Steve Porcaro

Steve Porcaro was born into a musical family, so it’s no surprise that he started piano lessons at the age of four. Throughout his school years he played in various bands with his brothers, Jeff and Mike. At age 17 Steve joined Gary Wright’s “Dreamweaver” tour and went on to tour with Boz Scaggs in support of Scaggs’ “Silk Degrees” album. The core of that band became the genesis of Toto, of which Steve was a founding member and contributing songwriter.

In 1982, Steve and Toto won Grammy Awards for Album, Producer and Record of the Year. After Toto, Steve continued to be one of the most sought-after keyboard session players in Los Angeles. While working with such artists as Michael Jackson, Don Henley, Barbra Streisand and Elton John, Steve was twice recognized by Keyboard Magazine as “Session Player of The Year.” During that time, Steve also co-wrote “Human Nature” for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album.

Steve worked with composer James Newton Howard on a number of scores, including The Fugitive, Outbreak, and Waterworld. Steve also composed the underscore to Paramount’s series The Sentinel and scored Caravan’s feature film Metro, directed by Thomas Carter.Steve’s other scoring work includes TNT’s original feature film Hope, directed by Goldie Hawn, and Phoenician Film’s feature film The Murder of Crows starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Tom Berringer & Eric Stoltz, and directed by Rowdy Harrington.

How has your record songwriting and producing influenced your work in film/tv?

For me, it’s the other way around. I find my pop stuff imbued with more of a film quality than ever before. Pop music is where I come from. And yes, sometimes for film, especially a romantic scene, my pop sensibility is going to affect the fabric of the score.

If you think about Toto’s music, our bridges, our orchestral elements had a filmic quality. We were trying to tell grander stories. It may have come off as pretentious to some. But in Toto, David (Paich) and I were huge fans of movie music, especially composers like Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams.

Tell us about your collaboration with James Newton Howard.

I wouldn’t have any kind of film/TV scoring career if it weren’t for James. He turned to me one day and said, “Do you want to do this?” Frankly, I didn’t know if I could. The best lesson he ever taught me — be the guy who solves problems.

How do you get scoring work and handle the business side of composing with all the competition out there?

It’s all about relationships with other composers and music supervisors. As far as music supervisors go, I used to think they were just at a desk doing clearances for needle drops. It’s still part of their job, but over the last 10 or 20 years the music supervisors have the director and producer’s ear. If the director and producer don’t already have “their guy” that they are married to, the music supervisor has a big influence in selecting a composer.

Why does writing to picture differ from other composing or songwriting you do?

I’m always trying to find a deeper understanding of the characters. I love to play on the dramatic subtext not on the screen. You are able to say things with music that words and picture can’t. You want to expand the scope, deepen the impact in the most unobtrusive way.

Does writing for TV differ from film?

With film, you have time to get it right — at least a couple months. With TV, they need it by Thursday. The way Toto worked, we took nine months to do a record, if I got a song on the record fine, if I didn’t no one was mad at me. I had the synth gig in the band.

I found out with TV that not only could I have it done by Thursday, I loved having it done by Thursday! I love the pressure; I live for the deadline now. My song output over the last 30 years hasn’t been what I want. With TV work, there are times I don’t feel like it. I’d rather hang out with my kids, see a movie with friends, or go have lunch. I gotta say “no” to people, and go in the studio and work. And you know what — I still come up with some quality! You don’t know what to write, so you write down, “I don’t know what to write.” And suddenly you start writing something. Sometimes I’ll listen to other scores and songs, then write, and then re-write until it’s right.

Also, with movies, you are mostly trying to make the director happy. With TV the director is not the issue. When I show up he’s come and gone. It’s the four producers, the network, it’s the studio that all have to approve. There is conflicting input. We can have an esoteric talk about what a score is supposed to do — at the end of the day what I take pride in most is making everybody happy.

Have the advances in technology affected your writing for film/tv?

I wouldn’t ever been able to write for film or TV if there wasn’t the technology. When I was younger I took arranging and composition classes. But I never got a degree in music; I never went to college and had a college orchestra play my stuff. I embraced this tech stuff from the get-go. I needed to. It turns out it is not a bad thing. If it is the kind of score that requires a live orchestra, I do that. But these days almost nobody cares about how you do it; all they care about is the end result.

Steve Porcaro has a selection of scoring cues available on MusicSupervisor.com