Toto and Weezer have developed a somewhat symbiotic relationship as of late. Weezer recently covered Toto’s hit from the ’80s, “Africa,” taking it to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 Alternative list as reported at Inquisitr. The Weezer cover introduced Toto to a different generation of listeners than they usually draw, helping move some albums and fill a few extra seats while they are on tour. To return the favor, and have a little fun, Toto decided to do a Weezer cover, eventually settling on their 2001 No. 2 billboard hit, “Hash Pipe.”
“Hash Pipe” wasn’t their first choice of songs. It’s a lot harder rock than Toto is known for, and it wasn’t a song they were really all that familiar with anyway. In an interview with The Guardian, Toto’s keyboard player Steve Porcaro said that they had been planning to cover “Beverly Hills” as it sort of had a Toto vibe and style about it they thought they could pull off fairly well. Porcaro went on to say that when he was telling his neighbor, whom he characterized as a major Weezer fan, about the idea for the cover, he talked him out of doing “Beverly Hills” and steered him in the direction of “Hash Pipe” instead.
“He talked me through their hits, then he looked up with a little gleam in his eye and said something about driving down the freeway with ‘Hash Pipe’ cranked up, and that really stuck with me.”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=9N9OM1nxdYc%3Ffeature%3Doembed
Porcaro said that he really had to convince Toto’s lead singer, Joseph Williams, that “Hash Pipe” was the song to do, and that he had the pipes for it, but kept at it until he had everyone in the band convinced as reported at The Guardian. He said that he had to remind them that they weren’t “a bunch of studio guys distorting their amplifiers for the first time. We started off as a garage band who played a lot of rock’n’roll.”
The results have been positive so far with piles of comments on YouTube telling the guys that they did a great job. It has been received so well, in fact, that Toto added it to their concert set-list. And according to Toto guitarist Steve Lukather, it is the perfect song for them because “we were smoking hash since before they [Weezer] were born,” as told to Pitchfork. “Now we’ll both probably have to play ‘Hash Pipe’ and ‘Africa’ for the rest of our entire lives.”
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