Season TWO with legendary David Paich of ToTo

Staring at the World with BoDeans’ Kurt Neumann

We sit down to launch season 2 of Staring at the World Podcast, with legendary guest David Paich of ToTo. We discuss his incredible career and solo album Forgotten Toys. Boz Scaggs. Mötley Crüe. Steely Dan. Bryan Adams. George Martin. Michael Jackson. Quincy Jones. P!NK. Aretha Franklin. Miles Davis. The Doobie Brothers. Stevie Nicks. Dolly Parton. Jessie J. Cher. Rod Stewart. Tina Turner. Michael McDonald. Joan Baez. Ray Charles. Elton John. Barbra Streisand... and countless others. If you’ve listened to music in the last 50 years, including any of the iconic artists above, you were hearing David Paich.

Music is the soundtrack of our lives, and David is one of its architects. He initially embraced music by his father—jazz icon, musician, and arranger Marty Paich. “I met Jimmy Webb when I was 10 years old, when my father was working with him,” he recalls.

"My dad nudged me towards songwriting because I had the ability to write poetry. Somehow, my father saw my lyrical potential. I followed in Jimmy’s footsteps until Elton John’s first record came out in 1970. That really cemented my musical path. I continued to soak up all the great songs from then on.”

Together, Paich and his father notably co-wrote “Light The Way” for Ironside, winning an EMMY® Award for “Best Song or Theme” back in 1974. With Boz Scaggs, he co-wrote the songs "Miss Sun", "Lido Shuffle", and Grammy Award-Winning "Lowdown" from the multi-platinum album Silk Degrees. Around that same time, Paich and childhood friend, iconic studio drummer Jeff Porcaro wiggled their way onto two Steely Dan albums, which helped form some of their musical direction. Paich and David Foster co-wrote “Got To Be Real” with Cheryl Lynn, catapulting her to disco stardom.

All of these accolades solidified him as one of the go-to studio musicians for music’s A-list. Paich decided it was time for him and Jeff to form their own band, which you now know as Toto. With his TOTO bandmates, David arranged and performed songs on Michael Jackson’s legendary albums, Thriller and Bad. “One of my greatest memories is collaborating with Michael Jackson, on the bestselling album of all time, Thriller, Helping arrange the Jackson/Paul McCartney duet, “The Girl is Mine”, is still a musical highlight in my career.”

Over the past several years, David, along with TOTO has had a major renaissance in popularity like few bands at this point in their career and now have a multi-generational global fan base. In fact, “Africa” has amassed over 1 billion streams worldwide and is one of the most covered and sampled songs in music history, including by Jay-Z, Pitbull, Ellie Goulding, and Weezer.

As a six-time Grammy® Award Winner, Paich has contributed to over 2,000 albums, shaping the sound of popular music as a songwriter, performer, producer, arranger, vocalist and primary composer of the seminal band TOTO. With TOTO, Paich has released 17 albums, sold over 40 million records and garnered over 3 billion streams worldwide. Paich wrote or co-wrote TOTO’s biggest hits, "Hold the Line", "Rosanna" and “Africa”.

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