From writing timeless prog-pop anthems with Toto to working with Alice Cooper when he was just 20 and forging chart-topping hits with Michael Jackson, Steve Lukather has had a colorful career.
And Jimmy Page says he has something that Luke him stand out from his peers, Eddie Van Halen included.
Lukather says he’s only meant the Led Zeppelin icon once, but it was an encounter that has embedded itself proudly in his memory.
“I have a funny story about Jimmy,” he recounts to Ultimate Guitar. “It was the one and only time I ever met him. I went over to this Guitar Center thing honoring Nigel Tufnel from Spinal Tap. In fact, I ended up producing four tracks on their next record because of that night.
“I showed up with Eddie [Van Halen] and my boys,” he continues. “Hey, we're going to meet Jimmy Page, [it’s] a big deal, right?”
So he meets his hero, and he gets singled out.
“Jimmy's standing there, greeting everyone,” he says. “He points at me. I think he's pointing at Ed, of course, but it's me, and he motions for me to come over. He said, ‘You have something that these other guys here don't.’ And I go, ‘What's that, Jimmy?’ He said, ‘You understand, and I understand, but those other guitarists don't. We were studio players. They don't know what that means.’”
Speaking to Guitar Player in 2023, Page relayed the importance his early session work had on his craft, and, in turn, his diversity helped him survive in a cutthroat world.
“The bottom line is that, in the studio world, all the musicians were considerably older than I was,” he had said. “So, suddenly, I come in as this new kid on the block, and I’ve got all of these strings to my bow. I was playing fingerstyle guitar and slide, and I was playing harmonica.
“If you made mistakes or you mucked about, you would never be seen again. So clearly, I was able to deliver. And if they asked me, 'Can you come up with something on this?' I’d say, ‘Sure!’”
Similarly, Lukather — whose exhaustive session résumé fills 18 pages of his own website –—says that session work was a scary, yet deeply educational environment in equal measure.
“I showed up blind, man,” he tells Guitar Player of one particular session with Lionel Richie. “We never got demos. We never got to rehearse. I think James Carmichael, his producer, had a road map, but it was all A minor. I said, ‘Let me fuck around with it,’ and they rolled the tape.”
Despite having cut some very notable guitar solos in his time, Lukather has also been eager to dispel a myth about session work.
“I've been paid to play rhythm guitar 90 percent of the time,” he reveals. And players without a solid grasp of rhythm won't survive.
“Ever hear someone pick up a guitar and start strumming a blues shuffle or something, and it feels so good it just makes you want to jump in and play with them?” Lukather asks. “That’s the kind of player people want to hire in the studio — the person who comes up with parts that make the song feel better.
“Kids can learn every lick in the world from the internet now, but a lot of them have no groove.”
Alex Van Halen inadvertently sent the internet into overdrive last year when he announced Lukather was working with him on a new Van Halen record. Luke has since gone on record to explain that, while the project is underway, he won't be playing a note on it.
