Exclusive: Former Toto bassist recalls 2019 breakup: It got a little ‘Lord of the Flies’

Former Toto bassist Shem von Schroeck takes a deep breath. “This is the first time I’ve ever talked about this publicly,” he tells Blaze News’ Steve Baker.

Baker has just asked Schroeck — who toured with Toto from 2017 to its breakup in 2019 — for his perspective on the inner turmoil that led to a final rift between founding guitarist Steve Lukather and keyboardist Steve Porcaro in 2019.

‘This is a person who can go from laughing at the funniest, silliest joke to tearing someone’s head off.’

While Lukather continues to tour under the Toto name, the break with Porcaro severed the last remaining link with the founding Porcaro brothers. Drummer Jeff died in 1992, while bassist Mike succumbed to ALS in 2015.

Legal woes

The rift had its roots in a 2018 lawsuit filed by Jeff Porcaro’s widow, Susan Porcaro-Goings, accusing the band (owned by Lukather and founding keyboardist and vocalist David Paich) of holding back revenue owed to her late husband’s estate. Toto lost the suit — and at an October 2019 show in Philadelphia, Lukather announced the end of the band.

While the announcement came as a surprise to fans, for Schroeck, the writing was on the wall. “The last year of my time with them, the infighting in the band just got toxic,” he says.

“I certainly wasn’t hired in the band to have an opinion about anything,” he continues. “I was there to play bass and sing and show up on time with a smile on my face. But there was just hate and animosity.”

Father figure

Schroeck traces some of that animosity to the departure of Paich, who in some ways held the band together.

“The first year [2017] with David Paich in the band, it was golden. Everybody loved everybody,” recalls Schroeck. “The band was playing great. It just was a big family on the road.”

And in his way, Paich was the father figure who inspired everyone to get along, says Schroeck. “When he left, I watched a wheel come off the truck. When that presence was gone, it got a little ‘Lord of the Flies.’ … A lot of immaturity for men in their sixties.”

It got so tense that Schroeck tried to leave the band in March 2019. “It was basically a cry for help.”

While Schroeck hoped his would-be resignation letter to Lukather would prompt some discussion about how to ease tensions within the band, instead, the response was what amounted to a threat that if he didn’t finish out the year, his professional reputation would suffer.

Never meet your heroes

Schroeck stuck it out. He was a longtime Toto fan, and the gig was a dream come true. And Lukather was always one of his “top three guys who I want to play with someday.”

Today, Schroeck ruefully acknowledges that the experience had an element of “never meet your heroes” to it. Lukather, he reports, can be volatile. “This is a person who can go from laughing at the funniest, silliest joke to tearing someone’s head off.”

Eventually, Schroeck attracted his ire. While he admits his mistakes, he says the reactions tended to be overblown. “When I would see people’s heads get bitten off, every time I would walk away going, the situation wasn’t worthy of that type of anger or reaction.”

A misunderstanding on social media only exacerbated things; Lukather ended up posting a note addressing Schroeck as “by far the worst musician in the band” and claiming “nobody wants to work with you, your career is over.”

‘Divine inspiration’

Schroeck chose not to retaliate in kind. He’s quick to remember a different side of his former bandmate.

“I have stacks of emails [and] screenshots of text messages of him heaping praise on me; like bring-tears-to-your-eyes kind of stuff,” he says.

One message in particular stands out. “After a near-disaster on stage, my music director head went off and I kind of got everybody back on track. And I’m going to say this verbatim, because this meant a lot to me at the time. [Lukather] goes, ‘I believe there was divine inspiration upstairs from Jeff and Mike. They guided their brother, Steve, to bring you into this band.'”

Schroeck marvels at the memory. “From him. Wow. You save stuff like that.”

Why talk about this now?

“It’s been five years,” says Schroeck. “I’ve been out of the band longer than I was in it. … Nothing I’m saying here is meant to disparage. Fans like yourself have been curious.”

While Schroeck has moved on to composing for film, he doesn’t completely rule out working with Lukather again. “Anything’s possible. So I’m not going to say never. If it came across my my bow, I’d entertain it.”

For more Toto talk — as well as highlights from Schroeck’s more than 40 years in the music biz — check out his full interview with Steve Baker below.