Porcara MusicaThis past week, Toto‘s Steve Porcaro released his first solo album, Someday/Somehow, a project he says he’s been working on, off and on, for about 40 years. The group’s founding keyboardist reveals to ABC Radio that his brother, longtime Toto bassist Mike Porcaro‘s terminal battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease inspired several songs on the album and gave him “the spark and the impetus” to finish the record.
“There’s…a definite thread of loss [that] has to do with being very much influenced by what my brother Mike was going through,” the 58-year-old musician explains, “and just realizing how quick life can go by.”
Mike Porcaro, who died last year at age 59, played bass on a number of songs on Someday/Somehow, including on a tune called “Back to You” that also features Steve’s late brother Jeff — Toto’s original drummer. Steve says he originally wrote the song for Toto in 1983, but it didn’t work for the band.
“It just kind of got shelved,” Porcaro explains. “And when I was putting this record together I got to kind of have my cake and eat it too, where I took my brother Jeff and Mike’s tracks [and] transferred them over into the computer along with my original demo.”
Steve handled lead vocals on seven of the album’s 13 tracks. He also enlisted several guest vocalists, including Michael McDonald and Toto backing singer Mabvuto Carpenter. Among the other musicians who contributed to the project were Toto guitarist Steve Lukather and the band’s touring drummer, Shannon Forrest.
“For me it was all about the songs, and not so much about me being the star of the show,” Steve says of Someday/Somehow. “And, I just kind of wanted to have final say for once with my own music.”
Copyright © 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
