Star Apps: Toto
Between their own releases and session work on other artists' records, Toto members can be heard on an astounding 5,000 albums. Keyboardist David Paich is featured on Boz Scaggs' "Silk Degrees," Michael Jackson's "Thriller," and USA for Africa's "We Are the World." Paich met blue-eyed-soul vocalist Michael McDonald in 1977, when working on a Doobie Brothers album. Toto-McDonald collaborations continued on McDonald's 1982 solo debut, "If That's What It Takes," and Toto's 1986 release, "Farenheit." The artists are reuniting for a summer co-headlining tour.
Catch Toto on its summer tour with Michael McDonald.
(Credit: Darek Kawka)
You've worked with Michael McDonald for decades. What is it about him that makes you keep coming back?
Michael has such a unique voice and is such a great person to back that voice. I don't think that if I had that voice I'd be as nice as him. [Laughs] I met Michael back in the '70s, when he and I worked on the Doobie Brothers album, "Livin' on the Fault Line." I asked him to join our band, but he had just joined the Doobies. He was sitting there on a Wurlitzer, playing "Takin' It to the Streets." He has such a soulful and incredibly unique voice that goes through your entire being and deeply affects you.
We're lucky enough that he said yes to us now and we're doing a tour together. He's singing on some of our songs, and we're playing a little with him, so it's a really nice fit.
Which songs will you be doing this time around?
We're going to do kind of a grouping of some of our hits for fans, but are also going to throw some of our harder stuff in there, too, because we really are a high school rock-and-roll band influenced by Yes, ELP, and Genesis. So we have this whole side of us where we try to keep it hard, fresh, and interesting for us and our fans. It's essentially a best of our "Toto: 35th Anniversary Tour -- Live in Poland" setlist.
To say that Toto has been through ups and downs over the course of the last 35 years is an understatement. What were your highest points, and what were your lowest?
One of the high points was in 1982, when we won all the Grammys and received the Album of the Year award from Stevie Wonder. That felt like getting an Olympic gold medal. Another one was the first time we heard "Hold the Line" on the radio. We called each other on the phone, and we were like teenagers. We had a new record. We had been on the radio before with other people, but for some reason, when it was just us, we were screaming, "Turn on the radio; you're missing the record."
The lowest point comes back to losing my lifelong friend and band member Jeff Porcaro in an accident. That was terrible. We're still in the healing process with that, and what's great is that we're able to pay tribute and honor him with all the music he's involved with. All the drummers are paying respect by playing Jeff's parts, so it's like he's onstage with us every night. When we hear his music when we're playing, it's almost like having a seance every night and having him right there. I can see him playing the tambourine. That and Mike Porcaro with ALS have been the two roughest periods, speaking band-wise. They were tests of faith for us, for sure.
How is Mike Porcaro doing?
Mike's hanging in there, but he's been fighting this battle with ALS for quite a while, and he's slowly losing this battle, and it's not good. But what's come out of it is we've gone around the world and met more people with ALS and brought them to our concerts and realized that he's not alone. The more awareness that we can bring to it, hopefully doctors can get interested and the more money can be directed toward it to find a cure for it. We keep in touch with Mike daily or weekly, and he's still able to communicate through technology with us. He sends us texts every once in a while and sends love to all the fans out there, and says, "Keep praying and sending your love and hopes." So it's been a heartbreaking struggle, but he's hanging in there.
David Paich can still hear the late Jeff Porcaro onstage with the band every night.
People are always talking about "Hold the Line," "Rosanna," and "Africa." Is there a Toto song that you thought would be a bigger hit that never ended up getting much attention?
Right after "Rosanna," I thought a song like "Make Believe" off the "Toto IV" album would hit No. 1. Then a song like "Africa" came out of nowhere. A last-minute, 11th-hour song that we had fun experimenting with just took off.
I read that the song "Africa," which has almost 40 million listens on Spotify, was inspired by a documentary you saw on Africa. But I've always thought that it could be set anywhere. It seems more about the narrator's own personal journey than an exact location.
Your description is not unlike my own here. I wasn't trying to pinpoint geographically something that was taking place in Africa. I was kind of romanticizing being in a far-off place I had never been to, and [I] was imagining the situation.
I saw the first UNICEF commercials when I was a kid, and those impacted me a lot. Later in Catholic high school, I met some brothers who had done fieldwork there. Before you go, you take your vows as a priest, and there's a test of celibacy. When you're over there, you have to make a decision of whether you want to stay there and work for the church, or have a regular life and get married. That was the point of position: Not only am I dreaming about going to these places in a fantasy situation, but I was imagining, What if I had to make that decision of am I going to be off in some far off-place helping the world, or am I just going to a be a married guy with a wife and family? So I think those were some of the snapshots from different moments researching it.
"Young" Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake sing "Africa" at summer camp ("Late Night With Jimmy Fallon"):
Your hit "Rosanna" is about actress Rosanna Arquette, who dated band member Steve Porcaro.
I did borrow her name when I was writing the song. She was going with Steve Porcaro, so her name is attached to that song, for sure. Steve and I were sharing my house at the time, and he met Rosanna, and they started going out. He brought her to the kitchen, and I had pianos everywhere and was working on this new song, which ended up being "Rosanna." I didn't have the title or the hook, until they walked in, and he said, "I want you to meet my friend Rosanna." She was just adorable. I had a major crush on her immediately and said, "Meet you all the way, Rosanna," right there. It just fit.
What are the top five apps you'll be using on the tour this summer?
1. iTunes
2. Kindle
3. The Weather Channel
4. NFL
5. MLB