Karl Puschmann is Culture and entertainment writer for the New Zealand Herald. His fascination lies in finding out what drives and inspires creative people.
Toto may bless the rains down in Africa but this morning I curse the water pouring out of my washing machine and flooding my garage/home office/storage zone. One of my New Year’s resolutions had been to finally clear out the space, but this is not what I had in mind.
I’m frantically moving equipment and boxes out of the soapy water and into the sun when I get a call saying Toto’s legendary guitarist Steve “Luke” Lukather will join our Zoom interview in two minutes. This is around three hours and two minutes ahead of schedule. It turns out I’d been given the Los Angeles time for the interview, not our local time.
We’re talking because Toto have just announced their first tour here in six years. I was incredibly excited to speak with Lukather who, as well as his stellar work with Toto, was also one of the most in-demand session musicians of the 1980s, playing on iconic hits from artists like Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, Don Henley, Lionel Ritchie, George Benson and Diana Ross to name but a mere few.
With credits on more than 1500 albums, it’s reckoned Lukather is one of the most recorded guitarists of all time. There’s a lot to talk about. There’s a lot to ask. I pocket my phone and search for my notepad with my questions. I find it completely drenched through and useless.
I am wet, stressed about the flood damage and now massively flustered. Two minutes later I’m in my lounge wearing a nice shirt and a frenzied look and confessing to feeling all over the show. Lukather laughs and says: “I’m good with that!” I’m his last interview of the day and he’s feeling relaxed and chatty.
“We’ve had a kick-ass rehearsal. We revamped the whole set. We’ve got to do the hits, but all the songs around them are completely different than the last couple of years,” he enthuses. “Some stuff we’ve never done before. It’s exciting. I can’t wait to get out and do it.”
Steve Lukather and Joseph Williams of Toto. Photo / Getty Images
The band aren’t strangers to Aotearoa having been visiting since the 80s off the back of their monster hits like Rosanna, Hold the Line and Africa.
“I like to see what’s around, eat the local food, hang out with the locals,” he says. “I wish I could get really out in it, see the waterfalls, and pretend like I’m the only guy on Earth. I love that stuff. I don’t want to go where tourists are. They make us all look bad.”
It was at Toto’s last tour here in 2019, where we made ourselves look bad. Their Hamilton show made headlines due to the unruly behaviour of a group of drunken fools causing trouble in the front rows.
“Come on!” he exclaims in humorous disbelief.
It’s true, I say. News reports say Lukather himself called them out onstage, at one point, taking off his guitar and looking like he was about to jump down and sort them out himself.
“I don’t remember that,” he laughs. “We’re not really known for punch-ups at our gigs. That’s not exactly what you expect ...”
It’s not. Toto’s tunes are anything but aggressive, the band’s polished fusion of rock, pop and jazz is slick, perfectly crafted and performed with a master’s ease. That said, they do have their share of heavy riffage and punchy solos courtesy of Lukather’s solid gold rock chops. Like Lukather, the other members of Toto are also legendary studio musicians, although the band existed before they all became ringers bringing their magic to other people’s songs.
“We were a high school band,” Lukather says. “I’ve known these guys since I was 15 years old. Jeff Pocaro, who was our genius drummer who passed away way too young, was also in Steely Dan when we were in high school, so we knew that was the level of musicianship required.”
They, “studied our asses off,” to get there, practicing and gigging and studying some more until Pocaro and Toto’s keyboardist David Paich were hired to work on Boz Scaggs’ chart-topping 1976 album Silk Degrees, with Paich co-writing many of the songs including the silky smooth, funk groove of breakthrough hit Lowdown. They finished high school and joined Scaggs’ touring band.
“It was magic. I’m 19 years old. It was the wet dream of my life to be doing what I was doing.”
Word quickly got out that Scaggs’ band were also their own band and they were soon signed to a four-album deal.
“They gave us a ridiculous amount of money and let us produce ourselves, which was unheard of at the time,” he says. “The oldest guy in the band was 23! They let us have the keys to the kingdom. Forty-eight years later we’re excited about coming to New Zealand.”
The PR interrupts to say our time is up. I’d wanted to ask about playing on Jackson’s Beat It, working with Paul McCartney and about Toto’s big hits. All questions written on my drenched, ruined notepad. Instead, we’d freewheeled through politics, humanity and, somehow, the various animal parts used to manufacture chicken nuggets – “Could be goat penis, you know,” he guesses, roaring with laughter.
I say I’m amped for the show and Steve Lukather smiles and says: “Sorry about the flood. That sucks. Get back in there and get that together, man. I’ll see you down there.”
LOWDOWN
Who: Toto’s legendary guitarist Steve Lukather
What: Toto with special guest Christopher Cross play Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch
