Steve Lukather Tells the Funny Story of Recording Beat It with Michael Jackson & Eddie Van Hale

You were, um, did he make it? Yeah, yeah, no, no, that was

funny

because I did the first section we did for Quincy. He had done the guy record with Quincy. David Foster introduced me to it and I started, I was invited to be like you know on The Quitsies Team and I was like 22 23 years old after we did it, he came up to me at the end and said, Look, I'm going to do the Michael's next album and he was coming off the wall, so I didn't do it. Do it, I didn't make that record, he says, I want you to plant some Michael Jackson.

I was like, oh, this is going to be one of the biggest records, okay, great, I'm there, I'm all for it, so we signed the first one. What you did was call me and he says, yeah, the first cut of Track Runner is with Paul McCartney. I'm like Mike, trying to keep it together, really cool. You know, they hang up the phone. I have my son. I'm going to play with one of the Beatles in my spare time here's a reason why I breathe and I live and why you know how to play music and then you know Jeff Porcaro and I are tired and then David Paich was there for David Foster Louis Johnson and forgave us was on Earth Day, damn it. right man, us, Paul and Michael, and the song like the girl is mine and you know, Quincy didn't write stuff for me, it was really charts and you know, so I came up with a good part for the song, you know, vote before I was going to meet Paul.

I'm like we were all so nervous, we almost had to look into it because it was so soon after the tragic loss of John, being around new people in Hollywood and wondering, you know, I mean, they were afraid of me. but it was like they wanted to know who everyone was on this shoot, super high security and all that, because Michael and this, you know, I'm the biggest stars in the world and I'm excited to be on this shoot, you know, it's kind of I. I didn't say what I think I managed to get here, but I felt it inside.

I'm looking around. Paul and Linda come in and there's Michael Emma saying this is surreal, right, and we start playing. It was made for I Love Her, Stevie Wonder, so it exists somewhere on a tape or maybe not, maybe they didn't shoot the tape. It's Bruce, where Dean and Journey were the second engineer and Quincy and George Martin were there. Geoff Emerick was there. I'm looking in the The room was like that, it's like, you know, a childhood wet dream, you know, a musical dream, so to speak, and I wanted to go. He better play good minutes, he better be good and Paul and then he was very kind and nice and Michael was a great man.

It was great because the first time he called I didn't think it was him I hung up on him three times you called me either time this is nothing and I'm like you know I'm sorry and it happened three times and then I got a call from Quincy's office three hours later it was really Michael man, you better call him again and I'm like, oh my God, so I called the number he answers, I go, I mean, I really didn't believe it was him. I get that all the time, it's

funny

, so it was cool with him, so anyway, I get the call back, we get the call, we go to the session and you know, Paul and Linda come in and they were so nice, it's great and I was so like I was trying to feed my jaw with my mouth and just to loosen it.

I think Paige started playing. They made me love it because you know, Jeff jumped up and I started playing and they started singing. She was on the phones. I thought you were kidding me. I'm going to wake up here and it was cool and then we cut the track really quickly and I came up with a cool little part and Paul says it's cool? part man and I'm a bad point I could have died and Michael was cool, everyone wants to leave him, he was like that, he's cool, we never got the clue and it all went from there, see mom, so they called you, you know, I got an article .

Then I got it, I think it was like a

beat

, that

beat

came because it was where they had cut a cover before this and they wanted Eddie Van Halen and they had my dear friends and we've been friends even back then. and even do something like that, they would cut a version and they say these are the days when they had to use 24 tracking machines to make slave tapes, you know, make one that the copies, he could make a bunch more over the doors. In the end they put it all together on two reels and he mixed stuff that was really high tech for 1982 and we were using that stuff on our records too and Eddy and Lani, I guess, cut the two inch tape and he wanted to edit and play the solo on another place and I didn't want to keep playing just do it I wanted to play the whole verse changed I had something to play some changes the bow well when you cut the synth ecoute no They didn't close again so what they did was a solo and Michael's lead vocal and Michael playing two and four on a drum snare and the security code was on the actual master because they also cut the slave tape, transferred it to that somehow and then needed to re-edit the track with the protective material they had a drum machine, so there was no click track on it, just Michael backed up, Bob Bob, which is still on the record, and then Quincy says, you gotta save me, you gotta save me, that's done.

Yeah, I'm still working on all this stuff here. It was like you had to go feel that sound with the Barrett Circuit. Like you and Jeff go over there and see if you can fix this for me. I have to have it. It is its first generation. first generation vocal of anything else, oh you have to make this work for me so I can sync the track to the new tape that hadn't been cut, so he sent it, we listen, we can get here, bleed at the beginning. vocal microphone, so you have an idea of ​​what was going on.

Jeff had his time in his professional career perfectly. I'm talking about one of the most magical young beings on planet Earth that I've ever gotten anyone to play with, so Jeff came out. and it was a drumstick listen where he had his headphones on and he made his own click just the way he wanted to hear it, not necessarily the beat that he ended up with, which is straighter like this, but he even put a little mix on it, so he could make it he swayed, made him feel it and said, I'm doing good, got a drum sound quickly and went out there and did a couple of takes.

I think the second take was perfect. His timing was perfect. It was great. He made it. Then it was my turn, so it was okay and he was playing, so I went like the Marshalls and played the guitar riff first and we quadrupled it, made it big and there was no bass, so I said, bring me. I play a bass and I'll play bass on this is just the crack yeah it's not like I had to be Jocko pastorius or anything so I did everything we sent it to Point C. He says I love it except the guitars they're too heavy I have to play this on R&B radio, pop radio and rock radio, he goes, you know, all the way up, you've got it a little luxury II because you do that and you don't quadruple it, just do two so I can get it like that.

I did that, they loved it and then because he comes with Michael, we're going to do some, he wants to add a couple of these other riffs, that's all in one night and that was just an anonymous thing. I said why not. We do it later and the antenna to give it a little different flavor and first everyone has dinner. Michael said I like it like this so they wanted me to do this part and they were standing there and I did it a couple of times and he like it wasn't really the part, you know, I was a little bit more in the park and Michael told me.

He gave a couple of instructions, something the boys tried again. I started doing. Michael started to dance a little. He knew he was really good. It's like that's a That's cool, let's duplicate that part and bomb a ball and that's the record and then they mixed it. I think my name is Steve Porcaro. Great feeling they did that as I'll bow down at first and you'll never hear it again anywhere. The song and the rest is the rest and the third track was done by Steve Porcaro, Human Nature, hmm, I think John Bettis doesn't have lyrics, but it's actually Steve because, baby, Steve had all these magical synth things, he had all quality parts and no. very early on he was an innovator because even in high school he was into electronic music before anyone discovered him, he found out that was his thing, you know he wasn't Oscar Peterson, you don't know anything about that, you know he found a niche that no one else more he was doing, which ended up being a great career for him.

Steven demonstrated. There was no guitar or anything. He was just feeling the chord changes and the chorus. Wow Wow, tell them it's human nature, so he stops, he calls me and says literally. closer than you are here and I was just looking to make this funky thing for me you gotta make this funky thing for me actually because I used to make up nicknames for people if you lied to my publisher at the time it was hard cool beats and stats Steve al setback, so he started calling me Viets, which is pretty funny. Look, his feet will make this fun for me.

Funky for me. It's like you know I understand this pop, but I have to have it on our arm. He was always doing the same thing. crossover King, you know, and abandons it, he was a great casting director. Finding musicians is mixing them to get what he wanted, so I came up with this part. I'm going, yeah, I want something a little different, so I said I looked at Bruce or Dean. I have an idea: connect this. I had this really dumb, rad guitars thing about it and I plugged it right in and came up with the opening part.

I worked on a couple. He says, "That's great, that's good. He liked it a lot." I wrote the part and put it on the thing, so if you like your stuff, that's what he would do and I came up with the part that's on the right type, so let's double track it, give it a little bit, you know , a little bit aside because if you realize that the guitar sounds quite interesting and it worked and it was great. In fact, I was really proud of the park. It was very musical and also a little funky, it wasn't like our hardcore funky R&B, but he added a little bit of the thing because it was really noticeable and more pronounced.

Carl hated the part, he absolutely hated my guitar training, what do you want me to say anyway, it becomes a huge hit record and suddenly it started as the guitar part where apparently I've quit smoking, he likes us so much so that he gave me mixed credit for the reckless Grammy nomination, that's really cool, so that was cool.