The Doobie Brothers‘ latest album, Walk This Road, is barely four months old — albeit a couple of years in the making. But Michael McDonald is ready to get started on the next one.
“I think we’re looking at maybe, possibly doing another record, and there’s a lot of things about that we’d like to try,” he tells UCR. Walk This Road is, in fact, McDonald’s first as a full-time member of the Doobies since One Step Closer in 1980.
It’s also the first time since 1976’s Takin` It to the Streets that both McDonald and founding member Tom Johnston worked on an album together. More than anything else, the former explains, “we’d like to try sitting in a room together again and recording the way we used to.
“There’s some benefits to recording these days with…the technology and everything that’s available to make records. The writer kind of gets to formulate the track and find the tempo the songs work best out and flesh out a lot of arrangement ideas and then bring the band in, sometimes individually, to put their take on it. That’s pretty much how we made (Walk This Road), and it came out great.
“But we kind of miss sitting on a floor together and laying the song down and capturing that moment of the band playing together…and sending the idea around the circle. It’s gonna change and be a new explanation or expression of the idea, and by the time it gets back to the original person they almost don’t recognize it. That can be torturous at times, too. But we’ve kind of dedicated ourselves to the idea we’re gonna at least do some of that if we do another album. We feel that would be appropriate.”
McDonald is not yet hazarding a guess about when a new album process might start. The Doobies toured Europe and North America during the summer, the latter with the late Jimmy Buffet’s Coral Reefer Band opening.
Read More: The Doobie Brothers Kick Off Summer 2025 Tour
There’s one more show, Dec. 5 in Lincoln, Calif., on the books, and McDonald says that the band is “talking about touring, dates for next year. But at this age the first question that comes to mind is, ‘Am I gonna be alive then?'”
He was, however, pleased at the reception from audiences for the four Walk This Road songs the band played during its shows.
“Y’know, back in the day you’d start playing new material early, and it was always a good excuse for the audience to go to the bathroom ’cause they really want to hear the hits and stuff they’re familiar with,” McDonald says. “So we’re always cognizant about that. This is the first time in a long time we’ve noticed that people kind of know Walk This Road from the streams we’ve been lucky enough to get. They’re familiar with it. That’s a nice feeling after all these years to feel that the audience has an affinity with some of the newer stuff. It’s something that’s kind of unique to this record.”
And while this is his third tenure with the band, along with short-terms and one-offs during the intervening years, McDonald — whose last solo album, Wide Open, came out during 2017 — tells us he considers himself a Doobie Brother for good now.
“Yeah, it’s been a wonderful experience for me to be back in the band,” he acknowledges. “I’ve always missed playing that songbook, the Doobies songbook, Tommy and Pat’s songs. And with the Doobies I kind of fall into the position of being the keyboard player more than I do with my own band; although I do play keyboards with my own band, I keep it to a minimum so I can concentrate on singing the songs and talking to the audience. There’s a guy who comes out who does the heavy lifting as far as playing organs and synths and stuff who does a much better job at it than I do.
“But with (the Doobies) I really enjoy the playing and I enjoy living up to the challenge, and I don’t really get to do that anywhere but in the Doobies. And it allows me to play a few other instruments; I get to play a little, some guitar, accordion…None of those things I do well, but I indulge myself when I can and get away with it without embarrassment.”
Doobie Brothers Albums Ranked
They remain an intriguing dichotomy of a band.
Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso
