What Michael McDonald Believes: 'Keep Moving'

Michael McDonald’s soulful voice was a key part of such classic Doobie Brothers hits as “Takin’ It to the Streets” and “What a Fool Believes.” A new Doobie Brothers album, Walk This Road (out June 6), is the 73-year-old singer’s first collection of new music with the reunited band in 45 years.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What was the impetus to write and record again?

It happened so fast I’m not even sure any of us knew how we felt about it. We had an opportunity to jump in the studio and come up with what we could in a pretty finite window of time. I’m really happy with it. Mostly I was really pleased to get back into the studio with my friends and take a shot at one more studio recording together, and all the guys came up with really wonderful songs.

Can you tell us more about the actual recording process for the album?

It was an opportunity for us to look at things that we had written years ago and started, or were in half-finished states that probably would have never gotten recorded in any official sense. They were all things that we all listened to from time to time, very infrequently, but would say to ourselves, “Gosh, we should get in the studio and make a better recording of that.”

How important have the Doobies been to your career and life?

On both fronts, tremendously important. I think what I found with the Doobies is what every musician is looking for: an immediate community. A lot of my gigs prior to that were all important. With Steely Dan, they were so open to the idea that I might be able to offer more than just being a sideman with them. That’s something I’m forever grateful for, as well as the camaraderie of the guys.

I can honestly say that the guys in the Doobies are, most importantly, my friends, and we’re musicians second to that. What was always important to us along the way was to remain friends, even when we didn’t agree, or even when we had moments of feeling like we wanted to control a situation or didn’t like the way a certain thing was going. We’ve remained friends, and that’s remarkable. From the get-go, we all liked each other as people.