Well... Jeff Porcaro, Simon Phillips and Keith Carlock are all some of my favourites drummers as Toto is one of my favourite band, I must be blessed by the drummer's God...
Hmm, wonderful as he is, didnt think the Toto set list was quite Carlock's style.
Exactly my thought when I read the news on this thread, while I admire Keith's playing in many recordings, Oz Noy & Rudder just to name a couple, his style is not what comes to mind as a Toto drummer but the proof of the pudding is in the eating!
If anyone doubt's Simon's total input into the change of Toto's sound, just listen to the album "Tambu". Grooves like a steam train, with a dynamic & power that is 100% Simon Phillips signature.
Absolutely, Simon has always been himself and never tried to be a "clone" of Jeff, he did the same thing with The Who in 1989's world tour.
For the record, Simon never had an audition for Toto, Steve Lukather wanted him to do the Kingdom of Desire world tour and everyone in Toto knew that Jeff himself liked Simon Phillips, they offered the drumming seat to Simon and went on tour, the rest is history.
In the September 2009 edition of
Batteur Magazine Simon was asked
"What about Toto as a band", Phillips replied
"It's definitely over"...
However, in the July 2011 edition of
Batterie Magazine Simon explains
"Today things are a little different, Toto still exist on a long term basis, even if we only going to do a concert here and there" and he added this comment about a new album
"We won't do a new album, because for us, it's not important anymore to propose new music, we've said everything we had to say", Simon finished the Toto chapter on the interview by saying
"Honestly, we have such a long list of hit songs to our disposition that it is not difficult to create a good setlist, all what our fans want is to listen to all those hits that marked their life at a given time, even if the concert was over 3 hours, we wouldn't have time to play all those hits, as artists, to make a new record would be a kind of an ego trip, it would be of no interest for us, honestly"
Now, with new blood behind the kit, would Toto re-consider a new album, I don't know, time will tell, but if they do, it will be good, that's for sure, there's no such thing as a bad Toto album.