Like Eddie Van Halen before him and Slash after him, Steve Stevens was a hotshot guitarist hired by Michael Jackson to add some six-string fireworks to a classic hit.
And as he tells MusicRadar, he was surprised how the recording session with Jackson went down.
At the time of the session, around 1986, Stevens had made his reputation as the Hamer-wielding sidekick for singer Billy Idol, playing on such classic ’80s anthems as White Wedding and Rebel Yell.
Jackson was working with producer Quincy Jones on the album Bad. And the track in question was Dirty Diana.
Stevens recalls: “I was kind of nervous because I wasn’t a ‘session guitar player.’ I hadn’t really done stuff outside of Billy Idol.”
He says he expected to see something resembling a circus at the recording studio - including Jackson’s pet chimp Bubbles.
“When I got the call to go out to Los Angeles to record with Michael, I was thinking, ‘Oh, there’s going to be an entourage, and the monkey’s going to be jumping around…’ I thought it was going to be all this crazy shit!
“But when I got to the studio and opened the door, it was exactly like a Billy Idol session. It was just Michael, Quincy and the engineer.
“I thought, ‘Great, okay.’ And Quincy was just one of the great record producers. He really put my mind at ease.”
He continues: “They had kind of a guitar guide - playing the main melody, and then Michael came to me and said, ‘Okay, let’s capture this.’
“Once we had achieved all the stuff that they wanted, they said, ‘Now, come here, and do whatever the fuck you want to do!’
“So, me doing that ended up being the solo.
“And the original version that I played was something like seven or eight minutes. They edited it, but yeah, it was a great experience."
“Michael and Quincy were total pros. Being in the same company as Ed [Van Halen] is pretty good company, too!"
Stevens adds: “It’s funny, I remember that I saw Ed soon after I did the session with Michael, and I said, ‘Hey, I was in the studio with Michael…’ Ed said, ‘Did he say to you that he likes the high notes?’ We kind of laughed over that because when I came into the studio, Michael actually did go, ‘Oh, I like the high notes!’”
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