In a recent chat with Vulture, Steve Lukather talked about Don Henley’s advice on handling hate against Toto.
“Don Henley told me once in the early 1980s, because I was bitching about ‘Why do these motherf*ckers hate us so much?’” the guitarist said before sharing Henley’s response. “And he goes, ‘If you hang in there long enough, it’ll all change.’ I responded, ‘How long am I going to wait?’”
Lukather continued with Henley’s advice, “He said, ‘The Eagles had to wait a long time, so just relax.’ The advice was, if you hang in there long enough, people will take a second look. It’s like, ‘This guy has taken every punch you’ve given and he keeps coming back.’”
“They came up with this stupid genre name for us, which happened to be the exact era that we did all those records: ‘soft rock,’” the rocker added. “I’m like, ‘What the f*ck is soft rock?’ I always hated that. It sounded like ‘limp cock.’”
Lukather previously told Vicki Abelson in an interview that they’ve moved past dealing with critics. The musician explained, “The weird vibe about us with people is over. I mean, kids dig us, we have a three-generation audience. The people that really hated us the most, they’re 1725485411 85 years old, still trying to eke out a living with hipster magazines or something. They don’t matter.”
He added, “They haven’t helped me. They haven’t hurt me. It just pisses them off that we’re successful if they look at our numbers, or streaming numbers, which are fantastic — 3.5 billion streams. And that’s only in the last eight-and-a-half years. 45 million records sold, and we’re still doing it.”
Even though people also criticize Lukather for keeping Toto going, Steve wants to keep the music alive. He said in a separate chat, “Some people are pissed off at me that I’m trying to keep Toto together. It’s like just trying to keep the music alive and show some respect to it and get it out there. And I love doing it, Joseph, and I love doing it. And it’s a great honor for me to also be involved with Ringo Starr’s All-Starr band.”
Lukather had also talked about the band’s decision to continue without its original members. He accepted the criticism and said it’s important to him to keep the music going, even with negative comments.