‘The songs are starting to come’: Steve Lukather updates new Toto studio project

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Now that Steve Lukather’s latest round of shows with Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band have come to an end, he’s focused on work toward Toto’s first studio effort since 2006’s Falling in Between.

And a familiar name — beyond Toto bandmates David Paich and Joseph Williams — is in the mix: Randy Goodrum.

“The songs are starting to come,” Lukather told fans on Wednesday. “Got a great one with Randy Goodrum, and I’m at Paich’s with Joseph today and tomorrow. It has started.”

Paich co-founded Toto with Lukather in the late 1970s. Williams joined the band in time for Fahrenheit, the 1986 Toto album that included the Lukather-Goodrum collaboration “I’ll Be Over You.” He was also part of 1988’s The Seventh One and contributed to Falling in Between, as well. Williams has toured with Toto since 2010.

Besides the No. 11 hit “I’ll Be Over You,” Goodrum has contributed to huge sellers over the years from the likes of Steve Perry (“Oh Sherrie”), Chicago (“If She Would Have been Faithful”) and Anne Murray (“You Needed Me”), among many others.

Goodman has been a mainstay on Lukather’s solo efforts, as well, going back to the guitarist’s 1989 self-titled debut.

“He has a very unique style, something that really brings the best out of you,” Lukather told Something Else!, in a conversation about Goodrum. “We’ve had a long, long relationship. He’s really good at what he does. That sounds like a throwaway line, but he’s a brilliant musician. Randy’s sense and knowledge of music, of not doing the cliché thing, is there. When you co-write with people, there is a certain chemistry that has to be there. We finish things; that’s the key. A lot of people write a lot of stuff, but do you finish it? It’s great to have that kind of person.”

Something Else!