Biff Baby’s All-Stars: the secret supergroup of rock’s greatest virtuosos
Rock and roll supergroups have existed since the 1960s, when Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker formed Cream. Since then, supergroups have become a musical genre in their own right, often attempting to toe the line between cash-grab commercialism and a genuinely interesting blending of influences and talents. However, some supergroups have been formed simply as a means of having fun without any expectations of commercial limitations. Biff Baby’s All-Stars is one such group.
Forming a supergroup comes with many challenges and limitations. For instance, given that supergroup musicians are already successful in their own right, they arrive at new projects with certain expectations and sounds put upon them by record executives and audiences alike. What’s more, supergroups often offer audiences a drastic departure from their usual sound, which, while refreshing for the artists, often doesn’t wash well with audiences. As a result – and with few expectations – supergroups don’t often achieve the same degree of notoriety as their individual parts.
What’s more, the idea of starting a supergroup comes with pre-determined notoriety, which can become quite limiting for musicians. The solution to all of this is obvious, however: do not publicise your supergroup. So, when Toto’s Steve Lukather began jamming with the likes of Eddie Van Halen, Albert Lee, Steve Morse and Sterling Ball, he initially kept quiet about the entire affair.
This little-known supergroup contained some of rock’s greatest virtuosos, but it is rarely remembered with the same adoration as, for instance, The Traveling Wilbury’s. The reason for this is simply that nobody knew about this group, which operated under various different names, including Biff Baby’s All-Stars. Nevertheless, the Toto songwriter still remembers the project fondly.
“I used to do these fun little tours with Sterling Ball, who was Ernie Ball’s son,” Lukather recalled in a recent interview with Rick Beato. Through these tours, Lukather got the chance to play with other musicians connected to the legendary Ernie Ball. Before too long, an impromptu supergroup had formed. “We’d have this thing called Biff Baby’s All-Stars. We would just show up places, and the guitar players: it was me, Steve Morse, Albert Lee and Eddie Van Halen. And occasionally somebody else might come sit in too.”
The joy of this collaboration seemed to be its lack of rules or expectations. “We play at the Palomino under some weird name; we’d just show up so nobody would know,” he remembered. “By halfway through the set, the place was jam-packed, and we’d just mess around – call out goofy tunes like we would in junior high school.” These gigs occurred largely during the early 1990s, with only a handful of sketchy bootleg recordings surviving from the performances.
Notably, the thrown-together supergroup performed a particularly blistering cover of the Jimi Hendrix classic ‘Fire’, which was then bootlegged within an inch of its life by devoted fans of Lukather, Van Halen, and the like. In support of the band’s impromptu nature, which came with no expectations or real commitments, Lukather and the gang chose never to head into the studio together, preferring to keep Biff Baby’s All-Stars as a fun, exclusively live experience.
Whether or not Biff Baby’s All-Stars rivalled legendary supergroups like The Traveling Wilburys or Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young is ultimately up to interpretation. The latter two groups produced some of the most original and popular works of the 20th century, but the appeal of Lukather’s group is within its unfiltered joy and musical expression, which is something few other groups can hope to achieve.
