Steve Lukather’s Original Guitar Part for Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” Was “Too Metal” for Quincy Jones
No matter what kind of music you listen to, everyone knows the song “Beat It” by pop icon and overall creepy weirdo Michael Jackson. The third single off of Jackson’s sixth solo studio album Thriller, the song has an all-star lineup, with the recently deceased music legend Quincy Jones producing, the one and only Eddie Van Halen on guitar, and Toto members Steve Lukather on lead guitar and bass, Steve Porcaro on synthesizer, and Jeff Porcaro on drums. While the song is known as a slick pop radio hit, apparently Jones needed to reign in some of these rock musicians who wanted to make the track a little harder.
In a recent interview with The Guardian where various musicians who worked with Quincy Jones reflect on the music titan in light of his recent passing, Lukather explained how he was trying to make the famous track a lot more metal than the final product ended up being:
“Beat It, we did it backwards: Michael’s lead vocal and the Eddie Van Halen guitar solo were done with a couple of small overdubs but no click track. Jeff [Porcaro] made a click track and then a drum part, and I played a bunch of really wild guitar parts, because I knew Eddie’s solo was on it – I was doing real hard rock, a quadruple-track riff. Quincy wasn’t even there, he was at Westlake doing overdubs on Billie Jean while we were fixing Beat It – so we’d be on the phone and he goes: ‘It’s too metal, you gotta calm down. I gotta get it on pop radio! Use the small amp, not so much distortion.’
“Quincy is the only guy that can do a solo album without playing or writing anything. Somehow, no matter what he did, there was a Quincy Jones sound, even if he didn’t play, sing, write or whatever. He was a director.”
Considering that “Beat It” went on to be one of the most recognizable and influential pop songs of all-time, it would seem that Jones knew exactly what he was doing. But, at the same time, I kind of want to hear what the song would have sounded like with Lukather’s quadruple-track riff. I guess, much like how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop, the world may never know.
