Formed in 1977 by David Paich and Jeff Porcoro, TOTO was the synthesis of six of the finest and most respected musicians in Los Angeles. Along with Lukather, Kimball, basist David Hungate and keyboardist Steve Porcoro, the group took the music community by storm, releasing the eponymous debut album, "TOTO," in 1977 and earning a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. Yielding the smash singles "Hold the Line," "Georgy Porgy," and "I'll Supply the Love," TOTO began their illustrious career immediately at the top of the charts.
In 1982, the TOTO released the multi-platinum classic, "TOTO IV," winning several Grammy awards, including Producer of the Year, Album of the Year, and Record of the Year for "Rosanna." The band immediately rocketed to international stardom. Including the incredibly popular "Africa" as well as ballad "I Won't Hold You Back," TOTO IV kept the band at the top of the charts for most of the year, and TOTO's incredible talent and ingenuity garnered great international acclaim.
Shortly thereafter, Bobby Kimball left the band and was replaced with Le Roux's Fergie Fergie Frederiksen, and Mike Porcaro replaced David Hungate on bass. The band only released one album with Frederiksen on lead vocals, afterwhich he was replaced by Joseph Williams, son of film composer John Williams. During Williams' tenure as lead vocalist, Steve Porcaro left the band to pursue a career in film and television scoring.
In 1988, TOTO released "The Seventh One" which returned them to the top of the international charts with hits such as "Pamela," "Stop Loving You," and "Home of the Brave." Despite the album's success, however, Williams left the band and was replaced for a short time by Jean-Michel Byron, who participated on the band's "Past to Present" release in 1990 and then left. The task of lead vocals then fell to Steve Lukather.
In 1992, tragedy struck when Jeff Porcaro died suddently of a heart attack. While deeply mourning his passing, TOTO went forward with the "Kingdom of Desire" Tour, where Simon Phillips filled in on drums. At the close of the tour, Phillips was invited to permanently join the band.
Several years later, the band reunited with vocalists Kimball and Williams for a 20th Anniversary Tour, after which Kimball rejoined the band permanently as lead vocalist. A few years later, Greg Phillinganes joined the band on tour, filling in for the semi-retired David Paich and eventually becoming a permanent member in 2005.
In 2006, TOTO released "Falling In Between," the band's first studio record since 1999. The band are currently finishing up the 2006 leg of the Falling In Between tour, which will continue through 2007.
I recently spoke to Toto's lead vocalist, Bobby Kimball, enjoy!!
Hi Bobby, so great to talk to you, hope things are going well for you. I was going threw the TOTO website and listening to your new material. What was the motivation and inspiration to write new material and come out with a new album after so many years, you last album being in 1999?
We’re constantly trying to break into new areas. We’re not just an old band that’s just resting on our laurels. We’re still out there in the fight. Inspiration is there with us at all times. We try to keep everything really fresh. We don’t want to go on stage and play the same old stuff every night. A lot of bands do that and a lot of bands get away with it, but I have to think that they’re really bored with what they’re doing, we’re not... far, far, far from it.
You’ve mostly been touring throughout Europe lately and haven’t been back in the States for a while, why is that?
Well you know, it’s basically making a living, we found that our market in Europe, Japan and in South America, all non English speaking countries (laughs), well, we found that we were getting 10-20k seaters full in these places, it was a natural progression because we weren’t doing that well in the U.S. and we didn’t service this market for so long, it just kind of fell apart for us. But now we have a new agency and they believe in us and we’re trying to build our market here and it seems to be working really well because out of our last 10 or so concerts everything has been sold out.
Going back, after TOTO IV, you left the band for a while, Fergie Frederickson taking your place, why did you leave and where you doing anything else musically during your hiatus?
Well, it wasn’t my decision to leave, I was asked to go. Everything was a little crazy at the time, we had a lot of disagreement in the band. After that happened, I moved to Germany for about 5 years, I had to get away from L.A. for a little while because I was into some pretty weird things as well as everyone else. I went over and recorded several CD’s in Europe, which never got released in the States. During the time I was in search of another band like TOTO, but jeez, there’s NOT another band like TOTO.
What prompted your return to TOTO?
I started communicating with Steve Lukather again, I mean it took a long time for that about 15-16 years, thank Bill Gates for this one. We started e-mailing each other and figured that it was probably better that I was IN the band than out of the band because they had suffered a bit of their own trauma as well as me suffering my obvious trauma without being with the band. When we got back together we started filling big arenas again and sold-out concerts. So everything worked out for the best for everyone.
You recently did a show with Fergie, what was it like to share the stage with another vocalist?
It was Fantastic! I’m friends with all those guys, as a matter of fact, Joseph Williams is going to be doing the L.A. shows with us. It’s a lot of fun because I have a deep respect for these guys.
Are there any plans in the works for a new TOTO CD and are you planning on releasing any more future solo recordings?
I do plan on releasing solo recordings, there’s a certainty there, as a matter of fact I’ve already started working it with Jason Scheff, the lead singer for Chicago, but as far as a new TOTO CD, I think CD’s are pretty much in the death column, because they’re buying songs from Itunes, so why would a company stock CD’s and transport them and have to pay someone to sell them when most people are buying song by song off of the internet. Probably more than likely we’ll go in and record 2 or 3 songs and sell them on the internet.
I sent out a bulletin to Myspacers to be able to ask you any questions and this question is from Denise Ames, she asks: "How did it feel to know that TOTO jump started dancer / actress Cynthia Rhodes’ career by casting her in your "Rosanna" video?
Well you know, we saw Cynthia, she’s married to Richard Marx, we had played Chicago not to long before that and they both came to the concert, actually that felt great, she’s absolutely a sweetheart and just a beautiful person.
Do you have a favorite song from the new album that is your favorite to play live and why?
Falling in Between. You know everyone thinks were a little soft Rock band, but this band can rock with the best of them. We can play classical music, we can play Jazz, we can sit in and play with anybody as a matter of fact, about 2 years ago, we played the Tokyo Jazz Festival, we were the only Rock band invited, by Herbie Hancock and at the end of the concert, Toto got up and jammed with Herbie. You know, not many bands can say that they did that, we can go and play with AC/DC and be right there in the groove with them, with Lemmy, from Motorhead, you know we can get on stage with anybody. We can play with a punk rock band, rock bands, doesn’t matter.
You recorded a tribute album to the late Ray Charles some time ago with some incredible versions of "What I’d say" and "Georgia". How did Ray Charles influence your music career?
Ray Charles is the reason I sing. The first time I heard him I knew I wanted to do that. I was in love with his whole thing. It was tragic to me when he passed away. I saw him in concert about 3 months before he passed away.
The sound of your new album "Falling In between" is more progressive than past releases by TOTO. How did the band approach this more progressive and aggressive style?
This one was totally different for us, because we didn’t have any songs when we walked into the studio, we decided to go into the studio and jam, it’s something our band does better than almost anyone, we just jammed and recorded everything for about 7 or 8 hours, and our drummer engineer technician extra ordinaire he started going threw the jam tracks and finding the spots that worked best together and then he made a CD for me and I would take these home and we would write lyrics for these and come back the next day, sing them, and all of a sudden, we had a song going, we did that with the whole album.
Is there anything else that you would like to add? Any messages to the fans?
Well definitely don’t miss this concert, these L.A. concerts because we’re going to be really geared up for them and Joseph Williams is going to be there, he’s such a great guy, a dear friend to everyone in the band. I think they’re going to be extra special.
Well Bobby, I want to thank you for taking the time to do the interview with "All Access" magazine.
Anytime we’ll see you soon.
For more information please visit them on the web at www.toto99.com or on myspace at www.myspace.com/toto99
