Steve Lukather & Porcaro's articles

CANDYMAN
The second Los Lobotomys album, "Candyman", was released in 1994 (in Europe under Steve Lukather's name). It was recorded in studio A of the the Capitol studio's and mixed in studio D with
some overdubs done at Devonshire in the valley. The band consisted of Simon Phillips (who co-wrote "Party in Simon's pants"), Steve Lukather, David Garfield, Chris Trujillo, John Pena and
Lenny Castro. Fee Waybill collaborated with Garfield and Lukather on 5 songs and did some background vocals, Richard Page and Kevin Curry joined Waybill on the backing vocals, Paul Rodgers
(ex-Free, ex-Bad Company) did guest vocals on the cover of Hendrix' "Freedom" and David Paich supplied a real bluesy organ on "Never walk alone".

The title and the cover-art (a psychedelic blur with an eye in the middle) refer to an idol of Lukather's: Sammy Davis jr.
Below are some excerpts from a Tommy Denander interview with Steve Lukather on "Candyman" in 1994:

Question- Could you give me something brief about every song on the album? Hero With A 1000 Eyes?

Steve: What i wanted to do with this record was...you know with the Lobotomys which is basically the band that played on the album, there's a Latin flavor to it without being abnoxious you
know, it was cut live with 2 percussionists and it added a different groove to everything. I didn't want to do just another rock record, that's so boring and anyone can do that.
I wanted a different groove to the record you know, cause that flavor kind of holds over to the whole album, i don't know if that's good or bad but...and you know John Pena is a Latin guy and that
had some influence to it too, like when the song breaks down in the middle you know, on the charts it just said - John, play something great here (laughs).

Q- Ok, next song, Freedom, this is one of the best covers of a Hendrix song i've EVER heard.

S- Well, of course Jimi is very close to my heart and no one had ever covered that song before. To me Jimi's guitar playing is as important as melody is to a song, it IS a melody to the song, and
Freedom is very hard to cover. It's like a tribute to him and not like on that Hendrix tribute album were the fags in The Cure are doing Purple Haze, it's the most fag and awful thing i've ever
heard, it's only about 2 songs on that record that are worthy you know, like Jeff Beck's bit. They just pick all the wrong people to do Hendrix songs. But i'm really proud that no one had done
Freedom before.

Q- One of my favourites - Born Yesterday?, I've always been a big Steely Dan fan and...

S- I wrote that song the day after I saw Steely at the Greek theater in LA, and it's probably the greatest concert I've seen in my whole life. I sat next to Creatchy (David Garfield) and we had second
row seats in the middle cause I know the guys and they tied us up you know. The sound and the band was just...perfection...it was so inspiering, so that song and Never Let Them See You Cry
was written in the same 2 day period of time. It's a nice tribute to Steely and I make no bones about it, you can hear my influences in all the songs and I'm not ashamed about it.

Q- One very beautiful song is of course Borrowed Time, I guess it's about Jeff?

S- It's about Jeff and it's about losing anyone you really love you know. Cause we're all just sitting around waiting to die basicly, and if we KNEW what it's like on the other side we wouldn't worry so much. Still death is for the living, the death don't care...they're already dead. It's not a day that goes by where I don't think about Jeff and I really, really miss him and he will always be a major influence on our music and our lives.

PORCARO'S AND DRUMS
Joe Porcaro, famous percussionist, let all his three sons play the drums when they were young. Since Jeff, Mike and Steve Porcaro had to fight over the drumkit, Mike picked up the bass and Steve switched to playing piano and keyboards. Mike Porcaro commented on this in an interview with Tommy Denander (1993):

"I took up string bass when I was about 12 years old, I was offered a string class in school and started playing in a school orchestra. Originally I inteneded to be a drummer, because we all studires drums when we were younger and I was considering myself a drummer till I just out of the blue took up this class one year and a couple of years later I was doing gigs and getting paid on the weekends, so I remained with it and I'm a bass player today."