The video was produced by Robert Lombard, who wanted to show the personal side of the band on stage. While most bands lack the charisma to pull off moves like the 'bass player duck under the lead singer's leg' and 'point guitar directly into the camera,' they try lame versions of it anyway, using such tactics as 'run to the camera and stop' and 'blow a kiss.' In an age when anyone can make a video but most bands lack the money and talent to make a good one, these videos have proliferated, and none has lived up to the standard set by Van Halen with 'Jump.' For a good example of a low budget performance video gone horribly wrong, check out this clip from The Forgotten Rebels.ġ984 was David Lee Roth's last album with Van Halen before he left the band in 1985 the video for 'Jump' inflamed the tensions that led to his departure. Some candid footage is shot with the band goofing around, and it's off to the edit room where the footage is chopped up into a video. Then, the band members are shot doing random stage moves without the pretense of actually playing the song (note that Eddie is seen playing the guitar at times when no guitar can be heard). To produce such a video, the band is recorded performing the song several times from beginning to end. While it looks kind of ridiculous today, the video was groundbreaking and set the standard for cheap performance videos that hapless directors still try to emulate. Directed by Pete Angelus and the band, it was simply 8-millimeter film footage of Van Halen performing, highlighted by Roth's slow motion spread-eagle jump (first seen on MTV in Def Leppard's ' Photograph' video). The fight for control of Van Halen had reached its final stage and there could only be one winner.The video was low-budget but highly successful. It was kept off the top spot by, guess what: Michael Jackson's Thriller. Released in December 1983, it crept steadily up the charts, buoyed by a Roth-directed video that got heavy rotation on MTV. The bridge section in particular, with Eddie playing a tastefully chosen guitar lick and Alex complementing him on cymbals, actually give the sense, like the title of the song itself, of becoming groundless, lifted up by a gust of air. By the end of the ride, the lyric had evolved into something else – something far more life-affirming, with words and the sentiment that actually matched the feel of the music. Roth imagined the jumper thinking, 'Yeah, might as well jump.' Larry laughed.īingo. Roth joked to Larry that an onlooker probably shouted, 'Go ahead and jump'. The story goes that Roth remembered a news item from the night before about a suicidal jumper. With the instrumental track on a cassette tape, Roth left to work on the lyrics and vocal melody in his own peculiar fashion – which just happened to involve being driven around the Los Angeles canyons and along the Coast Highway by Larry Hostler, his roadie. When they finally caved in, the song was duly recut by the whole band in a single take. “I put it down with a Linn drum machine,' Eddie said of the recording, 'but when I played it for the rest of the guys in the band they said, ‘Look, Edward, you’re a guitar hero. Daryll Hall told Mix magazine that Eddie confessed that the synth part had been inspired by Hall & Oates' Kiss on My List. It gave him the confidence to work on Jump. I just said ‘Fuck, I’ll do it, and no one will ever know.’ So then it comes out and it’s song of the year and everything.”

The band for one – Roth and my brother and Mike – they always hated me doing things outside of Van Halen. “Believe it or not,” Eddie told Guitar World in 1990, “I did the Michael Jackson thing ’cos I figured nobody’d know. Somebody’s ripping off Ed Van Halen’s licks.” “I heard the guitar solo, and thought, now that sounds familiar. “The new Michael Jackson song, Beat It, came on,” Dave recalled later. The first Dave Lee Roth heard about it was on the radio. With the help of Donn Landee, EVH had knocked out a number 1 hit for Jackson.Īnd he hadn't told the rest of the band. Beat It was conceived as something along the lines of My Sharona, a huge hit for The Knack in 1979. He was fresh from working with Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones on Thriller. EVH built his own studio, 5150, with the help of Van Halen engineer Donn Landee, and set about working on the sounds in his head.

Jump van halen