Simon Phillips - new Rolling Stone interview

[The_Noble_Cause]

Really in-depth piece covering his career. Regarding TOTO.... he feels the band really ended in 2008. Also says Weezer's cover of Africa is uninspired and stupid - no argument there.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... o-1115962/

[r@y]

Really in-depth piece covering his career. Regarding TOTO.... he feels the band really ended in 2008. Also says Weezer's cover of Africa is uninspired and stupid - no argument there.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/musi ... o-1115962/

Thanks, great interview. I have a lot of respect for the cat, and can only wish him well in his endeavors. He was a great drummer for Toto, taking over a legend. I guess the touring was indeed a lot for him.

[Sundet]

It kind of makes me wonder if the amount of touring in fact killed the band. It's obvious from several interviews that it got too much for Simon Phillips, and it's well-known that David Paich was never a big fan of long tours to begin with, even before his health issues. It's pretty obvious that Steve Porcaro was wanted to get off prolonged the road, too.

Look at the tours Toto did up until about 1992: it was usually 3-4 weeks, maybe a couple of legs. Fahrenheit tour, for example, was a couple of weeks in Japan and Hawaii in October/November and then three weeks scheduled in Europe (a few shows were cancelled after Mike Porcaro fractured his elbow). Seventh One tour was a little longer; four weeks in Europe in March, a couple of weeks in Japan in April and then about three weeks in the US and a couple of one-offs in June/July.

Back in the early 2010s it seemed as though they'd found a working balance with the 3-4 week stints every summer, but somehow the tours got longer and longer. The XIV tour in 2015 was four months with another two-month stint in early 2016 (during which Joseph Williams became really ill), and 2018-19 was pretty much constant touring.

Steve Lukather appears to be thriving off the road, however, and I guess Joseph Williams hasn't been burned out from it, having never really taken part in several-month tours until recent years with Toto. So they are indeed the last ones standing.

[RonaldDupris]

Sounds like a bitter idiot to me. How could he possibly suggest that the Toto from 2010-2018 was not the "real" Toto but the shit version that he was in from 2004-2008 WAS?

Toto from 2004-2008 was the worst version of Toto from any era. The 2010-2018 version had Paich/Porcaro/Lukather and a killer Joe Williams on vocals. I'd also take Toto XIV over the mess-of-an-album that FIB was which sounded like 5 different bands on one record.

I like Simon but stupid comments like this make me lose respect for the guy.

[The_Noble_Cause]

Sounds like a bitter idiot to me. How could he possibly suggest that the Toto from 2010-2018 was not the "real" Toto but the shit version that he was in from 2004-2008 WAS?

Toto from 2004-2008 was the worst version of Toto from any era. The 2010-2018 version had Paich/Porcaro/Lukather and a killer Joe Williams on vocals. I'd also take Toto XIV over the mess-of-an-album that FIB was which sounded like 5 different bands on one record.

I like Simon but stupid comments like this make me lose respect for the guy.

Simon was there from 92 - 2014.

Joe's return seemed like a band revived to me as a fan lookin in. Simon was actually there tho

[St.George]

Sounds like a bitter idiot to me. How could he possibly suggest that the Toto from 2010-2018 was not the "real" Toto but the shit version that he was in from 2004-2008 WAS?

Toto from 2004-2008 was the worst version of Toto from any era. The 2010-2018 version had Paich/Porcaro/Lukather and a killer Joe Williams on vocals. I'd also take Toto XIV over the mess-of-an-album that FIB was which sounded like 5 different bands on one record.

AMEN!

I agreed 10000000% with everything u said.