What goes around comes around as 80s AOR titans Toto have revealed that they’re to cover Weezer’s ‘Hash Pipe’ – just months after Weezer covered Toto’s ‘Africa’ and ‘Rosanna’.
The Toto covers by Weezer came after a long-running campaign orchestrated by the Twitter account @WeezerCover Africa – and Toto’s recorded response is being released “in the coming weeks.”
Toto’s cover version has been prompted by LA radio station KROQ DJs Ted Stryker and Kevin Klein who challenged the band to play a Weezer track. Having heard the on-air dare, Toto’s Steve Porcaro and Steve Lukather got in touch to confirm that work had already begun on their version of ‘Hash Pipe’.
Speaking to KROQ [via Stereogum], Porcaro said: “We listened to ‘Beverly Hills’. I wanted to maybe even do a real Africa-type version of that. But we wanted to make it different, but we wanted to do something rock‘n’roll. I wanted to show everyone what a good rock‘n’roll band we can be.
“I love the band. I love their music. [Toto singer] Joseph Williams and I were listening to different ones trying to figure out which ones he’d like to sing and we settled on ‘Hash Pipe’.”
Lukather added: “I thought ‘Hash Pipe’ had a better melody. I love the message and we wanted to do it justice.
“We wanted to do our thing to it, but still pay respect to it. We added a couple of our kitschy little things to it, which I hope they laugh at. We wish we could be in the room when they hear it.”
Lukather revealed that Toto gave Weezer’s version of ‘Africa’ their full approval. He said: “Our music has such little nuance. We spent so much meticulous time. These guys stood this shit up in an afternoon.
“Let’s face it – they kicked ass on it. I think [Weezer frontman] Rivers Cuomo has a great voice. And the way they did the harmonies with the auto-tune in there, which gave it a kitschy thing.
“I didn’t know if I was going to like it or not. I thought they were going to make fun of us.”
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