David Paich

Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

Pushkin Industries

Society & Culture, Music

4.5 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 28 November 2023

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

David Paich is a prolific musician and songwriter who’s perhaps most well known for writing and co-producing Toto's classic song, “Africa.” Before David co-founded Toto with drummer Jeff Porcaro in 1977, he was an innovative keyboardist and session player. David honed his chops early growing up in L.A. where he worked under the tutelage of his father Marty Paich—an esteemed composer who worked with artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles and Mel Tormé.

While in college at USC David started playing keyboard professionally and touring with Sonny & Cher. From there he went on to co-write and play on Boz Scaggs’ multi-platinum album Silk Degrees. He also worked extensively with Quincy Jones, playing on multiple iconic albums including Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Bad. All throughout his work as a session musician, David also served as Toto’s principal songwriter and wrote chart-topping hits like “Rosanna,” “Hold The Line,” and of course, “Africa.”

On today’s episode Justin Richmond talks to David Paich about what it was like to be such an accomplished player at such a young age. He shares crazy stories about working with Michael Jackson and Quincy on Thriller, and how he came up with the intro to Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature,” a song written by Toto’s drummer, Jeff Porcaro. He also plays parts from some of the best songs he’s written, and talks about how they came to be.

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite David Paich songs HERE.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Audio player

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Pushkin
0:10.0	Cheryl Lynn's got to be real, Steely Dan's Black Friday, Toto's Georgie Porgy, all some of the most
0:17.7	monster keyboard piano grooves of all time. And they all have at least one man in common. That's prolific musician and songwriter
0:26.2	David Paysh. David honed his chops early growing up in LA where he worked
0:31.5	under the tutelage of his father Marty Paysh, an esteemed
0:35.3	composer who worked with artists like Mel Torme, Ray Charles, and even Ella Fitzgerald.
0:42.2	While in college at USC, David started playing keyboard professionally and touring with
0:46.3	Sunny and Cher.
0:48.1	From there he went on to co-write and play on Bask Gags, multi-platinum album, Silk Degrees. He also worked extensively with Quincy Jones, playing
0:55.4	up multiple iconic albums, including Michael Jackson's thriller and Bad.
1:00.9	All throughout his work as a session musician, David also served as Toto's principal songwriter and wrote chart-topping hits like Rosanna, Hold the Line, and of course most famously Africa.
1:12.0	On today's episode I talked to David Page. most famously Africa.
1:13.0	On today's episode I talked to David Page about what it was like to be such an accomplished
1:16.9	player at such a young age.
1:19.1	He shares crazy stories about working with Michael Jackson and Quincy on thriller
1:23.2	and how he came up with the intro to Michael Jackson's human nature,
1:26.2	probably the greatest keyboard riff of all time.
1:29.8	David also plays parts from some of the best songs he's written and talks about how they came to be.
1:35.0	This is Broken Record.
1:39.0	Liner Notes for the Digital Age.
1:41.0	I'm Justin Richmond.
1:42.0	Here's my conversation with David Paysh. A few weeks ago I was on a run and
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Pushkin Industries, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Pushkin Industries and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.