An Interview With Wrestler MVP About Steely Dan

There are plenty of interviews with MVP about AEW, The Hurt Syndicate, and wrestling. This one is solely about Steely Dan.

MVP (Montel Vontavious Porter) is many things. A veteran wrestler, manager of The Hurt Syndicate, inaugural IWGP Intercontinental Champion, longest reigning WWE United States Champion, and Steely Dan fan.

There are interviews as far as the eye can see where MVP can be found talking about his life and wrestling. This won't be one of them.

He's mentioned his intense fandom for Donald Fagen & Walter Becker before, but it's rarely gone deeper than people being a little surprised about it. But digging deeper, given the band's infamous quest for quality and their second life popping up in so many Hip-Hop samples, it maybe shouldn't surprise you as much as it might.

While MVP had been familiar with Steely Dan before 2011, it was that year during the Fukushima reactor meltdown where he really began his deep dive into Steely Dan.

According to MVP, "I was already a casual Steely Dan fan. But after that time being stuck at the Tokyo Dome Hotel for those few days it was, I think, Citizen Dan: A Decade of Steely Dan, that compilation was what caused me to dive back into the the entire Steely Dan catalog."

But what is it about their style, lyrically, that appeals to a guy like MVP? Steely Dan are a case where, if people just know a few of the hits, they kinda get lumped in with 70s yacht rock etc. But if you are hip to them, you see in hindsight just how cynical and sardonic they are. A total reaction to the more carefree hippie vibes from that decade. A great example being early on how the song "Only A Fool Would Say That" is a rebuke of John Lennon's wide eyed idealism on "Imagine".

"Everybody, and I do mean everybody has heard a Steely Dan song or two. All the time I tell people how much I love Steely Dan. They go "I don't know Steely Dan" and then I'll sing "Reelin' in the Years" or "Hey Nineteen" and they go, oh yeah I heard that before. But yeah, they get lumped in with the whole yacht rock thing but musically, you know, their musicianship is unmatched and the fact that they decided to bring in players to play specifically what they wanted on certain cuts so they can realize the music they wanted to create, that is just amazing to me. Regarding the lyrics, I love intellectual lyrics and you know we had Donald and Walter. Super cynical and sardonic. I hear a lot of people say, oh, I don't care about the lyrics. I just like the beat when it comes to a lot of music. Which would explain why you have, you know, so much of this dumbing down of music. A lot of the rap today that the artist just repeats the same four lines over and over and it's really not intellectually stimulating. I guess, that's what I love about Steely Dan so much, that it's both sonically and intellectually stimulating."

Speaking of Hip-Hop and the genre's connection to Steely Dan. The band have been having their moment of rediscovery the past few years. Specifically, people are going back and getting turned on to just how much they've been sampled in notable hip hop tracks. From Peter Gunz & Lord Tariq to Kanye West and MF DOOM.

"I have an awesome memory of the very first time I saw Steely Dan live in Redmond, Washington. Being near the stage and upfront, everybody was dancing and they were playing "Kid Charlamagne" and when they got to the part, did you realize that you were a champion in their eyes? These two really young white guys, much younger than me, to my left, they looked at each other and right on point, they went, yes I did! So I packed it up and brought it back to the crib, and I just started laughing out loud. So, yeah, a lot of people don't realize how often Steely Dan has been sampled. People, again, who say I'm not familiar with Steely Dan. I'll play a few tracks that they're familiar with and they go from [not knowing to realizing] you know, the ultimate being "Black Cow" [sampled by] Peter Gunz and Lord Tariq. Uptown baby. Uptown baby. You know the whole [humming Black Cow] *boom boom, boom*. So, it would seem that yeah, they are being introduced to a younger version of fans. But I think everything is cyclical. What's old is new again and I think a lot of people are appreciating Steely Dan. It's just a sound and a vibe, man. With this whole quote unquote yacht rock resurgence. You know, a lot of people are being introduced to it that way. I have young people come up to me every now and again and go, yo, MVP, thanks for telling me about Steely Dan. They're dope. I remember my parents used to listen to it and then I heard it in this hip hop song and that hip hop song. So, yeah, it seems to be that way."

Circling back to the lyrics and tone of Donald Fagen. Going a little deeper, for years I've heard people say that his solo album, The Nightfly, is an album that is Donald Fagen opening up and being more earnest and hopeful and nostalgic. I'll give them nostalgic, but I think The Nightfly can be some of his most deceptively cynical stuff. "I.G.Y." is often cited as him being optimistic, but I see the exact opposite. A song about the promise of the 1950s, sung in 1980, in the reality that none of the things he's singing about actually came to pass. Where does MVP come out on that debate?

"​I think I first heard a cut off Donald Fagan's The Nightfly in the early 90s when I was in prison on a jazz radio station or something. But I didn't get into the album until much later when I got into the quote unquote Dan-dom. And after listening to it a few times I fell in love with it. It actually really is just like a Steely Dan album. But you know there's nothing hopeful about it. It's his typical snark and sarcasm and especially "I.G.Y." You know [sings I.G.Y.] They'll be spandex jackets. One for everyone. What a beautiful world this would be. It's all snark and sarcasm. That's 100% Donald taking the piss out of all the futuristic bullshit that we thought we'd have: flying cars and you know, [sings] 90 minutes from New York to Paris, yeah by '76 we'll be A-okay. He's just taking the piss out of everybody."

Finally, how does MVP feel about their constant pursuit of perfection? You hear stories about Aja & Gaucho where they would bring in 12 different bands just to play around one drummer and all they were aiming for was nailing a tiny drum piece. Or scrapping the song "The Second Arrangement" because the original tape was accidentally erased and lost because they didn't believe in making a backup copy due to even the slightest, unnoticeable generation loss in the tape. Can an artist get too caught up in the pursuit of perfection?

"​As a creative person myself, I can't question Donald & Walter's pursuit of perfection because it's their art, their creation. I do know that "The Second Arrangement" is one of my favorite Steely Dan songs and I'm so glad that the producer's daughter found that cassette tape of it and people have used AI to finish it out and do something with it. And every time it gets posted, Donald Fagan has it pulled down or his people do anyway. Which is a shame because it's an amazing song. And for them to just totally abandon that song because they couldn't recapture the beauty of it. Or whatever it was they were searching for. It bothers me a great deal because I love the song. And you know, I think it's a case of cutting your nose off to spite your face. But it's their song. It's their art and they know what they were looking for and what they wanted to create. So, I can't criticize them for that because it's what they wanted. But yeah, I've heard a lot of people criticize them for their pursuit of perfection. And I get it because I'm like, hey man, how are you going to tell Michelangelo when his work is finished, you know? I would say that they got caught up in that quest for perfection because I'm an absolute fan of what they've created. But I don't feel it's my place to do that because at the end of the day, it's their art, their creation."

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