Five musicians who hated Steely Dan
There’s something about Steely Dan that rubs certain musicians the wrong way. Maybe it’s the pristine, almost clinical perfection of their recordings, each note meticulously engineered within an inch of its life. For artists who thrive on raw energy, their jazz-inflected, hyper-polished sound can feel sterile—more like a science experiment than rock ‘n’ roll.
Then there’s the smugness, the sense that Donald Fagen and Walter Becker are always winking at you, knowing something you don’t. It’s music for audiophiles and session players, not punks or romantics. To some, it’s genius; to others, it’s the death of spontaneity.
While many millennials and gen Z might unironically treasure Steely Dan, they remain among the most divisive bands in modern history. With one camp decrying them as pretentious jazz-based nonsense while others celebrate their refinement, comedy and stoned summer essence, the response to Steely Dan always depends on who you ask. They, like their hero Frank Zappa, are an acquired taste.
Whether it be ‘Do It Again’, ‘Rikki Don’t Lose That Number’ or ‘Aja’, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker conceived many classics in their time, tracks which saw them carve out a distinctive space in music and popular culture. Aesthetically hippies but openly suspicious of counterculture elements, this unorthodox stance has fuelled everything the band has done and earned them legions of fans in the process.
Boasting prominent supporters such as Joni Mitchell, David Crosby and actor Robert Downey Jr, and working with an extensive cast of figures to bring their creative vision to life, Fagen and Becker’s band are so lauded by some that a cultish fandom surrounds them. Even Crosby once tweeted: “Steely Dan is my favourite band in the world, period”.
Yet, these sentiments are contrasted by those who loathe Fagen and Becker and their work. A collection of prominent musicians have openly slated Steely Dan in quite vitriolic fashions. That is where we get our story today. So, without further ado, find five musicians who hated Steely Dan below.
Five musicians who hated Steely Dan:
Bob Dylan
Sometimes, it is more effective to say nothing. In the early 1980s, when Bob Dylan was looking for qualified but unknown musicians to join his band, he advertised in a newspaper, and the much overqualified and famous Donald Fagen replied. Dylan’s bassist, Rob Stoner, even told him that he would personally put his CV before the great troubadour. However, he was blanked. After waiting, waiting, and more waiting, Fagen heard nothing back.
Understandably, this slight is something he has commented on numerous times, and it even kicked off a strange one-way feud. To be fair to Fagen, Dylan’s inaction here is strange, as, after all, the Steely Dan leader’s jazz refinement would have been perfect for his live act.
“As far as I’m concerned,” Fagen told Brian Sweet in Steely Dan: Reelin’ in the Years, “Dylan passed up a good thing. Sorry, Bob, I’m not available anymore. I’m too busy,” he said despite having just finished touring Gaucho and finding himself in a lull.
“I inquired about joining Dylan’s band, but when I did, I was quite secure in my own endeavours. I’m in Steely Dan and it was basically a whim.”
Mark Knopfler
This entry segues from unadulterated hatred to contempt for working with the pernickety Steely Dan. Strangely, it comes from a man known for his peaceful nature, Dire Straits leader Mark Knopfler. One of the finest guitarists out there, on paper, his remarkable technical ability was just what Steely Dan needed for the solo on the track ‘Time Out of Mind’. However, the recording became a morale-destroying nightmare for Knopfler. It must be noted that Becker and Fagen broke tradition by hiring the Geordie, as he couldn’t read music.
The elongated studio sessions frustrated the Dire Straits man, as the Steely Dan leaders brazenly criticised his efforts and lack of progression, which only exacerbated the situation. In a demonstration of how protracted the day was for Knopfler, he recorded over ten hours of guitar, for Steely Dan to only use 15 seconds in the song’s introduction in the final cut.
“It was a strange experience,” Knopfler recalled in Steely Dan: Reelin in the Years, “Like getting into a swimming pool with lead weights tied to your boot.” When asked about Knopfler’s thoughts, Becker added: “I think he definitely felt that, because he would play something and it was OK, then we’d like it later.”
Every guitarist on ‘Peg’
It wasn’t just Mark Knopfler that would be put out by Steely Dan. Many of the musicians they worked with felt the sting of their perfectionism. This is why, slightly tongue-in-cheek, we’ve included the seven guitarists they enlisted to play the solo of 1977’s ‘Peg’ from Aja. The story goes that the flourish was attempted by seven lauded session players, including Robben Ford and Larry Carlton, before Jay Graydon’s attempt made it onto the record. In a tale as old as time, he worked on the track for six hours before Becker and Fagen were happy enough.
Graydon has recalled that when he was drafted in, his sole instruction was to “play the blues”, telling Newsweek, “The whole thing probably took about four, five hours. Including taking some breaks. They knew they were onto something”.
Shedding light on this insanely frustrating attention to detail, one of the band’s engineers said in the same interview: “A band would come in and record and two hours later Becker and Fagen would look at their producer, and say, ‘Fire this band. Let’s go with somebody else tomorrow night.’ It’d be different bands every night to get the same song”.
Steve Albini
He may be a legend for his musical efforts, but the prickly nature of Steve Albini is also storied. One of his most incendiary recent critiques was concerning Steely Dan, a group diametrically opposed to his punk background. In early 2023, he embarked on a Twitter tirade against the ‘Do It Again’ band. “I will always be the kind of punk that shits on Steely Dan,” Albini wrote. “Christ, the amount of human effort wasted to sound like an SNL band warm up”.
Describing their work as “made solely for the purpose of letting the wedding band stretch out a little,” Albini decried Becker and Fagen’s infamous perfectionism. “Two types of perfectionist: One will prepare, revise and rehearse carefully, with intent, honing an idea to a keen edge, ready to cut the cloth of execution,” the Shellac leader said. “The other makes other people responsible by saying, ‘do it again,’ until by chance they are satisfied, then take credit.”
Eagles
Eagles are perhaps the most successful soft rock band of all time, so naturally, their music is related to Steely Dan’s. Yet, the two once shared a surreal rivalry. Walter Becker’s girlfriend was reportedly a big fan of Glenn Frey’s group, and after a fight, it produced the sardonic line “turn up the Eagles, the neighbours are listening” in the song ‘Everything You Did’.
“Apparently, Walter Becker’s girlfriend loved the Eagles, and she played them all the time,” Frey says in Gavin Edwards’ Is Tiny Dancer Really Elton’s Little John?: Music’s Most Enduring Mysteries, Myths, and Rumors Revealed. “I think it drove him nuts. So, the story goes that they were having a fight one day and that was the genesis of the line.”
To return the barb, Frey and drummer Don Henley – whom Steely Dan once fired – included a subtle reference to the group they shared a manager with. This happened to emerge in their most iconic song, ‘Hotel California’. Pointing to Becker and Fagen’s prickly nature, the line “stab it with their steely knives” originally included their full name, but Eagles opted to strike a more implicit tone.
Frey explained: “We just wanted to allude to Steely Dan rather than mentioning them outright, so ‘Dan’ got changed to ‘knives,’ which is still, you know, a penile metaphor.”
