We hope that it is good and we hope that people will like it. Probably, if we'd been a bit more objective about it we'd have been a bit more worried in advance. They must be aware of the anticipation that surrounds the first Dan album since 1980, but they're wearing in lightly, with the confidence of men who feel they've taken care of business.īecker: "It was an unspoken assumption between us that, if we did this, we were going to try and do something that was as dense and as well planned and has as much work and thought and quality of execution - hopefully - as the things we used to do. They're on charm offensive and guess what they're pretty charming. Donald Fagen - all surprising physical and facial angles - slouches inscrutably, his drawled, droll contributions hauled from the depths of a warm bed somewhere. Walter Becker - bright eyes, wispy beard not quite hiding his baby face - sits alert and perky, ready to communicate, his voice crackling clear. History is strewn with journalists (not to mention musicians) who have failed to engage the shockingly bright and insular Messrs Becker and Fagen, so it's a surprise when, after shuffling into view wearing puffy winter jackets and carrying comforting cartons of steaming coffee, the Dan that once was Steely resemble nothing so much as two eccentric gentlemen hobos going about their day. It's a deliciously sunny, crisp December day in New York as MOJO awaits two of the most intimidating characters in rock. "I hope we do better than he did," grunts Fagen. Now, their new album, Two Against Nature, faces the kind of expectation that Francis Ford Coppola must have felt on eventually producing The Godfather III. For those who got it, there was Steely Dan and there was the rest. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen - studio auteurs infused with the influence of jazz, R&B and pulp'n'beat literature and blessed with the chops and intellect to do something extraordinary with them - set lofty standards. IT'S BEEN 20 YEARS, A HIATUS ALMOST unheard of in rock. On the occasion of their first album of new Steely Dan material in 20 years, Understand how jazz licks, R&B rhythms, pulp novels, and Napoleonic history combine to make great pop music.
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