Individually they've played on albums with everyone from Michael Jackson to Boz Scaggs, from Christopher Cross to Steely Dan. Collectively they've created a sound which is both structured and melodic, arranged yet flowing. The musicians we're talking about are Toto, a band which recently walked away with more Grammy awards than they could carry. Steve Lukather, guitarist for Toto, in his four records with the band, has created a style and sound of guitar which has brought him the attention of listeners and players alike. He can scream across a fretboard with ease and chunk out fat rhythm parts every bit as ballsy as those of Foreigner's Mick Jones. In his house atop the North Hollywood hills, Steve talked about his guitars, his playing, and non Toto projects.

I'd like to focus this conversation on the types of guitars and amps you're using on record. Let's start with 'Toto IV' and the equipment you're using on 'Rosanna'.

On the basic track I used two old black-faced Deluxes that have been beefed up by Paul Rivera (Head of Fender's amp division — Ed). And I used a bastardised Stratocaster with EMG pickups and a Floyd Rose tailpiece. On the overdubs I used a 100 watt Marshall stack and a '59 Les Paul.

You've been using EMG pickups for some time now.

Yeah, I have them on some of my guitars, some of my Strats. I really like the way they sound.

What guitar are you using for the solo at the end of 'Rosanna'?

My Les Paul the 'burst.

On 'Make Believe' there are harmony guitars?

Yeah, that was basically all the Les Paul through my small black-faced Deluxe with a Harmoniser. I didn't use any of my outboard gear, I just used the studio outboard gear. And I cranked the amp up all the way.

You play an acoustic guitar on the intro to 'I Won't Hold You Back'?

I used a Takamine acoustic/electric 12-string and for the solo I used my '59 Les Paul through my black faced Deluxe.

The solo on 'I Won't Hold You Back' has that real Jeff Beck Stratocaster vibrato arm feel. Didn't you use a Strat for that section?

No, that was all my Les Paul. No whang bar. I could see why you thought it was a Strat but it's really me.

How do you mike your acoustic guitar in the studio?

Actually, I didn't mike that at all, I just plugged it directly into the console. And we got a sound using limiters and a harmoniser. I don't normally do that, but if I want it to sound a little hipper I'll go direct. Instead of 'Here comes the acoustic guitar part'.

You've also been playing Takamine guitars for a while.

Yeah, I love their acoustic guitars. As a matter of fact they were given to me by the people in Japan. And I've been using them ever since.

What is about the Takamines that you like?

They're very easy to play and the intonation is excellent. They sound real good and especially electrified. So sometimes I'll take it electrically and mike it as well. It depends what type of mike we use. Sometimes we use a 414 or sometimes a small Sony condenser mike.

What about the solo at the end of 'Good For You'?

That's my Paul again. I used my Paul a lot on the record.

'Lovers in the Night'?

For the basic track I used my Les Paul through the black-faced Deluxe and for the middle solo I used my Les Paul. But for the end solo I used the Strat with the Floyd Rose tailpiece and the EMG pickups. It's a '63 Stratocaster body that has had some stuff stuck into it. I used that through a Marshall, a 100 watt Marshall that Paul Rivera did (Rivera customises all of Lukather's gear). I used two cabinets on that. That was cranked in the studio, boogie 'til you puke.

Do you double rhythm parts?

Sometimes, to get that real big sound. Sometimes I don't have to because I can get it with a harmoniser. I like to double it if it's a standard part, a normal part, because it makes it sound a little heftier.

The instrumental break on 'We Made It' is interesting.

That's backwards guitar. It's a synthesiser playing the line forward and we wrote out the line backwards and I play it backwards and we recorded it with echo. On that I also used a 5-string Telecaster tuned to a G like Keith Richard. You can't help but play that shit when it's tuned like that. You start playing Brown Sugar. On that I also used my Strat for the rhythm part, cranked up through a Marshall.

Are there certain settings you use on the Marshall when you're going to play a rhythm track in the studio?

Yeah. It's usually ¾ of the way up on the master, all the way up on the preamp and all the way up on the regular volume. It's not a standard Marshall (Rivera has worked on it). It has this 6-way midrange control which I use on the second position from the left. Which is just a little fatter. The treble control is up all the way, midrange is at ¾, bass is between 11 and 12 o'clock depending on which guitar I'm using. The Marshall cabinets I use are pretty much standard.

The guitar parts on Africa' are...

All over the place (laughs). I used a Takamine electric/acoustic in the back, the 12-string, for all those keyboard lines. And I used the Paul for the heft parts. And I used a direct Strat through the console, doubling what some of the acoustic guitars were doing.

When David Patch comes in with a song, do you instantly hear the types of guitar parts which are right for the tune?

For all of us, when Paich comes in with a tune it's pretty cut and dried as to what is going where unless he specifically has an idea.

It seems that Paich gave the band a lot more freedom on this last album than he did on earlier records.

It wasn't that he wasn't open to our ideas earlier, but it was just that we were very young and he was the main power, the writing power. I was just getting into writing and I was afraid to write with Paich. The guy writes such great tunes. But he was more than encouraging. Especially when he hears you sit down and play a little tune, he'll go, 'Oh man, that's happening, work that out.' He's a warm guy and really open, he wants everybody to write and be involved as heavily as possible. It's not like 'Hey, it's my band, man,' it's not like that at all. The farthest thing from it.

On the 'Turn Back' album, 'Gift With a Golden Gun' has a great guitar sound.

That was balls to the walls Marshalls with a lot of room sound on them. You can really hear the back wall bouncing. That's not doubled. I didn't double any of my parts on that album. I used a black Stratocaster made for me by the guys at Valley Arts (a local music store catering to the more professional player) about five years ago. I have EMG pickups in that and a Floyd Rose. I used that guitar through the Marshall turned up all the way in the room. There was nobody else in the room; I overdubbed that part. Because Jeff (Porcaro) and Paich cut that track with just drums and piano. We do that sometimes where just a couple of guys, like David and Jeff, will go in and cut a track and everybody will leave. Just because if it's a new song and we don't really know it that well, it's great to hear how David's hearing it and how Jeff hears it. Because David and Jeff determine things exactly the same way.

We'll work stuff up and we'll know how it's supposed to sound, but for the ease of cutting we like to do it that way sometimes. It's a real weird way to cut and most other bands wouldn't do it that way. But it really works for us. Because there are six guys in the band, and it's really hard to get six guys there playing at the same time and get a really tight track.

Looking at 'Toto IV' and 'Turn Back' in terms of guitar parts and sounds, it seems that 'Toto IV' had subtler types of parts while the 'Turn Back' album was more straight rock and roll sounds.

That's right, I guess. Turn Back was basically a balls to the walls record. It was like an experimental record for us, I think. It was totally different than anything we'd done before and it was cool, we learned a lot from it and I think it was a really great album. It wasn't necessarily commercially successful here. It was something we needed to do before we could do Toto IV. We needed to explore that possibility. We went to three extremes and brought them all together and we said 'OK, what's happening here? What are we doing?' I was able to play a lot more on the fourth album as far as experimenting with different sounds. I had more tracks because we got into a completely different recording technique. We used slave tapes and things like that and we had four 24-tracks for every tune. On the third album we had one 24-track and it was 'Keep your hands off that, you can't do that'. So we went crazy on the fourth album. That seems to work for us in making records.

Have you been working on a new album?

We have two tracks so far and we're cutting everything on 16-track slaves. We've been cutting on weekends and we have about 25 tunes to pick from. We're going to cut as much stuff as we can. We're cutting David's stuff first because his stuff is usually done before everybody else's. There is one song called Carmen and one is Holy Anna. Carmen is a real rocker, real uptempo, and has figured bass and guitar.

The band will produce the fifth album?

Oh, yeah, we don't need a producer.

The next album will have Mike Porcaro on bass for the first time; what were the reasons for David Hungate's leaving the band?

He just wanted a different lifestyle. He's living in Nashville, has a farm, and has a family.

Getting back to the 'Turn Back' album, the sound of the guitar on the solo of 'Live For Today'?

I used this completely red Schecter Stratocaster for the rhythm track and on the solo I used my Les Paul. I did double that solo and the harmony parts and that's the only thing I doubled on the entire album.

A Strat must make you play differently than, say, a Les Paul?

Oh, yeah. I just got a '57 Strat with no whang bar and it has that Axis: Bold as Love sound. It's unbelievable. It has a blond neck and is all original. It has the greatest clean rhythm sound I've ever heard. We're doing all crank tunes right now so I haven't had a chance to use it.

The guitar on 'I Think I Could Stand You Forever'?

That's a Schecter Telecaster cranked through a Marshall. I'm using an Acoustic Computer which is like a delay unit.

You do use a lot of room mikes when you record?

Yeah. What sounds good on my amps is a Shure 57 and a 67 or 87 room mike or a 251. Or sometimes 414s are good as room mikes depending on how bright you want it to sound.

Do you stand out in the room when you overdub?

I like being in the booth when I'm overdubbing so I can really hear what it sounds like. When you're wearing headphones and you're in the room with a bunch of Marshalls you can't hear nothin'. You can really feel and hear what it's going to sound like coming over the speakers. Headphones are a joke; it's the worst way to record ever.

You play an acoustic guitar solo on 'If It's The Last Night'?

It's a nylon string with a 335 with the tone pots turned all the way down direct into the console doubling it. For that Michelle kind of guitar sound. That was a Paich idea; Paich and Jeff come up with great guitar ideas.

Was your second album, 'Hydra', an attempt at a concept album?

Not really. It was really based on two songs, Hydra and St George and The Dragon. The rest of it has nothin' to do with it. It was our attempt at a concept album, I guess. It's really a cool album but what turns people off is they think it is a concept album.

You didn't do any writing on that album?

I just didn't really have anything. I didn't really start developing my writing until around the third album. I started writing tunes for other people and I played Paich some of those tunes and he encouraged me to write more.

You produced the first album and that's one of the best records you ever made.

That was a little more formula, I think. The first day we were a band we were in the studio cutting our first album. We didn't play the bar circuit. We went for what we thought worked. That was a very major learning period for me, because David and Jeff were really the major forces behind the first album. They were the creators and they started the band. I learned a lot from that album. It's the first record I ever sang on. When Steve (Porcaro) was singing the lead to Takin' it Back, every time he sang it bad he'd take off part of his clothes. He was singing a little flat so he'd take off his shoes and the next thing you know he's naked and he nails the vocal. Two weeks later it got erased and he had to do it again. And it was tripled so it wasn't like he had to do it one time! We laughed about it, though.

'I'll Supply the Love' has a great sound on the solo section.

I doubled that line.

Slide guitar on 'Georgy Porgy'?

Yeah. I haven't spent hardly any time with the slide guitar. I really like it and I have been screwing around with it out at (Keith) Olsen's place. In general I'm really not a slide player. When I hear Joe Walsh play I say, 'What's the point?'. If I spent time with it I could get it together but I like to touch the guitar, I don't like having a metal thing on my fingers. I used my '58 gold top Les Paul. I used that on a lot of that album because I didn't have my sunburst yet.

There was a very good solo on 'You Are the Flower'.

That song was a demo and the drums were in mono. We tried to re-cut it and it just didn't feel as good. That's like two little Princetons turned up in a room. With a Boss Chorus. A real trashy recording.

Do the gold top and sunburst have different sounds?

They feel completely different. The gold top has a little bit fatter neck. And it has a different sound, more midrangey.

It sounds like you used an electric sitar on 'Angels'.

It is. A Coral electric sitar.

The parts on 'Hold the Line'?

All Les Paul, and for the solo I used a Roland Space Echo.

What types of picks and strings do you use?

Ibanez has made me copies of the Fender heavy jazz picks. And I use S.I.T. strings, 'Stay In Tune' strings. And you can't break a string and you don't get bad strings. It's a standard set with .009 on the top.

Can you run down sort of briefly some of the guitars in your collection?

I have a '51 Esquire which is real cool, which I used for the 5-string bit. You take the low E string off and tune it to a G. I have four Les Pauls, an L-5 (early 70s) that Boz Scaggs gave me, a Moony Flying V (copy of a 1958), about six Ibanez guitars (including Artist models and an instrument custom built for Lukather), a '57 Stratocaster, a '63 Strat body with EMG pickups, two Valley Arts Strats with Floyd Rose tremolos, a Martin D-28, Takamine acoustic/electric 6 and 12 string, a Fender electric 12-string, a late 60s tobacco sunburst 335, and a Roland guitar synthesiser. There are others but I can't remember them. I used the Roland on the song Turn Back. Oh, and I have a couple of Schecter Strats and a Tele.

What about your effects racks?

I'm having some built right now. I think effects are becoming too standardised and everyone sounds like everybody else. But I'll still use my delays and echos, I have a passion for that stuff.

Any desire to do a solo record?

Right now, being in Toto is like doing a solo record. I can do whatever I want. Eventually, a couple years down the line if we take some time off, I'd love to do one.

Have winning the Grammys changed the outlook of the band?

I think it's a very positive thing; it really blew us all away. I don't think it's going to put any pressure on us or anything. I think we can handle that without letting it get to our heads. It's been very good for business! We've been blessed and there's no shit about that. We've been blessed.