Juan Patino

a lot in my life. There was a whole bunch of stuff. You don't have enough time. What kind of article is this? I thought this was, like, a little thing.

Woods and fields — that's how I grew up. I used to trap muskrats in the creeks around our house. North Wales, Pennsylvania, about twenty-five miles north of Philadelphia.

It's cruel. You use a leg trap, which are mostly illegal now. If you hit it on the nose in the right way, you don't shatter the bones and ruin the pelt. The guy at Sears, Roebuck would pay $2.50 for a good muskrat pelt, five bucks for a raccoon. I never got a raccoon.

Here's how we met: There was a teenage record-hop held by one of the local R&B stations. We were both independently invited to go to this thing and lip-synch our singles. That's what you did in those days. You go onstage, they play the record, you pretend to sing. We were actually in the backstage area of this hall. It was in West Philly, bad neighborhood. It was the Five Stairsteps, Howard Tate, Daryl's group, and my group. We were all kind of waiting to go on. And this fight broke out. Guns. Chains. God knows what. Everybody running. And Daryl and I just went down the big service elevator. We got in and we went down to the bottom together.

Seventeen was a heady time.

Daryl Hall is kind of weird. He's always been his own man. To this day, he's a very unique individual. He doesn't have any hobbies. He doesn't fit in with society very well.

There isn't one album that says Hall and Oates. It's always Daryl Hall and John Oates. From the very beginning. People never note that. The idea of "Hall and Oates," this two-headed monster, this thing, is not anything we've ever wanted or liked.

"You play your song and I'll back you up, and I'll play my song and you back me up." That's what we do.

We experienced our whole adult life together. We shared every experience. It goes way beyond friendship.

Aspire to hard work, talent, and passion. Fame is not something to aspire to.

Moving to New York is like taking the lid off the can.

When it's dark and someone passes you on the street and then asks, "Hey, got a match?" then you know it's coming.

Andy Warhol really liked us. He said funny things like, "You should have a television show." Prophetic.

There's an optimum time for creativity in people. It's the mid-twenties to early thirties. You're not responsible. Your hormones are at a peak. You don't have the responsibility of family and you don't have the responsibility of stuff.

We weren't hip in those days, but now we're hip.

Peak year was '85, '86, '87. Eighty-eight is when the whole thing started falling apart.

I remember going down to Wall Street to meet with these financial guys who I'd never had any real personal contact with because it was always done third-party. I went into an office after-hours, about five o'clock, and I sat in this big boardroom with about five or six suits. And they basically told me that I was broke, that I was "land poor," meaning I had a lot of stuff but I didn't have any cash. And I was like, "Oh. Okay." I remember leaving Wall Street and getting in a cab to go back to my place in the Village. I got this pain in my chest and I thought, Fuck. I'm gonna die in the back of this cab. That's when I got pissed off. I went back to this apartment, and it was empty because my wife had moved on. There was nothing in it except the bed and a TV. And I said, "That's it. I'm out. I'm gonna start over." And I had an airplane. I had a collection of exotic cars. I had a warehouse. I had two apartments in New York. I had a house in Connecticut. And I sold everything. Everything. I moved into my condo in Aspen with a bunch of cash. I didn't even have a car. I bought a bicycle. And I rode a bike for a year and I lived in Colorado and I said, "I'm never going back." And that's changed my whole life.

When you leave New York, you leave.

I'm in good shape. Now, I'm in very good shape.

When I come back to New York, I know how to get anywhere. Yet every time I turn a corner, it's different. Weird feeling.

There's all sorts of soul. There's Irish soul and Native American soul. If it touches you and moves you, it's soul.

If you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, you're still in the fucking tunnel.

The mustache goes, it all goes. The marriage, New York, the hits, the stupid clothes, the videos ... it all went.

Look where I am right now. I have a great wife, a great family. I do this because I want to and I can. It doesn't get any better.

You're crazy for not staying for the show. You've gotta hear how good this band is.

Ross McCammon Ross McCammon is former special projects editor at Men’s Health.

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