“Instead of the toy store, I wanted to go to the guitar store and play all the expensive guitars”: Steve Lukather shares his biggest gear hits and misses

Steve Lukather has reached the point where all the buying and the selling and the sifting of the ether for new gear is over. Ever since he signed up on the Ernie Ball Music Man artist roster and developed his superlative S-style signature model, he has found the one.

But there was a whole lot of guitar shopping before that, a lot of scrambling around for gear. With his new solo album, Bridges, out now, the Toto guitarist and session legend dropped Guitarist a line to share some gear-buying wisdom – spoiler, there is “no magic guitar, no magic amp” – and talk about some of his greatest buys, gear regrets, and favourites from his collection.

What was the first serious guitar you bought with your own money?

“I played a lot of really shitty guitars when I was young. I started out with a Kay acoustic guitar, which was like five bucks at a Thrifty Drug Store. The action was so far off the neck, it was painful to try to get a noise out of – guitars were not very sophisticated in the early ’60s.

“Then the first electric guitar I got was another Thrifty Drug Store guitar called an Astrotone. That one fell over and broke its neck – somebody let somebody play it and they dropped it. My old man goes, ‘Well, you’re gonna have to play it with a broken neck…’

“So what I used to do was borrow guitars from people who had good guitars. A Fender or Gibson or something like that was rare back then, but they existed. My father would go on the road while he was working behind the cameras in the television movie business and he would come home and say, ‘Where do you want to go?’ Instead of going to the toy store, I wanted to go to the guitar store and play all the expensive guitars I couldn’t afford.

“One time I got in there and I grabbed this Les Paul Deluxe off the wall and I was playing my ass off, I guess. I was gonna put it on the wall again and my dad goes, ‘Well, let’s get it in the car… I thought he was buying me an amp, but he said, ‘No, the guitar, too.’ He gave up getting a new car for himself to give me an Ampeg VT-22 amp and a Les Paul Deluxe. My parents were great.”

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What was the last guitar you bought and why?

“I haven’t bought a guitar since I started working with Music Man 30 years ago [laughs]. I got a whole new line, the [Ernie Ball Music Man Lukather] L4. There’s four different versions of my signature guitar with Music Man – it’s sort of like a hybrid of a Strat and a Les Paul and it gives me everything I need in one stop. Plus, I love the company. I love the quality of the guitars. I love that they take care of me so well in every aspect of it, you know?

“They send me stuff and I go, ‘I love this.’ I don’t think I’ve ever sent anything back. They just made me all brand-new [Heat Treated/HT] pickups – they’re astounding.”

What’s the most incredible find or bargain you ever had when buying guitars?

“It’s a treasured part of my collection, a Vox Teardrop 12-string like Brian Jones had. It has all the fuzz tones and all the stuff on, a palm wah-wah with the tremolo bar. It’s very strange and very rare and sought after. Tom Petty was buying a whole ton of them – those guys love all that stuff, you know? I bought it for 200 bucks, 35 years ago.

“God knows what it’s worth. Not only was it a great deal, but it’s such a weird one-off guitar with very unique sounds. It’s got that kind of Satisfaction fuzz tone sound on it. I don’t really go out collecting any more. I’ve got a lot of friends who do – Joe Bonamassa, who’s one of the greats of all time and a dear friend of mine. I mean, his house smells like an old Les Paul case!”

Can you tell us about the strongest case of buyer’s remorse you’ve had after buying a piece of gear?

“I’ve bought things that I thought I was gonna like more than I did or use more than I did, but I’d sell them or keep them. I have a few seller’s remorse [stories]. I had a ’58 Goldtop that I sold. I mean, I bought it for a couple of grand and somebody offered me $50,000 for it. And this was, like, 20 years ago, my daughter was going to college.

“I said, ‘Well, I haven’t played it in a long time,’ not thinking about the history that I had with that guitar. And I sold it to this Japanese guy for 50 grand, and I just took care of my daughter’s college for a year.

“And then I had a 1960 Les Paul with a thin neck, like Jimmy Page’s, which I liked, but it didn’t sound anywhere near as good as my ’59 ’Burst. I didn’t play it for, like, 20 years. I figured if I didn’t play it for 20 years, I could get rid of it. It was a great investment – what I paid for it and what I sold it for were like, okay, but then I’m going, ‘Why am I selling this?’ So I stopped doing that.”

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What’s your best guitar-buying tip?

“Some people like a certain feel, you know? You get a guitar and when you put it in your hand and you feel it, it’s a personal connection, and you go, ‘Aww, this feels good – this is nice.’ And then you have the sound… I think it’s a really personal thing. In terms of really great guitars, there are a lot of options that you have today. Pretty good-quality stuff. Apples and oranges, you know, personal taste.”

When was the last time you stopped to stare in a guitar shop window and what were you looking at in particular?

“Sometimes I poke my head in and look around and I’ll see something that stands out from the rest; maybe an oddball guitar will catch my eye. But I don’t go out that much. I’m always working and on my off-time I still have two young kids. I’m a homebody. My days of scouring for guitars [are done]. I got enough guitars! I need to spend more time practising and less time looking.”

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If forced to make a choice, would you rather buy a really good guitar and a budget guitar amp or a cheap guitar and a high-end guitar amp?

“Here’s a really good answer: there’s no magic guitar, no magic amp, there’s just magic people. I’ve played Eddie Van Halen’s guitars, Jeff Beck’s guitars, and I sound like me. A great guitar and a great amp? Sure, that helps. How could it not? But if you give a 1959 Les Paul to a 10-year-old kid that can’t play it’s not gonna make him sound like Gary Moore. You know what I mean?”

If you could only use humbuckers or single coils for the rest of your career, which would you choose and why?

“Wow, that’s a tough question, man, because I need them both. I can’t answer that. It’s like, my guitar is a hybrid of all that shit. So, I don’t know.”

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Steve's go-to rig

“Two Bogner Helios run stereo just for some stereo delays and reverb. I put in the Gurus Echosex before the reverb that goes into the loop, which is this beautiful delayed chamber sound, still keeping your regular tone – you know, not buried in goo.

“I like a little goo, but I don’t want to be buried in it. I just got a couple of TC delay pedals. Hand-wired Jam pedals, a Rodenberg customised distortion box [Steve has a signature Rodenberg SL-OD pedal], a Bombastortion – Jeff Kollman’s overdrive pedal is killer, especially when you’re on high gain, you can get a little extra oomph out of it. I love it.

“What else is on there? The Strymon [Lex] Leslie simulator and the Strymon reverb. A Jam wah-wah, I have a TC chorus and a TC long stereo delay. Also, I got a Uni-Vibe and I use my Music Man guitars – and that’s it.”

• Bridges is out now via The Players Club/Mascot Label Group.