In an early recorded interview with Eddie Van Halen and a journalist whose name I cannot find, Eddie played a bunch of early demos he’d been working on and recording to dictaphone. This interview is from 1982, a full 2 years before Jump would become their biggest chart topping hit to date. In this interview Eddie is just rolling through a tape recorder he’d dropped a bunch of ideas onto. And when the topic comes around to synthesizers he plays what is clearly the basis for Jump, if not basically the whole song. Around 2:18 the conversation turns to keyboards, at around 2:40 you can hear a synth beat kick in and shortly after you hear the keyboard bridge from the song. Keep playing and around 3:54 is when Ed first plays the key intro that is recognized around the universe. Of course this is 1982, being played from a tape recorder, through a phone, and then re-recorded onto a different tape recorder, so the quality isn’t great, but its a captures moment in time and a piece of musical history we all share together.

I really dig the end where Eddie talks about meeting Frank Zappa, teaching Frank’s son Dweezil how to play guitar, and even Moon Unit’s song Valley Girl.

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