The most terrifying solo Steve Lukather ever played: “I was scared shitless”
In music, time will forever be a combination of cruel and complementary.
Those trickling sand dunes dripping from the top of the hourglass to the bottom are the greatest indicator of how good a band actually was. For Toto, their continued support is vindication.
“We’re getting more action than anybody fucking knows,” said guitarist Steve Lukather when discussing the way people react to their music in the modern age. “People are showing up, and it’s not a bunch of old people with my colour hair. There’s a few of us old fuckers out there, but mostly you look and it’s like every basic younger audience.”
Who would have thought that the band would have been getting audiences going decades after they originally formed? A haphazard group of session musicians came together one day and decided to join forces and make music. They had worked for big names like Aretha Franklin, Jackson Browne and Barbra Streisand, but who was to know if they could work together.
It was keyboard player David Paich who came up with ‘Hold The Line’, the song which would eventually become their first single. The track was written about dating too many people and subsequently having to juggle girlfriends, something which Paich was dealing with firsthand. As a result of his bustling love life, the songwriter found himself having to quite literally hold the line.
He played what would become the opening riff on the keyboard for Steve Lukather, who was lined up to be Toto’s lead guitar player. The moment he heard what he would be soloing over, he knew that he had the chance to be a part of a huge moment in musical history.
“He played me the riff on the piano, and I could hear how good it would sound on guitar,” said Lukather, “It was exciting. Jeff looked at me and went, ‘Yeah, man, that’s the shit!’ We all knew it had something. Some songs aren’t there at first. This one was.”
It was knowing he had a huge opportunity that really put the pressure on. While Lukather had experience playing as a session musician, he wasn’t as battle-hardened as those around him. He was by far the youngest musician in the group, with some of the more experienced minds, such as David Hungate and Bobby Kimball, being over a decade older than him.
Imposter syndrome has never been quite as prevalent as it was in Lukather in that moment, and when it was time to step up and play his solo, the nerves really kicked in. “I’m sure they were all going, ‘Who’s this young punk ass? How did he get in here? He must’ve jumped the line or something’,” said Lukather.
Despite all this, he managed to get his guitar solo out, and it was used in the final recording. Toto was a hit after that. Talk about making your mark. “I was scared shitless. I was in the studio with my guitar cranked to 10, and all of these guys were behind the glass looking at me like, ‘You better bring it, kid.’ They counted off four bars, and off I went,” recalled the guitarist, “I had no idea what I was doing. I thought to myself, ‘If I fuck this up, I’m over’.”
