The story of Toto

Grant High and the session years

Toto's story starts at Ulysses S. Grant High School in Van Nuys, in the San Fernando Valley, in the early 1970s. The school was bursting with young players, and at the centre of it were the Porcaro brothers, Jeff, Mike and Steve. Their father Joe was a busy Los Angeles session percussionist, and the family had turned their garage into a rehearsal and recording studio. Friends called it Carroting Downs. Kids came over every day after school to play, and Joe would push them to keep practising. One former classmate compared the school to a place with a great basketball team, except that what it had was great musicians.[1] [2] [3]

Jeff Porcaro, the eldest brother, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on the first of April 1954, and started drumming at seven under his father's guidance. He was so good so young that right after graduating in 1972 he landed a job in Sonny and Cher's touring band, still a teenager. Within a couple of years he was the drummer for Steely Dan, playing on the album Katy Lied. A younger guitarist named Steve Lukather, who met Steve Porcaro at Grant, looked up to Jeff as a mentor. Lukather, Steve and Mike carried on Jeff's high school band, Still Life, after he left.[1] [2] [3]

David Paich came from a musical family too. His father Marty Paich was a celebrated jazz arranger who worked with Ray Charles, Mel Torme and Barbra Streisand. David met Jeff Porcaro as a teenager and the two became fast friends, playing sessions together as their reputations grew. In 1976 they both played on Boz Scaggs's album Silk Degrees, and Paich co-wrote several of its songs, including Lowdown and Lido Shuffle. Lowdown sold over a million copies and won Paich and Scaggs a Grammy for Best R and B Song. The bassist on that record, David Hungate, was an older session player from Missouri who became the third piece of the puzzle.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Scaggs took his studio band on the road, and the touring group included Jeff, Paich and Hungate, plus Steve Porcaro and, later, Lukather. Jeff and David started talking seriously about a band of their own. When Scaggs's label, Columbia, realised a new group was forming inside the tour, it offered them a contract. Steve Porcaro later said that without an audition, a record deal was simply thrown into their laps. Paich admitted that their famous fathers had opened a few doors, but insisted the band still had to work hard. Lukather's own father worked in television production, on shows like I Dream of Jeannie.[1] [2] [3]

Toto is born

The band still needed a singer. They found Bobby Kimball, a Louisiana raised vocalist born in Orange, Texas, who had moved to Los Angeles in 1974 and fronted a short lived band called S.S. Fools with former members of Three Dog Night. For his audition he brought a song he had written for his baby daughter, You Are the Flower. Paich and Jeff Porcaro loved his bluesy, soulful style, which blended rhythm and blues with hard rock. With Kimball on board, the six piece line up of Paich, Jeff and Steve Porcaro, Lukather, Hungate and Kimball began work on their first album in 1977.[1] [2] [3]

They spent nine months in the studio. Paich wrote almost everything, including the album's instrumental opening track, which he had composed while studying classical music at the University of Southern California. The first single was Hold the Line. Paich said the idea came from high school, when his family got a telephone with several lines and three girlfriends rang at the same moment, all the lights flashing while he tried to juggle them. Jeff Porcaro said the groove was his attempt to play like Sly Stone's drummer Greg Errico, mixed with a harder rock approach.[1] [2] [3]

The album Toto came out on the tenth of October 1978, and Hold the Line climbed to number five on the Billboard Hot 100. Lukather remembered his mother phoning to tell him to turn on the Los Angeles rock station KLOS. When he heard himself on the radio, he ran around the house in his underwear, shouting. The follow up singles, I'll Supply the Love and Georgy Porgy, with the soul singer Cheryl Lynn, also charted. The album went on to sell strongly, and the band was nominated for the Grammy for Best New Artist.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Critics were far less kind. Rolling Stone's review of the debut called it the kind of dull record you would expect from career session players, and was especially harsh about Kimball's singing. That set the tone for years. Lukather later said Toto arrived at exactly the same moment as the Sex Pistols, and the comparison did not go well. Critics called them soulless because they were studio musicians, and faceless because they had no pin up singer out front. Lukather has called Toto the most critically reviled band of all time, only half joking.[1] [2] [3]

And where did the name come from? Even the band's own members tell it differently, as you'll hear later. Whatever the true origin, by the time the debut album was finished, the name had stuck, and the band's emblem followed. The painter Philip Garris, known for Grateful Dead covers, designed a sword and ring logo inspired by a line in the song Manuela Run about the sword of Damocles. On their first tour in early 1979 they added two extra musicians, guitarist Tom Kelly and percussionist Lenny Castro. Castro had met Jeff Porcaro on a Diana Ross session, and he went on to play on almost every Toto album for the next forty years.[1] [2] [3]

Hydra, Turn Back and a final warning

The second album, Hydra, came out in late 1979. It leaned into progressive rock, with knights, dragons and fantasy imagery, and Lukather later joked that the band went all Dungeons and Dragons on everybody. The single 99 was inspired by George Lucas's science fiction film THX 1138, and it reached number twenty six, although Lukather has since admitted it is one of his least favourite Toto songs. CBS spent around half a million dollars on a promotional video package that included a recreated New York sewer. Hydra still went gold, but it sold far less than the debut.[1] [2] [3]

In January 1981 came Turn Back, a deliberate attempt to become an arena rock band, with heavier guitars and fewer keyboards. Lukather later called it the band's defiant record, and the weirdest sounding album they ever made. It stalled at number forty one in America, produced no US hit singles, and the band did not even tour behind it. Critics mocked it. One reviewer said the title was good advice for anyone who bought it. There was one bright spot. The single Goodbye Elenore became a hit in Japan, and Japan has been a loyal Toto stronghold ever since.[1] [2]

After two disappointments, Columbia gave Toto an ultimatum. Lukather remembered the label telling them they had been allowed to do what they wanted, and now they had better deliver a hit, or be dropped. Steve Porcaro said they felt their backs were against the wall for the first time. Paich said the band simply agreed to go back to what had worked on the first album, which was writing good songs that satisfied them musically and could also work on the radio. The next record would decide whether Toto had a future at all.[1] [2] [3]

Toto IV and the night of six Grammys

Toto IV was recorded across 1981 and early 1982 with a big budget and ambitious technology. At a time when most bands used one twenty four track tape machine, Toto linked up to three of them together with a timecode system. They practically lived at Sunset Sound in Hollywood. Lukather recalled renting a Winnebago and parking it in the studio lot, so anyone who needed sleep could crash there instead of going home. The album was released in April 1982, opening with Rosanna, written by Paich and sung by both Lukather and Kimball.[1] [2] [3]

Rosanna is built on Jeff Porcaro's half time shuffle, a groove that blends Bernard Purdie's famous shuffle with John Bonham's pattern from Led Zeppelin's Fool in the Rain, plus a Bo Diddley beat on the bass drum. Drummers still study it as the Rosanna shuffle. The long ending was never planned. Lukather said the song was supposed to stop, but Jeff kept playing, Paich started a honky tonk piano part, and everyone followed. Rosanna spent five weeks at number two in America, held off the top by the Human League and then by Survivor's Eye of the Tiger.[1] [2]

Africa almost did not make the album. Paich found its brassy opening sound on a new Yamaha synthesiser and said the chorus came to him in about ten minutes, as if something was channelling through him. He then spent six months on the lyrics. He had never been to Africa. He drew on National Geographic, on films, and on stories from teachers at his Catholic school who had been missionaries there. Jeff Porcaro built the rhythm from a hand played loop with Lenny Castro, inspired by drummers he had seen at the African pavilion of the 1964 New York World's Fair, when he was about eleven.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Most of the band thought Africa was a throwaway. Steve Porcaro said nobody except perhaps Paich believed in it, which is why it was buried as the last song on side two. Lukather famously promised to run naked down Hollywood Boulevard if it became a hit. Paich ended up singing lead because no one else could fit all the words in. After Rosanna, the label noticed Africa was being played in New York dance clubs and released it as a single. In February 1983 it went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100, Toto's first and only chart topper. Lukather never did make that run.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

On a February evening in 1983 at the Shrine Auditorium, Toto swept the Grammy Awards, winning six, including Record of the Year for Rosanna, Album of the Year for Toto IV and Producer of the Year. Joe Porcaro was playing in the pit orchestra as his sons collected their trophies. Accepting one award, Paich held it up and sarcastically thanked Robert Hilburn, the Los Angeles Times critic who never missed a chance to attack them. Lukather said some people claimed the sweep was a fix because the band knew everyone in the business, a charge he dismissed completely.[1] [2] [3] [4]

At the same moment, the members of Toto were all over another record, Michael Jackson's Thriller. Steve Porcaro wrote Human Nature, Lukather played the guitar riff and bass on Beat It next to Eddie Van Halen's solo, Jeff Porcaro drummed on several tracks, and Paich played keyboards. Yet the band's line up was already shifting. David Hungate had moved to Nashville and wanted to raise his family away from Hollywood, so he left right after Toto IV. Mike Porcaro, who had played cello on the album, took over on bass, making it three Porcaro brothers in one band.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

A revolving door of singers

Toto made a decision Lukather still regrets. Instead of a big American tour behind Toto IV, they stayed home and worked on other people's records. Then, early in 1983, Bobby Kimball faced prosecution on drug charges. According to Classic Rock, he was accused of selling cocaine to an undercover officer. Kimball pleaded not guilty, and the charges were dismissed on the twenty eighth of May 1983. But by the time the band started the next album, his voice was suffering, and in 1984 he was let go. Steve Porcaro said the real reason was simple. Cocaine had damaged his singing.[1] [2] [3] [4]

While hunting for a new singer, Toto took on its only full film score, for David Lynch's 1984 version of Dune. The band recorded with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Vienna Volksoper Choir, conducted by Paich's father Marty. It was also the first film work for composer James Newton Howard, who co-wrote one cue with Paich. The job was offered first to Richard Page of Mr. Mister, who turned it down. Jeff Porcaro then championed Fergie Frederiksen, a Michigan singer who had sung harmonies on Survivor's Eye of the Tiger album, and he won the role after running through four songs.[1] [2] [3]

The album Isolation came out in the autumn of 1984. Its single, Stranger in Town, was sung by Paich and became the band's biggest hit on the rock radio chart, with a black and white video starring the actor Brad Dourif. Isolation went gold, but the tour was a disaster. Toto had been booked into ten thousand seat arenas on the strength of Toto IV and played to rows of empty seats. Lukather said they lost their shirts. A European tour was cancelled, and Frederiksen, who struggled in the studio, was let go when work began on the next album.[1] [2] [3] [4]

The next singer was Joseph Williams, son of the film composer John Williams and the actress Barbara Ruick. He had known the band since they were teenagers, and his father had worked with Joe Porcaro and Marty Paich. With him, Toto made Fahrenheit in 1986, featuring the Lukather ballad I'll Be Over You, with Michael McDonald on backing vocals, and a closing instrumental with Miles Davis, who offered to play on it for free. After the tour Steve Porcaro left, saying he felt undervalued, and that he was unhappy with the drug and alcohol use around the band.[1] [2] [3] [4]

The Seventh One followed in 1988, with Jon Anderson of Yes singing on Stop Loving You. The single Pamela reached number twenty two and turned out to be Toto's last American hit single. Lukather blamed a change at the top of Columbia, which cut off the promotion. On the European tour Williams's voice faltered, and he later admitted to a cocaine addiction. Jeff Porcaro fired him, saying he could not make anything click with a singer in that state. Next the label pushed a South African singer, Jean-Michel Byron, onto the band for the 1990 hits album Past to Present.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Byron's time in Toto was short and bruising. On the 1990 Planet Earth tour his flamboyant stage act startled the band. Lukather described watching him dance around wearing a golf glove, his jaw on the floor. Some fans heckled him, and he was pushed back to backing vocals before being fired at the end of the tour. His songs were even cut from the band's live video. Meanwhile, the band discovered that Kimball had been touring with his own group billed as Toto, and they took out an injunction to stop him. In April 1991 Joseph Williams was arrested on drug related charges.[1] [2] [3]

Losing Jeff

Out of options, Toto decided the core band would carry on alone, with Lukather singing lead. Kingdom of Desire was recorded through most of 1991, largely built from jam sessions, and it was a harder, rockier record. Jeff Porcaro wrote the lyrics to one song on it, Wings of Time, and he chose the cover art himself, an image of a skeleton clawing its way out of a grave. Columbia's American executives disliked the album and refused to release it in the United States at first. It came out in the rest of the world on the seventh of September 1992.[1] [2]

A month before that release, on the fifth of August 1992, Jeff Porcaro fell ill while spraying insecticide in the garden of his home in Hidden Hills. He died that evening at Humana Hospital West Hills. He was thirty eight. Lukather had spoken to him earlier that day, ending the call as they always did, by saying they loved each other. By the time Lukather reached the hospital, Jeff was gone. More than twelve hundred people attended the funeral at Forest Lawn, including Eddie Van Halen, Don Henley, Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, David Crosby and Bonnie Raitt.[1] [2] [3] [4]

At first, doctors attributed the death to a heart attack brought on by an allergic reaction to the pesticide. But in September the Los Angeles County coroner ruled that Jeff died of hardening of the arteries caused by cocaine use, and said tests found no trace of the insecticide. His family and bandmates have always rejected that ruling. Lukather has argued that only a tiny amount was found, and that Jeff had a heart condition made worse by heavy smoking, in a family where several relatives died young of heart disease. His headstone carries a line from Wings of Time.[1] [2] [3]

Paich and Lukather agreed in their first conversation that Toto was finished. It was the Porcaro family who told them to keep playing, because that is what Jeff would have wanted. They called Simon Phillips, an English drummer Jeff admired, who had played for the Who on their 1989 tour. The first song they rehearsed together was Hydra, and it convinced everyone. On the fourteenth of December 1992 the band staged a tribute concert at the Universal Amphitheatre, with Michael McDonald, Boz Scaggs, Don Henley, Donald Fagen, Eddie Van Halen, David Crosby and a surprise appearance by George Harrison.[1] [2] [3] [4]

The concert ran for three and a half hours, and the proceeds went to an education fund for Jeff's three young sons. The emotional high point was a group performance of With a Little Help from My Friends, with Henley, Scaggs, McDonald, Crosby and Lukather trading lines while Harrison stood in the background. Lukather later said a piece of all of them died with Jeff, and that none of them ever really recovered. With Phillips now a full member, Toto made Tambu in 1995, with Lukather still singing lead, and it sold about six hundred thousand copies worldwide.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Reunions, illness and a split

For the band's twentieth anniversary, Paich and Lukather dug through old tapes and released Toto XX in 1998, a collection of unreleased songs finished with fresh overdubs. They played promotional shows with former members Bobby Kimball, Steve Porcaro and Joseph Williams, and in the end Kimball came back as lead singer after fourteen years away. The reunited band released Mindfields in 1999 and toured the United States for the first time in six years. In 2002 came Through the Looking Glass, an album of covers of heroes like Bob Marley, Steely Dan and the Beatles, which many fans disliked.[1] [2] [3] [4]

From 2003 David Paich began stepping back from the road. His sister Lorraine was seriously ill, and he took time away to help care for her. Keyboard player Greg Phillinganes, a veteran of Michael Jackson's band, filled in and by 2005 had become a full member, while Paich stayed on as a writer and producer. In 2006 Toto released Falling in Between, with a guest appearance from Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson and a duet with Joseph Williams. But during the tour, Mike Porcaro began to struggle. A growing weakness in his fingers was making it hard for him to play.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Mike's last show with Toto was in November 2006, and he retired in 2007. He was later diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also called ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. Leland Sklar covered the bass parts on tour. Then, in June 2008, Lukather announced on his website that he had left Toto and that there was no more Toto. With Paich retired from touring and Mike ill, he asked how it could still be Toto without Paich or at least one Porcaro, and said he could no longer play Hold the Line with a straight face.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Lukather later revealed what else was going on. He said he was drinking himself to death, losing his marriage, and watching his mother die, and that he needed to get himself together or he would end up killing himself. He quit drinking, saw a therapist, and rebuilt. In February 2010 the band reformed for a summer tour of Europe to raise money and awareness for Mike Porcaro. The line up brought back Steve Porcaro and Joseph Williams, with Paich, Lukather, Simon Phillips and Nathan East on bass. Bobby Kimball was not asked back, which led to a falling out with Lukather.[1] [2] [3] [4]

The ALS benefit shows were meant to be a one off, but audiences responded so strongly that the band kept playing summer tours. In January 2014 former singer Fergie Frederiksen died of liver cancer at his home in Minnesota, after a long illness linked to hepatitis C. He had reconciled with the band in 2007, when he joined them on stage for a few songs. That same month, Simon Phillips left after twenty one years to pursue his own music. Keith Carlock of Steely Dan took over the drums for the next album, and original bassist David Hungate returned.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Africa's second life and a bitter lawsuit

Toto owed their label one more album, and Lukather later said it was born out of litigation, since recording it was easier and cheaper than fighting the contract. Toto XIV came out on the twentieth of March 2015, their first studio album in nine years, with Joseph Williams, Steve Porcaro and David Hungate back. It closed with Unknown Soldier, dedicated to Jeff. Five days before the release, on the fifteenth of March 2015, Mike Porcaro died in his sleep at his Los Angeles home, aged fifty nine, from complications of ALS. Joe Porcaro had now outlived two of his three sons.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Meanwhile, Africa was finding a brand new audience. It popped up in Family Guy, South Park and, in 2016, the first episode of Stranger Things. In December 2017 a fourteen year old Weezer fan named Mary Klym started a Twitter campaign urging Rivers Cuomo to cover it. Weezer first trolled her by releasing Rosanna instead, then gave in and released Africa in May 2018. It reached number fifty one on the Hot 100 and topped the alternative chart. Toto answered by covering Weezer's Hash Pipe. Lukather credits the Weezer moment with bringing a young crowd to Toto shows.[1] [2] [3]

In 2018 Toto celebrated its fortieth anniversary with the collection 40 Trips Around the Sun and a world tour. It came with trouble. Early in the European leg, David Paich suffered what Lukather described as a seizure on the tour bus, and he was forced to stop touring for his health. Then Jeff Porcaro's widow, Susan Porcaro Goings, sued Lukather and Paich, the two directors of the Toto company. She claimed they had failed to pay Jeff's estate its share of earnings and had not recognised his interest in the band's name. The case was settled after mediation.[1] [2] [3] [4]

The lawsuit tore through old friendships. Lukather said it cost the band close to a million dollars and blamed it for a rift with Steve Porcaro, who was caught between his family and his band. Porcaro said he did not hate Lukather at all, but admitted he had asked for a share of the band if he was going to continue. In October 2019 Lukather announced that the Philadelphia show on the twentieth would be the end of that version of Toto. Paich joined them on stage there to sing Africa. Lukather said the grind of touring and the litigation had beaten them down.[1] [2] [3] [4]

The Dogz of Oz and the long run

The break did not last long. On the nineteenth of October 2020, Lukather and Joseph Williams announced a new Toto, with Huey Lewis bassist John Pierce, Snarky Puppy drummer Robert Sput Searight, keyboard players Steve Maggiora and Dominique Xavier Taplin, and multi instrumentalist Warren Ham. They called it the Dogz of Oz tour. Lukather said he and Williams were the only long serving members who still wanted to be on the road. They debuted with a livestream in November 2020, released as a live album, and Lukather said there would be no more Toto studio albums.[1] [2] [3] [4]

The pandemic was hard on Lukather. He later said he fell into depression and then into ketamine abuse while live music was shut down. Getting back on the road helped. In 2022 Toto opened for Journey on a forty date American arena tour, and Lukather said crowds left realising the band could really play. There is a family connection there too, since Lukather's son is married to the daughter of Journey's Jonathan Cain. David Paich joined for the encore at some shows, and that year released his first solo album, Forgotten Toys. Lukather also runs the band as its own manager.[1] [2] [3]

On the first of September 2024 Toto headlined the Hollywood Bowl in their hometown for the first time. By then the band had around thirty million monthly listeners on Spotify, and the Africa video had passed one billion views on YouTube. That same year, Steve Porcaro sold the rights to his songs, including Human Nature, to Michael Jackson's estate and the publisher Primary Wave, in a deal the New York Times estimated in the low eight figures. The band kept touring into 2025, co-headlining American shows with Christopher Cross and Men at Work, and was still on the road as of 2026.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Some of Toto's founders have not been so lucky. Bobby Kimball, the voice of Hold the Line, has dementia, reported in 2019 and later identified as frontotemporal dementia. Lukather said in 2021 that the two of them were on good terms again, but that Bobby was not doing well. Joe Porcaro died in July 2020, aged ninety. Toto has never been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which Lukather has openly complained about. But after decades as the critics' favourite target, their craft is now admired by younger musicians, and Africa has become one of the most streamed songs of its era.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

The people around Toto

David Paich and Jeff Porcaro. They met as teenagers and became the two co-leaders of Toto. Paich wrote the big songs, including Hold the Line, Rosanna and Africa, while Jeff was the band's figurehead and groove, and the one who hired and fired. They built Africa together from Paich's melody and Jeff's hand played percussion loop. After Jeff died in 1992, Paich and Lukather's first instinct was that Toto was over.[1] [2] [3]

Steve Lukather and Jeff Porcaro. Jeff was a few years older and already drumming for Steely Dan when Lukather was still in high school, and he became Lukather's mentor, steering him into session work. They played together on Thriller and rebuilt Beat It side by side. Lukather still calls Toto Jeff's band and says he feels Jeff with him on stage. He was one of the fiercest defenders of Jeff's memory after the coroner's ruling.[1] [2] [3]

Jeff Porcaro and Steve Porcaro. The brothers clashed constantly. Steve said Jeff was the coolest older brother he could have wished for, but a demanding musician's musician who expected everyone to be in the pocket, and they were always at each other's throats. Steve felt undervalued in the band and left in 1987. He later said the two were getting along brilliantly before Jeff died, and that this was something to hold on to.[1]

Joe Porcaro and Jeff, Mike and Steve Porcaro. Joe Porcaro was a jazz drummer and busy session percussionist who taught all three sons to drum and turned the family garage into their studio. He played bass marimba on Africa and sat in the Grammy pit orchestra in 1983 as his boys won. He outlived two of them, Jeff in 1992 and Mike in 2015, and died in 2020 at ninety.[1] [2] [3]

Steve Lukather and Susan Porcaro Goings. Jeff Porcaro's widow later married the former Tupperware chairman Rick Goings. Her lawsuit against Lukather and Paich over Jeff's share of the band became one of the ugliest fights in Toto's history. Lukather publicly attacked her in 2020, and she answered in the same Rolling Stone article, calling his claims untrue and saying she felt sorry for him.[1] [2]

Steve Lukather and Joseph Williams. They have known each other since childhood. Williams first sang for Toto from 1986 to 1988 and was pushed out as his voice and drug habit failed him, then returned in 2010. When Toto reformed in 2020, they were the only two long serving members left. Williams calls Lukather a brother and a lifelong friend, and they live close to each other in California.[1] [2] [3]

Steve Lukather and Bobby Kimball. Kimball was Toto's first voice, fired in 1984 and brought back from 1998 to 2008. When the band reunited in 2010 without him, it led to a feud with Lukather, who later said Kimball could be great, but that on bad nights he could not find the pitch. By 2021 Lukather said the two were on good terms again, as Kimball faced dementia.[1] [2] [3]

Steve Lukather and Rivers Cuomo. Weezer's 2018 cover of Africa was good for both bands, but Lukather says Cuomo ignored his friendly approach and that it hurt his feelings. He has said Cuomo is the only rock star who has refused to talk to him. In 2025 he added that he did not think Cuomo really loved the song at all.[1] [2] [3]

Toto and Boz Scaggs. Scaggs's 1976 album Silk Degrees brought Paich, Jeff Porcaro and David Hungate together, and his touring band became the seed of Toto. Paich co-wrote Lowdown and Lido Shuffle for him. Paich has said Toto might not have happened so soon without Silk Degrees. Scaggs later scored a hit with Miss Sun, originally a Toto demo, and sang at Jeff's tribute concert in 1992.[1] [2] [3]

Toto and Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson. Quincy Jones hired Toto's members throughout Thriller. Steve Porcaro's Human Nature reached Jones by accident, and Lukather and Jeff Porcaro rebuilt Beat It for him. Paich says Jackson quizzed him about how Toto made videos and later spent his own money on his. Jackson thanked Jeff Porcaro in the liner notes of HIStory in 1995.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Steve Lukather and Ringo Starr. Lukather learned guitar after hearing George Harrison on Meet the Beatles, and since 2012 he has played in Ringo Starr's All Starr Band, performing Hold the Line, Rosanna and Africa every night. He calls Ringo one of his most cherished friends. For Lukather's birthday in 2020, Ringo turned up at his door in a mask, carrying a cake.[1] [2]

Toto and Rolling Stone and Robert Hilburn. Toto and the rock press were enemies from the start. Rolling Stone savaged the debut album, and the Los Angeles Times critic Robert Hilburn attacked them for years. The band turned down a Rolling Stone cover at their peak, expecting a hatchet job, and Paich mockingly thanked Hilburn from the Grammy stage in 1983.[1] [2] [3]

Rare facts about Toto

• The Porcaro family garage, where Toto's members learned to play, was nicknamed Carroting Downs. Joe Porcaro turned the family garage in the San Fernando Valley into a rehearsal and recording studio. Friends from Grant High School played there every day after school, and they called it Carroting Downs.[1]
• Joe Porcaro played in the Grammy pit orchestra on the night his sons won six awards. At the Shrine Auditorium in February 1983, Joe Porcaro was working in the orchestra pit as Toto swept the Grammys. All three of his sons, Jeff, Steve and Mike, were in the band by then.[1]
• Collecting a Grammy, David Paich sarcastically thanked the critic who hated Toto most. Holding up one of the band's six awards in 1983, Paich thanked Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times for believing in them. Hilburn had spent years using Toto as his example of everything wrong with rock.[1]
• While making Toto IV, the band parked a Winnebago at the studio so nobody had to go home. Lukather said they practically lived at Sunset Sound in Hollywood. None of them were married with children yet, so they rented a Winnebago and left it in the parking lot for anyone who needed to sleep.[1]
• Africa was mixed in sections because the studio console did not have enough faders. Engineer Greg Ladanyi said the song had so many tracks that he mixed the verses and choruses separately and edited them together. With no automation, band members stood at the desk moving faders by hand.[1]
• Jeff Porcaro's Africa groove was a five minute jam cut down to two bars and looped on tape. Jeff and Lenny Castro played the pattern for five minutes, picked the best two bars, overdubbed cowbell and shaker, then made a tape loop. Engineer Al Schmitt said the tape ran around a music stand and back into the machine.[1]
• Joe Porcaro, Jeff's father, played the bass marimba part on Africa. The Porcaro patriarch added percussion to Toto IV. On Africa he played bass marimba, part of the layered percussion his son Jeff built for the song.[1] [2]
• The Eagles' Timothy B. Schmit sings backing vocals on both Africa and I Won't Hold You Back. Schmit sang in the choruses of Africa and also played a twelve string guitar part doubling the keyboards. He sang backing vocals on Lukather's ballad I Won't Hold You Back too.[1] [2]
• Paich started naming songs after girls because of a Ray Charles album his father arranged. Paich noticed as a boy that every song on a Ray Charles album arranged by his father Marty had a girl's name. He took up the habit, which explains Rosanna, Holyanna, Pamela and Goodbye Elenore.[1]
• Paich played the Hold the Line riff so often in his first apartment that neighbours pounded on his door. After moving out for college, he bought a small upright piano and played the opening riff for days. He joked that he got eviction notices before he finally attached the phrase Hold the Line to it.[1]
• Human Nature reached Quincy Jones by accident, on the back of a cassette. Steve Porcaro put Paich's demos on one side of a tape and his own Human Nature demo on the other. Jones's deck auto reversed after Paich's songs, and Jones loved what played next.[1]
• Human Nature began as a song Steve Porcaro wrote to comfort his daughter after a playground incident. His young daughter came home upset after a boy pushed her off a slide. Porcaro told her it was just human nature, and that became the seed of the song. Lyricist John Bettis later rewrote the verses.[1]
• Steve Lukather played the bass on Michael Jackson's Beat It as well as the guitar riff. Eddie Van Halen's edits had broken the tape's timecode, so Lukather and Jeff Porcaro rebuilt the backing track around Jackson's vocal and the solo. Lukather played guitar and bass, then toned down his heavy sound at Quincy Jones's request.[1] [2]
• A young Patrick Swayze danced uncredited in Toto's Rosanna video. Steve Barron's West Side Story style video featured Cynthia Rhodes as Rosanna. Swayze appeared as a dancer, and the two later starred together in Dirty Dancing.[1]
• CBS spent around half a million dollars on videos for Hydra, including a recreated New York sewer. The twenty four minute, four song promotional video was shot over three days. Its sewer set was built to echo the imagery on the Hydra album cover.[1]
• David Lynch designed an album cover for Toto, and the band rejected it. After working together on Dune, Lynch created the first cover for Isolation. The band reportedly paid twenty five thousand dollars for it but did not use it, choosing a surreal image by Robert Kopecky instead.[1]
• Miles Davis played on a Toto album and offered to do it for free. Paich and Lukather played an instrumental for Davis at Jeff Porcaro's home studio. He liked it and played on it without a fee. It closes the 1986 album Fahrenheit.[1]
• Before she was a star, Paula Abdul danced in a Toto video that Jeff Porcaro directed. The video for Till the End, from Fahrenheit, was Jeff Porcaro's debut as a director. A then unknown Paula Abdul appeared in it as a dancer.[1] [2]
• Joseph Williams won his Toto audition by impersonating the singer he was replacing. Williams had once worked in Las Vegas doing impressions of singers. At his audition he did an impression of Bobby Kimball, and the band hired him.[1]
• Toto singer Joseph Williams is the singing voice of adult Simba in The Lion King. Williams, son of John Williams, sang Simba's parts in Hakuna Matata and Can You Feel the Love Tonight in the 1994 film. He also wrote the English lyrics for Lapti Nek in Return of the Jedi.[1]
• Fergie Frederiksen got his nickname because classmates thought his surname was Ferguson. The singer, born Dennis Frederiksen, went by his childhood nickname. He was also known for doing back flips on stage to fire up crowds.[1]
• Before joining Toto, Fergie Frederiksen sang harmonies on Survivor's Eye of the Tiger album. While Survivor's singer was straining his voice, Frederiksen helped with background vocals on five tracks, credited simply as Fergie. Months later Survivor's title song kept Toto's Rosanna from number one.[1] [2]
• Jean-Michel Byron's songs were cut from Toto's live video after fans turned against him. Anti Byron feeling was so strong that every song he sang was removed from the video filmed on the 1990 tour. He had been fired at the end of that tour.[1]
• David Hungate's old high school marching band plays Hold the Line in parades. Hungate attended Troy Buchanan High School in Missouri. Toto gave the school a signed record, and its band took up the song.[1]
• Toto's first bassist was the son of a United States congressman. David Hungate's father, William L. Hungate, served in Congress and later became a federal judge.[1] [2]
• A smashed synthesiser led Steve Porcaro to one of the first keytars. On Gary Wright's 1975 tour, Porcaro's Minimoog fell off a forklift. A technician rebuilt it as a modular synth played from a keyboard worn on a strap, which Wright soon wanted for himself.[1]
• Steve Porcaro lost the hearing in his left ear after surgery for a brain tumour. In the early 2010s Porcaro had a benign brain tumour removed, which left him deaf in his left ear. Lukather mentioned the operation to Classic Rock in 2015.[1] [2]
• The first song Simon Phillips rehearsed with Toto after Jeff Porcaro's death was Hydra. Phillips had drummed for the Who on their 1989 American tour. His take on Hydra so impressed Paich, Lukather and Mike Porcaro that he stayed for twenty one years.[1] [2]
• Jeff Porcaro chose a cover image of a skeleton escaping its grave, just before he died. Kingdom of Desire was Jeff's final album. Lukather only noticed the artwork's symbolism after his death and called it like a premonition.[1] [2]
• Toto XIV is called fourteen even though it was only their thirteenth studio album. Lukather explained the band counted Toto XX as an album because it was full of unreleased songs. One song on Toto XIV, Chinatown, had been started for their very first album.[1]
• Steve Lukather's son is married to the daughter of Journey's Jonathan Cain. The Los Angeles Times noted the family link while Toto was touring with Journey. Lukather also acts as Toto's manager, spending hours each morning on band business.[1]
• Lukather has lived in the same Studio City house since 1979. He bought it before Toto IV made the band huge. He wrote I Won't Hold You Back, I'll Be Over You and George Benson's Turn Your Love Around on the Steinway piano in his living room.[1]
• A solar powered installation in the Namib Desert plays Africa on a permanent loop. In January 2019 the Namibian German artist Max Siedentopf set up six speakers on white blocks at a secret spot, all attached to an MP3 player holding only one song.[1] [2] [3]
• Africa became the unofficial song of the New England Revolution soccer team. In 2014 the club's marketing director played it at a home game. The team went on a long unbeaten home run and reached the MLS Cup, and fans adopted the song.[1]
• In 1986 Toto won a Crystal Globe for selling over five million records outside America. The award marked the band's huge popularity overseas, especially in Japan and Europe, where they stayed strong long after their American hits dried up.[1]
• David Paich won an Emmy with his father in 1974. David and Marty Paich shared the Emmy for Best Song or Theme for Light the Way, written for an episode of the detective series Ironside.[1]
• Old Is New, Toto's final studio album, features the late Jeff and Mike Porcaro. Released in the 2018 box set All In, it completed older recordings with Jeff on drums and Mike or David Hungate on bass, reuniting the brothers years after their deaths.[1] [2]

Disputed stories

These stories are told often but the accounts don't agree. Here are the versions and who says what.