Cleveland, OH — Take me to church.
That was my first reaction to reading Steve Lukather’s autobiography, The Gospel According to Luke (352pp, Post Hill Press, $17.10 on Amazon) which is being released today. And by church, I mean any show, whether it be with his seminal band TOTO which is celebrating it's 40th anniversary, Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band or the various jam sessions he puts together with his talented circle of musician friends, where the guitar great is going to perform.
To most fans Lukather, who frequently goes by Luke, is not only the guitar behind “Hold the Line,” “I’ll Supply the Love,” “99,” “Stop Loving You” and also the iconic “Africa,” he’s also voice behind many of TOTO’s biggest hits including “Rosanna,” “I Won’t Hold You Back” and “I’ll Be Over You.”
I will admit that I have enjoyed TOTO’s music since I grew up listening to it as a kid in the 80’s. I became a fan of Luke himself after first interviewing him at the Rock Hall’s Music Masters tribute to Les Paul back in 2008. You can watch that interview here.
But it wasn't until I read The Gospel According to Luke, which was penned with the help of English rock journalist Paul Rees, that I learned Luke is more than TOTO. He is also an accomplished session player who has performed live or in studio with countless Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees such as McCartney, Harrison, Starr, Hall & Oates, Miles Davis, Cheap Trick, Cher, Earth, Wind & Fire, Quincy Jones, Elton John, Chicago, Don Henley and Donna Summer to name a few. Oh, and Michael Jackson, too. While Eddie Van Halen gets all the praise for the solo in “Beat It,” the rest of the guitar licks on that track, including the signature intro, are all Steve Lukather. There’s a particularly cute story in the book about him meeting Cher on a movie set when he was a child and then her reaction to seeing him again when he recorded “If I Could Turn Back Time” with her 20 years later.
Luke's resume stretches across all genres of music as he's recorded with the legendary Barbara Streisand, Herbie Hancock, Olivia Newton-John (that’s Luke on “Physical,” which ended up being the #1 song of 1981) and uber-producer David Foster. In The Gospel According to Luke, Lukather goes into great detail about how he and Foster were long-time best buds until jealousy over a Grammy award turned Foster against the guitarist. It’s one of the few moments in the book where Luke goes into a frayed relationship or vents frustrations about others in the music industry who may have held Toto back or as he says "tried to derail our career."
I spoke to Luke over the phone recently about the autobiography and his journey of writing it. One thing he made a point of saying early in the interview was that he didn’t want to use the book as a pulpit for revenge.
“I really bared my soul on this," he said. "But this isn’t an excuse for me to get even with everyone who ____ed me. I wanted it to be funny and engaging and informative. My side of the story. And give a lot of stuff that people don’t know.”
You can hear my full interview with Luke below. In it he touches on the one popular magazine that he feels made it their mission to keep TOTO from being successful, how he handles trolls, how he feels about TOTO’s chances of being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and what’s left on his personal and professional bucket lists. I will warn you, the audio is uncensored so if you have sensitive ears, you might want to take a pass.
Back to the book, The Gospel According to Luke details how a 9-year-old Lukather was turned on to rock and roll when he saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show back in 1964. His parents tried to dissuade him from his rock and roll dreams but eventually saw his talent and gave in. His father even postponed buying a new car so that he could get young Luke a Les Paul guitar. It also chronicles his musical and sometimes mischievous adventures with childhood friends in North Hollywood. An extremely talented collection of kids who included Michael Pocaro whose older brothers Steve and Jeff Pocaro would later form TOTO with Lukather; Michael Landau who is an accomplished guitarist in his own right; future Huey Lewis and the News bassist John Pierce and many others who would go on to careers in the music and film industry.
It continues with stories of trying to break in with various local bands and finally hooking up with his old friends, Steve and Jeff Pocaro, who he felt jokingly strung him along before saying he would officially be a member of what would become TOTO. He recalls not only the thrill of chart success but also the tough times they had -- like when they had to part with original lead singer Bobby Kimball and a couple of the misfires they made at replacing him.
When it comes to detailing those highs and lows and the toll the struggles took on Lukather’s professional and personal lives, The Gospel According to Luke doesn’t hold back. It is pure Luke. Raw, witty, raw, funny and, yes, profane for which Luke makes some apologies but he told me it’s hereditary.
“I swear. I’m sorry. My dad swore. I don’t do it for shock, it just flows out that way. My dad was a Marine when he was 16. I rest my case.”
It’s that honest and unfiltered approach to the book that made it so enjoyable for me personally. He takes on the “corporate rock” label that has hung like the proverbial albatross around the necks of TOTO and other 80’s bands like Journey, Styx, Foreigner and others for years. Lukather writes, “Corporate rock? WTF does that mean? Anyone who ever signed a record deal is corporate rock, and those ’indie labels’ are still labels. If you sold ONE record, YOU sold out. Sorry.”
He told me that certain industry powers-that-be decided the music at the time with the most potential was punk rock, so magazines like Rolling Stone put their focus on bands like the Sex Pistols and everyone else became an after-thought.
“They lumped us all together, even though we sounded nothing alike, and that’s corporate rock and this is punk and this is the future. Well, how can it be the future if it has a short shelf life? I can’t be a teenager forever. What do you do after you’re a teenager? I studied music and worked hard at it. And that was considered a deficit, being good at your job. Like you suck if you played well. And I always resented it, and I never understood it. But we’ve outlasted it.”
There are moments in the book that made me laugh out loud like when Luke describes some of the jokes he’d play on his friends, sometimes to their delight and others, not so much. Or the first concert in front of their label that played out like the scene in The Incredibles where Edna Mode explains to Mr. Incredible why capes are not a good thing for super heroes. Capes didn't work out well for the band either. And there are the “colorful metaphors” Luke uses or his self-deprecating humor.
TOTO's Steve Lukather
Then there are moments that hit you in the gut. Such as the loss of beloved band members Jeff Pocaro and later Michael Pocaro, who eventually joined TOTO as their bassist. Perhaps the hardest part to read is about the passing of his mom. Like the rest of the autobiography, it’s written from the heart and is gut wrenching. And there's his struggle with addiction too. Lukather is also brutally honest in the book about how those past problems with addiction not only ruined both of his marriages, but how he’s come out stronger on the other side and now has great relationships with his exes and his children.
During our conversation, Luke told me how easy it is for musicians to turn to alcohol and drugs as a means of coping with the isolation and loneliness of life on the road but says in the end, it was part of the journey. Not one he’s overly proud of mind you, but he felt compelled to be honest with fans about his life and that's why he included it in the book.
“I had my time. I learned my lesson. And you know what? Some of it was ___ing fun! I’m not going to lie. Some of it was insane. I’m surprised I’m still alive. But I learned from it and I don’t recommend it. I don’t glorify it in the book.”
There are also a couple of moments in the book that will be of interest to Northeast Ohioans. There’s the time Luke and TOTO were staying at the famed Swingo’s hotel and ran into Cheech and Chong. Or how he heard the James Gang’s “Bomber” the first time he got high on marijuana and then had to try and disguise it from his parents.Of the James Gang, Luke said, “Those guys are heroes of mine. That was in my musical DNA. I voraciously learned note for note everything they played.”
Speaking of Cleveland, Luke had these words for fans here in Northeast Ohio: “I’ve always loved Cleveland. It’s the heart of rock and roll and I’m looking forward to being there. Everybody there is great and the TOTO gig (back on August 25) was sold out. It was great. What an audience! So there’s a lot of love for us there and we’ve got a lot of love back.”
The Gospel According to Luke can also be viewed as, not necessarily a plea for respect, perhaps more like a resume establishing why Steve Lukather and TOTO deserve it. He spends a lot of time detailing the band’s success as a group – the numerous hits, multiple Grammy awards, album sales and sold out shows; and individually as session players and producers. As I mentioned before, he’s worked with the best of the best and there is a 20-page appendix in the book that lists every single artist and album Lukather has worked with or on.
He’s also brutally honest about the missteps they’ve made, none of which he feels merit the scorn and hurtful reviews they encountered in their early days and still receive from some critics today. Listen to my full interview below and you can not only hear, but feel, his frustration at how they’ve been viewed over the years. He does have a point. How many bands can say they’ve sold more than 40 million albums and have more than half a billion streams worldwide? Or had their individual members play on “5,000 albums, had around 225 Grammy nominations, and were pretty much the house band on the biggest album in history?”
Then there’s THAT song. Surely you've heard “Africa.” It's kind of hard not to have heard some version of it in the past 25 years since it was released. Not only was it a number on hit for TOTO but keeps resurfacing in pop culture like in 1998 when Straight No Chaser’s “12 Days of Christmas,” which ended with “Africa’s” chorus, went viral on YouTube. The song has also been featured, and also parodied, on hit TV shows like South Park, Stranger Things, Community, and The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon. More recently, Weezer released a version of the the song after a Cleveland girl took to Twitter and repeatedly begged the band to cover it. Weezer’s version went to number one on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart.
Maybe it’s just me, but perhaps it’s time folks start cutting TOTO and all its members some slack. IF you're a doubter, I encourage you to listen to the music again. Really listen. In getting ready for this review and interview, I've become a big fan of TOTO's 35th anniversary album Live in Poland. It really showcases the band's diverse skills and sounds while helping me rediscover songs I'd long forgotten and exposing me to new fones.
Read The Gospel According to Luke. The combination might change your mind. If it doesn’t, even Lukather is reluctantly resigned to the fact that there will always be haters telling me, “It’s almost funny now. They’re holding onto a grudge and they’ve never met me? That’s kind of weird. I understand not liking the music. That’s fine. But to dismiss us as total dog ____, and that’s not fair.”
Lukather will back in town this Friday night at the Hard Rock Rocksino at Northfield Park for a sold-out show as part of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band. (There are a couple of tickets available for re-sale on the Rocksino website.) After talking to Luke about the line-up, it’s sounds like a night fans won’t soon forget. “It’s a great show man. It’s a lot of fun. I love working with Ringo. This to me is a vacation tour. All the guys, Colin Hay, Graham Gouldman of 10cc, Gregg Rollie of original Santana and Journey. I get to be like eight guitar players. I get a kick out of playing it and I get a kick out of them playing our stuff.”
For the latest on TOTO visit the band's website and hop over to Luke's site for updates on his projects outside of the band.
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About the author: Mac Mahaffee is not a reporter nor does he play one on TV. Rather, he's WKYC's Director of Digital Marketing who also happens to be an avid music lover. He enjoys learning rock history and interviewing artists and relaying their stories from a fan's perspective. He's interviewed numerous Rock and Roll Hall of Famers and musicians over the years, and produced WKYC's "Cleveland Rocks" special which is currently playing in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "Music of Cleveland and the Midwest" exhibit.
