"Holy War" is a song by the American rock band Toto. It was released as the second single from the band's 2015 album, Toto XIV. The song is written in E major.
"Holy War" was originally recorded with drums, guitar, and bass. The bass was originally played by Leland Sklar using his fingers, "which just sounded huge" according to Steve Porcaro. The band made the executive decision to replace Sklar's bass track with a new part played with a pick in an effort to open up some space in the track to allow for other musical ideas. Porcaro contributed some keyboard ideas that were later scrapped, including a string-line on verse two and a synth solo. A Yamaha CS-80 Yamaha DX1 and Yamaha CS-80 were used to create brass stabs and used a ribbon controller on the CS-80 to slide down the pitch of the instrument. This keyboard was doubled with a Logic ES2 synth, "which has this great pitch-bend range that’ll go down three, four, or five octaves" according to Porcaro.
Track listing
Credits
Toto
Keith Carlock – drums
Steve Lukather – lead and background vocals, guitars
David Paich – organ, piano
Steve Porcaro – synths
Joseph Williams – lead and background vocals
Additional musicians
Lenny Castro – percussion
David Hungate – bass
Jeffery CJ Vanston – additional keyboards
Releases
CD, Single, Promo, Sampler, Stereo – Frontiers Records, Scandinavia 2015.
References
Toto (band) songs
2015 singles
2015 songs
Songs written by Steve Lukather
Songs written by Joseph Williams (musician) Songs written by C. J. Vanston