Eddie Van Halen considered hanging up when producer Quincy Jones called to ask if he’d perform the now-famous solo on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.”
Assuming that it was all a prank, Van Halen unknowingly unloaded on the music legend. “What do you want you f—ing so-and-so!,” he recalled yelling into the phone during a 2012 CNN interview. “What the hell do you want?” When Jones explained who he was, Van Halen quickly apologized, although he confessed that he still had his doubts.
“I still wasn’t 100% sure it was him. I said, ‘I’ll tell you what. I’ll meet you at your studio tomorrow.’ And lo and behold, when I got there, there’s Quincy, there’s Michael Jackson and there’s engineers.”
Jones and Jackson gave Van Halen license to do whatever he wanted with the song, and he took full advantage, boldly instructing an engineer to re-arrange the section of the song he was meant to play over.
“I was just finishing the second solo when Michael walked in. I didn’t know how he would react to what I was doing. So I warned him before he listened. … He turned to me [after listening] and went, ‘Wow, thank you so much for having the passion to not just come in and blaze a solo, but to actually care about the song, and make it better.'”
Although he was uncredited on the record, it didn’t take long for anybody to figure out Van Halen was the guitarist on “Beat It” as the song roared to the top of the charts. Van Halen even joined Jackson onstage to perform the song in July of 1984.
Read More: Eddie Van Halen Broke a Band Rule to Play on ‘Beat It’
Jones referenced the phone call incident when paying tribute to Van Halen following the guitarist’s 2020 death, thanking him for his contributions to the song, “even though it took a couple of calls to convince you it was actually me…”
Alex Van Halen Probably Wishes Eddie Had Hung Up on Quincy Jones
While promoting his 2024 memoir Brothers, Eddie’s drumming bandmate brother Alex Van Halen revealed he was still bitter about his brother’s decision to perform on the “Beat It” single, partly because it helped Jackson’s Thriller album keep Van Halen’s 1984 from topping the charts.
“Why would you lend your talents to Michael Jackson?” he fumed in a Rolling Stone interview. “I just don’t fucking get it. And the funny part was Ed fibbed his way out of it by saying, ‘Oh, who knows that kid anyway?’ You made the mistake! Fess up. Don’t add insult to injury by acting stupid.”
Watch Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ Video
Eddie Van Halen Year by Year: 1977-2017 Photos
You’ll see him with long hair, short hair, a variety of his most famous guitars and all three of his band’s lead singers.
Gallery Credit: Matthew Wilkening
