Love, Music, and Creativity
An Interview with Singer/Songwriter Michael McDonald
By Michael Starwyn and Sirona Knight
M
ichael McDonald of Doobie Brothers fame, recently released his first album in seven years called "Blue Obsession" on Ramp Records, a company that he, Jeff Bridges, and Chris Pelonis created. Initiated during a day of surfing at their favorite beach near Santa Barbara, Ramp Records combines new recording technology with the idea of a small independent record label. The company is dedicated to pushing the envelope of the corporate trends and reinventing the creative spirit.Michael Mcdonald's remarkable new album "Blue Obsession" beautifully reflects his maturity as a singer/songwriter, clearly showing him to be one of the most recognizable and greatest blues voices in music today. In a the following interview, he talks about his love of music, his creative process, family life, and how his life and personal philosophy have evolved through time.
In the song, "The Meaning of Love" on your new album, "Blue Obsession," you sing about how love has opened your eyes. How does love figure into your creative process?
Love keeps my creativity from drying up, at least as far as writing songs goes. That is the way it's always been with me. Songwriting is the ability to tap into feelings that other people can relate to, such as the feelings you get in relationships, when you are in love. When people hear the song they go, "Yeah, I know what that's all about."
What was your vision behind starting your own record label, Ramp Records, with Jeff Bridges and Chris Pelonis? Was it inspired?
It definitely was inspired, but oddly enough, of all things, it was the last thing I expected. If you had asked me five years ago, "Do you see yourself having your own record company?" I would have said, "Absolutely not." I had no interest in that part of the business. I never even picked up a "Billboard" magazine and read it, in the all the time I was with the Doobie Brothers. I had the feeling that doing that would jinx my ability to keep my mind on what I should be doing, which is to create. In the end, circumstances change. Almost anything you tell yourself that you'd never do, you suddenly find yourself doing that very thing. If you hang around long enough, and when circumstances change enough, that might what you're doing next. That's what the record company represents to me, is that lesson--never say never.
So your experience has been like a personal shape-shifting or metamorphosis?
It really is, and I find I'm having fun with it. I have to be honest with you. If somebody had spelled it out to me, how much work it would be, I don't know if I would have done it. We all feel this way, but we're having fun with it. We stay pretty closely attached to it. So far we only have the two projects, my album, "Blue Obsession," and Jeff Bridges album, "Be Here Soon." At this point Ramp Records is more of a creative extension of ourselves.
What do you feel is the source for your creativity?
I find so much energy playing live, especially at the club level. I have to be careful with that because sometimes I think, "Is it just my defeatist mode kicking in, that says I am comfortable because when I was 15, I was playing in places like this." It's kind of like working your way back to the womb. When you're six feet tall and have a beard, you don't belong in the womb.
So you question it the reasons why you do it?
Yes, I question my motives. But I have to say that for me, when I go out and play, I get a lot of creative energy from it. It's where I think about writing songs again. The "other world" is so full of hoopla that it's distracting, whereas in the club you kind of fall into your own world.
You're there in the moment with the music and the people?
Yes exactly. For me now, the difficult part is I have two kids. Even though I gain a lot of creative energy from playing the clubs, I still have to get home and raise those two kids. They were lucky to have me around a lot when they were little, so now they miss me whenever I'm gone.
So you took little break from everything for them. That's interesting. In a sense it's balancing the creative with the practical. Staying with idea of the creative source, where do you get the ideas for the songs that you write?
Out of all of it, from everything. I'm never sure where the next song idea is going to come from. It's very much a stream of consciousness that I tap into. A lot of times I've written the song, and have no idea what it's about. Anymore, I've sort of learned not to question the seemingly incoherent-ness. There's something in there, I just don't know what it is yet, and it will probably right itself if I let it.
What does it feel like when you feel yourself totally connected to the music?
It feels really great. Even now, I know that when I hear a real cool record, there's nothing better than that. That appeals to me in every way. I love the music business. I love sitting around with a bunch of publishers, who know good songs, and live as I do for that moment of hearing a really great song for the first time.
Great songs have a feel to them that grabs hold of you on many levels.
Yes, and it's imperceptible what that is, but it's the spirit of it that keeps me going after it time and time again.
I notice that the common thread running through the songs on your new album, "Blue Obsession" is the theme of hope and the lack thereof. Does this mirror your own life?
Yes, that's the theme of the album. When you break your life down, there's many views regarding making it and working in the material world. This album is about finding out that whether I like it or not, that stuff is not all that important. We all find out at different times in our life what's really important, sometimes by the worst methods. It's unfortunate. You lose someone you love or you find yourself behind the eight-ball in some form or fashion. You'll give anything for enough hope to get through the next five minutes, and then the rest of the day. Everybody gets there. None of us escapes that moment in life. I think basically that's what the record is about.
That hits a universal chord. It's easy to get through the good days, but it's the bad days that show who we are beneath the surface.
I agree. Sometimes those are the greatest gifts when you look back on it. There's a silver lining that you wouldn't have necessarily asked for, but it is there. It's hard to shake the feeling that you've experienced something really important and valuable.
If you get something out of it, it is valuable.
That's true. I know with my wife and I, we went through a period where she was very sick a few years back, and I was doing the record. A lot things about it were such a turn around mentally for us. I went from worrying about the kind of record I was going to make, including my relationship with Warner Bros., whether they were going to work the record, and is this the most important record I'm going to do, to just doing the record to just keep my sanity, and to keep our lives in some kind of a day-to-day reality. Every day had become going to the hospital. Everybody goes through this at some point in their life, and suddenly realize why so much of this is so unimportant. The only purpose it serves right now is to keep our minds off of what's really on our minds, which is we stand to lose something greater than any of these other things. If we can keep our hope going and stay on track, we'll get through this, and everything will be okay on the other end. In the meantime, you realize, "Gosh, I never realized how important you are to me, and how important my life with you and our kids is." This is something I knew, but I never stopped to think about, but now I'm being forced to think about it now. It has a tendency to put your life in perspective.