RockZeit har været så heldige at få fat i guitaristen Steve Lukather på online Zoom, som det eneste medie den dag. Han havde derfor tid nok til at svare på en masse spørgsmål. Lukather er det eneste medlem af Toto som har været med hele vejen siden de blev dannet i 1977.
Kl. 19 dansk tid sker der noget på skærmen i det planlagte Zoom-møde. Jeg sidder klar og venter, og så står der “Lukedaddy” og jeg trykker “admit”. Både lyd og billede virker som det skal¸og den 67 årige legende dukker op på skærmen;
RZ: Hello there, Mister Lukather.
SL: How is it going man? (making peace sign).
RZ: Thank you for having time for this interview. You must be a busy man.
SL: It has been pretty crazy up here the last couple of weeks you know.
RZ: We are a Danish music magazine. We review from soft rock to extreme metal. We just love Toto and Lukather soloalbums and rock, progressive rock and so on.
SL: Ohh, I like it all. I like all kinds of music, you know.
RZ: You appear on 1.500 albums or something.
Sl: Yeah, something like that, more or less…
RZ: If you listen to some music on the radio or somewhere else, do you sometimes think; Is that me playing, or is it someone sounding like me, because it is difficult to remember all those session recordings?
SL: Ohh yeah, it happens to me all the time. It’s a very weird thing for me to say (laughs), but I play some music with some guys playing something similar, and I thought…is that me playing? Sometimes it was me, but sometimes it wasn’t. …but we even bother? (laughs).
RZ: Maybe a lot of upcoming guitarists try to achieve the same feeling as you maybe..
Sl: Well, we all copy our heroes, I did. I still go back to what I started listening to. I didn’t reinvent the wheel or anything. I’m just a guitar player. I play a certain way and..every one have their own touch.
RZ: Allright. Do you practice technique anymore, or do you just…play?
SL: There are some good things about being older now; I don’t have to be in the race anymore. When you are young, you think who is the “the hottest guy in town”, I gotta be better than him, and from him. How does he do the things he can do. I gotta go see him play and learn it, figure it out and make it my own…but I play every day and I love to play my instrument…, but I’m not playing to “Win”.
Plus I have physical issues with my arm and shit, due to a bus accident eight years ago. I don’t have much strength, you know. It works, but I lost a lot of strength. It is also OK, ‘cause I don’t have to impress any guitar players anymore. There are so many young incredible giftet musicians out there, with technique that left me years ago.
RZ: But they sometimes forget the feeling. You don’t!
SL: I don’t think it has something to do with their technical ability, which is certainly far more advanced than mine. I will just say, there is no one writing songs around now. They are writing little starts and endings for this big impressive solo. There is no song to grab on to, like good old Van Halen. Within these great rock songs, where Eddie just were brilliant in the middle of it. But now, these unbelievable riffs and solos, but where is the song?!
RZ: We have to have some melody between all the riffs and solos.
SL: The next band that is going to take over the world, is going to have all of that. They’re gonna have to do it a little differently, ’cause everybody has heard every possible permutation there is.
RZ: But you must know virtuose music, to get inspired with all genres you have been through. What about for example a band like Dream Theater?
SL: Brilliant, just brilliant. I’m friends with the guys, you know John, Jordan, Mike. They are world class. And they write some really interesting stuff, that’s what I mean.
RZ: They play fast, but they don’t forget the melody!
SL: But I was speaking in terms of commercial bands. There’s no great commercial prog. rock bands present. When I grew up, there was Yes and Genesis. Some of the first I was listening to, was ELP (Emerson, Lake & Palmer). But now prog. has a heaviness to it, and Dream Theater..they are world class, and very nice people.
RZ: Do you have some favourite newer prog. bands that you listen too, something new you have discoveret?
SL: I work a lot myself. I’m on the road a lot, and with Ringo’s band and Toto. So, no man, I don’t really sit around listening to music as I used to. I still got teenagers at school, and stuff like that; I’ve got two grown kids. So some of my down time, I just wanna spend time being dad, you know.
RZ: Yeah, off course.
ST: I mean in my office I have a lot of guitars…that works for me you know.
RZ: I see a lot of CD’s in the background…
SL: They have been sitting there for a long time, man. I don’t even have a CD player!
RZ: :-)
Sl: I love music, but it’s funny, when you get older, I mean ask any older person, you do have a tendency to refer back to the music that you grew up on. So I listen to Classic Rock stations (radio), you know specific stuff. I got The Beatles channel on all the time, man, ‘cause that music always puts me in a good mood…
………
Som man kan fornemme, er Lukather kæmpe The Beatles-fan, og han kan ikke selv forstå Ringo Starr og Paul McCartney rent faktisk er hans venner og kollegaer. Læs mere om dette i anden del af interviewet.