We’ve had to put up with a lot of shitty actors-turned-wannabe-rock/pop-stars music over the years and, frankly, our reward should be finally getting to hear Rob Lowe’s coked-up Toto collaboration demo that was recorded in the ’80s, but that probably won’t happen.
During a recent episode of his podcast Literally! With Rob Lowe, the longtime actor shared the story with his co-host, Bill Simmons, after the two got on the topic of music while discussing Music Box: Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary, a film that Simmons executively produced.
“That’s the other thing about yacht rock. These songs were some of—literally—the biggest songs of the year; songs that won Grammys,” Simmons said, noting that yacht rock has often not been a very respected genre.
“[The Doobie Brothers‘] ‘Minute by Minute’ won a Grammy, Christopher Cross won, like, four Grammys. Toto crushed at the Grammys,” Simmons continued, then adding, “Toto crushed at the Grammys to the point that people got pissed about it. Like, there was a Grammys backlash. They were like, ‘Who the fuck are these guys?’”
Rob Lowe Once Recorded a Coked Up Demo with Toto and I Think The World Deserves to Hear It
Lowe then perked up and revealed his long-long experience with the L.A. rock band. “I got one for ya,” he began. “There was a minute in the 80s where I was definitely doing too much Bolivian marching powder and just being a fucking lunatic and [it was] also coming at the time in a young actor’s career where they’re too old to play the roles they’ve been playing, but they’re too young to play the roles that will last you the rest of your life, which are really the great ones. And you can kind of feel it.”
“I love music so much, as evidenced by this talk and all of that, that I got it into my head that maybe I should think more about music and I cut a demo with Toto,” Lowe confessed, adding that the big collab happened as he was riding high from hit films like The Outsiders (1983) and St. Elmo’s Fire (1985) and while Toto was still sailing on the popularity of their iconic 1982 song “Africa.”
“Wow, this is one of the reasons you’re the world’s most interesting man,” Simmons said, in response to Lowe’s confession. “You were partying with the Showtime Lakers as they were winning titles during the Magic’s shots scenario. Who weren’t you involved with in L.A. in the ’80s?”
“Probably nobody, because I also took having fun very seriously,” Lowe replied.
While he did not offer any other details about the long-lost demo, I feel like it’s fair to say that the world should be allowed to hear young, coked-out-of-his-mind Rob Lowe belting out some tunes with none other than Toto as his backing band. I would sincerely pay good money for it.
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