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Steve Lukather on ‘Bridges,’ Toto’s Next Era and Remaining an All-Starr
PRESTON FRAZIER: I first got into your band Toto, in 1999. I got to see Toto in a small club in Philadelphia.
STEVE LUKATHER: Well, I remember that. I remember those days playing in the clubs, trying to get it together in the United States. Man, it’s been an Achilles heel for many years. Last year, when we jumped on the Journey tour doing arenas, boy, that really changed everything in the United States for us. We were able to play in front of half a million people. The Journey guys are beautiful cats, dear friends – and Neal [Schon] and Jon [Cain] in particular. But I love ’em all.
PRESTON FRAZIER: Another Steve Lukather memory I have is from August 2008, when I got to see your solo band with Carlitos Del Puerto, Eric Valentine and Steve Weingart.
STEVE LUKATHER: Yeah, that was like the last year of my insane years. So I apologize for anything that would’ve been a little dodgy at that era. That was the end of my drinking career about right there. So [laughs], yeah, we had fun. I mean, it was some fun, you know. Fun gigs and stuff like that, great band and lovely guys.
PRESTON FRAZIER: Bridges differs a little bit from your prior release.
STEVE LUKATHER: It’s a huge difference. The last album, I Found the Sun Again, I did that record in eight days. Everything was live except for the vocals. I overdubbed the vocals that night. We did a song a day in eight days. But doing all the tracking, all the solos, all the jams, all of that self-indulgence let me show my chops or whatever it was. I did that for me to see if I could still do it, and also to have fun doing it and have a jam band record like they used to make in the late ’60s, early ’70s. That album was done right before the lockdown. Then two years pass, and I go through one of the worst times in my entire life.
The depression was deep, it was really a tough time for me. I’ll just leave that there. I came out of that and then I realized Toto didn’t get like a farewell tour or a goodbye. For the first few months it was like, “Isn’t it great to be home?” Then it got a little scary, and then it got a little more scary. I called up my record company, Mascot, and I said, “Hey man, I want to do a record. Let’s do a shameless ’80s record. Nobody’s doing that now. We used to do that. I wanted to work with [Toto bandmates] Dave [Paich] and Joe [Williams]. I’ve known those guys since I was a teenager. Joseph has a studio in his house. We showed up at Joe’s house the first day, just Joe and I, and we wrote the last song on the whole album. We wrote it and tracked it, overdubbed on it. We wrote the lyrics the next day. That was the first song. And then we overdubbed drums and bass and stuff like that.
The next day, David came over. And then for the next four or five days, Dave, Joe and I were writing a song a day. There were no demos. It just went right to the tape. And what you’re hearing on the record was just from the original ideas. My son Trev brought in a track that was almost done, which he produced, which was “Far From Over,” the opening track. He’s such a great producer. He is a 36-year-old man now. I mean, he does this professionally from his house. He’s got a beautiful studio and everything. That was fun. So I just basically put my family and friends together to make a record.
PRESTON FRAZIER: Did you have any lyrical ideas when you went into the studio with Joseph?
STEVE LUKATHER: No, we had nothing. The attitude was to show up to the house at noon, let’s see what we come up with. And we worked for three or four hours a day. And then Joseph, who loves to tinker around when nobody’s looking, he all of a sudden put all these amazing background parts on and all these other keyboards and atmospheric stuff and percussion stuff. He’s such a great producer, especially vocally. He got this stuff out of me; we worked hard on this stuff.
He put it all together and it was double-tracked. And we went back to the ’80s production style of let’s double vocals, let’s do big harmonies, let’s make a big production out of it. Shamelessly ’80s. I purposely pulled back my playing in terms of being flashy or anything like that. There are so many great guitar players and I was like, “Honey, I’m an old guy.” Trying to keep up with these young kids that are just ripping it up, it’s scary.
PRESTON FRAZIER: But you made so many great statements. You have so many great guitar statements on every album.
STEVE LUKATHER: Thanks. But I mean, what my point was is that I was trying for “less is more.” I purposely put a governor on my playing and just said, “Let me try to be completely different, and just worry about tone, phrasing and the right choice in notes.”
PRESTON FRAZIER: Let’s discuss the songs, beginning with “Not My Kind Of People.”
STEVE LUKATHER: “Not My Kind Of People” features Joseph Williams with David Paich and also the incredible Stan Lynch as co-writers. Stan, the word man. He’s the word man. He’s the one that comes up with these insane biting lyrics that are humorous and dark and weird. But we’ve known each other for 40-some-odd years. He knows me. We both had, you know, rollercoaster to ride in life, so some of our humor is very much the same. We get on; he’s one of my soul brothers. I love him to death. So we wrote the song – Dave, me and Joe. And then Stan called me, we talked about life – and he goes, “OK, good. That’s good.” We laughed a lot, talked about old stories and that inspired him to write this lyric. You know, it’s sort of how we older guys look at life and people that have fucked us over.
Stan wrote on the [Toto’s] Kingdom of Desire, and then he wrote on Tambu. He’s always written with me on my solo records and we’ve done a lot of stuff together through the years. He’s one of my favorite human beings, as well as being an unbelievable lyricist that works really fast and does not bring any cliche stuff to the party. We get these lyrics and I go, “This is amazing. We maybe change a word or two, talk about it on the phone. I tried singing it and it was effortless. The record was effortless. I mean, that was fun. We did it in three weeks, from the first note to ready to be mixed. Then I sat on it for a year while we went on the road, and then we mixed it in December.
PRESTON FRAZIER: My impression of your solo work is that it does come easy for you. Is that accurate or does it depend on the album?
STEVE LUKATHER: I don’t go into it thinking this is going to be hard or easy. I just hopefully come up with something with the people that I know and have worked with and like, particularly Dave and Joe. Like I said, we’ve known each our whole lives. There’s a musical language that we understand that’s kind of unspoken. Like if somebody starts out with a riff, we all of a sudden fall into, “Oh, I’ve got a B section here.” I go, “Well, here’s a melody.”
The next thing you know, this collaborative thing happens very quickly. Within an hour or two hours, we’ve got a track built up, you know, and then we overdub the drums and bass on everything. With [drummer] Shannon Forrest, he’s an incredible engineer and has an incredible studio. I just sent him the stuff and said, “Alright, man, gimme your best stuff” – and he did. Simon [Phillips] and I hadn’t worked with each other for a while, and it was really fun to get back with him. See, people think we don’t like each other, and that’s not true. He moved on to do his band the way he wants to do it. He’s happy, he’s thriving. Everything’s working out the way it works out, and everybody’s happy.
PRESTON FRAZIER: You had two amazing drummers with two different styles, but two also very groove-focused drummers. I talked to Shannon the last time I saw that version of Toto, and I mentioned his production on Michael McDonald’s album – which was stunning.
STEVE LUKATHER: That’s the thing. He’s working on projects for himself now. He’s produced more stuff for Michael, I think. He is working on a project himself, and he was the No. 1 guy in Nashville as a drummer studio guy. I don’t know how much he does right now, but he’s got a beautiful studio in his house. The drum sounds are insane, and he’s a great engineer on top of it all. I love the guy.
PRESTON FRAZIER: You teamed up again with one of my favorite lyricists, Randy Goodrum, on “All Forever’s Must End.”
STEVE LUKATHER: Here’s the thing. Randy and I, we’ve always written ballads together. We have written a lot of songs. “I’ll Be Over You” was a big hit, and that was one of the first things we ever wrote together. Then he worked on a lot of Toto records – mostly the piano songs I write, usually the ballads. I had this piece of music sitting around and I didn’t know what to do with it. It was unfinished, but I had a pretty good chunk of it. He came back with this unbelievably soulful lyric only he can write. I mean, he’s a genius in terms of how to write a love song.
PRESTON FRAZIER: The lead single “When I See You Again” finds Simon Phillips back on drums, David Paich on keyboards, and of course a lot of Joseph William keyboards. You co-wrote that with Stan Lynch as well.
STEVE LUKATHER: Same thing, man. I mean, we come in with nothing, and you know, we always come out with something. One of us is going to have an idea that’s going to spark something. I start messing around in my office and come up with a riff or something, or Paich would just come in and sit down at a Wurlitzer and just start playing. We put a little drum loop on so we could play to that. And then we’d start writing, and within a couple of hours we’d put together a whole track and then we’d farm out the lyrics and come back to that. Joseph got some amazing stuff out of me.
PRESTON FRAZIER: There was a quick sensation succession of albums from you, David and Joseph. Of course, you’ve been busy with the Dogz of Oz tour, busy with Ringo Starr. You’re about to go out again –
STEVE LUKATHER: Let me cut you off of the pass, because I know what you’re gonna ask me. You’ve caught onto something. If you look at I Found the Sun Again and Joe’s record, Joe’s record was brilliant and we all worked on that – all of us some way or another. Not on every song, but we were involved. Paich does an EP, we’re all involved. Arguably, you could say if we put it on one record – you know, take the take songs off these guys’ records, you could arguably say you might have a Toto thing.
PRESTON FRAZIER: It seems as if you’re much more productive in terms of recording and touring than you’ve ever been. Great album, great tour. Great tour, great tour.
STEVE LUKATHER: Thank you, man. Well, here’s the thing. This pandemic thing, it’s like, “OK, I tried retirement. It sucked.” [Laughs.] It sucked. I’d rather be dead. That was bad. So given the opportunity to start back up and get on the road and make new music and keep moving forward working with Ringo, who I adore and love, right? And yeah, there’s a lot of work going on. And how old am I now? I’ll be 66 in October.
Damn, I can’t even believe it myself. But there’s a harsh reality to the expiration date. How long am I gonna be able to do this? I mean, some of our brothers can’t do it anymore medically or whatever. They just hate it and they don’t want to be on the road ever again. Or just, you know, life and people change. Some people are pissed off at me that I’m trying to keep Toto together. It’s like just trying to keep the music alive and show some respect to it and get it out there. And I love doing it, Joseph and I love doing it. And i’s a great honor for me to also be involved with Ringo Starr’s All-Starr band.
It’s my 11th year as an All-Starr – wow. And, you know, I think I’ve been involved longer than anybody except for Gregg Bissonette on drums, and he got me in the band. To me, that’s like a vacation tour, because all I have to do is be the guitar player. I love all the other guys in the band. I love playing their music. I love being a support player. The hang is world class and Ringo treats us like kings. Who wouldn’t want to do this gig? Ringo and I have become really good friends over these years. It’s such an inspiration. He’s like a big brother to me, a great wise man who keeps my shit together when I start going crazy. He’s been great. I’ve gone through my darkest bits and when I messed up he was there for me and supported me and loved me, in spite of myself.
PRESTON FRAZIER: This album doesn’t have any classic covers, though you did a song which wasn’t original, “Take My Love.”
STEVE LUKATHER: Steve Maggiora, who’s playing with keyboard and singing with Toto now, wrote it. Much like I asked my son, “Hey, what do you got? You got something for me?” He brings in this great track that’s almost done. I said to Steve, “I want to do a blues tune, but I don’t want to do a 12-bar blues.” I’m not a blues guy like the Texas guys or my brother Joe Bonamassa, who is a genius. I wanted to do something that had some more changes in it. That was more me, instead of me trying to be a blues man. I mean, I love the blues and everything, but it’s not trying to be traditional. It’s sort of like more of a Steely Dan kind of a blues thing. I just put my vocal and my guitars on it, man, ’cause this is great. I don’t mind doing outside material, if it’s great. That totally fit the thing. I mean, it was a wonderful thing to do. It’s sort of like my tribute to Gary Moore.
I’m really thankful and grateful to the guys that helped me make this record. I mean, Joseph gets the MVP. But also my son, who worked really hard on this thing – and all the guys that played on and gave me all his love. Ken Freeman, who mixed it. Thanks to my friends.
