Posted October 2018
It’s Fall and that means one thing: Great tours are on the road and one such tour is Toto and they’re playing East Tennessee this month at Greeneville’s Niswonger Performing Arts Center.
Toto’s Steve Lukather is a good friend of Boomerocity, so we recently caught up by phone to see what fans can expect from this month’s show and what else has been going on in Luke’s life. One thing is for certain: You never know what you’re going to get when you’re in a conversation with this guy.
Before we go anything farther, I must warn you. No, scratch that. I’ll let Luke warn you himself (using a quote from his new book, The Gospel According To Luke”.
“Oh, I swear a lot, too. If you are offended by that, stop reading now.”
Luke puts it out there in raw form and I don’t just mean in swear words. He uses . . . how shall I put this? He uses “colorful” phrases to make his point or to get a reaction.
I used to edit such things out of interviews with people, but I found that I wasn’t presenting the interviewees accurately to their fans. So, what you’ll see here is the chat with Luke, pretty much unfiltered.
Back to the chat with Luke.
Before chatting about his new book and the upcoming tour, I asked Luke what he’s been up to this year.
“I just got back from the Ringo tour. I’ve been taking care of some business. Getting ready to go back out on this (Toto) tour. We did this Weezer track that we’re going to put out here pretty soon that’s pretty funny – pretty cool, actually; and just 
hanging around my kids, man. Being a dad. I did practice for a while, this morning, though. I still do that to stay in the game a little bit, you know? I try to win the race. I realize I gotta be in it, you know?”
“The years kinda meld together, you know? I can’t believe we’re edging towards 2020. Isn’t that a scary concept? The fact that I still have to take a twelve-hour flight to Europe pisses me off. You would think it would’ve gotten better than that.”
The year before, Luke had fallen on his tour bus while in Europe, resulting in persistent pain in one of his shoulders. I asked how the shoulder was doing.
“Ah, my shoulder’s all messed up, man. On one hand, it was a bus accident. On the other hand, I was leaning too hard on the right arm and, then, it finally snapped. The joys of living in twenty-four-hour pain. But I don’t have cancer or anything like that. The rest of me is aces! A little CBD oil and off we go!”
When asked about how it went touring with Ringo this year, Steve chuckled and said, “I don’t know. I don’t know. Don’t ask me stuff like that. Anyway, where were we?
“No, no, no! I was bored. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I don’t do anything illegal! I’m too old to go to jail. If they had their way with me, they wouldn’t even feel anything. I’d be, like, ‘Really? That’s all you got? After two divorces and forty-three years of show business, that’s it? I thought at least you’d hit the walls, you know? Hey! I’m a kidder! I’m a kidder! I love my life, I tell ya!”
What can Toto fans expect from this tour?
“We bring our best, you know? I mean we go out there as soon as we strap on the guitars and walk out towards the keyboards
Photo by James R. Patterson and the drums and all that, we revert back to being sixteen-year-old kids and that comes across. I’m not saying that we’re jumping around like idiots but when we get out there, it’s an ageless moment. You’re out there. You kick ass and you bring everything you’ve got. We’ve got a wide selection of music to play from, obviously. We’ve got to play the hits and all that stuff. But, we’ve got a lot of other music, too. It’s going to be a great show. We did since February in Europe. I’ve been going back and forth. Fifteen weeks in Europe, already. I’m ready to play the United States. They get the jokes. You know what I mean?
“I promise, no politics. I think we’re all done with it. I think butthole jokes would go over a lot better. Yeah, man! Let’s play some music, man! Forget about the bullshit for a minute, man. That’s what we all want to do, you know? That’s my job. I mean, some people may be more equipped to stand on a soap box but I’m never really that guy. I deal with my shit all by myself. I’m just your neighborhood guitar player who’ll show up and show you a good time for a couple of hours. We’re going to do that. I promise you that!”
I relayed a story to Luke that involved the first time I met him in person. It was backstage at a Ringo Starr concert in Greenville, SC. He was talking to a kid, telling him that, when he was that kid’s age, he was riding mini-bikes in Southern California, playing music and having a good time.
I shared with Steve that I felt that for those of us in the music business – he as a performer and me as a schlub covering guys like him – it can be more of a business than the fun it’s supposed to me. He chimed in and said:
“It is, man! You’ve got to have a good time in life. I mean, there’s gotta be a time when you shake it off. I’m in my house right now. I’ve got my little kids. One of them’s going to summer school and one of them’s going to the art supply shop. I’ve got my swimming trunks on. I’m going to go swimming with my kids and lie around in the sun and do nothing and just enjoy a few days of nothing. I don’t need to read about how great I am or how much I suck, whatever. It’s just one of those days that I don’t want to go there.”
Shifting gears, Luke come out of left-field with something.
“Let me tell you something: The written word is not always my friend. I’m a very sarcastic person. So, if I say something that’s really out there and really sarcastic, and you just write it down, I sound like a fucking tool. I’m, like, ‘Okay. Thanks a lot, guys. Make me look like a fucking dickhead. An illiterate dickhead. That’s fine.
“But, you know what? Here’s the great thing about turning sixty-years-old – and I still can’t believe that I am. I’m sixty-fucking-years-old. I can’t believe it. I don’t feel like it. You’re not going to feel any different. You’ll just look different. That part’s true, too. You do the best you can for however old you are. It’s just weird to be here, man, and to realize, ‘Hey, wow! I’m going to be sixty-one, soon! I’m in my sixties! How much longer do I have?’
“Then, I look at Ringo, who’s seventy-eight years old and is in better shape than thirty-year-old people. I guess as long as you want to keep pushing it, you can’t just keep sitting on the couch, watching Jeopardy every day and expect to live to be a hundred and twenty. I don’t know why I went off on that, but I did. Sorry.”
At the time of our interview, there was a piece floating around Facebook that claimed that Steve Lukather was the wealthiest guitarist alive. I mentioned it to Luke and he cackled out loud with laughter and said, “There are worse rumors to have about yourself. C’mon, man! I just laugh at this shit. It’s funny. That’s one of the better ones. That beats the hell out of you being a scum sucking, low-life prick who can’t play or whatever. You’ve never met me before and you hate me that much? How old were you when Uncle Bob molested you the first time?”
Trying to bring the conversation back around to more saner subjects, I asked Luke what he’s got going on after the Toto tour.
“Oh, man! I’m doing Ringo. I’m doing Toto. My book’s coming out September 18th about my life in the studios and how I came up. We’ve got a box set coming. We’ve got live DVD from the 40th. There’s more touring all the way through next year. Busy. Happy. Blessed. Thankful in a crazy world that I just don’t want to look at any more. I pray and hope for the best, be a nice guy, and spread love. That’s about all I can say.”
I couldn’t let our conversation conclude without asking Lukather about his new book, The Gospel According To Luke.
“Oh, the book’s just a story of my life. It’s called, The Gospel According To Luke, which is a little play on words. I didn’t mean to offend anybody. It’s just the story of how I came up, you know? Famous records that I played on. People that I’ve worked with. Funny stories. People that I grew up with. Most of them turned out to be famous people. It’s just where I was born – Los Angeles. I had to edit four hundred pages into a three-hundred-page book with pictures and stuff. But I have enough for an encyclopedia, so we’ll see. There may be a movie. You never know, man! Who would you think would play me? 
“Look at all this shit about me! I mean, it’s so funny this reputation I have for being an insane person. Okay. There was a few nights, okay? I’m going to give you a few nights, alright? But, I mean, c’mon! Could I have done all the shit that I did as a musician and still been as fucked up as everybody says I was? Makes no sense!
“I mean, listen: Did I have some nights out? Oh, fuck yes! But, c’mon. I’d be dead by now if I was that bad. Anyway, that’s the story of my life. I live a clean life, now. I remember everything. I get up when I used to go to bed. I have four kids. Two grown. Two little. And I love the simple things in life. I’ve done every crazy thing there is and, now, I just want to enjoy the back nine with a smile.”
One thing is for certain: We can expect to see, hear, and read a lot more from Steve Lukather in the years to come.
As for Lukather’s book, The Gospel According To Luke, it is available online and wherever the latest books are sold. Rest assured that it will be lively, entertaining, and, well, “unfiltered”.
You can keep up with Luke at his website, SteveLukather.com or with him and the rest of Toto at TotoOfficial.com.
