John Oates

"Sonically, we did it in my older studio before I had Pro Tools on an [Akai] MPC-60. We came up with a really cool drumbeat, and it all started with that. Jed was doing all the keyboard parts, and it was a very keyboard-oriented song. Then Jed came up with that quirky trumpet. We were talking about Miles Davis, and he actually played that with a trumpet sample. It was just so cool, it sounded like the night. It kind of had that feel. So that's what we went for."

Used for "I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)" and songwriting, as stated by Oates in this April 2006 Mix Online "Classic Tracks" interview.

“Remember the old Roland CompuRhythm box?” he asks. “I turned to the Rock and Roll 1 preset, sat down at a Korg organ that happened to be lying there and started to play this bass line that was coming to me. It’s the old recording studio story: The engineer heard what I was doing and turned on the tape machine. Good thing, because I’m the kind of person who will come up with an idea and forget it. The chords came together in about 10 minutes, and then I heard a guitar riff, which I asked John, who was sitting in the booth, to play.”

“I remember that moment clearly,” says Oates. (...) “The old Compurhythm had four presets: Rock 1, Rock 2, cha cha/samba and some other stupid beat. We both had them in our houses, and one was sitting in the studio.

“We cut everything live back then, but sometimes used the Roland box to come up with a tempo,” Oates continues. “Anyway, Daryl came up with this great bass line, using whatever sound happened to be on the organ, and Neil miked it and the drum machine.

“Daryl came up with the ‘B’ section chords, and then I plugged my 1958 Strat directly into the board, which was either an early SSL or a Trident. We were beginning to experiment with digital samplers — the Fairlight and Synclavier in particular — but were still recording analog. At any rate, Daryl sang a guitar part idea, I started to experiment with a muting thing and the part evolved on the spot.”