The Doobie Brothers open up about the writing process for 'Walk This Road'
They're on tour in the UK
Last updated 16th Jul 2025
'Long Train Running' band The Doobie Brothers, joined Simon Mayo for a chat at Greatest Hits Radio. They spoke about their new album 'Walk This Way', writing new music and their current tour.
They also opened up about the disappointment after American Express presents BST Hyde Park was cancelled, due to Jeff Lynne's ill health. The event was the reason the band were in the UK, and their other tour dates had been booked around it.
The making of 'Walk This Way'
'Walk This Way' is the new album from The Doobie Brothers. The band's 16th album was released in June, and features 10 songs, including the song 'Learn to Let Go' which they released earlier this year.
Speaking about the process of writing the album and it's creation, Tom Johnston revealed how it wasn't planned as an album, saying: "It just started out as more of an EP, just trying three or four tracks. And we're going to use (producer) John Shanks, who we did the album with and go in and see what we came up with."
They added: "That's how it started. Then everybody kept writing songs and eventually, oh hell, we’ve got 11 tracks. We might as well make an album."
The Doobie Brothers went on to explain how they worked closely with their producer John Shanks, saying: "We co-wrote every song with him (John Shanks) except for maybe two.
"Sometimes you bring in bits and pieces, sometimes you make it up on the on the spot."
Patrick then added: "I think all of us had little songs that we were kind of... Or ideas for songs and riffs and you know, musical composition, small, short composition stuff.
"I would be in my own studio at home, you know, working on stuff and I would come up with some ideas. I go like that and I just pull my phone out and I just text bits and pieces of song ideas that I had, and then he (John Shanks) would say, well, 'I like this'."
Tom Johnston went on to reveal how the songs would be made using Pro Tools in John Shanks' studio: "I think the interesting thing about the writing process...
"He’d lay that down on a computer, along with some kind of subliminal drum track, and that would get sent down to the studio, the actual studio part of the house.
"And you pull it up on Pro Tools and he'd build and build and build from there."
The 'Walk This Road' song
Opening up about the title track, the band revealed it was their producer John, who had come up with the song title. Michael McDonald explained: "Well, this song ‘Walk This Road’ was originally a title that John Shanks, our producer, had come up with.
"At the time his thinking was ‘you guys have been together so long and you've been, you know, walking the same road together as a band and why don’t we write a song about that'."
The Doobie Brothers' UK tour
The Doobie Brothers are currently midway through their UK tour, performing at venues in Manchester, London, Birmingham and Glasgow. They've already performed at Glasgow and said they were pleasantly surprised that the fans knew some of their new music.
They explained: "We played a show up in Glasgow before we came down to do the thing here in London, that got called off, but they knew the song. We played four new songs, we don't ever usually do that. It's like two max, you know? In days of yore anyway.
"And we're doing four new songs, which is pretty ambitious and takes a long time to get them where they needed to be. But the crowd knew them and I was amazed that they reacted to them and it's very gratifying that they're paying enough attention to know these songs."
Hyde Park cancellation
Sadly American Express presents BST Hyde Park was cancelled on Sunday 13th July, due to Jeff Lynne's health. Speaking about the event, which The Doobie Brothers were also set to perform at, the band explained they don't know how Jeff is doing, but they hope "he pulls through ok."
Pat added: "That's the reason we came over here. Initially we got an offer to actually go on before him and they said hell yeah, because they thought it'd be great, it sounded like a lot of fun. So that was the centrepiece and then all the other gigs they booked around it."
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