Besides being one of the most important guitarists and singers of all time, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour has always been relatively private. He rarely discussed other bands or artists in interviews over the decades, but when he did, he shared his genuine opinions. Although it might seem unlikely to many music fans, the connection between Pink Floyd and the American band Toto is actually stronger than expected. Over his career, Gilmour has spoken about some members of the band, including guitarist Steve Lukather and the late drummer Jeff Porcaro. What is David Gilmour's opinion on Toto's Steve Lukather and Jeff Porcaro David Gilmour has been a big admirer of Steve Lukather and has become a very good friend of his over the decades. “Steve Lukather is great. I really love his playing. I love a lot of people’s playing, but I mostly tend to like some of the old guys, you know? Eric, Jeff Beck, people like that. They’re more to my taste,” David Gilmour said in an interview with Guitar World in 1988. He has been a really good friend of Steve and went to see Toto play a couple of times over the years. The most recent one was in 2025 at the Wembley Arena in London. The band posted a photo of the two guitarists backstage with a message of Steve saying: "Beyond honored to spend some time with my friend and hero David Gilmour. Thanks also to your family and the band for graciously taking time out to see us. Big love, yer pal Luke," the Toto guitarist said. Steve has always been a huge Pink Floyd and David Gilmour fan but never had the chance to work with the guitarist. However, he did record with Roger Waters, playing guitar on three tracks from his 1992 album “Amused to Death.” He also had the opportunity to pay tribute to Gilmour on Pink Floyd’s tribute album “Back Against the Wall” (2005). Steve played guitar on the versions of “Another Brick in the Wall, Part III” and “Hey You.” When David Gilmour pranked Lukather It was Steve Lukather’s late, legendary bandmate Jeff Porcaro who introduced them to each other. He had the opportunity to meet Gilmour and the band in the late 1970s, when he was hired to record the drums on the song “Mother” from the groundbreaking album “The Wall” (1979). Toto was a band primarily formed by highly respected session musicians such as Steve Lukather and Jeff Porcaro. Over the decades they ended up working with almost every major name in the music business. One of those artists was Paul McCartney and during one of his stays in London in the 80s, Steve also had the opportunity to spend time with David Gilmour, who ended up playing a prank on him. "While I was over in England (Recording McCartney's 'Give My Regards to Broad Street' - 1984) I hung out with David Gilmour as well. Gilmour ended up in my hotel room one night, bullshitting me about all this gear he owned. (He was) just taking the piss, you know? I was just picking his brain about some of the Floyd records and stuff. I found out later that he lied to me about everything, ha!," Steve Lukather told On Stage magazine in 2013. David Gilmour said Jeff Porcaro was one of the greatest drummers in the world Nick Mason was highly praised by his bandmates over the years as being the right man for Pink Floyd. But David Gilmour already praised many other drummers, including Jeff Porcaro. When it came time to record “Mother” during the sessions for “The Wall,” David recalled that it was a very difficult track, and they ended up calling the American musician. “On Mother the timing follows the words. ‘Mo-ther-do-you-think- they’ll-drop-the-*bomb*?’ How many beats is that? Nine. It was very very difficult to get it to work. You can’t (mimes standard Floyd 4). There’s no rhythm that carries on straight through like that. You’ve got to find a way of floating through it. Jeff Porcaro did immediately,” David Gilmour said  in an interview with M. Resnicoff in 1992. A couple of years later, in 1984, when he recorded his second solo album, “About Face,” he made a list of the greatest musicians in the world, who were also his personal favorites. As Gilmour told Source at the time, Porcaro was at the top of his list when it came to drummers. “I wanted to make a really good record. I didn’t want to do it very, very quickly. (So) I wanted to get the best musicians in the world that I could get hold of to play with me. So I thought I’d just make a little list of all my favorite musicians.” David Gilmour continued: “You know, best drummer, best bass player, best keyboard player. I’ll work through the list to see who I can get. Jeff Porcaro was top of my drummers list, Pino Palladino was top of my bass players list. Ian Quely, he actually came and did the bulk of the Hammond and piano playing, he was terrific. Steve Winwood was top of my keyboard playing list. He couldn’t do most of the album, but I got him to do a bit,” David Gilmour said. Jeff played the drums on that entire record which also had Pino Palladino (Bass) and Ian Kewley (Hammond organ/piano). Some of the other special guests were Jon Lord and Steve Winwood. So Porcaro is one of the few artists who had the chance to record with Pink Floyd, David Gilmour and Roger Waters, since like Lukather he was also part of the album "Amused to Death" (1992). He tragically passed away that same year at the age of 38. Like Toto’s guitarist, Jeff also played with some of the most important musicians of all time. Some of them were Paul McCartney, Elton John, Michael Jackson, the Bee Gees and Bruce Springsteen.The post David Gilmour’s opinion on Toto’s Steve Lukather and Jeff Porcaro appeared first on Rock and Roll Garage.