Ever Changing Times, Steve Lukather’s sixth solo album, will catch you off guard. There is not a lot of guitar posturing, though that element is there in the right places and in the right amounts. There is not an abundance of synthy, polished songs though the overall texture as created by producer Steve MacMillan combines the glitz and precision of the ProTools digital world with the organic and human elements of analog gear. Simply, the Toto guitarist/writer/artist has created eleven beautifully crafted tracks that reveal maturity, and at the same time, an innocence he’s never before been able to conjure.
Maybe it’s his new baby,
Tina, that has put him into a different headspace. Maybe it’s the upcoming
Toto tour and select dates in Japan with old friend and musical acquaintance,
Boz Scaggs, that has made him look harder at the music he makes. Or, maybe it’s simply turning 50 and not caring what other people think about the music you write. Whatever the answer is, he talks about everything in his life in this conversation.
The conversation takes place at Luke’s house. There’s a fire in the fireplace, a Christmas tree twinkling with lights, and the comings and goings of his children. The house is being remodeled and there is a Porsche in the driveway. These are all the trappings of an extraordinarily gifted musician who sometimes makes excuses for his success. He can never quite come to grips with the why of it all - why he’s played with everyone from McCartney and Harrison to Edward Van Halen and Steve Vai? Why Toto continues to tour and sell out major arenas around the world (everywhere, absurdly enough, except in his native America)?
That answer is a simple one, too - he is one gifted man.
Ultimate-Guitar: How does the process begin with you? Do you have to go into a certain mode to approach a new album?
I wasn’t actively looking for a deal per se. I went through my period of jazz-fusion world. I did the record with (Larry) Carlton (No Substitution, 2001) that was a big success, and got a Grammy for it and it sold really real considering it was an all instrumental record with twenty minute jam songs on it. But it was another wonderful experience for me; I learned so much from Larry, he was one of the greatest guitar players ever.
That kind of straight ahead guitar playing is still a part of you?
That thing is a part of me, then I got into this other fusion band, El Grupo, it was just a fun little thing. Nuno (Bettencourt) was in the band at one point; we did a tour of Japan; that was fun. I kinda scratched that itch and got sick of it, okay enough guitar wanking, you know what I mean? It’s great when you’re playing for a very selective audience. But, I’m also a songwriter and singer. And we did the Toto thing and that was a really successful record for us. It was top 5 or better in every part of the world except for North America. We really did well, it sold well, we even got an amazing review in People magazine, it was unheard of. Billboard Magazine gave us 5 stars, sold nothing in the United States, but did great overseas. So, what ever, that’s my bread and butter and I’m fine with that. Japan, Asia and Europe and South America, they all get it. America?…there’s pockets of people; we can play the Wiltern in L.A.; we can play in New York. But doing a major tour is a loss of money and time for us. I’m not going on the road and not make money.
But at the same time, coming back to why I made this record. When I came off from tour, I was kind of burnt last year. This two was a two-year tour and it’s just ending right now. And me and my friend, Randy Goodrum, my songwriting partner, he called me on the phone and goes, “I got a proposal for you”. He goes, “I want you to make a record with song, singing, vocals, what ever you want to do stylistically; I figure you want to do a more rock but with structured songs. Not the fusion jazzbo thing.” “Let’s get together; I got a record company that wants to sign you right now without even hearing one song. I’m the executive producer for the record and we’ll write whatever we’re gonna write; write whatever your gonna want too as well.” Then he knocks out the business aspect of it. And I start laughing and you are going to offer me this deal? Me? I start laughing. I’m going to have complete creative control but the only thing is, is that he will be my executive producer which is a groove because he is a great musician and a great songwriter. I love writing with him, so I said, “Lets get together to see what we got”. So, he moved in to Howard Johnson’s right down the street. And we wrote about eight tunes in a week, on an acoustic guitar and a horrible keyboard and a cassette player in the middle of the room. I said, “I don’t want to write songs were you spend 80/90% of the time programming the songs and no time being creative. I don’t have a studio in my house; I write songs on acoustic guitar or piano. Do you see any synthesizer around here? No. There’s an acoustic guitar and electric guitar in my little office. If you can’t make it happen with that, then you got nothin’. Then we collaborate on the words, then I brought my son in on a couple of tracks. “Tell Me What You Want From Me” and “New World”, those were Trev’s riffs; I mean I did the spacey Pink Floyd shit and he wrote the fuckin’ heavy riffs. He said, “What do think of the riff, dad”? I said, “that was awesome; we have to find a way to put that around something.” But we’ll get back to working with the family and all that shit in a minute.
But, Randy came up to me with the deal and we started writing songs and it was flowing. You know when you get in the groove, and I hadn’t been in that creative mode. I’ve been on tour; I don’t really write when I’m on the road. Because it’s just travel, travel, work, do the gig, have a couple drinks, go to bed, travel, travel, you know how it is…it’s grueling. We’re doing a lot of airport stuff and you just want to kill yourself. So, I just said, Here’s the deal, I don’t want to do this unless I can A, use real guys and have a real budget and do it in a real studio.” We did it at my place (Steakhouse Studios, Luke’s personal facility), which has the 64-channel Neve and use a real engineer, Steve MacMillan, who co-produced the record. He’s brilliant, did all the Trevor Horn stuff and Mutt Lange stuff and he’s just a great ear. He kept me honest. Used old vintage gear, which we can talk about later. But, even my amps, I didn’t use the racks or any thing like that. I used the old Supros and little Gibson amps, AC 30s, Magnatone. I dug some shit out, little Champ amps. I used my son’s Marshall; he’s got a really good Marshall. And all the effects were put on at the desk, occasionally I’d use a Tube Screamer or something like that for an oomph in a solo. So it kept me real honest.
So I wanted to do something good. I wanted to write great songs and I wanted people… like your reaction (I’d heard the record, obviously, before our conversation), “I’m surprised to hear that, I didn’t know what to expect because you’ve been in the jazzbo world…” You know, I went through a phase; I wanted to be a musician’s musician kind of guy, and I wheedled my way for a couple of years and I wanted to do something more straight ahead. Something you can sing along, had good words and wasn’t like “Oooh, baby, I love you” or something like that. I wrote some stuff as tributes, very obvious tributes to musicians that I admire. Like Floyd, and Steely, and some of the heavies like Zep. And my son brought me to even some more modern edge vibe. And playing with the cats, it was really a groove.
So, talk to me, man.
Do you collect licks along the way? And then put the pieces together into songs?
No, never. I’m not one of those guys that hoard songs. I always write for the project. There’s only one song on the record that was an old song. It was a song that Randy and I wrote called, “Never Ending Night”, that was the closest thing to a lovely dovey song that we have on the record, a power ballad. We had that lyin’ around and he dug out a demo of it we had lying around. I thought it was a pretty good song. The record company did have a couple of things. They wanted the record to be a little more melodic rock; they didn’t want it to go too far out. Not too far prog, not too far jazz. They wanted to have some of the signature kind of stuff; I didn’t know what the fuck that means, but that’s what they told me. So, I just let Randy kinda guide.
Otherwise everything was written for the project within a week period of time. With the exception for, “Jammin’ With Jesus”, that was an old song I cut with Jeff Beck ten years ago and he never used it. I don’t want to mention it too much, because I don’t want to hear about it. But he didn’t write the song, it was written by someone else. It’s a completely different arrangement then what we do. But ten years later, I called up Pino Palladino (playing bass with Beck at the time Steve was working with Jeff) and said, “Man, do you think that John (Sloman) would let me cut that song?” Pino goes, “Yeah man, he’d love it if you did”. That’s the only outside material; otherwise everything is either I wrote or co-wrote.
I just love the tune, the vibe. We got this evil one take groove on it; it was just me, (Lee) Sklar and Abe Jr. in the room. That’s the essence of it; no rehearsal, we just ran it. I just said, “Watch me for A/B/A” (indicating song sections). That’s how I heard it in my head before we recorded it. But I don’t want to get off track here though. Go in order …
We will get back on track but everyone wants to know, “How good are the players at this level?” When you talk about a first take, that’s a very profound moment that happens between musicians. And very few of them would be capable of creating this kind of groove so effortlessly and instantly.
I’m really not that smart, man. You are only good as the team you put behind you. It’s not hard to get a great track when you have musicians of that caliber up there that know how to interpret music! A lot of people work in my studio and these kids come in and their whole answer is, "Just Pro Tool it, man.” And its like, “Guys, wait a minute. Can you fuckin’ play?”
These kids have all this facility and it’s like they learn how to sprint before they can crawl. “Yeah, that’s really great, that’s really impressive - how do you make a living doing that?” At some point, is it so fast that it’s just white noise? I appreciate all that stuff and to a certain extent I’m guilty of a little flash here and there myself. But, does anybody kind of sound like themselves?
You mentioned that Trev has turned you on to some new music. Does Maroon 5, Snow Patrol, or My Chemical Romance, some of the more musical bands, mean anything to you?
Yeah, Maroon 5 is a funky band, man. Good melodies, good rhythm guitar. I like the guitar player, very funky man.
Does that music, does that guitarist, influence you in any discernible fashion?
Yeah, the thing is I don’t listen to the radio that much; I’m on the road so much. It’s like, when I made this record it may sound a little twisted because I don’t know what’s happening now. My kids keep me honest, but my son listens to classic rock. He’s hip to the newer bands; when we get into the car he cranks it up and say’s, “Check out this new band” or “Or dig this.” I’m open to it. Fuckin’, MacMillan was more hip to all these young bands then I ever was. He’d play me stuff, and I go, “That’s really cool” or “I don’t like that at all.” I don’t get it, why does everyone like it? I can hear the Pro Tools, you know.
He’s really a nice man. I gotta say, I couldn’t have done it without him. He kept pushing me. If I’d done it my self, it would have turned out differently. He said, “Let’s go down to the cartage company and see what amps they got. Lets get every weird little thing. Let me futz with it. These amps will make you play different. And it did, they really did. The sounds sound big. Shit, “Won’t Get Fooled Again” is a fuckin’ Champ amp. People thought their walls of HiWatts were in there. No, man, Glyn Johns (producer) put up a fuckin’ Champ amp with a (Shure) 57 in front of it. So, I mean, I rest my case. Good recording, good playing and a solid sounding instrument, it’s there. Great tune? You can’t go wrong.
You briefly touched on some of the players you worked with. Did you have in your mind some of the players you think you wanted to use?
Every record I’ve ever done, I never used the same guys twice. I always go, “Let’s do something different.”
I ran into Lee and said, “This is gonna be great. You and Abe, Jr. and Jeff Babko (Rhodes; synthesizers), who I love working with and Steve Weingart as well on keys and Lenny (Castro, percussion), who I always worked with. And I brought my son in on a couple of things to sing and play; he’d come and hang and listen. MacMillan, his mixed a lot of for me but we never worked from beginning to end together. I asked him, “Can I make you an all-in deal to do this?” He did me a solid. He made money, I made money, we enjoyed each other’s time. And we kept sane hours, eleven to six, done. It wasn’t like we were chopping them out, getting’ blasted at the studio like I was in 1978. You know what I mean? I wanted to come home; I have a family and wife; I found out my wife was pregnant two weeks into recording. In January, it will be a year since I did the record. I was on the road with Toto; I’d take three weeks here and every time I come off, I’d take three days off and go into the studio for the rest of the time. I was constantly working. So, I’m a little toasted at the end of it all but I feel pretty good, you know.
Steve worked with you guys on Mindfields.
Also the last one, Falling In Between. No, Mindfields is Elliot Shiner. If it wasn’t for Elliot and Kenny Aronoff, I wouldn’t have met my wife.
When you were working with Steve MacMillan, did you ever specifically reference an artist he’d previously worked with and say, “I like that guitar sound you got on the Rod Stewart record - how do we recreate that?”
He just said “Keep it organic; lets try to find some weird little pedal or something. Let’s find some weird shit.” He goes, “That shit you’ve got works great live” and I have to agree with him, it works great live. But in the studio I wanted to do something different. I’ve been accused of Mr. Joe processed sound which is what? Like twenty years ago I did that and I’m still taking the beating for it. It’s not what I sound like and the people who write me off like are a drag. Yeah, guilty as charged in 1984, but I was nineteen when I did “Hold the Line”, and I’m 50 now, give me a break. If you don’t like the band or like what I do, that’s fine but don’t reference something without knowing anything that I’m doing now. So, I purposely stayed away from things that are too schmutzy (slick). There’s a little glitz here and there, but a lot of the times it was like a stomp box that would make me play different. I didn’t have my rack and all my shit; I purposely never got that out.
By contrast, is your rack out in the studio when you’re working on a Toto album?
Not too much. It’s primarily a live thing when I use that because I have all the options right in front of me and it works great. But in the studio you can afford to take the time to try new things. Has it been in the past? Yeah, twenty years ago that was the shit. A lot of the time the producers would tell you what to do, give me more of that (makes some distortion sounds with his mouth) shit, you know what I mean? And I go, “Really?” Then I get blamed for this horrendously bad sound. It’s really not fair; I wasn’t the first one to do it anyway. I just got more famous for it because I put out hit records with that shit all over it. I hate that sound and I hate being associated with it. Once someone makes up their mind about your ass, that’s it, what can you say? I just tried to do the best I can.
I’m hoping with this new record, someone can listen to it with an open mind. If they heard it in the background somewhere, they’d go, “What the fuck was that?” Know what I mean? Like I said, if you gave it to somebody as a blindfold and said, “Here is this new artist, what do you think of this record?” You’d get a different take on it than if you said, “This is Lukather from Toto.” They’d immediately be like, “I don’t know about this shit,” try to find everything that’s wrong with it, you know what I mean.
Hey listen, I have a great life. Not everybody loves everybody, so it’s whatever. Next question.
“Ever Changing Times”, is the first song and the album title. Are we talking about Steve Lukather’s life here?
Yeah; hitting 50 and watching the news, that’s what that song is about. “Okay, wait a second. How did I become 50 years old but I still act like a freakin’ teenager?” Anybody who knows me or around me will attest to that.
I’ll attest …
You have known me for how many years? Twenty-five years? Maybe more. I mean, I’m still the same idiot I’ve always been. I’m a little more wiser, I make my decisions more astutely (in snobbish-mocking way), as it were But at the same time I’m still very playful and I’m still trying to discover new shit. I still care about the guitars, still care about music. At this point, I care a lot less about trying to keep up with the Joneses. I mean, when you look at the Top 40 market, what’s selling and what’s not and to stay in the music business, I took the road to be a little more artistic. I’m known for making over the top, over-produced records that have everything but the kitchen sink in it. Rather then run from it, I embraced it. I mean, the shit is all live on the tracking date but we spent time making weird little peripheral sounds afterwards and, hence the word produced.
A lot of the times I would go home and MacMillan would stay late and when I’d come back there would be weird little keyboard parts that he put in there. That was really a trip; I never would of thought to do that. Or, he would have brought in some weird guys I’d never heard of before, that I don’t know. He would go, “Let me just send them a file and let’s see what they come up with - you don’t like it, we don’t use it”. I gave him the freedom to really make it his record, too. Give me something different. I know how to do what I know how to do. I wanted to purposely not re-hash the same thing; If there are some things that sound Totoish, then yeah, I’m in that band. I’m the writer, producer, songwriter and key member. And also, the guitar playing, I wanted to let that flow, because I didn’t really play much on the last Toto record.
People go, “Hey, what’s the matter? You don’t solo anymore?”
So, I tried to make the solos mean something. If you look at the song structure, it’s kinda weird. I was playing the song, “Letting Go,” the second song on the record. I was in the car and Randy was at the hotel, and he goes, “I got a little start on something.” I go, “Give me something a little (Peter) Gabrielesque and we’ll tough it up a little bit. So, he came up with that weird chord change; just when you think it’s going to go here and it goes to that Gmaj7th, and you go, “What the fuck?” And I had Joseph Williams from Toto come in and do all those weird high background parts. “Let’s show you that this is not a jazzbo record and it has a little more meat to it.” We thought it was a nice way to open the album.
On “Ever Changing Times” you’re talking about? Oh, yeah, that change just rips your head off. That chord change destroyed me.
Proud of that one (Lukather is truly beaming). We just thought that was a nice way to open the album with something strong. Both Randy and I sitting in a room together.
So, Randy is also that musical in terms of chord changes and harmonic content?
Randy is a genius; he’s an unbelievable keyboard jazz guy. He can play bebop, country, a world-class musician. I said, “Let’s not do stock shit; let’s do something artistic.” That chord change gets you every time and then it comes in with these ridiculous fills from Abe Jr., then it’s just on.
Since we’re trying to run everything down in order, what guitar and accessories are you using on this track? There’s a distorted guitar on the first track that has a tremendous amount of depth to it.
I used various versions of my MusicMan Luke model through the whole album; that’s all I used. And I used my Les Paul on one tune, because MacMillan was begging me to get it out. It was like a wall of sound n the real crunchy rhythm part of “New World”. But it was all MusicMan, swear to God. Except for some acoustic, which I used COLLINGS??? and my Ovations, stuff like that. I like playing acoustic guitar.
This is the new Luke model you’re talking about (I show Lukather the full page ad in the January 2008 issue of Player and he is blown away - it is the first time he’s seen this).
How about that? Yeah, it’s that one (points to the advertisement). But, I’m a total MusicMan guyand the only reason why I broke out the Les Paul 'cause he had to have it on one tune and he wanted to see it. I’m afraid of that thing; it’s worth so fuckin’ much money now it’s insane. A ’59 sunburst Les Paul, man? C’mon! It’s been played on so many hit records, it’s worth half a million dollars easily. Even without any name value to it, it’s the Holy Grail. By the time I’m dead and gone, that thing is going to be worth a couple million bucks.
(The tape has run out at this moment so I turn it over. Here is Luke’s response: “I love the fact that you’ve got old school here, man, love it.“ Luke is referring to the Sony Pro Walkman cassette player I’ve been using for at least the last 20 years. He identifies with this analog tool, in the same way he identifies with the “organic” components and feel of his new record).
So, what about the new Luke? What is it about the MusicMan, the construction of the guitars, the way it feels in your hand that you couldn’t have gotten from a Paul Reed Smith or an Ibanez?
I don’t like the way they feel. They’re great guitars, I’m not putting them down in any way, shape or form, but this is made for me. The same guy that made my old Valley Arts guitar is Dudley Gimpel; I’ve been working with the same guy since the seventies, so he knows. Any mods that I want … I should probably get deeper into it. Other guys like, Petrucci (John Petrucci of Dream Theater) are always changing their stuff. I love John, Steve Morris. There’s only a handful of endorsees: it’s like me, Albert Lee, Steve Morris, John Petrucci and I think that’s it. And every year the four of us get together and play; its outrageous good fun. Four completely different styles but everyone appreciates and respects everybody else.
It’s (new Luke model) just an anniversary issue; they’ve done some fine gold trim and put this maple block inside the middle back of it, so it’s a little more sustain. I wish I can take credit for it but it’s the genius of Biff (Ernie Ball’s son) and Dudley working together. I’m so busy playing 'em I don’t think about the design. I’m not home that much; I spend most of the time on the road so much and when I get in the studio I have a favorite black sparkle one that’s just worn in. Every time they send me a new one, I’m like fuck, each one gets better. They feel good in your hands. I play the same guitar you’d pick off the wall, set up exactly the way I would play. I’ve actually had to do a gig before, where they grabbed one from Guitar Center somewhere and I plugged it in and played. It was perfect; I got nothing to say. That’s the sign of a great instrument, a sign of a company where the consistency is there at that level. The quality control is questionable with these mass produced, big super star companies. If you’re making thousands of guitars a day in China or somewhere, who is playing them all to make sure they’re sweet. American made, family business is hands on. The guy who owns the company can play guitar and well. He has a lot of pride because he’s keeping the family alive: the whole family is involved, Scotty, Brian, Sterling, it’s the company and Ernie was their dad. When Ed (Van Halen) put out his first guitar, I got number three. He said, “Let me make you a fucking guitar”, I said, “okay”, and the rest is history; that was in ’92.
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| "Once someone makes up their mind about your ass, that's it, what can you say?" |
The solo in “Ever Changing Times” got this hollow, honking thing in there?
That was Mac fucking around with it. We used some room sound and compression and EQ strangely, a little bit out of phase. And then we had the close mics, using Royer mics, and 57s, kind of mixing them together. The back pick up had a little bit of tone was taken off just to get rid of that bitey edge and give it a warm sound. Kind of hitting the back of the bridge to get a weird effect and a little bit of delay on it.
This is first take solo? In general, are you a first take solo kind of player?
You know, I don’t remember really laboring over any of them. If I get to a certain point and if I fucked it up, I’d do, “Punch me in right there.” I didn’t do like a hundred takes and have him put it together. I’m was really anal about this. “No, no, no, I want to be in on every move here.”
I tried to just cast fate to the wind and sometimes Mac would go, “Think about so and so, think about this. Get out of your own head. Be angry.” It sort of inspired me in different ways. I would take one or two takes and I’d go, “I like that one, let’s work on that one. The end is fucked up, let me find a nice way to get out of that.” I might spend a second 'cause I’d fall into an accident and go, “How am I going to get out of this?” I paint myself in a corner and figure out somethin’ and he just kept taking everything, no matter what I did. On occasion he’d say, “Don’t think about it; we have plenty of tracks.” And I said, “No, I don’t want to do a hundred takes of guitar solos, not in this life.” A couple of 'em I got right away, some I took a little more time. It (a solo) started out great and I just got lost or it sounded like, “Well, that’s a cheap, stock, bullshit trick. No, get the finger off the fuckin’ fretboard before I fuckin’ kill you.” Stupid things that you would just kind of go to. I wanted to make things a little more memorable where you’d go, “Well, that was fuckin’ weird, I didn’t expect that.” And things that grew to a peak; it wasn’t just flash without substance.
That first solo really set up the rest of the record. You knew you were going to hear something new from Steve Lukather.
Thank you. That means a lot, Steve.
And that’s followed by “The Letting Go” and that’s a brilliant song title and really says a lot.
The sentiment is as you get older, you have these grudges that you keep from either relationships whether they be love relationships or friend relationships or just somebody burned you or you feel fucked; you feel like the world is shitting on you. And It’s all about the letting go. As soon as you can let it go, it’s like the weight’s been lifted. It’s like I made friends with my ex-wife, you know. After all these years of hatred, now she was over here yesterday playing with the new baby and my wife was here, the kids are here and we’re happy. That’s what the letting go is all about.
It was one of my piano tunes and Randy came to me with that. Often, when Randy does a lyric, he says, “What are you thinking about?’ 'Cause I have melodies and ideas and he’s much more of a word guy. I’ll come in with the idea for the title or something. Or he’ll write the lyric and I’ll rewrite it; we have a great working relationship. Nobody has an ego. It’s more like, “What do you think of this?” We both bounce off each other. I thought “The Letting Go” is a brilliant title, it just say’s it all.
That’s a very strange song structure. Just when you think you are going to hear the second chorus again, it goes into a whole other section. I didn’t want A-B-A-B, bridge-solo-out; that’s typical cliché pop way to write a song. I wanted, “Wow, what the fuck was that?” More like how Steely would do it or Gabriel or somebody like that would approach it. How I imagined their stream of consciousness would be. I tried to make it musical, a surprise. I remember, I played that song for Steve Perry and he’s like going, “Man, I fuckin’ love the song.” He goes, “I’m waitin’ for the chorus …” (Luke makes sort of grunting simulating anticipation. I go, “Steve, I purposely did that. The chorus comes back at the end; don’t worry, you’ll hear it again.” It’s just so boring if you know exactly how a song form is going to be. If I can get somebody to go, “I didn’t expect that”, then I accomplished everything that I wanted to do on this record.
What kind of acoustic is that?
Ovation.
Are you playing piano?
I wrote the piano part. Jeff Babko played the keyboards. This guy is so unbelievable, such an amazing musician. Perfect pitch guy. Just a genius, he’s a rocker but he’s also a bebopper. I play really weird voicing; I use a lot of thirds and fourths right on top of each other. (Steve goes over to the piano and plays an example). You hear the third and forth together with the sus (suspension) and it just creates a really rich voicing. In my songwriting thing, I’ve always used those kinds of chords. Sort of Jimmy Webb-esque. I’m a sponge, man; whatever goes on that’s hip in a room, I want to know how to do it. I wrote this whole piece and then he (Babko) wrote it all out, note for note. He was able to interpret it in two takes. You should see what the music looks like! I mean, this is not for kids, man (laughter).
What would have taken days to get if you had to teach somebody, it’s done within a fuckin’ hour. And I gave him a lot of room to interpret. He knows me well enough to go, “Yeah, I know how to play like that.” He can do impressions of anybody he hears play. Young cat, too. Simon Phillips (Toto’s drummer) found him
And this reflects perfectly off the observation made earlier about the abilities of these players. They are absolutely apex musicians, the very top of the hierarchy.
They’re that good!
That’s how good they are.
Yeah, that’s how good they are. You don’t even have to say to. I’m like a songwriter/keyboard player; I’m not like a shredder, I have stupid shit I can play (Steve is a way, way above-average keyboardist). As a songwriter, you have certain voicings, and guys would come in and go, “Yeah, yeah”, but they never play it right. It’s always why Randy Newman plays piano on his dates - you are free to interpret anything else around you, but that has to be there. And Babko was able to come in and take all my weird little piano tunes and cop 'em right away, the way I wanted to hear them. Except play 'em better, know what I mean? With more finesse, as it were. I was able to sit in the room and produce. A lot of the stuff I didn’t play live on, I just produced. I sat in the room and said, “I want to spend time on my guitar sounds.” Or I’d play just the rhythm part.
But if I wrote something on the piano, I just wanted to make sure the piano parts were right and layer accordingly. There were no rules, every tune was different.
You have these great piano, harmonic things going on. So, when you go to do acoustic guitar, is it leaving spaces for the keyboard or doubling the keys? How does that work?
I really left it open to whatever I was hearing after the basic track was cut. Going back to my Steely Dan school, a lot of the licks would sound really neat where the acoustic guitar doubling the piano in sixths or something like that. And also that with Meets the Beatles with Vox AC30 and getting a really weird sound and doubling that up; a little bit out of tune, it’s not a pedal. It’s a VSO, variable speed so you get a wideness of chords; it’s actually two guitars out of tune with each other. Which is how the Beatles used to do it.
And that solo has a bluesy thing to it?
Yeah, rhythm pickup; I can’t say it sounds like anybody per se. It was my version, in my head, of being more Texas or whatever. But, then it was a lot of skanky rhythm (do a verbal interpretation), rhythmic approach. Almost Amos Garrett sort of bends. At the end I did a little Brian May harmony thing. Dr. May is the man, very lovely guy.
“New World”?
That’s Trev all the way; that’s Trev’s riff, that’s him playin’ it. I did more like the Def Leppard part, the answer part. And we both wrote the chorus together with Randy sitting in the room. We did it in two minutes. My son is very prolific great; we get into these fuckin’ silly arguments. I can be a real pain in the ass, I’d go, “Trev, this is bullshit.” He’d go, “No, man, you’re too old.” If he really believed something, he’d really stand up for it. In a roomful of cats, he didn’t care. “I don’t care if you’re my dad or not. I think you’re wrong and I’ll tell you why.” And then MacMillan would go, “Listen to the kid, man”.
So it was really fun for me. It’s an incredible scene to make records with my son. He’s my best pal for sure.
There’s this one part where he’s playing this fast tune and I’m going, “No, fair, all down strokes, bro, all down strokes. And there’s this one point where Sklar is sitting in the room and I put my wallet on the fuckin’ console and I go, “Bet’cha five bucks you fuck it up” (much laughter). We just had a blast.
That’s you playing the licks at the very end of the song?
Yeah, that’s me playing all the lead shit.
It’s funny, you talk about you being the guitarist and writer in Toto. And those elements spilled over onto this album. But I only got a little bit of “Africa” on the chorus here with the harmonies or is that me?
That’s a very Beatlesque thing and Joseph Williams is in there too. He’s singing on it. So It gives it a Toto thing. We don’t want to scare off al the fans (laughs).
You as a vocalist, you said you’ve been working on it. How much are you?
I did a lot of takes on vocals. I worked hard on vocals. Mac is incredible, he pushed my fuckin’ ass. Once I get behind the mic, unless I had to take a piss, I would drink ten gallons of water and stand there until we think we got it. I didn’t want to auto tune everything; I didn’t want to it to be a bogus record, everything I hate about making records. It was really hard, it’s going to be really hard live, because some of the shit I really pushed myself and try to do that every night for fuckin’ two hours a night, five days a week. I didn’t want to cut my nuts off; I had to think about reality about how to pull this off live. Some of the riffs playing and singing and how high is it in my range? Consistency and all that. But at the same time you make a record, you make a record. You forget about doing it live afterwards. That’s the way Toto always did it. It’s an over produced record; I’m proud of it. If people want to hear a minimalistic record, then they can go buy those records, there’s millions of them out there. If you want to hear all the over the top, crazy shit? Here it is, man.
“Tell Me What You Want From Me” is the other song you did with Trev?
Originally that song was based around Trev’s riffs. You should see how it’s fingered. The little fucker does these drop D tunings, but you don’t really realize that they are. He does this susses (suspended chords) where you have to switch your fingering (like this) in the middle of the riffs on a different string. I thought it’s really a cool riff, it’s not your stock shit. People will play that lick wrong; they’ll think it’s the one that’s there. A lot of Ed’s stuff was like that; you think you got the riff, but your not reaaaallllyyy playing it right; there’s one sus that ain’t right, you know what I mean? Like, Jimmy Page, people tried to play his songs, and didn’t realize it was open tuning. “How come it doesn’t sound like Keith Richards? Because it’s not a G tuning with the sus on top.” It’s one of those type of riffs, and I thought we’re going to build the song around it. So, I thought Pink Floyd, hats off to Dave (Gilmour) and company, even lyrically speaking too. There’s a lot of Beatlesque kind of vibes in that too. But, you know it’s one of my favorite tracks on the record. I did use a strange guitar for the (mimics the guitar sound) riff;that’s a Vox Teardrop 12-string with all the fuzz tones and all that shit built into it? That I bought for $200 bucks brand new twenty-five years ago. It has that weird “Satisfaction” fuzz in it; Mac was lovin’ that, he couldn’t get enough of that shit. Speakin’ of the devil himself, my number one son (Lukather’s son, Trev, walks in and we say hello. Trev and I met months earlier for the special Father/Son feature in this magazine).
There were some cool guitar tones on there.
That was fun, more textural stuff. I did a couple guitar wanks, blazing, loud and obnoxious. My impression of what Jimmy Page would play. I did a couple of these Carltonesque, bastardized Carltonesque (tones). Way too loud for Larry (sympathetic laughter)!
The big rock lick on the chorus, the tuned down guitar - that’s all Trev.
That’s Trev, man. Gotta give credit where credit is due.
More acoustics here?
This was a live tracking date: Trev was playing electric, I was playing acoustic 12-string, and Sklar, and Babs was playing a real Fender Rhodes with the stereo thing. I wanted to use the real shit, real Hammonds. Synths were used but … And Abe. And we cut that live. That was the day when Sklar looked around the room and said, “Okay this is all fucked up, man. Where are all these kids doin’ playing so good?” I let Trev carry the ball with that one because it was his. He had a very specific (thing). He’d go, “Abe, no (Luke mimics someone air conducting) … Co-production, man.
All those licks during the second chorus and the outro?
I just kinda went for it. I said I wanted it to be stupid. People accusing me of playing it safe, there’s no safe in this. I wanted it to rock. I didn’t use any b5s or anything like that (laughs).
“I Am”?
The lyrics were rewritten on this fuckin’ tune like three or four times. I couldn’t really find the right thing; I have to give all the lyrics to Randy on that. Um, we wrote that together and it’s really a harmonically strange tune. The chord changes go all over the place. A lot of 11th chords, minor 11th chords (Steve plays some samples on the piano), It’s all (Donald) Fagenesque.
I’m struck with a sort of Jeff Beck harmonic song content type thing.
It’s all that; McCoy Tyner, it goes back even further than that.
Musically can you explain why a minor eleventh chord lends itself so well to electric guitar and this type of music?
I think there’s more to life than just a simple minor chord. The thing that I love about Steely, man, is the voicings, unbelievable voicings. It makes your melody sound that much stronger. People are afraid to use these chords because you think, “Oh, that sounds too jazzy.” No, it’s just a simple pop song; it just has a couple of strange timing (things); you know, 2/4 bars or doesn’t necessarily go where you think it might go. Kind of an oddball tune. And I did my real tasty Larry Carlton, melodic doubled solo, like “Third World Man”(from Steely Dan’s Gaucho - Rick Derringer plays the solo on that record). It’s a real simple … just play the melody, man. Plugged right into an AC30, just straight into the amp.
And more acoustic?
Yeah. I just get going on a flow, man. I start picking up guitars and “Come on, record it.” I’m very impatient in the studio and that’s why Mac is great because he can work at my pace. I can’t stand waiting around for guys to patch shit in; I want to go when I got something. The great thing about recording on Pro Tools digitally is there is rewind time; it enables you to work at a faster pace.
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| "You are only good as the team you put behind you." |
“Jammin’ With Jesus”, is you, Abe and Lee?
That’s it. I played 'em a demo of an idea of what the song was all about and they were grooving on it. And I said, “Abe, I got to change up this whole thing; I just want you to do your thing to it.” And Sklar, I said, “Crank it up and give me some Jack Bruce. Do whatever you hear. I’ll just play the riff and follow me; watch me for the cues.” I think I just wrote out some chord changes real quick. I said, “One, two is the second riff, three, it’s lay out.” Obviously I overdubbed a whole bunch of shit afterwards. Trev sang background vocals on that as well. Bernard Fowler and Bill Champlin sing background vocals on that. Bernard sings with the Stones; you know where Bill comes from? And Trev and me. And Sharolette Gibson, who is another great singer.
There’s that great gospel feel on this track.
Hey, man, it had to be gospel - “Jammin’ With Jesus.” John Sloman wrote that song; he’s one of these kinds of guys who should have been famous. He’s a friend of Pino Palladino’s and that’s how I got this song.
You talked before about laying out and leaving space in a track; there is so much air swirling around the music. All the instruments breathe.
Greg Mathieson did the killer, scary Hammond shit. It’s a real Hammond organ, weird, changing the patches, you know what I mean. He was just possessed when he did that take; it was like one take. He manipulated it, turning the reverb on that’s in the Hammond; bangin’ the fuckin’ thing on the ground. This is crackin’ me up, it’s insane, it’s perfect.
It was an angel/devil thing, you know?
Yeah, exactly. You stomping on a Wah-wah?
Yeah, that was a new Ernie Ball Wah-wah; It has a big throw. We used a lot of room sound in the room, a big wooden room at the Steakhouse (Luke’s studio) and really compressed the fuck out of the room. So, it has that in-close, far away sound. Wah-wah, yeah; tubes bleeding.
“Stab In The Back”?
That is my shameless tribute to Donald and Walter Those guys won’t fuckin’ hire me to be in their band, then I’ll hire my own band to be their band. I’ve played live with them, but never played on record. That was the one thing I always wanted to do. And I tease Walter about it. I said, “C’mon, man, feed me a little pussy, a taste.”
That is one of my favorite tunes on the record, 'cause it’s so obvious what it is. It’s a loving tribute; I even thank them on the record. I said, “This song is inspired and dedicated to Donald and Walter from me.”
So, what is it musically that Steely Dan inspired? How does the listener know four bars in that this is influenced by the music of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen?
It’s one of my favorite bands in the world.
No, no. What are the musical elements that characterize Steely Dan the we so instantly recognize?
Oh, it just has a lilt to it that makes your head go a certain way like a lot of cruising down Sunset Boulevard kind of vibe. And of course, as soon as you start playing 13th chords, those kind of chords with harmonies and that groove. It just was inspired by my childhood. I still listen to those records to this day, all of 'em: Aja, Royal Scam. And there’s even an ode to the early stuff in the chorus, it could have been from the first Steely Dan album. The acoustic guitar and the singing in the chorus. My daughter (Tina) sings the “ooohs” and does the little laughing. I pinch her on the ass to make her laugh.
So, the 13th chord is a Steely harmonic give-away.
(Steve goes to the piano and plays some chords) There’s a 6th and 7th there, it’s a 13th chord.
Even your guitar playing, the way you’re muting it, suggests the Dan
There’s a little Larry there, you know. I just love those records; I studied 'em, man, I couldn’t help it. So, when we started writing, I said, “Well, now we really got to go (for it).” Randy and I starting playing that and we got a little groove going on a little machine. I said, “Let’s go for it, let’s fucking go for it.” So we did. Got the typical silly harmonic B section and then the solo’s gotta be something whack. So, I dug up the old fuckin’ talkbox ala “Haitian Divorce” (The Royal Scam). I never used it before. It certainly makes you play different; it’s a weird sensation. I kept feeling like I was going to be electrocuted.
In the beginning of that section, it’s not an Ebo is it?
It’s a Fernandes Sustainer on one of the Luke guitars; one of those guitars has one on it. Vai turned me on to it. Then I did it in octaves, real subtle, you can hear it. It has that weird Thereminesque kind of sound.
Maybe Walter and Donald will hear this and let you come in and play with them one day!
It will probably make them laugh. They’ll go, “Look at this silly little fucker.”
“Never Ending Night” is one of the ballads.
That was more of a Totoesque kind of thing. It was originally written for Toto and we just never used it. And Randy dug it out and said, “Remember this?” It was like twenty years ago, and so it’s a cool tune. But, we have to do something production wise, so it doesn’t sound all synthed-out and shit. It’s a pretty song, that’s got some nice changes in it.
What I really love is the sentiment; “Never ending night as I slowly slip into my darkness, I’m missing you…” we’re talking about some melancholy stuff here?
It was written at that time when I was going through those changes. Everybody goes through those changes.
And the solo, the tone, the note choice, all these pieces captured sentiment.
Randy is great with the modulations. The melody is going but he’ll throw a change at you. Same melody but, “What about this?” And I go, “Fuck, that’s perfect.” The money chord.”
“Ice Bound” has that terrific lyric: “Waitress shouts like a Nazi/I should have tipped her more…” I loved that.
(Laughter). Randy’s rhyme schemes, man. I wasn’t sure about that one; Nazi is a nasty word. But, everybody runs in to a fucked up waitress somewhere. Hates her job and hates you. That’s another Steelyesque sort of tune. Just a great shuffle, you know.
And there those, I call them, “figured lines,” sort of like the things you’re playing between the verses, those lyrical kinds of lines.
That was just running the tape and let me play. The solo is me and Weingart trading.
“How Many Zeros”?
I wrote that one with Jeff Babko and Stan Lynch. Stan is a songwriter, producer; he used to play with the Heartbreakers (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers). He came up with the title, “How Many Zeros,” like how many miserable rich people do I know? Dude, you have everything in the world to be happy for and why are you so fuckin’ miserable? How many zeros does it take to make you happy?
That’s got some really cool changes in it, too. Bass substitutions and changes; it’s got a heaver vibe to it
The solo as I described it is a whimsical, a capricious thing?
It’s like having a conversation like back and forth with two people and your arguing all of a sudden.
Then there’s a weird section, kinda like some backwards stuff going on, like a little Beatles sections there? Is it after the solo? Some little drum sounds like some backwards tapes going on?
Oh yeah, Mac gets in there and I said, “You mix it and tell me when you think its close and I’ll come in.” I let him spend time on it; he likes to fuck around with it. Some stuff I go, “Oh, that’s too ridiculous, we can’t do that.” But a lot of stuff, I would have never thought of that in a million years. Steve MacMillan’s contributions to the production of this record were huge. He goes, “Just go away and leave me alone for a while and let me fuck around with it. 'Cause you don’t want to sit through my process.” In the old days I would have sat through every moment of it and just getting tweaked and being no help at all. Now, it’s I’m going home and having dinner with the family (laughs). And he was working at his house mixing, working at two o’clock in the morning whenever he felt the muse. He surprised me a lot with the little touches.
“The Truth”, what a great idea to put an instrumental as the last song.
That’s just me and Steve Porcaro; Steve orchestrated the whole thing. It was originally a piano piece that I wrote. And I figured, let me just play the melody and I just played it with all of my fingers (no pick).
That’s a Luke guitar?
Yeah, with a Marshall. I laid down a little piano track and played the melody for him. And he got up to a certain point and he goes, “I need you to play the guitar part now.” So I did the guitar part then I gave it back to him and he just put the fuckin’ samples of the London Philharmonic and so it was just me and him. It just a little “Good night, thank you very much.” A little tribute to Becko as well, using the finger techniques. Pretty little piece of music.
The vibrato bar and whammy thing, it’s a difficult thing to pull off to make it so sublime and to work it into the thing.
I tried to not make it too Becko. I can’t help it, I love the guy’s playing so much and the influence is there. Like I said, that’s a piece of music I had laying around for a while; I didn’t have a home for it. It’s more of a movie music type of thing. A bitt self-indulgent, but its still a pretty piece of music.
I wrote that myself but Steve had a lot to do with making it come alive with his orchestra at his fingertips kind of thing. He’s like the other guy, “Leave me alone.” I learned after all these years to trust; you bring the right piece of music to the right guy and they interpret it and you know, you’re genuinely happy with the results.
So at the end of the day, do you sit back and…?
At the end of the day, I sit back and say, “I hope that somebody likes this, I worked really hard on it.” (laughs) You never know with people and their reactions. People are going to look at a Lukather solo record and go, “Oh, what’s that gonna be like? Is that gonna be just a bunch of fucking wanking?” There are guys that make instrumental records that do a lot better then I would. I just try to do a record, music that I would like to listen tomyself and hope for the best. We’ll see, the jury is not out yet.
And you will tour this record?
Oh yeah, in the end of May, through the summer; all over the place.
Do you have players picked out?
Uh, I have a few people, but I don’t have it firmed up yet. Let’s just say, I think Weingart is going to come. I may bring Tony Spinner, the guy who plays guitar and sings really great who is a side member of Toto. He is a really good guitar player and sings great high parts, really strong. Great addition too because I have so many guitar parts that I have someone else do it, so I can sing and play. I’m hoping certain people will say, “Yes”, but we’ll see what happens. I need to find a really great bass player who can sing as well. I know really great singers and really great bass players; if I can get one that does both and won’t cost me a million dollars a week. It’s a smaller scale tour then Toto.
And then your also doing dates with Boz?
Yeah, that came out of nowhere. I think they added a fourth night in Tokyo.
Can you talk about how this reunion came about?
That’s Mr. Udo, our promoter, he came up with this great idea, that we should do this together. Their opening a new part of the TokyoDome, a new venue, a new arena. So, there’s two days there and two dates at a bigger arena; the Yokohama show is also a big show.
I thought that was interesting; I started out with Boz, and we’re dear friends. Toto came out of Boz.
Your first record with Boz was Down Two Then Left.
We were right in the middle of rehearsing for the summer tour and I had done some sessions for Boz on the record. And I was nineteen years old.
And the Toto guys were working on the sessions as well.
Yeah, Jeff (Porcaro) was there, and (David) Paich was working on what was going to become the first Toto record, doing the demos for the songs they’d written. And we went out and did the summer tour with Boz. The connection between Boz and us is very strong. But we haven’t worked together in ages. I mean, two summers ago we did a benefit; Boz was there, it was like an all-star band: Narada Michael Walden, Nathan East, me and Michael Thompson, Lenny (Castro), Paich and (Jeff) Babko and guest artists like Boz, Chris Isaak Bonnie Raitt, um… Lars Ulrich and a bunch of other fuckin’ people. Tom Scott, Jim Horn and Chuck Findley, a superband, you know?
So we did this benefit for George Lucas and we (Toto and Boz) reconnected there. I think Udo thought that might be a great combination, like a co-bill kind of thing. So, we may actually play together and I might go out and sit in with Boz in his set and he may sit in with us. And make it an overall fun experience so you get value for your dollar. The response was outstanding; the first two shows sold out in the first day and then they started adding more shows and I think it’s going to be a really successful tour. And we’re going to Australia, China, Malaysia and a few gigs in Mexico. And then in about six weeks starting into February, I come home, rehearse my band and then go on the road. That will take me through September. No rest for the weary.
So you will be playing tunes from Slow Dancer?
I have no idea what his set’s going to be all about. But, I know there’s enough of it, stuff that I actually played on. We’ve been texting (text messaging) each other: “You know, you want to do something? We should do something, make it more special.”
The sessions with Boz represented some of the first studio work you ever did?
Uh, the first really noteworthy ones, as far as hit records were involved. My first gold record was Down Two Then Left.
What was it about his music that so inspired you?
I just love Boz’s. It was really Boz/David Paich/Jeff Porcaro, you know; the essence of where Toto came out of. The huge success of Silk Degrees, prompted Dave and Jeff wanting to put a band together and me and Steve (Porcaro), they said they wanted us to be a part of this too. Dave Hungate was involved with it initially and Bobby (Kimball) was the last bit. We were doing the demos and then went and did the summer tour of ’77 with Boz when he was finishing Down Two Then Left. And at the end of that, we went right into the studio to work on the first album.
There was never a question ofBoz singing with Toto was there?
No, I don’t think that was where it was at. I think we were going for something a little different. It wasn’t really my decision, being a junior member at the time.
Did you know Boz at all from the stuff he did with Steve Miller?
I knew of it, sure, and I saw him play live too, many times. But, that was the gig to have that summer. Boz had a blistering hot record and tour. Six nights at the Greek Theater and private planes, four-star hotels, limos, traveling around the world and you know, I’m nineteen.
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| "We're not an American band by any stretch of the imagination, we are a world band." |
Can you look at Toto and assess what the band has done and what it’s meant?
I think we are an incredibly misunderstood band. Some people are passionately in love with us and some people hate us more than anything in life.
I always hated the name; I always thought it invoked something cheesy. Particularly in America. We sold a lot of records, about thirty million records worldwide which is pretty good for a little band that could. We were never rock star type people, you know what I mean? Whenever they tried to dress us up to look like one, we looked like transvestites or something like that. There are some horrendous outfits and hairdos;things that you just have to look back at and laugh at yourself. “Wow, what was I thinking? What were they thinking?” I was dressing like fucking Kurt Cobain in 1977; they said it was unacceptable for a photo shoot, you know what I mean. It wasn’t like I was trying to, that’s how I dressed in high school. You know, why should I cut off all my hair and dress me up in these nice Armani shirts and shit like that. And it got worse as it got more glittery and glamorous through MTV and all that shit. It was a crazy time, too. You know I’m a musician, I’m not a pop star kinda looking guy or nothing like that. If you try too hard, people see the phoniness of it. And we went from being musicians - musicians, like all of a sudden we had to compete in a visual world, MTV. You know and you had to look a certain way, and you had the record company people say, “Oh no, no, you gotta dress like this, you gotta get this guy to dress you up and have this makeup artist and this kind of hair,” and we fell for it all of course. You know they promise you the world, you know and what the fuck and we had big hit records and stuff; um, more than people think we did.
Particularly on a worldwide basis. But there is still an audience out there for us. We’re not an American band by any stretch of the imagination; we are a world band you know. Out side of New York and L.A. and maybe a couple other music towns and we don’t really work the U.S. tour, because it is just… No body wants to tour with us and so we can’t get on any cool tours where we can make some money. For what ever reason; I don’t know, it’s’s not for me to…you know, hey whatever. It’s a big world and I’m busy a lot; making a great living and living life comfortably, don’t have to worry about shit, you know.
Why is it that Japan has always loved you?
Japan has always loved us. Well, there’s no stigma attached to it. We’re considered a classic rock band now. Which is like, “Wow, if you can get someone to call you a classic rock band is that bad?” I don’t think that’s bad. That means you got some history, you know I mean. Um, we’re still here, if there was no demand then we wouldn’t be doing it anymore, you know. So, we’re not necessary for everybody, but there is enough people out there that like what we do. We have never been a media darling by a long shot. Musicians like us, you know, we get a lot of respect from them, all sort of walks from life. Listen, you want everyone to like you but eventually you gonna run into someone that just doesn’t for whatever reason. No matter what you do, you can tap dance for him. Hey, what can I say; I’m just happy to still (knocks on table) be here.
I know that this is a sweeping statement but has Simon (Phillips) brought something new to Toto versus what Jeff was doing?
(Steve gulps in a huge intake of air as if preparing himself for the response) Well, you know there is never going to be Jeff Porcaro again. He’s just one in a grillion person; he is just larger than life. And he is still larger than life; I love him to death. He is still right here, watching over my shoulder. Um, when we lost him it was like, what do we do? We had this whole tour booked; we didn’t know what to do, forty-five people on the payroll and Christmas time. You know, you can’t blow it all off, we couldn’t afford to pay everyone all off at full salary, it would have broke the bank. I think maybe it was just Jeff and his infinite wisdom to check out just in time were we couldn’t stop.
Simon came along as an oddball choice but it turns out to be the right choice, you know. There’s a lot of guys that could have emulated Jeff, but never been him. Simon was a world-class drummer, famous in his own right. Had a different way at looking at things and he was very true to some key things but he also made it a little more rock 'n’ roll. Hence became a real integral part of the writing and production and engineering thing and he is just a brilliant musician. And a joy to be around.
And Greg Phillinganes is now playing keyboards with Toto?
Yeah, you know it’s weird, I look around the stage and you know it’s a whole different band with the same name. It’s a great band, I mean if we change the name, who knows? Like it or not it’s a brand name and people buy the brand, you know what I mean.
Dave (Paich) is still in the band, but he just doesn’t tour; he’s retired, he can’t make the hang. There are a lot of different issues why. But, he is older and his health isn’t as great and he doesn’t have the desire or the need to work at the pace we like to work.
I’m a road dog; I love the road. When do we leave? Give me a month off and I gotta be doin’ something. That’s way when I’m off, I lie on the couch watching TV and ordering pizza. I don’t care; I don’t want to do anything. And the less I want to do the shit, the more the phone rings. There are guys staring at their phone waiting for it to ring right now. I’m one of those lucky guys that never had that problem. I’m overly fortunate; I try to pass it along to people.
It’s a different world; it’s hard to be a musician, a working musician. There’s rock star spurts, where you can be a rock star for two or three years and then you lose all your money and lose everything; you’re twenty-two years old and what the fuck are you going to do with yourself? You’re not good enough to be a sideman, you know. What are you going to do? Practice 'til your thirty and then who is going to hire you? So it’s bizarre, you know. I’m living a dream I always wanted; be a working musician, do lots of different things in lots of different areas, you know. I got a picture of me playing with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock at the Tokyo Jazz Festival. Jamming with fuckin’ you know, Van Halen or fuckin’ Slash or something like that. I’m gonna be playing with Vai and Billy Gibbons next week. There are constantly interesting things being thrown my way for whatever reason. I’m not in the same breath as what people think of as shredder, no, not shredder, I hate that word.
My name isn’t mentioned in the same breath as Vai or Satriani or Satriani or Ed. I can hang and play with any of them and I have. I’m just living my life, just groovin’. Like I said, turning fifty years old and you start looking around and go…it’s really interesting looking in magazines and these kids look like they’re twelve years old. And you go, “Wow,” man they’re all done up from head to toe, you know. It’s very impressive to spend that much time on your look. And some of them are really fine musicians. Even some of the metal guys have some ridiculous chops.
I don’t know how I fit in to all that. I never really felt I belong to any…I can play with Jeff Beck or I can play with my son as far as looking at generation to generation. Play with Miles Daves and George Harrison and Paul McCartney and then Aretha Franklin. There’s a lot of weird shit, you know, play “Country Boy” with Albert Lee. You never know where I can pop up and find my ass there. “And that guy, why is he always there?” I’m like Zelig (Woody Allen movie about a character who was forever changing looks and identities) or something like that. “Who is that guy? Why is he always in those pictures? Who the fuck is that guy?” Eight-hundred years from now, I’ll be Zelig.
Cool, great one. Well done.
Interview by Steven Rosen
Ultimate-Guitar.Com © 2008
