Toto guitarist Steve Lukather has expressed his delight at the band's growing popularity with Spotify users.
Lukather spoke about this, while promoting the band's upcoming Dogs Of Oz tour, as Toto's popularity with younger fans continues to go from strength to strength.
In July last year, songs from Toto were played more than three million times a day, with 52% of these streams coming from listeners aged 34 years old or younger. Their hit Africa, has now been streamed more than two billion times on Spotify.
Speaking about this popularity, Steve Lukather has called it "mindblowing".
"It’s mind-blowing – is this really happening?", he said. "We’ve got an audience that never knew about us before. They just go, ‘I like that song,’ without having preconceived ideas about what it is. Today they have a billion choices, and they choose us".
"I made an incredible deal with Spotify when it was two weeks old", he continued. "But it’s not about the money, though everybody needs money. I’ve got four kids and two ex-wives, and the taxman takes 50 per cent. I’ll leave it at that".
On the lasting legacy of Africa, Steve Lukather also added this.
"Ask anyone who's ever written a hit song and they'll tell you – if you knew how to do it, you'd do it every time", he stated. "Some, you're sure are going to be hits, and they're not. In the case of Africa, I was like 'No way! Are you kidding me? Listen to these lyrics!' We laugh about it now".
The musician was also asked about the art installation in a desert in Nambia, playing Africa continuously.
"We're trying to get a representative of ASCAP or PRS [US and UK rights organisations] to go down there and count the times," he laughed. "So we can get paid".
Toto kick off their Dogs Of Oz in Glasgow on February 1, as part of a tour which will also see them take in shows across Australia, New Zealand, and the US. See these dates in full here.
