Cris Cohen: Most people find it hard to get good enough on one particular instrument to reach a professional level. And yet you kept pursuing multiple instruments. Was it just the desire to have that much more of a color palette open to you when you were creating things?
John McFee of The Doobie Brothers: You could look at it like that. It was just really a fun thing for me to try to learn these other instruments and different things and to get better on all of them. I’m still working at it.
Some people will come up to me at shows and say, “God, you’re just such a natural. It looks so easy.” I’m thinking in my mind, “I don’t know if I’m a natural.” I feel like I worked pretty hard for the chops I have on all the instruments. I practice. I’ve always practiced probably more than anybody else that I know — any other musicians. But mainly because I like it. I like doing it.
So I’m lucky in that way… that I like to work at it. To me it’s not like, “Oh, I’ve got to work on that.” It’s like, “Man, I can’t wait to try to get a little better today.”