A Conversation with Toto’s Steve Lukather – HuffPost 5.9.14
Mike Ragogna: Luke! How you doin’?
Steve Lukather: I’m doing great, man! Things couldn’t be going better. I just got all this information that the DVD is number one all over the world, it’s crazy! I don’t even understand it, but I’m sure happy about it.
MR: That’s easy. It’s Toto.
SL: Well, we were never the trendiest band, but we’ve always been here. Even the critics that hated us back in the day, you get them drunk and they know the lyrics to all these songs. They’re busted right there. But we have a great sense of humor about all this, particularly that song, my god it has a life of its own. It was on an episode of Family Guy to the point where David Paich uses the name Peter Griffin as his hotel name. We were South Park characters! It’s part of pop culture, the song has a life of its own. Now it’s a college song, which is great, we get college kids at our shows. We have multiple generations of people, because we’re not one of those bands that was so trendy that we’d go out of style, we were never in style. You sort of either liked us or you didn’t. Some people are discovering it via the internet or via their parents or uncles or older brothers and sisters, I don’t know, we seem to be getting stronger, not weaker, and we’ve taken every punch there is. I think I appreciate it more now than I ever did.
MR: What do you think it is about Toto that ended up being so resilient?
SL: Resilient? Our love for eachother. Most of us went to high school together and we grew up as musicians working and studying and playing and became studio musicians and the band happened and all of the records that we did and all of the success and loss and failures that we’ve had; divorces, marriages, kids, death, addictions, people coming and going, surviving, paying our dues. Forty years I’ve been playing with the front line of the band, they’re my brothers, and that holds true. Having the opportunity to stay in the band after all these years, are you kidding me? How many people have long careers anymore? Like no one.
MR: It is an amazing career, man. So I interviewed Boz Scaggs somewhat recently and…
SL: Ah, my man Boz! He gave me my first job. I was a teenager.
MR: Well, he remembered that. And when he talked about you guys, he seemed really happy.
SL: Oh, God love him. I owe him a lot. If it wasn’t for Boz my life would’ve changed. Meeting the Porcaro brothers getting that Boz Scaggs gig were two life-changing events for me. It all fell into place after that.
MR: In some respects it’s almost like Silk Degrees was Toto’s first album.
SL: I was still in high school when they did album, and when I got out I was asked to do the tour and the subsequent albums after that. But Jeff Porcaro and David Paich certainly, and David Hungate our original bass player who’s coming back to play with us this summer, that was the core rhythm section for Silk Degrees and David wrote all the songs with Boz, so yeah that was definitely our stepping off point. I did that tour thatwas so successsful and Columbia records offered us a deal right away without even hearing any music, which is unheard of. They were thinking, “Well, this is the same guys that brought you Silk Degreesthat just sold five million,” plus we were on every record in town at the time, so me and Steve Porcaro being the junior guys, next thing you know we have a hit record and I’m nineteen years old oging, “Wow, this is insane.” Then I blinked and I’m fifty-six. What the f**k happened?
MR: [laughs] The hell you say!
SL: I’ve got two generations of kids, I’ve kind of seen it all. It’s been a hell of a journey, man, and I really appreciate this now more than I ever did.
MR: Steve, let’s talk about the new DVD, the 35th Anniversary Tour, Live In Poland. Was there anything about that experience that set it apart from other tours?
SL: Well the fact that we could even attach thirty five years to anything, now it’s thirty seven, which is even scarier, forty since high school, but to have that longevity and to take all the punches we have and get back up and say, “Thank you, may I have another?” Truly it’s bittersweet. The loss of Jeff was devastating and now his brother Mike has ALS and is confined to a bed, and that’s not going well, but all the good things that have happened to us… life is unexpected, man. You never know what’s going to happen. I think as you get older you reflect at the silliness of your youth and the stupidity of some of the decisions that were made, and the ego and whatnot, or whatever played into it. Most of us were probably too high when we were making these decisions. Young, dumb musicians following the trend of the day, which was party, party, party, which is what everybody did. Now, looking back at that as a guy who hasn’t a drink or a smoke or anything nasty in my system for years and years I look back at those foolish mistakes going, “Jesus, why did I do that?” I think that’s why we’ve had the success we’ve had. All of a sudden the DVD is number one all over the world and I don’t know how or why but we’re not going to question good things anymore in life. We didn’t hype this thing, but all of a sudden it came out and just took off, it was like, “What the fuck, are you kidding me?” This is fantastic for a bunch of old shits like us.
MR: The medley that opens the DVD includes “Child’s Anthem,” its original version used on ABC Sports in the seventies. Add that to the hits “I’ll Supply The Love” and “Hold The Line” and throw in that Cheryl Lynn debut “Georgy Porgey” and you’ve got a pretty big spread on that Toto debut album.
SL: A lot of people got confused about us because we had multiple singers, even within the band itself, David Paich and myself sang a lot of the hits, too and we had different tenors, too. The original guy sang “Hold The Line,” and it was the only song he sang by himself. I sang a lot of the other stuff, Dave sang “Africa,” Joseph Williams who is our singer now sang two of our big worldwide hits and he’s back and better than ever. Vocally and stylistically, we’d have different kinds of songs come on te radio and people didn’t ralize it was the same band. A lot of the time a casual fan would come see us and go, “I didn’t know that you guys did that song, I didn’t know that was you!” That was us!
MR: And the music also seeped into other places beyond hits, and that was sort of unheard of over the years.
SL: That and the fact that we’d played on so many hit records anyway. Between 1976 and 1990 you couldn’t turn on the radio withou hearing one of us.
MR: [laughs] That’s really true.
SL: We were in every band and on everybody’s records. We wrote a lot of hit songs for other people, too. I wrote all The Tubes’ hit songs, “She’s A Beauty,” I won a Grammy for George Benson’s “Turn Your Love Around,” Steve Porcaro wrote “Human Nature.” Paich wrote stuff, we all had our hands in a lot of other stuff beyond playing in a lot of hit records. We got up every day and went to work. We weren’t htat high that we never got anything done.
MR: With you guys, it was probably a no-brainer for you to get the first call for sessions.
SL: Well, I when we were young, that’s kind of how we saw ourselves, as being studio players. We always wanted to be in a rock ‘n’ roll band but the whole studio thing was so intriguing to me in high school I really wanted to do that and then I started hanging out with all the guitar players–Larry Carlton, Lee Ritenour, Jay Graydon–these people would say, “I can’t do this one, let’s give the kid a shot. Jeff Porcaro or Paich would throw me a session or something like that, or a young David Foster at the time would hire me. We were all young and I was in the right place at the right time and I showed up and could do the gig, I was very fortunate to have these unbelievable experiences working with Quincy and Michael and all the big, huge records I was involved in.
MR: When you look back at all the years of Toto, actually now the thirty-seventh anniversary of…
SL: I’d say, “Slow down! The f**king time is going way too fast! Time out!”
MR: [laughs] Dude, that’s also because you’re having way too much fun.
SL: This is true! I’m working with Ringo now and he’s seventy-four years old and he looks like he’s forty. He’s my hero, my mentor. He’s who I want to be when I grow up. You never want to really grow up, but you know.
MR: When you look back at your career, what are some of your prouder moments?
SL: Wow, you know, the famous moments are thriller, it’s really hard because you’re looking at a pretty vast discography, thousands of records, I think a point that people don’t know about our band is if you collectively put all our stuff on the table you’re looking at five thousand albums. Somebody put these stats together for us recently: Five thousand albums, two hundred and twenty five Grammy nominations and over a half a billion records with one of our names on them. Working with every f**king major superstar of the last fifty years in every style except for classical. There’s not too many bands who can say that. I don’t think there’s anybody remotely even close, and yet we’re a footnote according to most rock journalists. “Oh yeah, that sh**ty band from the eighties.” They don’t really want to give us any credit for that. You kind of shake your head and go, “Okay, well, whatever.” They trudge out these guys from 1953 you’ve never heard of and put them in the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall Of Fame but us, we’re considered the Ebola disease to these people.
MR: [laughs] I wouldn’t go that far, but I would say you guys haven’t gotten the dues you deserve.
SL: Whatever, man. You think Beethoven ever got an ASCAP check? I’ve had enough pats on the back in my life. I’ve had a wonderful career, I’ve got nothing to bitch about. I’m not some old bitter guy going on and on about how unfair things are. I’ve had more than the credit I deserve for most of it, so I only make the point because history may be kinder in a hundred years and go, “Who were the guys? They played all this stuff but nobody really had any love. The people that like what we do show up and that’s love for me, man, that’s cool. If they put their hard-earned money on the table to buy something or come to the show, God love ’em.
MR: And you know what the hint is? The hint is you’ve got a multi-generational audience, so it’s very possible that maybe in your day you weren’t considreed, but later on people are already recognizing you.
SL: We’re getting the best reviews of our lives so far. Really, as far as how amused and elated we are to have a number one DVD all over the world that just came out in the US this week, but with five-star reviews we’re going, “Is this some kind of a joke? Is Allen Funt going to come out of the closet and go This Is Your life–Allen Funt was Candid Camera–or some sh*t like that and it’s all just a big piss-take on us? Is this a reality show that they didn’t inform me about?” But like I said, we’re laughing and we’re joyous about it. We’re just thankful. And we get the joke, believe me dude, I love the fact that Family Guy did an episode on “Africa,” when college kids come to the show–it’s probably some sort of drinking game song or something. Look at Steve Miller and Jimmy Buffet and all of these guys with careers. It’s a rite of passage and to get in on that is cool. I think it’s really fun, people know the song even if they don’t know me. I’ve got the best of both worlds. Believe me, I’ve got a lot of real famous friends. Being famous sucks. Being rich is cool, but being famous sucks. Ask anybody who really is.
MR: As you said, your DVD is a hit all over the world–Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland… I could go on but it’s ridiculous.
SL: [laughs] It’s a big world out there, man. We were kind of held captive on the American Sony records. They wouldn’t release us from our contract or release our music for ten years in the nineties, so we were kind of fucked that way, but we were able to tour and release records around the world and retain our arena status of still being able to go out and sell out arenas, believe it or not. We just came back from a sold out tour in Japan and we have new management and new agents and we’re starting a new tour in August with Michael McDonald and us co-billed. We’re playing The Greek Theatre and other great theaters and legit stuff, it’s not like some club tour, like, “Oh my God, these guys, is anybody left in the original band?” I didn’t want to do that, not when we can do the business elsewhere, which is why we spent most our time outside the United States and now we’re going to get a real shot at coming back here when there’s a little buzz on us here again. We’re not part of that same eight bands that tour in various configurations every summer. We’re fresh meat from an era gone by.
MR: It’s interesting that you’re touring with Michael McDonald now, because he seems like one of those artists it would’ve made perfect sense for you to have collaborated with for like an album, etc.
SL: Well we have, I played on his first solo record, “I Keep Forgetting,” that’s all me playing the parts. Michael, believe it or not, was asked to join Toto before mister Bobby Kimball, because he and Jeff Procaro were in Steely Dan together back in the seventies. He was considered for the job and he had just joined the doobie brothers and recorded “Takin’ It To The Streets” the week before we asked him.
MR: Oh my God.
SL: But he sang on our albums and we played on his albums, we’re old friends and we laugh at this whole Yacht Rock thing, “What the f*k is that?” That’s some pretty funny sh*t. None of us own a yacht, by the way. Believe me, if I’d have gotten paid for all the stuff I wrote–nowadays, you come up with a hooky part, you get songwriters’ credit. Back in the day, we came up with a hooky part and we got a check. We would be on my yacht if I got paid credit, I tell you.
MR: [laughs] Awesome stuff here, Mr. Luke. Okay, it’s that time, what advice do you have for new artists?
SL: Learn how to f**king play and sing. The big lie to a young person is they go into a studio and maybe they have some raw talent but it’s very rough. Maybe they’ve got a pretty face. But all of a sudden, they achieve fame and then they realize it’s the Milli Vanilli thing, they can’t really pull it off. So once you get found out, your career’s over. If you can really play and really sing and really write material, you’ll have a long career, if you’re really good and you can take punch after punch… But the record business is not what it was. A number one record doesn’t sell millions of copies anymore, and the whole internet thing, this bulls**t that we make money off of Spotify and YouTube is a lie.
MR: And to whatever degree, there’s the label.
SL: The record company gotta pay off. But they own you in perpetuity–that means forever. Trying to get them to account for anything is riddiculous. It’s really difficult to be young and see the career. My son is twenty-seven years old and making records and writing songs for other people and his royalty statements are miniscule compared to what it used to be back in the day. Even back in the day, the record company was making all the money. So it’s not fair that the artists have been getting so f**ked on this deal. Ask people that are in print…books and newspapers are going to go by the wayside the way records did. Now they’re going to start making hundred million-dollar movies that get ripped the first day and make no money. Somebody’s going to have to come up with a way to stop this. Intellectual property is still intellectual property. People don’t think music is a real way of making a living. Tell that to my kids I have to put through school and pay my bills like everybody else. I can’t go into the market and put food into my basket and go out without paying, but people have no problem stealing music, because they don’t think it’s really stealing anything. Here’s what it is… There’s money to be made but it’s not going to the right people. The guy who can sell advertising on your clip on YouTube and you make none of that money and he doesn’t give you any of that money and cashes out for a billion dollars even though he owns none of the content. How is that fair? That’s my point. Share the wealth! Why not give a little taste to the guys that made you f**kin’ rich?
MR: What’s the future look like for Toto?
SL: Well, we’re working on our new album, it’s really strong. We haven’t made one in ten years. Ironically through a lawsuit we go forced back into doing it, but once we got into the process we realized, “We’re going to make a really good one.” We’re making one for the band. We’re not trying to follow a trend or go all EDM or have rap guys do our stuff, we’re going to do a Toto record, our classic sound. We wrote some really good songs, we’re about eight tracks into a ten track album and I’ll be in the studio in two hours working on it. I’m excited about it, we haven’t done it in a long time. The fact that we can still do this and enjoy it more than I ever had in my whole life, it’s fantastic! If you’d have told me, “Yeah, almost forty years down the line you’ll still be doing this” I would’ve laughed at you. But I’ll tell you what, man, I’m sure happy and honored to be on the phone talking with you about this. I’m already booked up through 2016, man. Life is good.
Transcribed By Galen Hawthorne