How Thundercat got yacht-rock singers Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald on his album

Thundercat, known for his work as a virtuoso bassist and collaborations with artists as critically acclaimed and diverse as Suicidal Tendencies, Kendrick Lamar and Erykah Badu, recently stopped by q to discuss his latest album, Drunk.

One of the tracks on the album is entitled "Show You the Way," and features Thundercat alongside Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald. Both singers, known for their smooth pop hits, enjoyed success in the '80s and have experienced a resurgence in the sometimes ironic attention given to yacht-rock singers in recent years. Indeed, in a previous radio interview, Thundercat half-jokingly mentioned he'd like to work with the singers, which he says started a "snowball effect."

Thundercat's request fortuitously made it to Loggins's son, who put him in contact with the singer. "And the first thing Kenny asked me, [was] he wanted to know how serious I was," says Thundercat. "He kinda was a bit offended, the fact that I joked about it. And I was like 'C'mon man, I wouldn't be here if I wasn't serious.' And from that moment it kinda took off."

However, there were a couple of stumbling blocks as the sessions unfolded and Loggins heard Thundercat's unorthodox, genre-mashing jazz fusion.

"I would just play him a bunch of stuff and he had this look on this face, like, 'What is this?' 'Where am I supposed to fit in this?' 'How does this make sense?' and I didn't really have an answer for him to be honest. The whole thing was, we were supposed to find it."

Eventually, Loggins made the shrewd call to bring McDonald in on the sessions. "Immediately, it was explosive," says Thundercat. "The part where he adds Michael McDonald and me and [Kenny] and everything from the processing unit, it just feels like putting a Pentium chip in it and we just became very in tune with each other, it was like vibes almost."

"Michael is such an astounding writer to the point that if you didn't record him you would never have it," says Thundercat. "He's like, 'Did you get [that] on tape?' [I respond] 'Yeah'  [And he says] 'Good!' 'Cause if you ask him in five minutes again, his brain is like [makes speeding, whirring sound]. We pushed and we got a song out of it amongst other songs, but this one started with an idea I put across and we just expounded on it and that's how that song was created."

— Del Cowie, q digital staff