Credit: Steely Dan / Shockwaves Records
Sat 8 August 2026 20:30, UK
Steely Dan have constantly tried to push themselves creatively, and sometimes to the detriment of their live shows.
‘How the hell are we going to pull this off live?’ is a question a lot of bands ask when they find themselves getting carried away in the studio. Yes, all the bells and whistles are pretty tempting when you’re first laying down a track, but you need to take into account how you’re going to move something from the confines of a recording session to a stage in front of a paying audience.
Steely Dan decided in 1974 that they were sick of facing the age-old question and so opted to stop performing altogether. It was a controversial move, sure, but without the limitations of a live show imposed, the band was free to go off and make some of their most complex and exciting music to date. The decision to stop playing live did hinder the band for a moment, though, as Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter decided to quit once life on the road was no longer a possibility, as declared by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen.
Baxter was very much a touring musician, so the idea of just writing and recording in a studio without ever taking these songs to crowds around the world didn’t sit right with him. He explained, “It’s a dichotomy: being a session rat and being a live performer. I was actually on tour with [The Doobie Brothers], in the band. At the time I was playing with three different bands: Steely Dan, The Doobie Brothers, and Linda Ronstadt, playing pedal steel [guitar].”
This might not sound like a big deal, as the brains behind Steely Dan were always Becker and Fagan, but it can’t be overstated just how much their session musicians contributed towards their sound. Baxter was a dynamo when it came to putting together exciting guitar solos, and once the band reunited, there was a great emphasis placed on the rhythm section that was working in the studio with them because of the effective way they could hold a track down, regardless of how chaotic things seemed to become.
Jon Herington joined the band in 1999, and he was one of the crucial components who helped hold the band’s rhythm section together. It took a while to get right, but he said that once the comfort was there, there was no denying just how important the whole thing was to Steely Dan’s sound.
“The rhythm section and the horns have been stable since maybe ’06 or ’07, something like that,” he said, “And it’s a super precise, fantastic rhythm section to play with. I mean, it came together really quickly this year because we played a lot last year, so it hadn’t been that long, and it’s all the same personnel. It feels like a great old custom shoe to put back on.”
Further reading: From The Vault
People underestimate just how much great bands need a great rhythm section. When you admire a beautiful building, you don’t often think about the nuts and bolts holding it together, but without them, the whole thing would collapse. Steely Dan’s rhythm section wasn’t just necessary, it was magic in how well it was able to act as the crucial connection between idea and execution.
Plenty of issues arise when a band starts to really push themselves in the studio. One is working out how they’re going to play the songs live, the other is finding a rhythm section that can hold such ambitious ideas together. Lucky for Steely Dan, they found solutions to both issues.
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