At the height of their fame, Toto was forced to fire their lead singer — a decision that cofounder Steve Porcaro describes today as “really traumatic.”
Though 1982’s Toto IV had put the band in a new stratosphere of commercial success, things were strained behind the scenes, most notably with frontman Bobby Kimball, who was in the grips of substance abuse.
“It was the usual stuff in the early ‘80, to be honest with you,” keyboardist and co-founder Porcaro recalled during a recent appearance on the Bob Lefsetz podcast. “I mean, we were all at the party, so to speak. But when you’re the lead singer of the band, there’s a time when you can pull that off those late nights and heavy drinking and whatever and still do your gig.”
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“I can say that Bobby wasn’t wasn’t doing anything the rest of us weren’t doing,” Porcaro continued, “but he was the lead singer, and it just would become apparent when he couldn’t perform.”
Toto’s ‘Heartbreaking’ Decision to Fire Bobby Kimball
The move to dismiss Kimball couldn’t have come at a more impactful time for Toto. The band had scored massive hits with “Rosanna” and “Africa,” while Toto IV took home a total of six Grammys in 1983. Still, it became clear that the group could not continue with their frontman.
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“It was heartbreaking. We had found our chemistry. We had found what clicks, what works for us,” Porcaro recalled. “We had figured it out. But then we had been working so hard up to that point. You have to understand, we’d been just constantly in the studio or on the road up to that point. By the time we did Toto IV and it was hugely successful and we toured behind it, everybody was exhausted and kind of needed a break.”
Unfortunately, some time off didn’t help Kimball refocus.
“When we finally got around to making a follow up to Toto IV, a lot of the bad habits, let’s say, that had been developing, had gotten to a point where people just couldn’t perform at the level they wanted to that we needed them to,” Porcaro continued, alluding to Kimball’s substance abuse problems. “We wound up having to switch lead singers, which we hated doing. We hated doing that. It was really traumatic for the band.”
Who Joined Toto After Bobby Kimball?
Toto cycled through several lead singers – including Dennis Frederiksen and Joseph Williams – over the next few years. Though Kimball eventually returned for another decade-long tenure beginning in 1998, the group never recaptured the magic they’d enjoyed on Toto IV.
“All of a sudden, that style of music — that polished kind of, what our detractors called ‘corporate rock’ — suddenly became very unpopular,” Porcaro recalled, pointing to rock’s changing landscape in the early ‘90s. “Bands like Nirvana were all of a sudden real popular. The whole Seattle thing was starting to happen. [Toto’s] whole style of music, with these synthesizer extravaganzas, were becoming very unpopular. And the record company let us know they weren’t as thrilled as they were [before]. I mean, if we had delivered enough other hits, they’d be okay. But you know what, it was just the music world was changing.”
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Countless high school buddies have started their own bands, but few achieved the level of enduring success enjoyed by the guys in Toto.
Gallery Credit: Jeff Giles
