California band Toto have been playing soft rock since the mid-1970s, but in more recent times, their sound has been re-labelled ‘yacht rock’. The term reflects the genre’s curious connection to the somewhat privileged and hedonistic southern Californian leisure activity of boating! 
More than 40 years after achieving global recognition with hit song Africa, Toto are enjoying a real resurgence - much to the delight of guitarist & founder member Steve Lukather... 

These are unexpectedly active and exciting times for American ‘yacht rock’ outfit Toto. Rapidly approaching their 50th anniversary, the band are enjoying a huge resurgence in popularity, playing some of the biggest shows of their career, with streaming figures counted in billions. Most of their audience weren’t even alive in the late 70s and early 80s when Toto’s brand of slickly produced music was typically derided by the press, but Steve ‘Luke’ Lukather - the band’s chatty guitarist and only surviving founder member - has scant time to stay bitter about their treatment back in the day.

“We’re really enjoying this wave of success that we have honestly worked really hard for. We’re finally getting some love and respect. The hipster punk rock journalists who hated our guts and refused to even mention us are either dead or 90 years old now. I was determined to prove them wrong.”

He looks like he’s getting his wish, if ticket sales for the band’s upcoming European tour - which calls at bp pulse LIVE in February (a whopping 25 years after their last appearance at the same venue) - are anything to go by. 

“We just sold out 25,000 tickets for an arena in Holland, and it’s being moved up to 32,000, which is a personal best,” Steve gushes enthusiastically. “We haven’t played the UK in quite some time, but ticket sales are great. By the time we get there, the configurations we intended for the venues are gonna be sold out, I hope.”

Never short of a wisecrack, Steve has a theory about what’s behind the upturn in the band’s fortunes.

“There are so many of the classic rock bands that are done - they either broke up or quit or are just too old or whatever - and there’s a whole audience that we can take from them,” he cackles.

The more likely reason for the upturn is the popularity of the 1982 hit Africa, which has racked up nearly two billion streams on Spotify and turns up everywhere, from TV shows South Park and Stranger Things to a recent advert for Barclays. The latter is a major bone of contention for the guitarist, even though it’s not the Toto recording that’s used, which, as their manager, Steve would never sanction. “It discredits the credibility of the band, and that really pisses me off - please print that!” 

He thinks the situation will become the norm as older artists sell off the rights to their catalogues.

“The people who write those big-ass cheques want their money back, and some. They’re gonna take the whole classic-rock genre and turn it into a bad commercial. You’re gonna find out when Bob Dylan and Springsteen and all these people sell their rights… Born To Run will be a diarrhoea commercial.”

As for Africa, if the “silly song puts butts in seats” then Steve has no complaints. 

“People love it, and I can’t deny it’s been great for our career. I said many years ago that if this thing’s a hit record, I’ll run naked down Hollywood Boulevard. That line’s followed me round like herpes - I can’t get rid of it!

“[But] you can’t deny the infectious melody, the sound, the production… Yes, I know the lyrics are silly and don’t necessarily geographically connect, but it’s just a goofy little song. It’s ironic that it’s the weirdest song in our catalogue yet it’s the one where people go ‘that Africa band’.”

‘That band’ has a fascinating history. Formed in 1977, the original line-up was comprised of high-school friends who also happened to become some of the industry’s most sought-after session musicians, including noted drummer Jeff Porcaro and keyboard player David Paich. Aside from Africa, Toto are best known for the likes of Hold The Line and Rosanna, as well as Grammy Award-winning album IV, but also for the fact that band members have played on a bewildering 5,000 albums between them. They were effectively Michael Jackson’s backing band on Thriller, and Steve has written for, or performed with, a whole host of music legends, including Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr (he’s been a member of the All-Starr Band for the last 13 years), Eric Clapton, Elton John, Jeff Beck, Aretha Franklin and George Benson.

“The list is long, man. I got to work with almost every hero I ever had in my life. Miles Davis asked me to join his band, but I couldn’t do it.”

For all the incredible achievements, there has been significant heartache too, with Toto enduring more than its fair share of tragedy. Jeff Porcaro died in 1992 (“I miss him every day - there’ll never be anybody like him as a human being or as a drummer”), his bass-playing younger brother Mike succumbed to Motor Neurone Disease in 2015, original singer Bobby Kimball now has dementia, his initial replacement Fergie Frederiksen died of liver cancer in 2014, and ongoing health issues mean David Paich can no longer tour. 

“It breaks my heart that the cats that were the original sound of the band are not intact, but people get old, some people die, some people don’t have it anymore or are medically not capable - but I am. It’s still Jeff and Dave’s band; I’m just holding the candle, man. All I’m doing is keeping our music alive with the best musicians I can. I got A-listers, bro - I didn’t find guys on the internet that ‘sound like’; I got guys that were there and have history going back to the beginning as friends.”

The band’s current line-up features long-term vocalist Joseph Williams (son of iconic film composer John, no less), keyboard players Greg Phillinganes and Dennis Atlas (“the new kid”), Nashville session drummer Shannon Forrest, bassist John Pierce (“my first friend in life - our moms were pregnant at the same time on the same block”) and multi-instrumentalist Warren Ham (“the Swiss army knife of any band - there’s not an instrument he can’t play”).

“I just gathered the team together, you know? And if it was sucking or nobody showed up, it would be over. But it’s the opposite - more people are coming, young people are coming, even the press are coming round.”

The lack of props afforded by the latter clearly still rankles with the 67-year-old, particularly given all the extracurricular activity (“for a band that’s played on over 5,000 albums, how bad can we really be?”), but it also fuels the fire for him to keep it all going. 

“I’ve been working my ass off as the only guy standing from the first demo in January 1977 to the present day, and I said I’m not gonna quit till we gain some respect. That’s why I stayed in it - out of respect for Jeff and Mike and Fergie and Bobby and David and everybody who’s ever been in this band and contributed to it - to keep the legacy. At least when it’s all over we get to die with respect instead of backhanded compliments about ‘that Africa band’.”

Feature by Steve Adams

Toto play bp pulse LIVE, Birmingham, on Sunday 2 February