The Doobie Brothers are one of the most famous bands to ever come out of the Bay Area — and certainly the most famous one from San Jose — so it’s no wonder that our paths have crossed multiple times over the decades.
In recent years, I’ve enjoyed a couple of opportunities to talk with the group’s Tom Johnston, who is great guy and also a fine interview.
Yet, when I was offered the chance to interview a Doobie Brother in advance of the band’s show at Shoreline Amphitheatre at Mountain View on Sept. 27, I specifically requested to interview vocalist-guitarist Patrick Simmons.
Why?
Well, to quote a famed Beach Boys lyric, it’s all about being “true to your school.”
Simmons and I both went to Leigh High School in San Jose. He graduated in 1967 and I followed 19 years later.
The Shoreline show is a big homecoming gig for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame act, which is still celebrating its 50th anniversary on this tour.
Showtime is 8 p.m. and tickets start at $35; livenation.com
Here’s my school reunion — umm, I mean, interview — with Simmons.
Q: Maybe we should start off the interview by singing the Leigh High School song?
A: (Immediately bursts into song) We are the Longhorns, we come from Leigh / (mumbling in tune) / Standing and cheering, shouting our name …. I can’t remember the rest.
Q: That’s not the one I remember. I’m thinking, Verdent hills reflect our colors bright / Glorious green and …
A: (Takes over on vocals) “Gold and white!”
Q: That’s pretty good
A: Wow. You, too.
Q: I am expecting you are going to call me up on stage at the next Doobie Brothers show I attend and we’ll sing it together. That would be a showstopper.
A: It would be. It would be a showstopper. The lights would go off. The PA would go off. They would haul us out of there. (Laughs)
Q: I still live in the 408. Where do you call home these days?
A: Mostly, I live in Maui. I moved there 26 years ago and been there ever since. I expect probably one of these days, I will be back in California — because I kind of miss it. I do a lot of motorcycle events and there is a lot of that happening on the mainland. My kids all grew up in Hawaii so, you know, that’s why I ended up sticking around there for so long. But I see myself back in California eventually.
Q: Did you live in Los Gatos or San Jose when you were growing up? For some reason, I was thinking it might be Los Gatos.
A: I grew up kind of close to Los Gatos — Cambrian Park. Really close to Leigh, actually. We lived in Willow Glen when I was very young.
Q: One of my favorite things about the Doobie Brothers is that you so proudly represent San Jose. You never tried to come off as a San Francisco act, even though it might have made sense in terms of marketing.
A: I think it’s just who we were. We didn’t try to put on any airs. What’s the point? It’s all about the music. It’s not about who you are or where you came from, in my opinion. It probably adds to the interest from the fans and so on.
That’s who we were. I’m from San Jose. Well, I’m originally from Washington State, but we moved to San Jose when I was 6 or 7 years old. I went to grade school, junior high, high school, college and then the band came together (in San Jose).
I stuck around there even after we had come to a certain amount of popularity. I was living in Los Gatos at the time. I loved the area. I still love the area. As much as it has grown, I think San Jose really has a charm. There’s something about the area and the people and the infrastructure — as crowded as it has become, it still feels like a community. Every time I go there to visit, I still enjoy it and have a good feeling there. I have great memories, so probably projecting some of my past into the present.
Q: What are some of your favorite things in the area?
A: I always loved Big Basin. I always loved the ocean. I surfed a lot when growing up so I spent a lot of time at Pleasure Point.
I have been on every ride on the Beach Boardwalk.
Great places to listen to music back in the days — the Catalyst, White Buffalo.
Then you are a stone’s throw away from places like Half Moon Bay and Monterey.
I just loved riding my bike up and down Highway 1. That was just a wonderful thing to do.
Q: The Doobies musical mix draws from so many genres, from gospel and R&B to the blues and Southern rock. It’s a hybrid sound that some might expect to find in Savannah, Georgia, not San Jose. How did coming of age in the South Bay play into the sound of the band?
A: Artists are influenced by the things we listen to and the perceptions we have. Probably, more than anything, the blues was a huge influence for me. As a younger person, a teenager and so on, it was probably more country-blues — Reverend Gary Davis, Doc Watson. I loved Jesse Fuller. Jorma Kaukonen from the Jefferson Airplane was a huge influence on me, just in terms of somebody I admired and loved what he was doing musically. He was a San Jose guy for a while and I used to go see Jorma play. I guess his tastes influenced me a whole lot as far as the kinds of music that I wanted to listen to and wanted to imitate. I’m not sure that imitation is the word. But I was very influenced by that kind of music.
I listened to every kind of music. Growing up in the ‘50s and ‘60s, R&B was a huge part of our playlist. I loved country music and certain country artists that had crossed over to rock — Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Elvis, of course.
Q: A bunch of first-tier Rock and Roll Hall of Famers right there.
A: In the mid-to-late ‘60s, suddenly this country-rock thing started happening — with the Byrds, the Dillards, Poco. Buffalo Springfield. Moby Grape was a huge influence on our band. And they sort of encompassed what we saw ourselves as — more than just rock and blues, we wanted to try it all. We wanted to do ballads. We wanted to some country-influenced stuff.
There are so many aspects of music that influence you. And, really, it doesn’t matter where you are from, because that music becomes an expression of who you are.
That’s why we probably sound more Southern because that was the music that, in the end, was influencing us to a greater degree.
Q: You celebrated your 50th anniversary as a band back in 2020, yet you didn’t get to mark the occasion as you hoped due to the pandemic.
A: This is really our 50-ish anniversary tour. We were scheduled to go out a couple of years ago and the COVID pandemic hit, so we postponed it. We were again coming out last year and there was a resurgence. We decided, “Well, let’s try to do a few dates.” So, we went out in the fall and, of course, guys got sick within a few weeks of being on the road. So, we ended up postponing a little bit more. We did about a month’s worth of shows last year.
Q: Something else truly notable happened for the band in 2020, when the Doobie Brothers were finally elected into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I know some fans were beginning to wonder if ever would happen. How does it feel to have that behind you and be able to refer to yourselves as Rock and Roll Hall of Famers?
A: Naturally, you would hope that something like that would happen. But I don’t think we necessarily thought it would happen in 2020. Because it was our first nomination. When it happened, it was like, “Wow. This is what we’ve been hoping for.” But I think we’d been eligible for about 25 years, so after a while you start thinking, “Well, maybe, when we are gone, we’ll get nominated. Won’t be around to see it.” The fact that we get to experience it was really amazing.
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