Steve Lukather on His Best Music, From Toto to ‘Thriller’

“The initial shock of them going after us so hard was like, ‘Wow, man. Why us?’ Seriously.”
Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photo: Rob Verhorst/Redferns

By his own admission, Steve Lukather is an open book. “I’m painfully honest,” he says when we start our conversation. “Be careful.” But there isn’t any need to proceed with caution. Lukather has a story for just about anything — often with a laugh or self-deprecating quip — whether it’s the thousands of songs he’s played on as a session guitarist or the exploits of his yacht-rock brothers, Toto. Lukather’s band has blessed the rains for nearly five decades with a finely tuned pop-rock sound, which they’re bringing to the Hollywood Bowl with a headlining show on September 1. “We’re getting more action than anybody fucking knows,” he explains. “People are showing up and it’s not a bunch of people with my color hair. There’s a few of us old fuckers out there, but mostly you look out and it’s like every basic younger audience.”

Lukather believes that the perception of what Toto represents and what they’ve accomplished have been getting another look — a kinder one — within the last few years. “People are going, ‘You know those guys, we were wrong, they ain’t so bad,’” he puts it. “Toto is a stupid name, I’ll give you that. But we contributed to a lot of music from the ’70s and ’80s to the early ’90s. Every record out of Los Angeles had at least one of us on it.” He’s unsure why, exactly, the waiting game has paid off after all this time, and he’s choosing not to overthink it. “I didn’t want to die with us being a chuckle,” Lukather adds. “I don’t need any awards or nothing. We’re just getting some respect before the last curtain call.”

It’s hard to tell. The classic songs that everybody knows are the ones that everybody knows. The one that best demonstrates what we really are would be “Rosanna.” Everybody shines on that one. It’s a quintessential song musicianship-wise and arrangement-wise. It was a big hit and it’s recognizable. If I had to be attached to only one song in our catalogue, “Rosanna” covers it. When we started out, we didn’t really know what we wanted to be. We were a lot of different things, which confused some people, especially at the time when punk rock was emerging. For some reason, critics nabbed Toto out of all the artists in our genre. I believe it was because it was a stupid name — Toto. Okay, we’ll take this band and we’ll put them against the Sex Pistols. It’s like comparing chocolate and garlic. They’re both great on their own, but taste like shit when you try to put them together. It’s an unfair comparison on both sides of the fence. We’re nothing alike. But trying to be hipsters and stuff, critics just went after us. And that was almost 50 years ago.

The initial shock of them going after us so hard was like, “Wow, man. Why us?” We didn’t really know because we started out piecemeal as a band. It was Jeff Porcaro and David Paich’s band. There was no question about that. I jumped the line to some other guys that thought they were heirs apparent to the gig, which pissed off some of their younger friends, because I was still a teenage punk-ass. So for our first record, Toto, we did this really over-the-top production. As buffed out as you can be. We were copying the Steely Dan perfection method of making records. We rounded off all the rough edges because that was what we thought we wanted to do. And at the time, it became instantly out of vogue to do that because we were coming off records like Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Dark Side of the Moon, and Close to the Edge. It was a mixture of prog, funk, rock, and pop. All of that was thrown in a blender and what came out was us.

As time went on, it got better. We found our voice. When Toto IV hit, we had done a few tours, started to find our sea legs, and everybody was writing. We started to feel more like a band in the first track we cut, “Rosanna.” When the record company went, “Okay, you didn’t have a hit last time. If you don’t have a hit this time, you’re done,” we knew we could give them this one. We still confused people with different singers and different grooves. Is this a pop song? Is this a punk song? But it didn’t matter. We weren’t pretty boys. There weren’t guys with massive bulges and perfect hair on the front cover of our first album. I’m still working on that particular look.

I’m the guy that’s been hanging on the boat the longest and keeping the music alive. I would’ve given you a much different answer a decade ago, because now I’m not aching for credit like I once was as a 30 year-old, when you’re a little bit insecure. At that age you’ve got to be “Keep up with the fastest gun of the west” and all that bullshit. You know, the competitive vibe a younger person would have. That drive would always go, You better do this now or you’re going to be fucked, man. You’ll be going, ‘Do you want fries with that?’ for the rest of your life. There was a massive incentive. And with that incentive, there’s energy. You have to be forthright, but you have to be careful not to be an asshole. So as an adult, I can now say I’ve had an amazing career that no one else is ever going to have because it’s not possible. It’s over. To be the No. 1 session guy and also have a multi-platinum band that’s lasted almost five decades — there isn’t anybody else like us. Like the music or not, but we’re a big part of it.

It would be a few days, but the Thriller sessions. I was involved from the very first session of that album, which was “The Girl Is Mine” with Paul McCartney. I was so thrilled to be there. Being in that room and then watching Paul and Linda McCartney come in was magical. The song’s a bit silly, but the hang was unbelievable. They threw some chords in front of us and we came up with that. It wasn’t like Quincy Jones was writing out all the notes for us to read. It was more like, “What can you do?” The same thing happened with “Human Nature.” Steve Porcaro wrote it, and originally there was no guitar. Quincy was like, “You gotta make this funky for me, man. You gotta put some funk in this! It’s pop.” And I said, “Yeah, cool, Q.” So I came up with that part on the spot. It was nothing. That’s what we do every day.

After we did “The Girl Is Mine,” Paul took a shine to me and Jeff, and he hired us to be in his movie, Give My Regards to Broad Street. We were like, “Wow, pinch us, we get to be in the movie with Paul McCartney.” He flew us overseas and we were set up on the soundstage. We had been told, “Whatever you do, don’t say anything about the Beatles to Paul.” I looked at Jeff and said, “What? We can’t say anything about the Beatles? Not even one thing?” Absolutely not allowed. So we’re on the soundstage and we had this ridiculous makeup on for the shoot. I happened to be standing next to Linda. I adored her. Anybody that says anything shitty about her, fuck them. We were palling around and I finally said, “They told us we couldn’t say anything to Paul about the Beatles. We were bummed out because that’s the reason why we all play.” And she goes, “Who told you that?” “Well, the manager guy.” And she said, “That’s ridiculous. Paul loves to talk about the Beatles. Go ask him about the Beatles!” The Mellotron was plugged in. So I leaned over and I played the intro to “Strawberry Fields Forever.” Paul turned around, and I thank God I didn’t fuck it up. He was like, “Hey, that’s pretty good.” And I go, “Yeah, man, it’s because it’s the greatest thing ever.” We got to talking and then I thought, Fuck it, and I started playing “Please Please Me.” He jumped right in. Then the whole band and the soundstage jumped in. There must’ve been about 50 people in the room jamming. I started singing the Lennon part. At the end of it, the place erupted in this massive applause. He had a big smile on his face. I thought, Man, this is a moment. I’m verklempt. But I digress.

So, to me, a prolific day was like when you played on something and then you heard it on the radio a while later. We’d be like, “We did that. Look at that. Another hit record.” How many songs in the “Hot 100” at one time could you be on? I think I averaged out playing on 20 or 25 songs in the “Hot 100” a week. The era of 1979 to 1985, that was my peak — every day going to sessions and appearing on over a hundred records a year, easy. I’d be walking down the hallways in the studio and someone would say, “Hey man, you going to do a solo for me on this track?” And I’d go, “Yeah, okay, drag my amp in.” Boom, boom. So that’s the third session on the same day.

Press play on anything. Every time he played two and four, it was magic. There’s some cats that just have this extra magic. You can’t learn it, you can’t buy it. Jeff was a magical human being. He’d walk into the room and the room got brighter. He made everybody sound better. There’s a lot of amazing musicians I’ve had the honor of working with, but Jeff was touched by God. It’s the only thing I can say. Just a remarkable interpreter of dynamics, groove, and taste. I learned so much from him. And that’s why he was the most sought-after guy, because he walked into a session and it got better. He brought the best out of me, always. Even on other sessions, he could give me a look or a wink about something. And I’d go, “I know what you mean. Okay, what about this?” He had a body language that I understood. I miss him. It’s been 32 fucking years. Then I forget and I look at myself and go, “Wow, who’s that white-haired guy? Oh, that’s me.” And it’s all real hair, believe me. Who would buy a wig like this?

The one that probably gets the most attention from guitar players is the stuff I played on “Rosanna,” which was pretty much improvised. That song encapsulated everything. It caught Jeff’s famous drum groove, my shit on there, and Steve’s famous keyboard solo. Two different vocalists — big harmonies. Now, there’s a lot of other shit that I would deem better, but they’re not as popular.

I did a solo on a Toto record from a few years ago called “20th Century Blues.” It’s a nod to Larry Carlton and that whole era of Steely Dan. Listen, I almost got to be in Steely Dan. I almost got to do the Aja tour. I got asked by Irving Azoff but then it all got messed up. The expenses got out of control. It was always a dream to get a solo on a Steely Dan record and that never happened. That was my one bucket-list thing, and I’m not going to be able to have it. But I got a chance to play with Donald Fagen and Walter Becker separately. When Jeff passed away, we got Donald out of retirement and put Steely back together again. He came out and we did three songs for the tribute to Jeff Porcaro in 1992. So a very bittersweet evening. Sad for the cause, but a great night of music and everybody came out. Playing that shit with Donald? My face was cracking from smiling. There was a time when people were trying to imitate Donald and Walter. They were just like, “Okay, I guess you’re supposed to do 10,000 takes, and then you’ll have to try a different bass player tomorrow or a different drummer, because that’s what Steely Dan does.” You waste all this time and money when you really had it the first day, anyway.

Where do I even begin? I walk into A&M and Joni Mitchell is playing me her new song on the piano. I’m in a session with Quincy and Stevie Wonder shows up as the keyboard player. It’s been an extraordinary ride. That brings me back to the point of, Why am I keeping Toto alive? I’ve spent my whole life believing that we’d get this last act, and I’m not giving up. I’m not going to let the critics get us. Don Henley told me once in the early 1980s, because I was bitching about “Why do these motherfuckers hate us so much?” And he goes, “If you hang in there long enough, it’ll all change.” I responded, “How long am I going to wait?” He said, “The Eagles had to wait a long time, so just relax.” The advice was, if you hang in there long enough, people will take a second look. It’s like, This guy has taken every punch you’ve given and he keeps coming back. They came up with this stupid genre name for us, which happened to be the exact era that we did all those records: “soft rock.” I’m like, “What the fuck is soft rock?” I always hated that. It sounded like “limp cock.”

Where’s my fucking yacht? I played on every one of those records. I don’t mind the term. It started out as this parody thing on the internet, making fun of everybody that made all of these records. Michael McDonald, Steely Dan, Christopher Cross, us, and Kenny Loggins. We’re all friends. All of us are interconnected. So I laugh at it. “Africa” fits that spirit pretty well. It’s the last song I would’ve ever thought would be the golden carrot. It was almost a throwaway song on Toto IV. The whole yacht-rock thing has taken on a life of its own. Those yacht-rock bands that go out and make a really good living, playing all that shit every night. The kids dig it and don’t look back at the ’80s in the same way those of us that lived through it do. We outlived all the hipster rock critics that don’t have any jobs anymore because nobody cares, or they’re dead. Sorry, guys. We outlived you. Tell me what the Devil’s cock tastes like, will you? I have a great sense of humor about all this. I just laugh. I go, Whatever, man.

There were moments, and I’m not ever going to name any names, where we were on sessions thinking, How in the fuck did this person get a record deal? I could name ten people in my block that are more talented that didn’t get the shot. You take this dumbass song and rewrite it, rearrange it, change the chords, and add things. And then, all of a sudden, this guy’s dumb little song turns into something that sounds like a record. That’s what we did every day — which is why the same guys did it all the time because we delivered every time. I saw a lot of guys come in and it was like, “Can you handle the pressure? Can you come up with the goods? Can you keep doing it?” Some would just sit there staring at the paper with nothing coming out. And these are brilliant players. They just couldn’t hang with that level of pressure. You’re going to have an anxiety attack out there. I saw a couple of cats who weren’t there the next day. It’s like, “Oh, well.”

Peter Gabriel. Play me any track from him and I’ll come up with something for the guitar. I’ve been a big Genesis fan since high school. Selling England By the Pound is a desert-island record for me. That was the one I fell in love with, and then I went backward and forward. I love the later Genesis stuff, too. I’m a big Phil Collins fan. I love those cats. They’re big to me. Steve Hackett’s guitar playing is as virtuosic as it gets.