(Credits: Far Out / Kåre Eide / The National Library)
Mon 2 March 2026 22:45, UK
There’s an argument to be made that Toto ruined themselves with ‘Africa’.
The song was a massive hit, bigger than that, really. But now it often overshadows the rest of the band’s catalogue, with many people overlooking their other great tracks and the standout riffs guitarist Steve Lukather wrote.
‘Hold The Line’ deserves more attention, and it demands it when you hit play and a piano intro leads you into some truly epic and dirty guitar work from Lukather, who has never quite got his flowers as one of the best power players of the time.
However, overwhelmingly, the guitarist is just happy to be there. During an interview with Guitar World, Lukather’s enduring joy and gratitude is a breath of fresh air, as he said, “I never thought in a million years that I’d be playing this when I was a 66-year-old adult,” adding with love, “I’ve enjoyed the ride, and man, what a ride it’s been.”
He said, “I gotta laugh at myself; I’m the luckiest motherfucker in the world, man.”
But like all musicians who got to have their teenage years in the golden days of the 1970s, starting their first bands while their idols were still in their prime, Lukather was constantly surrounded by incredible inspiration. Especially as he grew up in Los Angeles, the rock world was on his doorstep, and perhaps more than making his own music, merely getting to witness some heroes of music at their very best remains the ultimate joy of his life.
It wasn’t just that Lukather was getting to dance to tunes on the radio or enjoy the gigs of these great bands, but there was genuinely an almost terrifying sense in the air as, at every turn, someone seemed to be there to completely reinvent the game. Innovations were coming in fast as experimentation was ripe, and for a young player like him, it was just as daunting as it was incredible.
In particular, Lukather remembers staring at Jeff Beck, watching him shred and thinking simply: “Man, this cat’s an alien.”
He thought that back in the early days when he was a fan, but even as the two connected and collaborated on the album Lotus Gem together alongside Carlos Santana, his baffled few of Beck’s ability never changed, stating, “From being a fan as a kid, to working with him and getting to know him in the studio, to playing live shows and seeing how he did what he did – man, I would have to shake my head.”
It didn’t even feel natural or mortally possible. “The things he did were not the things normal human beings did on guitar. Wherever he was from, man, it was somewhere else,” he said, truly seeing Beck as some kind of otherworldly creature.
But, from the moment he landed on earth and started playing, whatever that creature was dared everyone to be better too, as Lukather said, “Jeff changed it all,” adding, “He was one of the greatest of all time.”