Rob Lowe has revealed that he nearly embarked on a music career and once recorded a demo with Toto while under the influence.
During the latest episode of his episode of SiriusXM podcast Literally! With Rob Lowe, the veteran actor and 80s heartthrob reflected on the experience with journalist, author, and fellow podcaster Bill Simmons.
The two began discussing 80s music and Music Box: Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary, the film that Simmons recently executively produced. During this discussion, Lowe opened up about his demo with the ‘Hold The Line’ hitmakers.
“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 while discussing the negativity that some have towards the genre.
“[The Doobie Brothers‘] ‘Minute by Minute’ won a Grammy, Christopher Cross won, like, four Grammys. Toto crushed at the Grammys. 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?’,” Simmons continued.
Lowe then chimed in, recounting his experience with the Los Angeles rockers. “I got one for ya. 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.”
According to Lowe, the recording of the demo happened when his fame was at its highest due to the release of 1983’s The Outsiders and 1985’s St. Elmo’s Fire. At the same time, Toto were at their peak as well after the release of their legendary track ‘Africa’.
Simmons responded by replying: “Wow, this is one of the reasons you’re the world’s most interesting man. 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 added.
The Californication actor did not elaborate further on the details of the demo or if the song with Toto would ever see the light of day.
In other news, last summer, Lowe shared that he was working on the “early stages” of a sequel to St. Elmo’s Fire.