New Paich Article (6/23/25)

[The_Noble_Cause]

Vulture has posted an interview with Paich, where he discusses some of his most notable songs (TOTO and non-TOTO). The TOTO excerpts are included below:


Toto, “Hold the Line” (1978)


Me, Jeff, Steve Lukather, and Steve Porcaro had been in a high-school band together, so we knew some of these cover songs from our school days. One that had inspired me was a Sly and the Family Stone song called “Hot Fun in the Summertime.” I really liked the feel of it, so I wanted to write something that felt like that with triplets. It’s got old Fats Domino “Blueberry Hill”–inspired triplets in the keyboard. The rest of “Hold the Line” became this riff that I caught for the intro. I had just got my first apartment and I bought an upright piano. I played this riff. I got it in my head and I wouldn’t stop playing it for about three days. People were pounding on the wall, yelling at me to stop playing. The landlords almost evicted me for not stopping the piano for 24 hours. When we finally got in the studio, it happened just like butter. It was our first song for our first session, if you can believe it.

Toto, “Georgy Porgy” (1978)

It crossed over into the R&B charts and became a hit record, which kind of surprised me. I had been strongly influenced by people like Quincy Jones and Marvin Gaye, and I wanted to write something that just made me feel great. I needed to feel fresh and new, so I started writing this riff. When I first met Walter from Steely Dan, he was reading a book. I said, “What are you reading right now, man?” And he said, “A book of children’s nursery rhymes.” I said, “Wow, that’s interesting.” So I went to the store and I bought a book of nursery rhymes. Sure enough, the first page I opened was “Georgie Porgie.” I thought, This would be a hip Earth, Wind & Fire–ish kind of R&B song. So I wrote the song very quickly. I tried to find inspiration from that book again but couldn’t strike gold twice.


Toto, “Rosanna” (1982)

Cutting “Rosanna” was a real milestone for the band. We knew we were onto something as far as being able to raise the bar and keep the standard high as far as hits go. I knew it was going to be a hit record when we cut it. I actually think it’s Toto’s best record — you hear each of the musicians step out on their own. I remember we had once played with Chris Squire, the bass player from Yes. I noticed how his bass sound was mainly getting through. He didn’t do it through a normal bass amplifier, which is an Ampeg amplifier and a direct cord, but he played through a Marshall amplifier, which is indicative of Jimi Hendrix and loud guitar players. It’s got this little bit of distortion on it. So David switched to a Marshall on the “Rosanna” section, which gave it this extra rock grit and power.


Toto, “Africa” (1982)

We thought the whole Toto IV album was done. We had everything we needed on the album, but thought about maybe adding one more cut. In those days, you could only spend so much time on vinyl, so time was a consideration. You could only do, like, 20 minutes a side. I started messing around in the studio, because I had just gotten a new synthesizer from Yamaha called the CS-80. I wrote this riff and it sounded so good on that synthesizer. I wrote down words that inspired me. “I hear the drums echoing tonight.” I started getting into this geographical transition for a place I had never been, but always wanted to visit: Africa.

I romanticized a story about a gentleman who’s a social worker there, or a missionary, who needs companionship and strikes up a long-distance love affair. The band told me I should save that for my solo album. But it ended up evolving as we started playing it all together. Jeff came up with a great drum loop that we cut to, and then Al Schmitt, our engineer, cut the tape up and made a loop out of it — old Beatles style. It’s commonplace for people to loop stuff now because they have computers. But back in those days, you had to cut a two-inch tape and then run it around the room because it would be so long. You had to put it around mic stands just to hold the tape up. It was a funny process to endure for a song.


https://www.vulture.com/article/toto-be ... y-dan.html