Besides forming Toto in 1977, who have sold over 32 million albums, he has won five Grammy awards and is in the Musicians Hall of Fame.

He has performed on moe than 1000 records, including albums by Michael Jackson, Roger Waters, Boz Scaggs, George Benson, Jeff Beck, Lionel Ritchie, Stevie Nicks, Aretha Franklin, Ringo Starr and Warren Zevon.

Now Lukather is heading to Australia to perform with G3 – a three-part rock show that includes guitar virtuosos Joe Satriani and Steve Vai.

“I’ve always had an amazing time down there [in Australia] and this time I get to come down to show myself,” Lukather says.

“Joe [Satriani] and Steve [Vai] are very, very old dear friends of mine and when they asked me to do this [G3] show I said, ‘Are you sure? Me?’

“There’s 100 guys I can think of who would be more suited for it, but maybe they think I will bring something different to the party – which I will.”

Check out the G3 rendition of that classic, Smoke on the Water. YouTube: burritosnob, from 2008.

While G3 has built a reputation as a jaw-dropping demonstration of guitar playing, Lukather doesn’t intend to compete with Vai and Satriani.

“It’s not a competition to me – because I would lose,” Lukather chuckles.

“We all have a different flavour and a lot of love and mutual respect for each other as human beings.

“They’re insane [players] – I’m a big fan myself!”

Lukather assures music fans that G3 shows are big – each artist performs a 45 minute set before joining each other on stage for an epic jam at the finale.

While Toto’s music won’t feature in Lukather’s Australian sets, he does still tour with his famous band whose hits include

One of the reasons why Toto continue to tour is in support of one of the group’s founding members.

Mike Porcaro, the original bassist of Toto, suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – a form of motor neurone disease.

“We do a [Toto tour] once every summer to help our brother Mikey out, he has ALS which really sucks.

“And also to help out the four guys [in the band] going through their mid-life divorce, which sucks for different reasons.

“But [Toto] still enjoy playing – we’re high school friends.

“We’re grown ups, we love each other – we’ve been through life together.”

Lukather also admits that years of partying on tour are behind him.

“I used to be a crazy party man, but it’s been years since I even had a drink or a cigarette,” Lukather says.

“I’m a super healthy guy and just really into playing my instrument and writing.”

When reading through Lukather’s body of work since he emerged as a studio guitarist in the late ‘70s, it’s clear that he doesn’t take many holidays.

In high school he met fellow musicians David Paich and the Porcaro brothers, Jeff, Steve, and Mike, all of whom would join Toto.

Jeff Porcaro made a name for himself as the drummer for Steely Dan and mentored Lukather.

Porcaro and Paich were playing in Boz Scaggs’ studio band and invited Lukather to join them.

This was Lukather’s first gig in the music industry.

He performed guitar on Scaggs’ 1977 album

Besides selling 32 million records with Toto, Lukather went on to perform on 1000 albums for a vast array of artists.

Lukather’s guitar solos can be heard on songs such as Michael Jackson’s

“I’m a workaholic kind of guy,” Lukather says.

“Especially these days, so many interesting opportunities have come up.”

Lukather reveals that being a studio musician requires one to be calm under pressure.

“I’d show up at a session without [having heard] demos and most of the music wasn’t written out,” Lukather explains.

“You have to perform on the spot – ‘be great now!’

“A red light turns on and there’s really famous people staring you in the face.

“That can be really intimidating and you can be a great musician and fold under the pressure – I sort of welcomed that [pressure].

“I could perform quickly and efficiently, and I had a lot of ideas.

“From an improvisational stand point I was able to come up with hooky parts for songs.

“They’d just give me a piece of paper with chord changes on it and say, ‘Come up with something.’

“These days I would get a writer’s credit and I’d be stinking rich!”

Lukather believes the art of being a great studio musician has faded in popular music as recording technology has increased.

“People make records at home and just put everything on a grid and auto-tune it and auto-time correct it – you don’t even have to be that good any more,” Lukather says.

“I think in metal and instrumental music the musicianship is rising, but in pop music it’s deteriorating.

“It’s so cut and paste – people don’t see each other, it’s all sharing files.

“We’re losing human contact.

“People used to think that Toto and Steely Dan were slick and soulless – but we used to stay in the studio and play this stuff until it was right.

“We did it quickly – we were trained to do that.”

While there is a lot of quality in Lukather’s back catalogue, recording guitar parts of Michael Jackson’s Thriller album is perhaps his most significant contribution to popular music.

“I knew [Jackson] was coming off Off The Wall, which was a huge record, but I didn’t know that [Thriller] would become the biggest album of all time,” Lukather says.

“It’s an honour to be a part of something that large.

“Michael called me on the phone and said, (in a soft, high voice) ‘Hi, Steve this is Michael.’

“I said, ‘Yeah f*** off’ and hung up.

“I thought someone was taking the piss out of me because it was eight o’clock in the morning and back then you didn’t call people at eight o’clock in the morning.

“Those were some heady years – I’d probably just gone to sleep!

“Then I got a call from Quincy’s [Jones, Thriller’s producer] office saying ‘That really was Michael.’

“So I called him back and said, ‘I’m sorry man’ and he laughed and said, ‘That happens all the time.’”

Lukather will continue to ply his trade over the next few years, which are already overflowing with work.

He has been touring through Europe with Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan and an orchestra, is working on another solo album, his autobiography and in 2013 will celebrate Toto’s 35th anniversary with a full world tour.

Somewhere in between he will travel to Australia to perform with G3.

The symptom of a loaded schedule is that time doesn’t move slowly.

“I blinked and 35 years went by – I really don’t know what happened.

“All of a sudden I went from being the youngest guy in the gig to an old guy that people think they should show respect – it’s bizarre!

“But I’m having fun – I’m still a kid at heart.

“I’ve got my guitar here in the bed with me.”

# G3 perform at Newcastle Panthers on Thursday, March 29, with tickets selling fast through Moshtix.

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