The pop-rock duo Hall & Oates made some pretty amazing pop-rock and blue-eyed soul tunes starting in the 1970s. They reached their career peak in the 1980s with Top 10 albums like Private Eyes from 1981, H2O from 1982, and Big Bam Boom from 1984. Sadly, likely many duos of their ilk, the pairing of Daryl Hall and John Oates was complicated. And it remained complicated well into the 21st century, coming to a peak on this day in 2023 when Daryl Hall took out a restraining order against his former duo-mate, John Oates.
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Court documents at the time noted that the case was considered a contract and debt dispute against Oates. And the end result was surprising, to say the least.
A Complex Court Case That Resulted in Bad News for One Half of Hall & Oates
On this day in November 2023, Daryl Hall filed a lawsuit under seal specifically to keep John Oates from selling off the duo’s publishing rights. At the time, the rights were held by their joint organization, Whole Oats Enterprises. Apparently, Oates wanted to sell off their publishing rights to Primary Wave Music, all without even consulting Hall about it.
Surprisingly, the courts leaned in Hall’s favor. A Nashville judge sided with Hall and decided that Oates could not immediately sell his share of the joint venture. Hall received the restraining order he requested in order to prevent a sale. This would give the pair time to resolve the dispute between them.
Around April 2024, Oates was interviewed by Rolling Stone and noted that he had “moved on” from his former bandmate and noted that they would never perform together again. Hall, in an interview with Variety just a few weeks later, said more or less the same thing.
“I haven’t had a creative relationship with John for at least 25 years,” said Hall. “We didn’t write songs together, we didn’t do anything together except perform live shows. We had an arrangement that I couldn’t play my solo songs onstage with Hall & Oates — and now I get to.”
In 2025, reports noted that the pair had reached a settlement in arbitration related to the restraining order filed in 2023. It’s not clear when the settlement was reached or what conclusion the somewhat contentious duo came to. However, we can probably assume that they really will never work together again.
Photo by Monday Jr./ Mad Ink PR
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