Who is Steve Lukather? The guitarist, vocalist, and one of the songwriters of Toto. A session player with ridiculous credits, like Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Lionel Richie, Boz Scaggs, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Olivia Newton-John. A songwriter for the likes of Chicago, The Tubes, Richard Marx, and George Benson. A member of Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band. I’d been listening to Toto quite a bit during the pandemic, and when a chance to interview Steve about his new – and life-changing – high fidelity hearing aid (Widex Moment) came about I was curious to see what he had to say about Toto, the session years, and more.
I want to ask about other topics, but let’s start with the Widex.
Yeah, man. It saved my fucking ass. Brad Whitford, from Aerosmith, came to a show in Boston or somewhere. We’re friends. We started talking, and my ears – I’ve got tinnitus. I haven’t heard silence since 1986. It’s like a prizefighter who gets punched one time too many. All of a sudden it goes from, “Hey, man; how’s it going?” to [groaning in pain]. What I’ve done in my research is to find out the actual tone that’s ringing in my head is not generated by something that’s inside of me, but by my brain. The exact frequencies that I damaged are 4 to 8 kHz. My hearing is good on the bottom, and the top is good. It’s those upper mids, which most people my age would experience anyway. I’ve been playing in bands since I was 19 years old, and it used to be “louder is better.” I was in a band with kids. “Let’s hook all the amps together and see how loud we can get!” But all the years in the studio, before there were individual mixes, you had headphones on your ears.
You turn it all up to hear yourself.
Which is the worst thing for your ears. Any ear doctor will tell you that. You’re shoving something right against your eardrum, and it’s really loud. I’ve been wearing earplugs for my hearing – to save what I have – for 20 years. I was talking about it with Brad backstage. I kept saying, “What?” I was doing it to everybody on the phone, and I’d have the TV on full blast, but I didn’t notice it. “What do you mean it’s loud?” I was talking about that, and Brad said, “I gotta turn you on to this. I got these Widex Moments and they saved me. This will change your life.” I actually went home and did something about it. This was starting to affect my home life. I’ve got little kids as well as grown kids. A teenager and a ten year old son. Everything was just, “What?” and it wasn’t getting any better. I went down to a hearing place and I got a pair. They tested my hearing and then showed me on the graph. She said, “Well, your deficit is 4 to 8 kHz. We’re going to bring that back up, and then you should be able to hear what you haven’t heard in a long time.”
Had you tried any other hearing aids? I know these ones are very specially designed.
No. I was saying, “I can’t use a hearing aid! I’ve got to mix records and play.” I got these and they changed my life. You can’t even see it. Even if I didn’t have any hair, you wouldn’t notice it. Aesthetically, that’s cool. I have nothing to be ashamed of, being that I’ve been a musician since I was a little kid. I put myself in harm’s way. When we first started in the studios, they’d have the big speakers and I’d be doing a solo. It’d be 120 dB in the room. I was getting off on that as a dumb shit teenager kid. I didn’t realize the damage. My mother was always like, “You’re going to lose your hearing.” I was like, “Eh, old people.” Well, guess what? I’m an old person now! Wearing the Widex, the tinnitus comes down remarkably. But when I take them out at night, go to sleep, and charge them back up, the ringing is much louder again. I remember Jeff Beck telling me that’s what it did for him. “It puts the frequency back in, and helps to cancel out and level back off frequencies.” I didn’t really understand what he meant, because it was 20-some odd years ago. I got it myself and went, “Wow!” It’s like the difference between putting your fingers in your ears and then taking them out. It has three different settings of EQs. One’s for normal, one’s for music, and one’s for another one called “pure.” If I put it on the music one and go outside at night, I...
