(Credits: Far Out / Press)
Sun 3 August 2025 21:00, UK
There’s something entirely contradictory about labelling Steely Dan’s music as ‘Yacht Rock’. The label embodies something carefree, devoid of the stresses and anxiety of dry land life that can only be soundtracked by jazz-infused melodies. There’s an ease to the entire genre that was non-existent in the career of Steely Dan.
They were perfectionists to the most painstaking degree. The yacht rock experience of being on the water, letting the wind blow through your hair with an ice-cold beer in hand, would be certifiably ruined by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, who would most likely spend the majority of that time asking you about some minute detail in the song they just recorded.
Time spent in the studio with Steely Dan wasn’t for the faint-hearted and it all culminated on their 1977 album Aja. It was undoubtedly a jazz-fusion masterpiece from the band, but with the time spent on each individual track, anything less would have been completely underwhelming. Their engineer, Elliot Scheiner, noted the difficulty of the process, saying: “Every track, every overdub had to be the perfect overdub. They didn’t settle for anything. They were always looking for the perfect.”
On ‘Peg’ the band famously blitzed through seven separate session guitarists before they landed on the performance that they deemed worthy of mixing. But despite the intense labour given to the track, it wasn’t regarded as the bands favourite, instead opting for a different, but equally as difficult child.
“The title song I like,” Walter Becker said, when asked about his favourite on the record. But rather than continue on to explain the genuine artistic merit of the finished product, he more appropriately descended into a monologue about the song’s arduous recording process.
He added, “It was an interesting cut. We’d gotten this drummer we didn’t know but we’d heard a lot about named Steve Gadd—he was flown in from New York. We had a chart for the tune, and it was like eight pages long—three music stands in front of every musician.”
He continued, “What’s on the charts is very specific for some of the players—like the keyboards—but very open for others. Like, there’s nothing written for the bass player except the chord symbols, the guitar player basically works on his own concept, and particularly the drummer—he really had to outdo himself on that one.”
The very fact that Gadd could step in on his first recording with the band and lay down that drum track could only be seen as divine intervention for the band. Not many people shared the same attention to detail as Fagan and Becker, but somehow Gadd seemed to slip into the lineup seamlessly.
But, there is one particular moment that sticks out in the memories of Steely Dan fans, which ironically, was a musical mistake. As his solo fades out, just before the fifth minute, an off-beat click is heard that drummers ever since have pondered over with admiration. They have tried, and failed, to replicate it, simply because it was a mistake. Gadd’s stick slipped from his hands, providing one of the most nuanced moments in Steely Dan’s history, and it all came from a moment Fagen and Becker had spent their entire lives trying to avoid. A lesson, perhaps?
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