyone can read music. You don’t have to sing parts, we’ve got charts — although most of the players don’t even use the charts anymore.”
And while Fagen spent quarantine playing and writing at home, he’s looking forward to music no longer being such a solo endeavor. “I really missed it,” he says of playing live. “I haven’t played at all with anyone else since 2020. I’m really, really into it.”
