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Podcast Notes: Broken Record - Episode with David Paich
Episode Overview
- Podcast Title: Broken Record
- Hosts: Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam, Justin Richmond
- Guest: David Paich
- Episode Description: A deep dive into the life and career of David Paich, co-founder of the band Toto and writer of iconic songs like “Africa.”
Key Themes and Topics
David Paich's Early Life
- Musical Upbringing:
- Grew up in Los Angeles; son of composer Marty Paich.
- Early exposure to music and composition helped shape his career.
- Professional Beginnings:
- Started playing keyboards professionally during college at USC, touring with Sonny & Cher.
- Co-wrote and performed on Boz Scaggs' multi-platinum album *Silk Degrees*.
Career Highlights
- Toto Formation and Success:
- Co-founded Toto in 1977 alongside drummer Jeff Porcaro.
- Principal songwriter for Toto, credited with hits like “Rosanna,” “Hold The Line,” and “Africa.”
- Discussed the uniqueness of their sound, blending various genres, which confused record labels at the time.
- Collaboration with Legends:
- Worked with Quincy Jones on Michael Jackson’s *Thriller*.
- Paich played significant roles in multiple iconic albums, including playing on “Human Nature.”
Songwriting and Production Insights
- Songwriting Process:
- Paich emphasizes the importance of structure in songwriting—favoring verse-chorus forms.
- Shared anecdotes on how some of the best-known songs came to be, including the story behind the creation of “Africa.”
- Studio Experiences:
- Describes the atmosphere in studios such as Sunset Sound and the collaborative dynamic with other musicians.
- Talks about the process of creating memorable riffs, specifically for songs like “Human Nature.”
Relationships and Collaborations
- Dynamic with Band Members:
- Discussed the brotherly bonds with fellow band members and how they supported each other creatively.
- Shared insights on friendly competitions within the band regarding songwriting and musicality.
- Encountering Other Musical Icons:
- Recalled stories of meeting legendary figures such as Oscar Peterson and how those interactions influenced his music.
Key Takeaways
- Musical Versatility:
- David Paich embodies the ability to traverse various musical styles, contributing to his success as a songwriter and musician.
- Importance of Collaboration:
- Successful music often arises from collaborative environments, rich in diverse ideas and talents.
- Legacy of Toto:
- The band's ability to blend genres and produce timeless hits remains influential in the music industry.
Conclusion David Paich's career is a testament to the power of musical roots, collaboration, and creativity. His stories provide insight not only into the music industry of the past but also into the enduring nature of great songwriting and performance.
Additional Resources
- Playlist: Access a curated playlist of David Paich's music [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5jtedsDehz1nvOKPiSN3Ma?si=3352c3ca57044486&nd=1&dlsi=d0b5c030f9e749c5).
- More Episodes: Subscribe to *Broken Record* for more insights into musical legends.
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Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:06Pushkin. This is an iHeart Podcast. In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal. T-Mobile knows all about that. They're now the best network, according to the experts at Ooclas Speedtest. And they're using that network to launch Supermobile, the first and only business plan to combine intelligent performance, built-in security, and seamless satellite coverage. That's your business, Supercharged. Learn more at supermobile.com. Seamless coverage with compatible devices in most outdoor areas in the U.S.
0:48where you can see the sky. Best network based on analysis by Ookla of Speedtest Intelligence Data 1H 2025. This episode of Broken Record is brought to you by Chase Sapphire Reserve. Traveling is one of life's greatest joys. Honestly, can anything be more exhilarating? Well, actually, yeah, with Chase Sapphire Reserve. It's your gateway to the world's most captivating destinations. First, you will earn eight times points on all purchases through Chase Travel. And the card gets you into Sapphire Lounge by the club at select airports nationwide and access to one-of-a-kind experiences. Whether you are booking a once-in-a-lifetime trip or your next weekend escape, discover more with Chase Sapphire Reserve at chase.com slash sapphire reserve.
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2:14Cheryl Lynn's Got To Be Real, Steely Dan's Black Friday, Toto's Georgie Porgy, all some of the most monster keyboard piano grooves of all time. And they all have at least one man in common. That's prolific musician and songwriter David Pache. David honed his chops early growing up in L.A., where he worked under the tutelage of his father, Marty Paish, an esteemed composer who worked with artists like Mel Torme, Ray Charles, and even Ella Fitzgerald. While in college at USC, David started playing keyboard professionally and touring with Sonny and Cher. From there, he went on to co-write and play on Boz Skagg's multi-platinum album, Silk Degrees.
2:56He also worked extensively with Quincy Jones, playing on multiple iconic albums, including Michael Jackson's Thriller, N Bad. All throughout his work as a session musician, David also served as Toto's principal songwriter and wrote chart-topping hits like Rosanna, Hold the Line, and of course, most famously, Africa. On today's episode, I talked to David Paish about what it was like to be such an accomplished player at such a young age. He shares crazy stories about working with Michael Jackson and Quincy on Thriller, and how he came up with the intro to Michael Jackson's Human Nature, probably the greatest keyboard riff of all time.
3:33David also plays parts from some of the best songs he's written and talks about how they came to be. This is Broken Record, liner notes for the digital age. I'm Justin Richman. Here's my conversation with David Paish. a few weeks ago i was on a run and shara lynn's got to be real came on when i was on my run and i was like that's the perfect groove like the keyboard is the perfect i was like i gotta go home and learn that so i went home and i started messing around i was like who who played on this i didn't actually had no idea i looked it up and it was you yeah i was like what the fuck this guy does everything me and ray parker helped me put the rhythm section together we got ganson and a guy that just moved out from Detroit and played on the Emotions record named David Shields.
4:20And that was like the last record he did was like, got to be real kind of thing. But that was a great rhythm section. And we cut that. And it's one of my favorite R &B things that I've ever done. You know what I mean? Do you mind playing just the riff? I'll show you. The song started this way with me coming in with the riff. And Cheryl started singing a little bit. And then David Foster came in. and we were, I was in Sunset Sound and he came in and played a little B section for me, you know, but the riff goes.
5:10Right? That's the greatest groove, man. Then I heard a Mariah Carey song. It sounds like it sounds just about like Got To Be Real. She's got a song out. It came out right after that. Really? It sounded like Got To Be Real, yeah. Same changes. Did you reach out? No. No. No, man. It's all good, you know? Your dad was a producer on that, right? He was, co-producer. We co-produced that together. He kind of discovered her, you know what I mean? It's 1978. 1978. You're right. And you're called in by your dad sets the set? My dad made a call to someone at Sony, which was CBS at the time. And so I just heard this girl.
5:46He had a friend that worked, Butler, I forget what his first name, was the jazz department at Sony. And my dad called him and said, I just heard this girl on the gong show, Cheryl Lynn. And he says, well, funny enough, we're trying to do an album with her right now. And they'd cut some cuts with her. And so they gave it to my dad. My dad, I had come off of Silk Degrees with Boss Skaggs. so my dad said well if i team up with david let's co-produce this thing so we ended up co-producing your first album you know and david foster is a part of that he's a part of that he came in just for a second i was at sunset sound and foster just came over to hear what we were doing and i said i'm working on this song got to be real so you know he went and i went and he did
6:43you know
6:52you know so when you're called in to work on a song like that or i mean obviously this you're a bigger part of this project in general but when you're working on a song like that How did that riff come to be? Like, how did... Well, I heard it was kind of influenced by the motions to the song called Best of My Love. Yes. And I heard...
7:13And I like that beat, but I always like putting the hump in it, you know?
7:21You know, and I had Ganson on drums, you know what I mean? He just killed it, you know what I mean? Yeah. And at the same time, after I found that out, I was looking at the year 78, and I realized at the same time that that record is huge. Yeah. You're putting out Toto's first record. Yeah, first album. And consequently, Cheryl sang on Georgie Porgy. Georgie Porgy, which I never knew that was her. Yeah, that was her. She just came in because we weren't going to put the song on, because I'd get to the part, I'd sing it, Georgie Porgy, and it was just like white bread. You know what I mean? And Cheryl Lynn heard it, and she goes, well let me sing that and she goes georgie pogey putin by kiss the girls and we crossed over into the r &b market where it sold like a million copies man yeah man so do you remember writing that song georgie pogey yeah i was listening to a lot of uh dance music i was listening to a lot of barry white because he had started his stuff with piano and i was listening to quincy jones on the i want you album with marvin gay yeah and because my friend uh is that leon where Leon Ware was a friend of my dad's and I'd written something with Leon Ware and I was very influenced by that album Chuck Rainey and Gadsden on it those guys beautiful sound I want you you know what I mean and it was very much that
8:52It was kind of a Barry White thing. Yeah. Remember when Barry White did it?
9:09You know, it kind of came out of that era, you know what I mean? Amazing. This is your first album with Toto. Now, you're an accomplished, we'll talk about it, but you've played on so many records throughout the 70s. How are you thinking about writing this song? You have that wonderful piece, you maybe have that second part, that Barry White sounding piece, how are you putting it together, the lyrics? That's just because I've learned to get the form of a song right, to have a verse, a B section, and a chorus, and then maybe an instrumental or a bridge. And I'm not a big fan of bridges. I just like verse, chorus, instrumental, and take it out.
9:42No bridge for you, huh? Because people, well, they kind of throw bridges away. I like the Beatles and Elton and those guys, when they write a bridge, it's like it lifts the song, which is what a bridge should do to me. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. At what point would you take a song like that to the rest of the group? Right as soon as we started Got In Our Deal, and I've been playing this song a little bit with Jeff. We'd go and do sessions together. And on the breaks, when everybody else was out of the room, I'd start playing these things and Jeff was getting to the groove. So we rehearsed a lot of our album on other people's records.
10:16Really? You know what I mean? Playing, just jamming on them when there's breaks or no one's in the room or whatever. you know so when i got to the record i had like two or three things already cooking you know what i mean how did you how did you guys get your deal interesting we never had to perform live to get our deal with the only like the only group and the only group that got to produce itself we had people named don ellis vice president of cbs and a guy named terry powell and after we'd done the boss skaggs record silk degrees there was a lot of spotlight on us because we were the rhythm section for that whole record yeah and then we came and went out on the road with them too and toured with boss and so cbs was like well why don't you guys form a band and we had already been planning this whole thing since high school to put our band back together high school band so we were like oh good idea you guys and we just we started working on demos then and uh i did miss sun for a demo which was boss gag song a song i wrote for boz and we just did some demos and I started writing more, you know, getting into my writing and it just happened.
11:21And because you guys were so adept in the studio, they were totally comfortable letting you guys just take the reins. Yeah. They were letting us do whatever we wanted to do, you know? Wow. You know, what does it feel like to be you in 1978? I mean, Georgie Porgy's on the radio, Hold the Lines on the radio. Yes. Yeah. It was great. Got to be real on the radio. The first time we heard ourselves on the radio, we, we all called each other so fast on the radio i was at my sister's apartment and i heard this thing piano i heard and i said that sounds really familiar i said it sounds like me actually sounds like me playing oh fuck that's our record it's on the radio and every we were all calling the radio stations requesting it and shit like that like teenagers you know what i mean and did it feel different with it actually being your group yes your song versus you playing on we were like we were like screaming kids you know what i mean oh my god i can't believe it we would try calling each other and all the lines were busy because we were all calling each other calling each other calling the radio that's right i'll call them all of our friends to request the song you know what i mean because back to then if you had people called in enough they'd add it to the station you know what station were you guys first getting played on kjr up in seattle there was a guy named steve West, who was a friend of our managers, because our managers had managed Chicago and Rufus.
12:41Amazing. That's what they had. And so they knew program directors all around the United States. So this guy, they hopped on it. And as soon as a P1, which is the top radio stations or P1s, as soon as he went on it, it broke and everybody went on it. And it ended up going double platinum, the record. Obviously, if you listen to that first record, it's pretty clear you guys are fluent musically, like you can play anything. I was always curious if on the label side or manager side, was there ever any, like, well, guys, like Hold the Line feels very different from Georgie Porgy. Oh, absolutely. They were like, there's a lot of the comments where there's no thread.
13:20You guys don't have a sound. What is your sound? We can't tell you if you're an R &B group or you're a rock and roll group or adult contemporary group. What are you? And we just said, this is it. This is what we are. We do all this stuff. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because to your point, Georgie Porgy feels like a song that would have, like, you know, I mean, the way they grouped things back then, that would have been like a song, would have been a huge hit on black radio. That's right. And then hold the line. There's no way that would have ever played on, you know? You're totally right. You know what I mean?
13:46It was all thought of like that, you know? But that's why we wanted to be different. We wanted to just do good music of any kind, any genre, you know? When you guys started going out on that record, what were you noticing about your audience? Was it growing over time? It was. It was. A little bit. We waited until we had, again, the double platinum album before we went out and started touring a little bit. That was uncommon then, too. I mean, that's a common occurrence now that someone has this huge album or huge song and then has to go figure out how to go do a live show. That's right. That's right.
14:18Less common then. Yeah, less common then. Yeah, you had to kind of work your way up and make an audience. But the thing happened, it broke in Europe. and we didn't know what Europe was all about. Europe and Amsterdam, there was a guy named Big Al, who was the DJ there, and he broke, I think, all the line there in Amsterdam. And Europe just went nuts, like Beatle crazy nuts over this stuff. So when we did a promotional tour there, they took us around to all the clubs where they were playing our music, and it was just like, it was great. You know what I mean? There was just so many people screaming and everything like that.
14:53But he broke our record, And then we started getting offers for gigs with good money back then to come in and play shows, you know, to headline and shit over in Europe and stuff. So Europe has just been a big cash cow and a great long multi-generational audience for us since then. And they never even you could not have a hit record for a long time. And they're still becoming your concerts and stuff like that. Very loyal fans and great music audiences over Europe. You had an incredible career as a studio guy at the time. Were you thinking for sure that that first record was going to be what it was, that it would have the popularity?
15:35We were planning on it. We always had confidence in ourselves. That's the one thing Toto did. We knew what we could do if we got the chance. You know what I mean? So you guys were ready to become the main show, in other words. Yeah, we were shooting for the big time the whole time. So tell me a bit about growing up. What were your first encounters with me? I grew up in Reseda until I was five. And my father, I remember my father playing piano. He had a piano room there. He did all his writing. And I remember hearing the Blues in the Night in there. My mama didn't tell me. You know, Blues in the Night.
16:12He had done a version with Elvis Sherrill and Mel Torme. And so that was the first song that I picked out on the piano. Wow. My dad heard me picking it out. So he said, do you know how to play that? Then I started taking piano lessons and stuff. That's when you knew that I had some kind of gift, you know. And you were a kid kid at that point. Yeah, I was like five. Five. Okay. But I didn't start studying piano until I was eight because I got into drums. My dad was using a drummer named Shelly Mann. Shelly Mann just did a whole bunch of things with Bill Evans. And he did all the Mancini stuff. He had the Shelly and the manhole, his club.
16:45But I used to sit next to him and just watch him play drums. And that's all I could think about. 24 hours a day was drums. Wow. And then I started getting more serious about piano when my dad said, you know, if you have to get your technique together, you're not going to be able to make it. So I got a warning. I got a wake-up call early. And by the time I was 12, I started studying classical music. My dad put me with a classical teacher. And I started, you know, going through all the literature and stuff like that. Were you into it at that time? No. Getting into the classical? No. No. Okay. No.
17:15But I knew I wanted to be a professional musician. So I was like, whatever it takes. This is the road I'm going down. fine even it feels like it's taking you further away from the stuff it's like it's hard and it has nothing to do with rock and jazz yeah you know but i knew that my dad said oscar peterson studied classical all these guys studied classical you know so if you want to play like oscar you better spend the time you know i feel like a lot of times kids want to buck their parents or you know my dad was a played football and so i wanted nothing to do with football you know is he professional he did play professionally for a bit and got injured but cool man i'm a big NFL nut.
17:52Everyone is, and I'm not, just honestly, because it was just too, it was just like, everything was centered around football. Everything was like, oh yeah, I bet. I bet you were just smothered with that shit. Smothered with it. And I was just like, you know, I want to go, I want to go do music or whatever. I mean, what do you think it is about your relationship with your dad that allowed you to, to connect with them with what he does professionally? Well, I, cause I love music and I was very quiet kid. And when you had to be quiet in those days, You couldn't talk at all. When we were in the studio with my dad, there was no talking log.
18:24Musicians or anything like that. You have to be like it was a deaf mute. You know what I mean? So me and my dad got along real great, and he showed me how to do things, and we watched football and baseball together and stuff. But he was always working. So the first job I had, Joseph Williams and I talk about this all the time because my dad was peers with John Williams. They were good friends. Joseph and I talk about our first jobs as students to them were sharpening his pencils and making sure they didn't run out of erasers. That's their job. You sit in a room all day long, not say a word, and just hear you hear zzzz on the sharpening pencils, zzzz, in the room, like all day long.
19:04Amazing. That's what we did. Then finally I started singing a few things. My dad goes, sing me a line here for this. And I'd sing a line in an arrangement, and he'd use it. As he was composing or arranging for. He was composing and arranging for The Fifth Dimension. He did Up, Up, and Away for them. He produced and arranged The Way We Were for Barbra Streisand and all these big orchestral things. And I got to help him on those arrangements. Once you got to a certain level, would he show you how he approached those things? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, and he had a master's degree in music composition.
19:43So he knew how to teach me. But he never stopped writing. He was a writing machine, like John Williams, same thing, a writing machine. You know, all they do, you just see them writing pencil to paper, you know. And it's amazing what those guys that knew, because of their classical training, how that would translate to orchestra. You know, when you just have a piano, guys do it now because they can play a synth, they can play a string sound, they can play a flute sound, and you can hear, oh, that'll work, you know what I mean? Where back then, they just had pianos, you know. yeah they have samplers and all that stuff you know so my dad taught me literally i was his apprentice for 20 years you know oh my gosh it was great did he have any like maxims or things he would always return to or things he'd always tell you like things oh yeah turn to my dad lots of rules yeah probably like your dad had some rules yeah dad's good good about that yeah my dad was like you know hey the melody the singer is the most important part make sure you can hear the melody the singer the singer is the whole thing the singer and the song you know and you're you're just servicing the singer you know that's great and he worked with just great singers you know uh lena horn uh sammy davis jesse belvin uh ella sarah vaughn ray charles i mean everyone insane yeah at what point did you realize the talent level of talent your dad was working with I didn't until we would start going to shows at the Greek theater.
21:09And Sammy Davis would be there or somebody like that. And they'd introduce my dad and put a spotlight on him in the audience. And I went, wow. My dad would stand up. Everybody would be applauding for him. And once I heard that, I went, that's pretty cool. Amazing. Yeah. Just be a kid and you're Sammy Davis Jr. And everybody respects your dad. That's all they got. All the adults who worked for my dad were super nice to me. They treated me like I was an adult. And they were all dressed so cool. They dressed like, all the dressing guys came from like Ellington's band. The way those guys would, gold cufflinks and loose ties and hats on and lots of jewelry and all this stuff.
21:48You know, where I was like, I was looking at my school teachers like, this is boring right here. You know, I'd go with my dad's guys and they're all dressed sharp and they're super nice and smoking cigarettes, doing shit, you know. So it was a cool existence. It was like the jazz area. Jazz area was still there. My dad was still making jazz records with singers at the time. So I got to see that crossover when I was a kid. We'll have to pause for a quick break, and then we'll come back with more of my conversation with David Pache. In today's super competitive business environment, the edge goes to those who push harder, move faster, and level up every tool in their arsenal.
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25:11I can do it with my eyes closed. I'm Manny. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And on our new show, No Such Thing, we get to the bottom of questions like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence. Those who lack expertise, lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. And then as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what? Oh, that's the runway. I'm looking at this thing, see? Listen to No Such Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. we're back with more from david page you told me when you were four before we started recording that you were 14 when you when you met quincy jones for the first time i was 14 when i met quincy my dad was working on a one of quincy's solos album and i forget the name of the album but the song was called the anderson files and it was a sean conry movie that come out quincy done the music for well quincy used to throw my dad have my dad ghost for him ghost arrange and my dad did a couple charts for him and I got to help my dad with those charts sing a couple lines to him you know and so I went to Quincy's house and I think it was Benedict Canyon at the time I think he lived there, Bel Air and anyway I met him and you know I ended up working for him later on the Thriller album and James Ingram and Patty Austin stuff like that so it was he's been we've been family members Quincy with us for since I was a kid you know so crazy so you you're a kid and you're immersed in this world of jazz yeah through your father and through like just your interest too and you're learning and oscar peterson's the heroes you're picking up classical music trying to get ready and then the 70s hit and you start doing some incredible sessions like really young yeah the first hit record i did was seals and crofts diamond girl okay that was a very that was one of the first sessions but that was the first hit record i had and once i had that word got around and i started getting calls for sessions you know i heard a story about you being at usc that was me that was that was during that time and you got a call from uh jackson brown jackson brown and it was so funny because it was like usc at the time in the dorm i was in which is an all-boy dorm it was like animal house you know what i mean i mean there were guys showing movies throwing parties and shit and and there was only the phone at the time no one had cell phones it was a pay phone in the hallway and the guy knocks on my door and i'm in the room doing something i forget and uh he says there's a guy named jackson brown on the phone for you don't hang up on it and i got in the hallway and he goes like where the hell are you at it sounds you know because people are screaming and doing all kinds of shit and he says we want you to come down and play on uh on his for every man record down at sunset and i played on a song these days for Jackson Brown.
28:07One of his incredible signature songs that he wrote when he was a kid and Nico did. Yeah, John Haney was there at Sunset Sound, you know? Wow. And it was cool. When you turn up, when you're coming from the environment that you're coming out of and you're driving then down to the studio. I was like, no switch. I was like, I had my jacket, my jeans on. It's like where I used to just stay in my clothes, you know what I mean? How often would you walk into a session like that and have to play on something you weren't too into? Quite a bit. I started weeding out those sessions, though. I wasn't a great reader.
28:41I'm not a great reader. There's guys that sight read, and that's their job, what they do. A guy I learned from, Mike Lang, who was one of the best. He did all Jerry Goldsmith stuff. So I would start to go to how much reading is involved, I'd have to ask, because my dad told me to do that, because he would have to do the same thing. John Williams was the guy you'd call if you want to sight read stuff. And my dad would just play, do sessions with jazz guys where the reading wasn't too terribly hard, you know? Right. So I got a reputation for playing and being a rock and roll player and an R &B player.
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29:12I started working at Motown when I was 18 with Motown out in the West Coast called Mo West. Wow. And so we did all these orchestral dates with rhythm section, two drummers, and everything. It was live music doing stuff. we did some stuff for Thelma Houston and Diana Ross and some of the Jacksons, you know, gosh, man. I mean, obviously you've got the talent and everything, but what luck too, because it feels like the seventies really like to your point of now there's Mo West. It's like the business really seemed to be coming out. It really did. I mean, it was thriving. The obsession industry and songwriters and doing all this kind of stuff.
29:48I hadn't hit as a songwriter yet, but that led up to Jeff introduced me to boss Skaggs. Yeah. who because jeff and i had boss had been producing a guitarist that was with the allman brothers named les dudek and they needed an organ player so i played hammond pretty good and uh uh we went out and we did that album with boss producing and boss liked how he played so he asked me if i wanted to maybe co-write an album he was looking for a co-writer he'd never co-written with anybody and uh so i said hell yeah and we sat down i think it was on this piano uh up at santa barbara My dad had a ranch up there.
30:26We stayed there for two weeks and wrote most of the stuff on Silk to Grease album on piano. Wow. And that album just took off. That album was like a pinnacle watershed album. Yeah, Lowdown. I mean. Yeah, Lido. Lido. You know? Unbelievable, man. How were the Steely Dan sessions? Steely Dan sessions were fun, okay? Donald and Walter characters. Me and Jeff idolized them. Jeff was in Steely Dan for a while. You know, he was a drummer. So they heard about us. They wanted to start using session players instead of their band. So somehow we got a call. Jeff knew their guitar player, Denny Diaz. And they called Jeff, and they were looking for a piano keyboard player that could play other keyboards.
31:13So they called me, and I was on Clavinet. It was on the Prezzo Logic album. It was a song called Night by Night that I played on. And I was playing. All I had to do was keep time on the Clavinet. because Billy Preston, Out of Space, had come out, and I was all over the clavinet. That was my axe. Give me a wah-wah pedal and a clavinet, and I'll kill it. You know what I mean? So I did that. Then they did an album after. That was Katie Lide, which Jeff played on the whole thing. I played on Black Friday. That was me and Michael Lamartian playing keyboards. And I played on Dr. Wu on that album, on Katie Lide.
31:46But they were fun because Donald was so neurotic and anxious. he'd be pacing back and forth singing the guide vocal but the lyrics were so interesting we were just like man i dig it's deep you know you had to concentrate like don't start listening to them singing because you'll fuck up you know what i mean yeah and now in hindsight people kind of regard steely dan and those sessions and the work that was done as like kind of like that's almost biblical if i can't touch it that is did they have that reputation at the time when you were They didn't. They didn't. They were kind of on the dark side and low key, and people didn't know about them.
32:21Steely Dan wasn't a big no-nip. They had Ricky Don't Lose That Number was the one song that they did. But other than that, they were kind of eclectic. You know what I mean? And they were doing different kinds of stuff, jazzy kind of stuff back then. And they weren't mainstream. The record companies didn't know what to do with them at all until Irving Azoff said, I know what to do with them. and he signed him, got Warner Brothers to sign him, you know what I mean? Out of, away from ABC Dunhill. Wow, man. You know? When did your interest in songwriting start to? I've always been in, I started in high school.
32:57When Elton John first came out with his first record, I just wanted to be Elton John. I mean, that was my hero. Yeah. Had glasses on, short hair, and performed rock and roll at the piano and stuff. So I just started writing songs, copying his kind of songs. and also I had known my dad did a lot of work with Jimmy Webb I learned that's the guy I started copying I mean first emulating his trying to trying to emulate him before you get into Elton it's Jimmy Webb yeah Jimmy Webb and I was doing trying to play like and play like him and write like him before I made the Elton John connection it was my apprenticeship you know what I mean what was it like going to school and you're like doing this kind of thing I was doing, here's the trip, okay?
33:43I was, me and Jeff and David Hunygate were Sonny and Cher's rhythm section on the road. When I got out of high school, the first gig I had was touring with them, okay? On the road. And they had the Sonny and Cher show at the time. They were the biggest thing in the United States. They were getting like 100 grand a night. So me and Jeff, I joined. Jeff had already been with them for six months. He left high school early. and so my dad said okay he's going to college next year now how are we going to deal with that and the and the sunny and share people said we will fly him in to go to his classes when we're not playing and shit like that and so they flew me in i was going to usc a couple days a week i was missing a bunch of classes but i go to usc i would do an ironsides date and i would fly back to las vegas to conduct for sunny and share wow that was true i imagine you probably didn't care about going to USC?
34:37Was it just like your parents? I just had to do it. I had to do it to fill out my grades and pass. What was it like hanging with Sonny and Cher? He was kind of her fall guy. You know what I mean? She would make jokes and he was the little short Italian guy. But they were selling out these huge arenas. We met all these promoters, all the big Elton John promoters, all the big agents and everything like that because they were big time. They had their own jet. We were traveling on Hugh Hefter's playboy jet was the jet that we traveled in you back and yes with like bunny stewardesses okay and i was just out of high school we were all just out of high school and we were just like you got to be friggin like it's off the scale we were in shock we were kind of in shock like what do we do of course jeff jeff was an old hand jeff was like drummers man drummers putting the moves on everybody you know what i mean six months more experience than you guys i was newbie i was new meet, man.
35:37I was just like, yes, ma 'am. When did you first meet the Piccaro brothers? When I was 14 and a half. 14 and a half. 15. And I met a Mike, and Steve was always playing different instruments. He was playing a French horn, he played a cello, and Mike was playing, started to play, Mike played some drums, and then Mike started playing studying bass. And Mike was a great bass player. He was our high school bass player, and he was great. When did you meet Steve Luke at there Andy lead Steve's little younger brother was hanging out with Steve Bricaro and Steve Luke at there and Mike Landau they were all friends so I was starting my band and I was looking at like Dean Parks and Louie Shelton and some Larry Carlton and Andy says you need to check out these guitar players that are with Steve Bricaro's band and so I went to Taft High School which is right down there in Winnetka and Ventura.
36:32And I walked in and I heard this, somebody playing like Jimi Hendrix. I thought the band was on a break and they put a record on and they were playing Hendrix. And I walked in there and Lukather was on stage and Landau. Landau was real short. He was a real short guy. And Lukather had on a monkey mask, okay, a rubber mask. And I couldn't see, I couldn't see him that well because it was kind of smoky, and I was in the back of the thing, but I'm looking, and this guy looks like he's been in prison or something like that. And I get closer, and I realize he was doing like leaping in the air like Pete Townsend, sliding on his knees, playing Johnny B.
37:12Goode, singing it with a monkey mask on. That was just Lucifer, crazy guy, you know what I mean? He was silly, silly crazy, okay? And he still is silly crazy. But that's how I met him. And I was looking at Mike Landau. And I thought Landau has Stratocaster. And I like Stratocaster. So I said, I think maybe the little guy that plays like Hendrix. And Lukather says, no, man. He says, the other guy's a star. We need a star in our band. And Jeff said, that's our guy right there. So Jeff picked him. And I said, I don't have a problem with that. But he was new. And he was just shredding the whole time.
37:50I said, yeah, but he's got to play on our records. and Lucas says he'll learn we'll put him next to Carlton and Louis Shelton he'll learn fast and he did okay very quick study you know and then you hear him play on uh on Georgie Porgy and you hear him play on our first album you know he was already seasoned you know what I mean by 78 you know in a way like uh real fortuitous you guys got him because he did it's so funny like by the time you guys are really starting to take off it's like you know the Van Halen's of the world are out there and the and like you know this really kind of heavy guitar sound yeah is popular yeah and you guys have steve to kind of bring that to your group steve was friends with all the heavy metal players it was him and eddie were best friends okay immediately and weren't when eddie passed you know wow so eddie van hale was always hanging at luke and her luke of their had all the hammering shit that eddie was doing down and uh and it was uh it was fun time because you had to have a gunslinger guitar player.
38:49We had the guy. It was Lukather, you know? He was just shredding. He would rip all these guys. He had more chops than any guitar player in town. I mean, Larry Carlton, all these guys. Lukather was like Maha Vishnu, John McLaughlin kind of chops. That's where these guys had chops in high school. Wow, man. Unbelievable. It's amazing all the talent that you guys have. You guys, to this day, are able to still remain friends. Oh, we are. some people but but i mean because there's a world where you or or steve or lucifer could have just been like you know i want to do my thing you know really well we weren't no one everybody was the bands were the thing at the time they say there's a saying now back in the day when i was growing up everybody was in bands yeah now they're singers yeah now it's all about singing and i think it's great that everybody's singing now i wish i wish i'd studied singing my dad didn't want me to be a singer because he thought i would end up in a piano lounge being a singer piano player entertainer and that was the worst word at the time my dad said you don't want to become an entertainer you want to be a musician really and so i i missed out on singing lessons and stuff but which i ended up taking later on and stuff like what i was gonna ask about the band like did you guys think of yourselves obviously you guys are like incredible musicians but did any of you guys think of yourselves as singers luke there could sing a little bit he could sing like georgie Porgy sang, I'll be over you, won't hold you back.
40:15And I could sing barely to just get some of my songs out. But it was cool that you guys would trade off singing. It would be Lucreter into you. Well, that was the whole idea. I used it as a model, the Beatles. I like the Beatles because you never got tired. It wasn't one guy singing a solo album. I don't care who the artist is, a whole album of them, I get a little bored. I like Fleetwood Mac, and I like the Beatles, because they had various diversity in their singing. Yeah. You know? And so that's what I wanted to do with our band. We did it on the first album. Those guys had never sung. I'd never sung, I mean, really on an album before.
40:55And we all sang on the first album. And then you guys have a singer, Bobby Kimball. And then we had to get a singer, because they kept going, well, who's your singer? They really, before they signed the paper, they want to know, do you have a singer? and a band that I had been co-produced called S's Fools had a singer named Bobby Kimball and they broke up and I said, let's try this guy out. And he came in and I played Hold the Line and he just grabbed the lyrics and we started ripping Hold the Line. The first time we played it, it sounded like the record. Really? With him singing and us playing.
41:29So everybody's looking around the room. We're looking at each other like, we're a band. Yeah. We're a band. We knew we were a band, you know. We have to take another quick break, and then we'll be back with more from our conversation with David Paish.
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44:38I'm Noah. This is Devin. And on our new show, No Such Thing, we get to the bottom of questions like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence. Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. And then as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what? Oh, that's the runway. I'm looking at this thing. Listen to No Such Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's the rest of my conversation with David Pache. Let's jump ahead to you reconnect with Quincy to do Thriller. Do you know, was it Michael?
45:20Was it Quincy? Was it the both? How did you guys end up getting involved? I ended up getting in because I had, Steve Peccaro had been doing programming synthesizers for David Foster and Greg Phelan Gaines and all Quincy's people. I wasn't in that club yet. So Steve, what are you doing? He goes, I'm doing a Quincy Jones date. I said, you know what? I want to go do a Quincy Jones date. So I'm going to be your assistant, and I want to carry a piece of gear in to get in to the door. So I got in the door. I think they were doing Donna Summers. I think it was State of Independence. That was Steve. All Steve Bercaro did that, and I was kind of playing for him because he would be the major programmer, but I could play pretty well.
46:05So set up the stuff, set up the sounds, and Swineen would say, Steve, play something. and Steve would say, well, David's here. Dave, play something. And I started playing and Quincy would walk in the room and go, wow, that's nice. What are you doing? Can you stay? Can you hang out a little bit? And I'm like, sure. And ever since then, I did Donna Summers, James Ingram. And then I got called on Thriller, you know what I mean? Because I was part of Quincy's club. And so Quincy later said, and you can demure if you want, but Quincy later said that the Billie Jean bass line was a rip of that State of Independence programming, that thing that you and Ficaro.
46:44Really? I didn't know you said that. Yeah. That could have been. That could have been. Slow down. Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. Now that I think about it, I'm going to tell Steve that today. Yeah, be careful. Let me know what he says. I'm going to tell him. I mean, that's you. We brought all of our synthesizers down there. I mean, there was a room full of synthesizers. And Steve was doing that live. It had the drum machine. It had all the synths pumping. and basically the whole record was done with Steve Bricaro doing synthesizers on his microcomposer. So you guys basically play on Human Nature.
47:19A number of you play on a number of different things on Thriller, but Human Nature really is like, it's Toto essentially. Are you mad at a Steve when he takes a song like Human Nature to Michael instead? No, hell no. What a fucking song. No, no, because Toto would have never done that. Really? No, they may have. But Steve, we were off the road, and Quincy was looking for songs. And so I sent a, I don't know what I sent in, but I sent in a cassette, and I had on the back of my cassette, they had those super scope tape machines that when they'd get to the end, it would start playing the other side of the cassette automatically.
47:56And so it jumped to the other side and played Steve Recaro's demo for him. And he was like, why, why, tell him that it's human nature. and Quincy dug it and she played it for Michael. And they were just like, they cut it, you know? Wow. That was like the last song that went on the record, you know? How did you, because I want to talk about this. I'm curious how you and Steve found how to coexist in terms of as keyboard players, synth players. He would come up with something and say, Dave, I need some magic on this. I need an intro, like he said on Human Nature. I've got the chords, but I need an intro.
48:32So.
48:37I think those are the chords he played me for the intro. And I, from Jimmy Seals, I had been used to doing finger picking guitar parts and translating them to piano so I could do, you know. I would cross hands and do, so I did a little Jimmy Seals kind of thing for Human Nature.
49:12and that's the intro to human nature that i came up with that is one of the coolest that is one of the coolest intros song and every time that comes up it goes into that part you know what i mean it's so beautiful yeah what was it like being in the studio with michael with michael michael was great in the studio he was a perfectionist and he just believed in you painting, he came up to me, here's a typical Michael Jackson thing. He'd say, I want you to think of Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel. You have a total blank canvas, and if you need a choir, or you need an orchestra, you need whatever you need, just do it.
49:53Just come up and think with it. Now, this wasn't during Thriller, though. This was after Thriller. Michael continued working with Michael. But working with Michael, I got in there one day, and I was working on Billie Jean, which I did, ended up using my parts. None of my parts, but I did it with Michael, and he would listen to what you're playing, and he kind of let a couple of little mistakes go by, and I stopped him, and I said, Michael, listen, I'm a perfectionist, and I want to make sure that all this stuff is perfect when we put it on there. So in the interim, he liked the fact that I wanted perfection on his record, and he'd call me in and say, I want you to come in and listen to my vocal that I'm doing and tell me if it's good.
50:35And it kind of got me in trouble with Quincy a little bit because Quincy was there and he goes, Quincy goes, Michael, what do you think? And he goes, ask David Page what he thinks on the human nature vocal. And I'm like, uh-uh. And Quincy just gave me the look, gave me the look, like, oh, really? You know what I mean? And I was like, oh, man, you know. So we got that straightened out. And then Michael was great to work with. Anybody that worked with him, he was just like, Jeff did beat Jeff they came to Jeff and all they had was these drum cases that went
51:14and they were singing the line I think in there and then Steve and Jeff played all the instruments on it Steve Lukather played bass, played rhythm guitar Eddie did the solo and Jeff played the drums on it did Lukather want to do the solo? he was lucky to play on it he was happy to play on it Yeah, and then they said they were trying to get Ed Van Halen, which was Luke's friend. Luke's like, right on, you know? Ed didn't want to do it at first, because Van Halen had a no-session band role. You can't play in other people's records. So Ed, he called up and said, this is Quincy Jones. He goes, yeah, sure, and he hung up on him, okay?
51:50Ed did, you know what I mean? And I said, no, really, seriously. You know, so he sent a tape in, and they flew it in. I don't know where. He just soloed, and they just took a piece of it dropped it in on there you know wow total four you guys spent a lot of time in the studio yeah we spent a lot of time all the time so that's another year man where it's like if 78 your first record's coming out all these big hits and you got cheryl lynn's record out at the same time this is like you got total four yeah you got thriller all the all the burners are on you know unbelievable yeah you got four records behind you yeah bunch of hits yeah i mean we're doing sessions and touring and doing our total records at the time you know so it was just kind of a revolving door at the recording studio sunset sound we'd see guys that are working on it thriller what are you doing oh i'm working with quincy today well we'll be there in a little bit and you know how did sunset sound become your home which is one of the great studios it was one of the great studios and uh you know we could basically work everywhere i mean we did thriller at westlake yeah the whole thing you know we did toto's rec first record at studio 55 which was ended up becoming Richard Perry's studio.
53:01But we just liked Sunset Sound as a record recording place, and that was during the Hydra record. We started working at Sunset Sound again. Such a cool record. And we loved playing there. We loved that. That was a real progressive music. We were trying to push ahead. Now that we had a hit album, we kind of wanted to play some serious concert stuff here. You don't get into the way we would sound if we went out live and not just playing Georgie Porgy. God, so the first record was like, let's craft a record. Let's craft a record. Let's find an audience. Yeah. So we did a whole lot of different kinds of things to find out.
53:38I know there's got to be a single in there somewhere. Yeah. And surely enough, the record company grabbed hold of the line. Yeah, yeah. Little did I know. Yeah. But then Hydra was like, let's. Hydra was more, we were listening to Genesis at the time. You know what I mean? And Peter Gabriel and these progressive English groups that we're doing, just blowing our minds, you know. So we wanted to get more progressive and more musical, you know, because we were all just making music basically for ourselves and our friend musicians so we could get together and smoke a little bit and listen to music, you know.
54:14Yeah. And we wanted to have something interesting to play them, you know, because everybody else was bringing in all this stuff that they're doing, and it was like, you know, real musical stuff, you know. Yeah, yeah. Did you guys run into Prince at all? Because I know he was hunkered down at Sunset Sound, too. Jeff ran into Prince one time, and he was down there before we were down there, during we were down there. Yeah, around the time. I didn't run into him. I think Jeff ran into him one time. But he was down there with James Newton Howard working on his first album. Ray Parker, who's my neighbor here.
54:46Ray Parker's your neighbor? Yeah, down the hill. That's a bad man. And he's like my best friend. We grew up together. He came out from Detroit when he was 19, and I started working when I was 18 and 19. So we've been friends since we've been really young. So Prince saw Ray Parker's studio at his house, and Prince said, I want that. So Ray built Prince's first studio. Really? Yeah. So Ray set Prince up, and then I heard later on that Prince really liked Luca. There was a guitar player. and I've gained so much respect for him lately. Hearing how he plays guitar and the shows, the acoustic work, and he's just a real talent, you know?
55:28Man, you guys were around some of the coolest, greatest, I mean, the era of music you guys existed in. Yeah, it was a real era. To your point, again, what remained of the jazz greats. You said Oscar Peterson came to your house to work on, to check out synthesizers. Synthesizers, he did. Because the guy who invented a bunch of Roland stuff was living at my house, okay? Foster called me up and said, I got a guy from Canada named Ralph Bike. He works for Roland. Do you guys interested in this? We said, send him over. And he would just build stuff for us. And so he became friends with Oscar because Oscar's Canadian too.
56:01Yeah. So he brought Oscar Peterson over. I called James Newton Howard. I said, you got to get over here right now, man. This is going to get serious here. Of course, I didn't take any pictures during the time. And I don't have any pictures from it. Did you play on this piano? No. I have a piano downstairs Oscar played on. It's a nine-foot Baldwin SD10. He looks at my piano and goes, nice box. You know? Unbelievable. Yeah, man. How did you guys change as people before having those hits and having the hits? I mean, at any point, did it get competitive? Not amongst you guys, but with other groups.
56:35Did you feel like, ah, we want hits? Or did you feel like we want to compete on the live? I mean, what was... Well, it's so funny because after, like years later, I talked to some people, the recession guys. Danny Korchmeier, Danny Cooch, Waddy Wachtell. And they told me, we were so pissed off at you guys when you came out with Hold the Line. They go, that's a goddamn doo-wop song. And we should have played the solo on that record. Not Lukather and everything like that. Because Lukather played like a Brian May kind of queen solo. He did, yeah. He shredded it. And they were going to play like...
57:11They wanted to treat it like a doo-wop song. That's what's cool about you guys, is that you could do that, but then have Luke with there do like a Brian May. We were mixing genres. We were mashing up genres, you know, at the time. It's the coolest thing about you guys, man. And later on, me and Luke, we kind of were competitive with the songwriting. Okay. He'd bring in this, and I'd be like, I still today can't write. He writes, every time he breaks up with somebody, he would write a great ballad, a love ballad. And he kills it. And he sings it. And he sings them too, you know? How did you guys work that out?
57:40I mean, there's so many people in the group who could sing the song. Some of you could write the song. We would listen to the best song. Anybody has a song, bring it in, and we'll listen to it. Now, let's listen to whose voice fits that. And so each of us would try. Everybody tried to sing Africa. They just couldn't spit all the words out. And I ended up singing the song that I wrote. You'd written it, so probably the words came a little easier to you. So as usual, the band says to me, next time you're going to write a number one single, make sure that you're not the singer on it. Make sure a lead singer sings the whole thing.
58:14I'm like, guys, I didn't know. Did you guys really not know Africa would be as big as it was? No, I had no idea. Really? No idea. Really? That was the last song. That was the 11th hour song that we had the whole album done. And we just started experimenting with it. Well, here's maybe a song that, and they used to say, it was a joke. Dave, save this for your solo record, which there was none. You know what I mean? Or maybe for the next album, this is a good song. Did it bum you out? No, no, no. No, this is our sense of humor, just fucking with me. So we started experimenting with it around making a loop.
58:47We knew we had time because we'd already done our album. So we got in the studio and made a loop, a drum loop, with Lenny Castro and Jeff Procaro. And then I put on a CS80 thing, and we started building it little by little, and everybody was making their own parts up. And it just came to being. And we were like, well, okay, this is the last cut. It's kind of different, kind of world music-y. And then they called from New York. Sony called and says they're playing it in a disco, a big disco. It's a big hit in New York, Africa is. And it started going around the United States. People started picking it up.
59:19And it just gained momentum. So cool. You guys have these incredible pop songs. I mean, we're talking about Africa, Rosanna, songs like that. And then the solos that you're playing. Yeah. How did you pull back? Because, I mean, I would love to hear like an eight-minute solo of you. I mean, how did you guys contain yourself in the studio? The times we played Rosanna, we jammed on the end there. Did you? You just hear the little short one. I hear the short one. Yeah, because we said, we're going to keep it short this time, guys. You know what I mean? Keep the ending there. You know what I mean? Get it all in.
59:49But that went longer. That fade out probably went another two minutes. You know what I mean? We just faded it out. I would love to hear that. Yeah. I would love to hear that. Me too. I don't know how you guys did it. There's not many groups who could be as musically inclined as you guys, but also we kind of know, okay, we got to do the short version. Yeah, shorter version. That's amazing, but that's not it. That's the reason we decided instead of forming a group, we got offers to form out of our high school band to sign a deal, and we turned it down because we said, we want to go in and learn how to make records so that we don't come out, we don't learn on our first record.
1:00:27We're just barely learning how to make records here. So we each went off our different directions and we did a lot of sessions and gained all this knowledge so we were ready to we were like co-producing ourselves by the band members by their just their experience did you learn about a lot about songwriting playing on other people's songs oh yeah charts oh yeah it's like i learned a lot about what i didn't want to do because i kept i would try and make them a little more my songs i'd try and rearrange them and using my changes but everybody else wanted to use these jazzy chords oh it's like and i was going for the
1:01:03you know and everybody else that's what foster and graden and those guys were always at the earth wind and fire yeah they were everybody was trying to be earth wind and fire at the time okay and so was i so we all were yeah yeah you know
1:01:21yeah that's kind of earth windy right there you know what i mean diamonds and rust joan bias It's the last thing I'll ask you about. Oh, yeah, you can know about that record. How did you end up on that? I knew the producer. I'd worked with him, the guy named David Kirschenbaum. And he hired me. And a great thing was that I got to play with Joe Sample. Joe Sample and me played together on that. I played piano, and he played Roxy Chord, I think, or electric piano, Roxy Chord. And they had Larry Carlton, Dean Parks, Jim Gordon on drums. And I just got to play on that record. and it was fun. Joan Baez was great.
1:01:57I had done a Midnight Special with her, with our band. She ended up using our band for backup band on Midnight Special. But a funny story about Steely Dan, Walter Becker heard the Diamonds and Rust album and saw that Larry Carlton had arranged it. And that's why he called Carlton to arrange the Royal Scam album because he said if they can make Joan Baez sound this good they're going to be able to arrange our stuff and that was the that was the deal they that was the album that they got turned on to larry carlton dude i mean that's the song joan bias says that's her her best song yeah it was great and bob dylan even was moved she was like the dylan's counterpart yeah at the time yeah and he was moved to call her and tell her this is incredible you know i mean what a what a treat god we could talk for another two hours i just wanted yeah i wanted to go through the room and just ask about everything you got here I'm going to show you downstairs real quick.
1:02:52That'll be awesome. And maybe we'll do it again, man. Yeah, I think we should do it again. Yeah, cool. Thanks so much to David Page for inviting us into his home and playing for us. You can hear all of our favorite Toto songs and other stuff David's played on on a playlist at BrokenRecordPodcast.com. Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube.com slash BrokenRecordPodcast where you can find all of our new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at BrokenRecord. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tollery.
1:03:28Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and ad-free listening for$4.99 a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast subscriptions. And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richman.
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From the publisher
David Paich is a prolific musician and songwriter who’s perhaps most well known for writing and co-producing Toto's classic song, “Africa.” Before David co-founded Toto with drummer Jeff Porcaro in 1977, he was an innovative keyboardist and session player. David honed his chops early growing up in L.A. where he worked under the tutelage of his father Marty Paich—an esteemed composer who worked with artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles and Mel Tormé.
While in college at USC David started playing keyboard professionally and touring with Sonny & Cher. From there he went on to co-write and play on Boz Scaggs’ multi-platinum album Silk Degrees. He also worked extensively with Quincy Jones, playing on multiple iconic albums including Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Bad. All throughout his work as a session musician, David also served as Toto’s principal songwriter and wrote chart-topping hits like “Rosanna,” “Hold The Line,” and of course, “Africa.”
On today’s episode Justin Richmond talks to David Paich about what it was like to be such an accomplished player at such a young age. He shares crazy stories about working with Michael Jackson and Quincy on Thriller, and how he came up with the intro to Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature,” a song written by Toto’s drummer, Jeff Porcaro. He also plays parts from some of the best songs he’s written, and talks about how they came to be.
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite David Paich songs HERE.
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