(Credits: Far Out / Kåre Eide / The National Library)
Thu 30 October 2025 10:00, UK
When Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro died in 1992, the remaining members remembered how much of an integral component he actually was.
It’s not unusual for drummers to be unsung heroes, or figures resigned to the sidelines while other members take centre stage. But Porcaro’s value in Toto was never understated, a fact that became even clearer after the strange circumstances of his passing. Conspiracies aside, however, the confusion was no match for the malaise of a group who suddenly felt, as Steve Lukather put it, “torn apart”.
When people think of the impact of Toto, their minds usually immediately go to the classic hit ‘Africa’. But what Toto – and Porcaro – achieved in the music was far more expansive, with Porcaro being both the glue and the driving force that meant they never settled when it came to creative expression. According to Lukather, Porcaro was “our figurehead”.
According to keyboardist David Paich, he was also the best drummer you could ask for, a “well-rounded musician” who just knew exactly what to do, when to do it, and how. “We never had to talk much,” said Paich. “Everything was just understood. Our communication was non-verbal. It was mainly just eye contact between him and me. He was the brother I never had.”
He also went on, recalling how a lot of their songs were “one-takers” because of Porcaro. ‘Rosanna’, for one, was done entirely in a single take. While sometimes, the others would have to re-record their parts, Porcaro was usually on form on the first go, never having to re-do anything because it was already exactly what they needed the first time around.
Porcaro passed away one month before the release of the band’s Kingdom of Desire. They’d been in rehearsals when it happened, and didn’t re-group for another record until 1995’s Tambu. But when they did, they felt it only right to pay tribute to their late member with the aptly titled ‘I Will Remember’. Written by Lukather as a tribute to the “brother I never had”, ‘I Will Remember’ was Lukather’s way of remembering Porcaro while saying that his memory will live on.
Years on, Lukather continues to prove just how much of that is actually true. Back in 2015, he recalled how deaths like Porcaro’s set off a butterfly effect because of how many lives he touched. He also said how moments like those are what keep Toto constantly in orbit – even during breaks. When you face loss, as Lukather explains, it pulls other things closer together, reinstating the magic that people like Porcaro sparked along the way.
As he put it, “Something keeps drawing us back together. The band should’ve been toast a long time ago, but something keeps bringing us back, bringing the core of us back together again. And somehow we’re getting another look now, and the success is growing, not fading away.”
This is also something he touched upon in the lyrics to ‘I Will Remember’: “Even when love has come and gone / And our hearts have moved along / I will remember / There was a time we had the trust / And that always was enough.”
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