David Paich of Toto recently spoke to Eon Music and opened up about how he ended up collaborating with Don Felder in ‘Queen Charade’ thanks to Keith Richards.
Although David Paich has built a remarkable career with Toto since 1977 and appeared on every studio album of the band, he also wanted to prove himself as a solo artist. Besides his session and side projects, the keyboardist stepped into a solo career by releasing his long-awaited debut album, ‘Forgotten Toys,’ on August 19, 2022. The two singles, ‘Spirit of the Moonrise’ and ‘Queen Charade,’ arrived in June and July, respectively.
Paich collaborated with many notable names, such as his Toto bandmates Joseph Williams and Steve Lukather, Brian Eno, Ray Parker Jr., and Don Felder. Felder played the slide guitar parts in the album’s fifth track, ‘Queen Charade.’ When asked about the song in his interview, Paich revealed that the idea came to him when he did an overdub for Keith Richards’ solo album a few years ago.
Spending time with Richards and doing that overdub inspired the keyboardist to make a song reflecting his roots. So, he decided to make this energetic rock and roll track. David Paich feels like he was quite lucky to have worked with Don Felder for the slide guitar parts of the song. The singer said he had already done a similar song named ‘Jump Street’ for Boz Scaggs’ seventh solo album, ‘Silk Degrees,’ but he wanted another one.
David Paich’s words on how Keith Richards inspired him for ‘Queen Charade’:
“It is! I’m a devout Rolling Stones fan and I got to play on Keith Richards’ solo album a few years back. I got to do an overdub, and just meeting him and hanging out with him and doing an overdub on his record inspired me to want to do something along my roots as I did with ‘Jump Street.’ I had ‘Jump Street’ on the ‘’Silk Degrees’ album, which is kind of rock and roll, but I wanted to do another reckless rock and roll song, so that’s ‘Queen Charade.’ I was lucky enough to get Don Felder, who wrote ‘Hotel California;’ he played slide guitar on it.”
You can listen to the song below.
