"Jean-Michel Jarre is the Godfather of Electronic Music. His albums - his classic debut Oxygene among them – have changed the way we hear the world today. Musicians and contemporary DJs refer to his influence and innovation, both in the studio and in terms of the immersive outdoor concert experiences he has engineered…”
 
- PHIL ALEXANDER -
Editor-In-Chief, MOJO

Steve Lukather’s new album Transition on Mascot Records strikes a perfect balance of style, power and imagination as he takes risks and challenges himself in ways most other players can’t even approach.

That’s been standard operating procedure for this high-wire artist of the six-string for nearly four decades, as his career has gone from the studios of Los Angeles to the world’s biggest concert halls to the helm of the multi-platinum selling group Toto and, recently, to ground-breaking tours with Ringo Starr, guitar geniuses Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, and the reunited Toto, who have scheduled a follow-up 35th anniversary tour for 2013.

“I’ve got a lot to be thankful for, and now is a perfect time for me to take stock of that, which is part of what Transition is about,” Lukather says. 

Over the previous decade a series of trials including divorce, the death of his mother and business hassles had dampened his joy in music making — a passion that drove Lukather to excel since seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan as a seven-year-old growing up in San Fernando Valley. But today the guitar guru is happy, healthy and strongly reconnected to his muse, and the lushly expressive Transition, his second Mascot album, finds him at a creative pinnacle.

“I equate recordings to paintings,” he explains, “ and I wanted to make Transition a big, beautiful album with lots of fine details and shadings and colors. That’s what I do and what my favorite albums — Sgt. Pepper’s, Dark Side of the Moon, Electric Ladyland, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road — are all about. So if it’s a sin to make massive sounding records with huge production values, then I’m going to Hell.”

Fat chance, because Transition’s heavenly sonic architecture — erected with the help of such A-list musical friends as Def Leppard’s Phil Collen, superstar bassists Lee Sklar, Nathan East, John Pierce, and Tal Wilkenfeld, live band members Steve Weingart, Renee Jones, and Eric Valentine, along with mega-drummers Gregg Bissonette, Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tos Panos, and Lukather’s longtime keyboard foil and co-writer / co-producer C.J. Vanston — actually weaves a tale of redemption. 

“‘Transition’ is a turning point for the album and a turning point for me,” Lukather explains. “As we were writing the songs, I was thinking about everything I’ve seen — all the people I’ve lost in my life, the great and the difficult experiences I’ve had, and how ultimately it was time to get it together and embrace things for what they are, because we’ve only got one life to live and we’ve got to make the most of it.”

Despite the album’s harmonic depth and sonic surprises, Lukather explains that he kept his guitar sound organic. “These days I like it simple and direct,” he says. “I plugged my new Music Man L-3 signature model guitar straight into a Bogner amp and miked it with an SM-57. Any effects were added at the mixing desk. I used a Kemper Profiling Amp for some of the weird sounds, and that was it. Live these days it’s just my guitar and amp and a couple stomp boxes — and I just go for it.”

“I’ve been working really hard on my vocals,” Lukather attests. “For me, these days it’s all about the song and the performance. I’m not interested in being the fastest gun in the West. I want to make beautiful music that means something.”

Lukather, Weingart and Vanston’s closing instrumental rendition of the Charlie Chaplin classic “Smile” has a very deep connection for the guitarist. “That was my mother’s favorite song,” he relates. “We’ve been playing it as an encore live, and it seemed like the perfect way to close the album, too.”

After seven solo albums, Lukather reflects: “I’d like to say this is the best album I’ve ever made, but that’s a cliché. But I do think I’ve realized my goal of moving forward, so let me say that Transition is possibly the best reflection of who I am in 2012.”

Moin und herzlich Willkommen bei A.S.E.

An dieser Stelle möchte ich mich vorstellen und heiße euch herzlich Willkommen auf meiner Artistpage.
Ich heiße Thomas Siering, bin Jahrgang `71 und in Hamburg geboren, also ein echter Hamburger Jung. Meine musikalischen Wurzeln liegen in der elektronischen Musik der 70er und 80er Jahre sowie der Filmmusik und der progressiven und psychedelischen Rockmusik jener Jahre. Unter anderem bin ich geprägt von der Berliner Schule rundum Tangerine Dream sowie Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Pink Floyd und der Filmmusik des Horrorfilmgenre dieser Zeit, zu nennen wären da John Carpenter und Alan Howard sowie Charles Bernstein. Aber auch orchestrale Filmmusik wie die von John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner und Bill Conti faszinierten mich sehr. Ich bin aber auch ein großer Jazz-Fan.
Mein musikalischer Weggefährte dieser Zeit war und ist, den ich schon seit Kindestagen kenne, der euch unter dem Künstlername FHASE-4 bekannte Sven Lendt.
Ich kann mich noch lebhaft dran erinnern, wie wir uns in die Musikräume unserer Schule einschließen ließen und am Klavier unsere ersten Gehversuche machten.
Auch weil wir nicht mit den goldenen Löffel im Mund geboren wurden, machte wir so manches Musikfachgeschäft in Hamburg unsicher. Zwischen ´87 und ´90 habe ich dann bei der Yamaha-Musikschule Schlagzeug- und Bandunterricht genommen. 
Meine ersten eigenen erstgemeinten musikalischen Ambitionen als Musiker bzw. Künstler verfolgte ich dann Mitte der 90er Jahre, als ich von einem Freund den Korg X5D geschenkt bekam. Ein großer Teil dieser musikalischen Anfänge ist ausschließlich mit dem Korg und Mircologic(Win3.1) entstanden, mittlerweile hat sich aber der technische Fortschritt der Jetztzeit etwas angepasst! 

Mein kompositorisches Vorgehen basiert auf Intuition und Improvisation. Ich hoffe euch gefällt die Art von Musik, die ich mache und entführt Euch an Orte Eurer Fantasie an denen Ihr Euch wohl fühlt.  

Viel Spaß mit meiner Musik

Thomas alias A.S.E.  

Zu guter letzt noch eine (wirklich) kleine Auswahl meiner persönlichen musikalischen Favorites:

1. Tangerine Dream
2. Rick Wakeman
3. Mike Oldfield
4. Pink Floyd
5. Jean Michel Jarre
6. Emerson, Lake & Parlmer
7. Steely Dan
8. Spyro Gyra
9. Gil Scott-Heron
10. Klaus Doldinger
11. Toto

A.S.E. (Artificial Sound Experience) is following