Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen Rejected ‘Yacht Rock’ Documentary Interview

The yacht rock era is finally getting the official documentary (“dockumentary”) treatment, with filmmaker Garret Price’s project featuring appearances from such smooth and soulful luminaries as Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, and Toto. But there was one seminal figure Price could not convince to sit for an interview: Steely Dan’s Donald Fagan.

Per People, Fagen does briefly appear in Yacht Rock — or at least his voice does — in a scene where Price calls him up and pitches him an interview about “this genre.” When Fagen asks what genre that is, Price replies, “Um, yacht rock.” 

To which Fagen delivers a response that should surprise absolutely no Steely Dan fans: “Oh, yacht rock. Well, I tell you what. Why don’t you go fuck yourself?” And then hangs up.

Price, for his part, was not fazed by the brusque rejection, embracing it instead for the quintessentially Fagen response that it was. “I think it’s a wink,” he said. “It’s like, ‘I get it. I understand how important this name [‘yacht rock’] is to our music. But I’m gonna let you know how I feel about that.’ It’s him being him.”

And, to be fair, Price still got to feature Steely Dan in the film. He said right after Fagen hung up on him, the musician’s manager called him back and gave him permission use six Dan songs in the documentary. 

Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary is set to arrive Nov. 29 on HBO. The film looks at the history and legacy of this genre, which enjoyed a wildly successful peak in the late Seventies before disappearing in the Eighties. The movie will also dig into yacht rock’s resurgence in subsequent decades, driven by hip-hop producers who sampled old records and the web comedy series Yacht Rock, which popularized the now prominent genre name. 

Along with McDonald, Loggins, and members of Toto, the film will feature interviews with Christopher Cross, De La Soul’s Prince Paul, Questlove, Mac DeMarco, Fred Armisen, and the creators of the Yacht Rock web series, J.D. Ryznarand and Steve Huey.