ߣÏÈÉú

Paul McDonald ultimately has remained true to himself and his authentic voice throughout his 20-some years touring, but it wasn’t always easy.

Raised in Alabama, he grew up listening to Southern Rock bands like The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Then, he discovered the sounds of the late 1960s and ’70s in the form of the Laurel Canyon scene through the likes of Crosby, Stills & Nash and Joni Mitchell. He fused that with a little Tom Petty, The Rolling Stones and Neil Young. At age 15, his dad gave him a guitar for Christmas, and he started writing songs.

By 16, he was playing shows around town. He began touring full-time with a band he started in his early 20s called Hightide Blues. He was two classes away from majoring in biomedical sciences before the universe, as he describes it, once again pulled him back to music.

---

---

“Over the years, it evolved into my own style — just me trying to tune into my authentic self,” he said.

After touring with various bands, an “American Idol “scout called him, and he joined the show in 2011. He placed eighth, which was enough to turn his life around. He ended up with a new world of celebrity friends and PR people, a Los-Angeles celebrity marriage, a song on the Twilight soundtrack and a whole lot of notoriety.

---

---

“I saw behind the curtain and I realized that as beautiful as it looks on the outside, it wasn’t really for me,” he said, adding that “American Idol” ushered him into the pop-culture world, where he meet amazing producers and actors, but “it pulled me away from the Americana and rock ‘n’ roll I was doing with my band. The amount of people coming into my orbit was almost overwhelming, and I was trying to remain true to myself without being difficult. I ended up saying ‘yes’ to a lot of things, which taught me a lot about what I wanted and what I didn’t want. There were some beautiful moments, but other things, man, I thought, ‘If this ever comes up again, I’m gonna use my voice for good.'”

After a few years, he decided to leave L.A., went through a public divorce and headed to Nashville to reclaim his voice. During that time, he launched the One Big Love Festival in Nashville, Tennessee, which brought artists from Nashville and beyond to benefit local charities.

He also independently released his debut solo album, “Modern Hearts,” with producer Jordan Lehning. It delivered a more alternative rock approach, but he didn’t feel like he completely hit the mark of where he wanted to go.

“We made it with the best of the best,” he said. “As cool as that was, you’re at the mercy of the sound of session guys … I felt like I was singing my songs in someone else’s band … and on the road, your guys don’t sound like the record.”

So he devoted five years to writing and recording — and scrapping a few fully produced albums before discovering exactly what he wanted to say. He realized that his favorite records he had released emerged from a group of hometown friends: a bass player he considered the best in town in the funk scene, a drummer who loved metal and a jam-band guitarist.

“It created a beautiful mashup of sounds that wasn’t like anything else,” he said. “I was always trying to find that again, and you can’t find that without putting in the time and building a band.”

Even in Nashville, he ran up against a series of rules and politics, some of which prevented him from playing more than one time at a venue.

“I just want to play music. I don’t care about any of the politics — because music is what makes me happy. I revisited what I had left behind, and I realized that was where the real magic was,” he said.

So he put together The Mourning Doves, and they started playing everything from small clubs to burger joints. Last year, they began recording their latest album, which is yet-to-be-titled or released. But from the start, he knew he had found the sound he had been searching for.

“With this new record, I’m going back to basics. It feels like it took me a solid 10 years to get out of the whirlwind that was ‘American Idol’ and television and public relationships,” he said, adding that when they recorded the songs, “I knew immediately: There it is. There’s the sound I’ve been searching for, for years.”

He’s integrating songs he worked on in the past couple of years, each which represent a time mark in his growth and evolution.

“I’ve realized it’s not about being the best. It’s about being yourself,” he said. “It sounds pretty easy, but it took me a long time to circle back.”

The album blends Americana, rock and soul, with a strong emphasis on positivity. It’s a kind of greatest hits of the past five albums he never released.

“I had a lot of sad songs — I was going through breakups,” he said about the years following the “American Idol” experience. “I was writing a lot of woe-is-me, sad songs, and when you do that, you start attracting a lot of woe-is-me people. I want to bring joy and positivity to the community. … I’m 40 now, and I’m not writing about breakups. I’m writing about more life and death and personal stuff — and thinking out of the box. It’s just real connection.”

Music always has been a way for him to figure out, and navigate, what he’s doing on this earth, he said. Though he did some “cool” stuff over the past 10 years, like getting remarried and writing for artists on Music Row, he realized that, ultimately, time is extremely valuable, and he wants to make his own authentic music with the time he has left.

“Now I’m playing music for fun, and people are attracted to it because it’s fun,” he said. “It just feels like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”

He and his band have been playing the tunes that will be on his new record at live shows, with great reception, he said. They’ve also been building a community, including fans that follow them from show to show.

“The live shows have been electric,” he said. “You’ll laugh and cry and dance — it does all of the things that you want a great show to do. I drop in some heartbreakers, and then we immediately come out of it. It’s real fun. It’s a rejuvenation. You leave the show feeling way better than you did when you got there. There’s a sense of community, of connecting with each other and connecting to the music. There’s something there for everybody.”