HOW SIMON PHILLIPS JOINED TOTO
=> Simon Phillips had been thinking about moving to Los Angeles since 1990, but planned to move in october 1992. First he had a gig in Ibiza, were => Bobby Kimball also performed. The following excerpts were taken from an interview with Simon Phillips in Modern Drummer (february 1996):
"I'll never forget this," Simon utters, lowering his voice to almost a whisper. "I was walking towards the kitchens at this resort, and I saw Bobby Kimball
on the telephone. He had this look on his face. I knew something was wrong. He turned to me and said, 'Simon, Jeff has died.' I said, 'What? Jeff Porcaro?'
'Yes, I'm just getting the news now.' Bobby was distraught. I was stunned. We couldn't believe it."
It was a sad coincidence that Bobby and Simon were there
together when the news came.
A week later Simon was back in England about to begin recording with Big Country, and then he got a call. It was
Toto leader/guitarist Steve Lukather calling from L.A. "When Luke called," Simon relates, "I thought he was just calling to talk. They had just had the
funeral for Jeff, I knew Luke, and I thought maybe he wanted to talk to me about it-maybe he didn't know I knew about Jeff." Lukather had something else
in mind. "Simon," the guitarist said, "this is the situation: The band is all here at the office and we're having a meeting. We have a three-month European
tour planned. Road crews are booked, some are on wages, we've got three trucks, three busses, a lot of people depending on work. And we have wonderful
attendance for the tour-many sold-out venues. The thing is, we've been sitting here trying to figure out what to do. Do we call it quits, or do we get a
new drummer? You're the only person we can think of that we want in this band. Will you do the tour?"
Simon was shocked.
"The last thing I ever
expected to do was to play in Toto," he states. "I told Luke I was very honored to be asked, but I had a lot of my own things going on and a lot of things
to consider." Toto didn't have time. "The problem, Luke told me, was that the band only had weeks before the tour was scheduled to start, but I had several
things in the works. I told Luke I'd need a few days to think about it. I thought about the coincidence of my wanting to move to L.A.", Simon continues.
"A great band with incredibly talented musicians-what a wonderful thing to be asked to do. I phoned everyone I had scheduled work with, and everybody told
me I should take the gig. Basically I was saying, 'Sorry, I have to cancel on you.' And they were like, 'No problem, this is a great opportunity. Go and
do it.'" Simon called up the anxious Lukather and agreed to do the tour. He'd come over as soon as he finished the Big Country album. They'd have less
than three weeks to prepare. While Simon had wanted to move to America and had planned it for a long time, the day he left England for the States was
bittersweet. "I remember leaving the house with two suitcases," he says. "It was the last time I saw my house, my studio, and my wife. I was excited
about what was coming, but a little sad as well."
On his own =>website, Simon also talks about this briefly:
I had made my decision to move to
LA in 1991. I needed a change in my life and big changes were about to happen anyway. There is a lot of paper work and bureaucratic bullshit to go
through when you move from one country to another and I started that process in '91. It was a complete coincidence that Toto wanted me to play with
them at the same time that I was moving to LA. I actually left UK on August 31st 1992 to start rehearsals with the band.
Steve Lukather thought Simon was the logical choice to replace the legendary Jeff Porcaro:
Simon was the only drummer we asked. We knew he would be able to learn our songs within a small period of time and combine his own style harmonically with our band. I met Simon when I played with Jeff Beck in 1986 and we became friends. David and I both mentioned his name when we were asked who could replace Jeff. So it was a logical and completely correct choice." (Backstage, november 1992)
More information on how Simon joined TOTO in his Interview from 2006 on his personal website at: http://www.simon-phillips.com/news/interview-2006.html
Related entry: => Simon Phillips