The Doobie Brothers are recording a new album. But that's not enough work for guitarist John McFee, who is also in a reunion of his pre-Doobies band.
McFee tells Billboard that four songs have been completed for the new Doobies album -- two written by founding member Tom Johnston and two by Patrick Simmons. The band's first release since Southbound, the 2014 collection rebooting the band's past classics with a country spin, will be out next year. McFee says when they played the new material for "our family and stuff, they went, 'Wow, this really sounds like classic Doobies.'"
The bigger surprise is the studio reunion of Clover. The Bay Area band that became Huey Lewis and the News backed Elvis Costello on his first album, My Aim Is True. McFee says Clover were never happy with their previous albums, blaming an inexperienced producer and "because we were too young to really know how to make records... So this is a chance to do it again." They plan to re-record 12 songs from the '70s with Costello singing on one track. Lewis has signed on as well. John's also hopeful "the Clover family" will do some live shows.