Two Bard College Misfits Who Traded the Stage for the Studio

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen met in 1967 at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Becker had hoped to play bass in Fagen's band and was turned down, but later Fagen heard him practising electric guitar at a café and asked whether he wanted to join. They discovered a shared taste in music, literature and snarky humour, and began writing together. In local groups they played covers of the Rolling Stones and Willie Dixon, and one of the bands had future comedy star Chevy Chase on drums.

After Fagen graduated in 1969 they moved to Brooklyn and tried to sell songs at the Brill Building, then eventually to Los Angeles, where they gathered a band and began recording. Their debut album, Can't Buy a Thrill, appeared in 1972 and set the template: rock, jazz, Latin music, R&B and blues, wrapped in sophisticated studio production and ironic, cryptic lyrics.

By the end of 1974 Becker and Fagen chose to stop performing live and continued Steely Dan as a studio-only duo with a revolving cast of session musicians. The group enjoyed critical and commercial success with seven studio albums, peaking with their top-selling album Aja in 1977. They disbanded in 1981, and a cult following stayed devoted through sporadic solo projects in the 1980s.

After reuniting in 1993 they toured steadily, and Two Against Nature (2000) won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Their last new studio album was Everything Must Go in 2003. Becker died in 2017, and Fagen carried on as the sole official member until retiring in 2026. Steely Dan entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001 and has sold more than 40 million records. Rolling Stone called them the perfect musical antiheroes for the seventies, which suits a band built on irony.