Change.
It’s a six-letter verb that means “to become different,” “to make (someone or something) different,” and “to become something else,” as defined by Merriam-Webster. But for musician Leon Toomata, better known by his stage name LT Smooth, “change” has an even deeper, life-defining meaning.
“I’ve chosen my life from now to make a difference, to make a change, to use myself as an example. We can’t change the past — I understand that but we can change the future and what’s ahead of us,” said Toomata, the multiple Grammy Award and Na Hokuhanohano Award-nominated songwriter and composer who lives and works in Kona. “I really want to make a difference and not just be famous or rich or the best guitar player or singer in all of Hawaii, or win a few Grammys or win a couple of awards here and there. No, I want to make a change.”
Toomata exemplifies what it means to change and believes that anyone — no matter his background or predicament — can turn the page, and write a new chapter. He’s done just that in life — transforming himself from delinquent to a well-known musician, a role model to many.
Through his music and actions, he hopes to give people the inner power, drive and will to change something in their lives for the better — just like he did 19 years ago, when he made the decision to turn away from a life of “wheeling and dealing” for a life of love, happiness and sobriety, and found his passion for music.
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD
Toomata, now 41, was born and raised Aotearoa on the northern coast of New Zealand. He was one of 11 kids raised by his Irish father, a reputed gang member, and Samoan mother, who hailed from New Zealand. Put simply, he grew up a tough life, seemingly similar to the tragic story told in the 1994 film Indie drama “Once Were Warriors,” about a Maori family living in the Auckland slums of New Zealand.
By age 8, he had dropped out of school; at 9, he was taking hits of cocaine and heroin, and at age 13, he said he lit a business on fire because the owners would not fix a poorly cooked dish of fish and chips.
“I spent most of my life dealing and wheeling through the skirts of New Zealand, through drugs and alcohol and violence and gangs, and stuff like that,” he said. “I’m a kid that grew up with nothing in my hand. I learned the life on the street not only on the streets, but through lessons in my life.”
A major turning point came when Toomata was about 19 years old, after the loss of several loved ones, he said. He’d contemplated suicide, going so far as loading a gun with a bullet and pulling the trigger, only to hear a click, but no fire. It was a sign, he said.
“I finally realized that ‘hey you know what? There is more to live for, you know?’ I’ve done it all, been through it all and I just thought well it’s time for change, what else is there, you know?”
At a fork in the road, Toomata said he had two options: to die or to live. He made a decision, a choice to change and begin a path to a new life, the ongoing period of his life that he calls “sobriety.”
“I had to make a commitment in my life to change or I was just going to die. I was going to get shot or I was going to get stabbed, someone was going to take me out. It was only a couple of options,” he said. “So, I’m like dead or alive, let me think about it, oh, well maybe I will just try the alive option, and I guess that was the right choice that I made.”
MUSIC=MEDICINE
“Sobriety” began when Toomata moved to Australia and got involved in a missionary organization. Music was not always a passion, but during dark and trying times it brought him comfort, hope and freedom, he said.
“Music came to me as time went. Through my life of cleanness, as I kept getting clean, something kept crawling up and that was music,” Toomata said, reminiscing to days when he would watch a band at a cafe or pub and be amazed by the talent “because I had nothing else, I wasn’t good at anything. If you say tell me your credentials, what you’re good at, I would have said ‘guns, knives.’”
He first took up the guitar a “little bit” and then the piano and saxophone. Today, he plays at least a dozen instruments, including slack-key guitar.
“Music was pretty much part of my life and it really just changed me. Big time,” he said. “I knew music was something, but I didn’t know it was going to be medicine for me. I didn’t know that was part of healing me and now I know it really is and it has really healed my life in many, many ways.”
COMING TO HAWAII
Toomata met his wife Jennifer, who is from the Big Island, in 1991. He moved here in 2001, when his wife’s father was diagnosed with cancer.
“I had a choice when we were living in Australia to carry on with my music career or turn around and come home to my family, so, I made a choice (to move) because my career is nothing without my family,” he said. “I was climbing the ladder pretty high, but I was just doing what any husband would do to feed his family to do whatever I could.”
But that ladder was nowhere near where Toomata has taken his music since coming to Hawaii. Since 2001, he’s released three albums, garnered multiple Grammy and Na Hokuhanohano nominations, and played gigs worldwide. He assumed the stage name “LT Smooth” sometime in 2005 or 2006 when Dave Yakita, a musician from New Zealand teaching at Youth With a Mission in Kona, heard his slack-key guitar playing at Huggo’s on the Rocks in Kailua-Kona.
“Afterwards, he came to me and and he goes ‘you’re so smooth, you’re so smooth’, Toomata remembers fondly. “That’s where I adopted that name.”
In all, Toomata has released three albums, “Freedom” in 2007, “My Journey” in 2011 and “Fly Away with Me” in 2014.
All of the songs he’s written — most of which he admits, jokingly, were composed while sitting on the toilet at home — are based on his life struggles and triumphs.
“When you hear that song, ‘Little Boy,’ it’s talking about me turning my life around from that little boy I was,” he said. “I can’t write about something that I’ve never been through. I can’t write about all these love things about people that I love and that girl honey baby and all that stuff, no, because I never did that stuff. I never had a girlfriend in my life, I’ve always been a rumbler, I’ve always witnessed rape and all that bad stuff and it’s a very big part of me. But, it is that stuff that made me what I am today — it’s what sculpted and molded me as I am today and that’s the message I want to get out,” he said.
THE NEXT CHAPTER
Looking back on the life that has made him who he is today, Toomata said he is working on a new album that he plans to release “soon.” He is also touring, having recently returned from a stint on the East Coast. He next heads back to Australia, where he will perform in such cities as Brisbane. He also plans to hit up the Grammys.
“The next one is the next chapter, it’s called, ‘the next chapter,’” he said. “But, you never know things change, but it’s definitely all about change.”
And more importantly, Toomata said, he is writing the next chapter of his life of change by taking his story to schools to save lives. In January, the musician traveled to Idaho where he spoke to 15,000 students at 25 schools about suicide and surviving life. One of the areas, Rexburg, he said suffers from a high rate of suicide, something he knows about all too well.
“When I went to Idaho, I went there to save one person, I didn’t expect to save thousands and after I came home I had over 3,000 emails from kids with stories that would blow your mind and I can only do so much. It’s a commitment that I didn’t sign up for but it’s a commitment that I made and that was just the beginning,” he said, explaining he has taken the time, whether it is mid-day or midnight, to respond to each student.
Because of the impact those kids had on him, Toomata said he is heading back to Idaho this summer to spread the word even farther. He also hopes to bring his motivational talks to the Big Island. He noted he has already spoken with some local school officials to make it happen.
“The next chapter of my life is to continue to be a motivational speaker,” he explained.
He later added, “when I became LT Smooth I didn’t realize it came with a price, being smooth is not just being smooth because it comes with a price of people looking up to you for whatever reason it may be. I was taking a turn with my music to be famous and rich but I didn’t head that way, I ended up going this way because I wanted to be an ambassador, I wanted to be a leader, I wanted to be role model — I ended up wanting to make a change, I wanted to save lives through my music now and not be rich and famous that road was done with me.”