RIDGEFIELD — Covering most of the guitar parts on the second highest selling album of all time... check.

Being the go-to axe handler for Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band... check.

Handling session guitar work for Aretha Franklin, Elton John, George Harrison, Olivia Newtown John, Cher, Joni Mitchell, Donna Summer, Sir Paul McCartney, Rosemary Clooney, Barbara Streisand, Miles Davis, and Spinal Tap (among others)...check.

Publishing biography and recording(Grammy nominated) audio book...check.

Co-writing one of Weezer's most popular cover songs...

Wait, what??

That’s right — and nobody is more stunned about the odd yin and yang going on between the ‘90s rockers and the group that produced monster global hits including “Hold The Line,” “Roseanna,” “I’ll Be Over You,” and of course, “Africa,” than the guy who co-wrote it, Toto’s Steve Lukather.

Lukather, who insists you call him Luke, recently checked in with The Newtown Bee to chat about the band’s current tour, which is coming to the Ridgefield Playhouse for an 8 pm set on Monday, November 12.

Lukather on guitar and vocals, will be joined by Joseph Williams on lead and background vocals, Steve Porcaro and Dominique "Xavier" Taplin on keys, Shannon Forrest on drums, Lenny Castro on percussion, Warren Ham on multiple instruments with saxophone and vocals as his main weapons, and Shem von Schroeck on bass and vocals.

Co-founder David Paich is sitting out this leg of the tour as he recovers and re-focuses on improving his health from a scare he suffered earlier this year.

Prolific guitarist, singer, producer, and songwriter Lukather was as shocked as anyone when, soon after Toto’s “Africa” was used in an episode of the hit Netflix horror series Stranger Things, the hook-laden 1982 hit started racking up millions of new listens on various streaming services.

“This came out of nowhere for us,” Lukather said. “Apparently it was a 15-year-old girl who started the craze when she heard it on TV and rallied on Weezer, of all bands, to cover it — which is one of the most unlikely pairings ever. And we’ve never met these guys, and they never met us.”

That is until Toto co-founder Steve Porcaro played a cameo keyboard solo during a Weezer appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! back in June. Since then, Toto has “returned the favor,” by covering “Hash Pipe,” and from here, who knows where it goes.

The one thing that is clear, is this out of the blue coincidence has helped a massive new global audience discover Toto.

“Their fans have been really kind, and we’re really being positive towards them,” Lukather said. “It’s a win-win for both sides. They haven’t had a hit record for ten years and our shows are blowing up. Our version of the song went number one on iTunes again. We’re getting 10 to 12 million streams a month on top of the half a billion we already have — that’s billion with a B. People can’t believe the song’s got legs like this.”

Historically, few ensembles in the history of recorded music have individually or collectively had a larger imprint on pop culture than the members of Toto, according to the band’s official bio. And as individuals, the band members’ performances can be heard on an astonishing 5,000 albums that together amass a sales history of a half a billion albums.

Among these recordings are tunes that have earned 225 Grammy nominations, while Toto’s band members were featured as South Park characters, and Family Guy did an entire episode around one of their hits.

As a band, Toto has sold over 40 million albums, and continue to be a worldwide concert draw, staging standing room only events across the globe. With 42 years together and thousands of credits and accolades to their names, Toto remains one of the top-selling touring and recording acts in the world.

It is not an exaggeration to estimate that 95 percent of the world’s population has heard a performance by a member of Toto. The list of those they individually collaborated with reads like a who’s who of Rock & Roll Hall of Famers, alongside the biggest names in music.

Lukather credits their success and longevity to “keeping the music interesting,” by capitalizing on acts from Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles to their heroes The Beatles, by featuring multiple singers, songwriters, producers, and multi-instrumentalists on their recordings and concert appearances.

And among them was Lukather, a native Los Angelino whose dad bought him a guitar (a simple Kay acoustic) and a copy of Meet the Beatles at the age of seven, which inspired him to not only lay a foundation for his lifelong career on guitar but inspired him to take up drums and keyboards as well.

At high school he met the Porcaro brothers (transplanted Hartford natives Steve, Jeff, and Mike) who were a few years older. Jeff Porcaro and Paich were already doing session work around LA, and in 1976, after playing and touring with Boz Scaggs, they invited Lukather, Bobby Kimball, David Hungate, and Steve Porcaro to join their own band Toto.

In the meantime, Paich, Jeff Porcaro, and people like celebrated producer/engineer Jay Graydon kept involved Lukather more and more in the session business. In the late ‘70s and throughout the ‘80s, Lukather proved himself a first class and first called session musician, and he never looked back.

The Newtown Bee caught up with Lukather in Boston the morning after a Ringo Starr concert at Foxwoods Casino, and just before he and his All Starr Band-mates were about to head out and explore the city.

The Newtown Bee: So after all this time as an 'All-Starr', is it still surreal when Ringo walks up to you and says, 'Luke - Great job on “Octopus's Garden” tonight'?

Steve Lukather: You know, John, there are still those moments. I’ve been with him almost seven years now, and we’ve become really good friends. I really adore the man. There are moments when I look over and it’s surreal, but what’s really funny is when I’m out with friends and I get a text from Ringo. But I’ve worked with Paul [McCartney]  and I’ve worked with George [Harrison], and we were all friends, and they are the reason I play music. If you’d have asked me when I got that first guitar as a kid that I’d be playing The Beatles 50th Anniversary Concert, I would have said I’ll be the first man on Venus, too [laughing].

TNB: Do the Toto arrangements of the tunes you perform with Ringo have to change much as the All Starr'band personnel shifts from tour to tour?

Lukather: We do them different because we have Greg Rolie [Santana, Journey] who plays organ, and we don’t have a lot of synthesizer like Toto. So, I rearrange the Toto songs for the All-Starr shows. Two different bands. For instance, this tour I have Colin Hayes [Men at Work] covering the high harmonies that Bobby Kimball sang on our record — and Colin kills it every night. And I get to do their music too. I get to be eight different guitar players every night and I try to stay true to each of them sonically and stylistically. When the George Harrison parts come up I try to play them like the record. When I play Santana stuff with Greg, I pay respect to Carlos with a few of his signature licks, and they do the same for me.

TNB: Toto seems to have defied the aging process. I think casual listeners would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between a song from the debut album and Toto XIV.

Lukather: That’s kind of you to say. David, Steve, and I have always sang on all of our records. Everybody sings. If somebody writes a song they sing the song, or we decide as a band to cast it based on who sings the song the best. Or maybe we’ll split the vocals like we do on “Rosanna.” We were never the band with the pretty lead singer who just sings, like Steve Perry and Aerosmith. We throw the flavors around like we throw the styles around. It sets us apart from some of the other Grade A rock bands.

TNB: At the same time, you guys seem to have always pushed creative diversity instead of just rearranging the chords and recycling the musical formula of your biggest global hits.

Lukather: Almost to a fault [laughing]. Because we would confuse people. I mean, if you listen to our first album, and then our second album, you may wonder if it’s the same band. If you listen to “Africa,” and then some of our prog stuff that’s on out later albums, you wouldn’t know it’s mostly the same people. Casual fans come to our shows to hear our hits and we go off into our other stuff and they hear the musicianship… I’ll tell you with all this Weezer stuff and the “Africa” craze, when kids all over the world come to our shows now and see us play all our other stuff, they pretty much stand there and say, what the [expletive], these guys can play — and there’s no guy behind the curtain with a Pro Tools rig. But we’ve been playing together since I was 15.

TNB: I hear David’s replacement — Dominique "Xavier" Taplin — and Shem are really adding a lot to the line-up we’re going to see with Toto at The Ridgefield Playhouse on November 12.

Lukather: X is something else. He’s part of the Snarky Puppy camp, and all those guys are genius musicians who make me smile and give me a lot of hope for the future of our industry. And he was with Prince. He’s the sweetest guy ever, a great hang, and a monster player. We’re lucky to have him. I’m hoping to see David back soon, but in the meantime, we’re trudging forward with Xavier. And talk about Shem, he’s got perfect pitch and he can sing the high tenor parts full voice and he never misses a note. And Xavier sings, so we’ve got even more punch to the vocals that are normally really good.

TNB: So I guess the big news for you professionally is The Gospel According To Luke. Was this an opportunity that sort of came to you in the form of a publishing pitch, or were you just feeling you were at the right place in your career, and it was the right time?

Lukather: This kind of happened by accident. I never really wanted to write a book but I did an appearance at the Grammy Museum and I had everybody rolling in the aisles with my stories, and after that my manager said I should write a book. So then I was approached by a guy in the UK who wrote Robert Plant’s biography saying he wanted to write one with me. And I was still apprehensive, but they met all my conditions including final edit, so I did it. I also recorded the audio book, and I was scared to death it would be a bust. But it was the number one pre-ordered rock bio download on iTunes, and a number of other sites.

The Bee: I can’t let you go without asking you to reflect on your sessions with Aretha Franklin, who we just lost.

Lukather: Wow… she was so amazing. It was almost distracting because she’d sit in the middle of the studio at a grand piano with a vocal mic, and when she felt she got a good vocal take, that was it. It was a killer band with me and David [Paich], Jeff Porcaro, Lenny Castro, the late great David Williams on guitar, Marcus Miller, David Foster on keys, and Aretha in the middle. And I’ll admit, when I first walked in and started playing, she was so lovely and so kind to us. But when she started singing, I’d look up and get fixated on the fact that — holy crap Aretha Franklin is five feet away, and I’d lose my place on the chart. We were all in awe of her. And now she’s an adjective. There’s not going to be another Aretha, and it means a lot of singers today have a lot to live up to.

Toto will bring the 40 Trips Around The Sun Tour to the non-profit Ridgefield Playhouse on Monday, November, 12 at 8 pm. For tickets ($125) visit the box office at 80 East Ridge, parallel to Main Street, call 203-438-5795 or go online to [naviga:u]www.ridgefieldplayhouse.org[/naviga:u].