“It’s great… but it’s too much. I gotta get this on R&B radio”: What Quincy Jones told Steve Lukather when he first played on Michael Jackson’s Beat It
To this day, Michael Jackson’s Thriller is still the best selling record of all time. Released in 1982, it featured some of Jackson’s most pivotal hits – including Beat It, a timeless, funky rock tune topped off with a grandiose Eddie Van Halen solo. However, if Steve Lukather hadn’t been reigned in, it could have been a distorted metal banger.
In a new interview with Guitar Player, the Toto guitarist recalls having to tone it down a notch while recording riffs for Beat It. The late Quincy Jones was in charge of production, and he thought that Lukather was going a little too hard. “I initially cranked the riff out on a bunch of quadrupled Marshalls,” Lukather admits. “But then Quincy called and said, ‘It’s great… but it’s too much.’”
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After all, Jackson experimenting with hard rock and metal, but he was still the King of Pop. “I gotta get this on R&B radio,” Jones apparently told Lukather. “Use a little Fender amp and turn down the distortion.”
Lukather also reflected on Jones’ request to “calm down” his performance in an interview with The Guardian in 2024. “‘It’s too metal, you gotta calm down… I gotta get it on pop radio!’” Lukather recalled Jones saying. “I had played a bunch of really wild guitar parts, because I knew Eddie’s solo was on it.”
Despite getting a small slap on the wrist for his heaviness, it didn’t dampen Lukather’s experience. Elsewhere in his Guitar Player interview, he reveals that working with Jackson was fun – albeit a tad chaotic. “[Jackson] was a real pro, though what did make me laugh was his monkey, Bubbles,” Lukather remembers. “[One time he] ripped apart the vocal booth. That was the weirdest thing I saw. It made me laugh on the floor, of course.”
“[Jackson] was very collaborative – he wanted my input,” he adds. Jones was similar, but always aware of what the mainstream radio stations would want. “With songs like Human Nature, Quincy would go, ‘Make it funky for me, man. I gotta get this on R&B radio!’ I came up with that part on the spot, and that’s what ended up on the radio.”
As for Lukather’s more recent work, he has been co-producing an upcoming Van Halen release with Alex Van Halen. While there were rumours of him stepping into Eddie’s role, he has since put the record straight. “That’s the most ridiculous and humorous thing I’ve ever heard,” he told Guitar Player. “I am no more qualified to try and play like Ed Van Halen than I am to be the first man to tug my dick on the planet. I don’t know how anybody could think that would even be a reality. Honestly, it’s laughable… I don’t play like Ed.”
“I am there 100% to be his co-producer and help him through the technical aspects – I’m not gonna play,” he said. “There’s not gonna be any Lukather or Toto fingerprints on a Van Halen thing. I can fucking promise you that!”
The post “It’s great… but it’s too much. I gotta get this on R&B radio”: What Quincy Jones told Steve Lukather when he first played on Michael Jackson’s Beat It appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
