I think if you were to count the number of songs that Steve Lukather has played on, not only would it be a staggering number, I think it would also be quite a collection of monster hits. Steve is a genuinely nice guy who is fun to talk to, but he is quite entertaining at the same time. Plus, he is an extremely talented guitarist with his band Toto, Ringo’s All Starr Band and for all the studio projects he gets asked to participate in.
Steve and I had a chance to catch up recently to talk about Toto’s 2026 summer tour. During the time we spoke we went all the way back to his very beginning when he played in his first band at nine years old. “I got paid a dollar for that show and we knew five songs. We knew, um, um, “Gloria” by Them, “House Of The Rising Sun”, “I Saw Her Standing There” The Beatles, yep and um something else and we just played those over and over again to a bunch of like you know nine-year-old screaming girls. We thought we were a big deal.” Six decades later he’s still at it.
The tour this summer includes Christopher Cross and The Romantics. As we spoke about the tour Steve mentioned “I came up with a funny tagline for the tour ad mat, man, which is like either going to get me in trouble or whatever. You know what I mean? I’m just an old wise-ass singer. And you’ll see it. I can’t tell you right now, when you read it, you’re gonna laugh.” Since we’ve spoken, I have seen the tag line “So Many Hits Your Bong Will Explode!” He was right, I couldn’t help but laugh. You can check out the tour dates here.
We also spoke about other projects Steve is a part of. He mentioned Ringo’s All Starr Band. He also spoke about recently playing on a few tunes for Stevie Nicks. “How do you say no to Stevie Nicks? I mean one of the legends of all time. But man, her new stuff, wow! I ended up doing three tunes in two hours, oh wow. But she kept going, could you listen to this other song? What am I going to say? No, in a room full of people. Like I said, she couldn’t have been more beautiful and wonderful. And I had a blast. And it was the first session I’ve done in decades.”
There has been a lot of talk lately about Steve producing a project Alex Van Halen is working on with material he recorded with Eddie before he passed. Steve immediately tells me it is Alex’s project. He carefully shared with me what he could. He did stress that this is a “Long project” in its “Fetal stage.” He also described it by sharing “These songs were a little bit more complex maybe. I hate to use this word because it doesn’t really fit but for lack of a better adjective progressive in the sense of you know, out Rushing Rush a little bit, you know what I mean?”
Steve was really generous with his time, and we spoke for nearly 45 minutes. He spoke about so much of his life, from his father to his kids and of course his musical history. He spoke about his band and the family they are and even spoke about his genuine friendship with Eddie Van Halen. If you’re a fan of “Luke,” as so many people know him, then you want to watch our conversation. One thing that really came through to me as we spoke is how genuine he is. Lately I have been ending my interviews with a questionnaire. The final question is, if you could be in any band, what band would it be? Luke’s answer says so much about who he is, “You know the funny thing man, I’m just, I’m happy with where I’m at man. I’ve got; I’ve been so blessed.”