Steve Barron, who directed Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean video releasing a book.

“I was more excited about The Human League,” laughs Steve Barron, as he tells me about the time he was asked to direct the video for Michael Jackson’s hit single, Billie Jean. “I was more disappointed about not doing The Jam’s Down in the Tube Station at Midnight.” This was 1982.

A decade later, the Billie Jean video was inducted into the Music Video Producers Hall of Fame and now, some 32 years after the video was released, Barron has written a book, titled Egg ‘n’ Chips and Billie Jean: a Trip Through the Eighties. The music video that least excited Barron has, in many ways, come to define him.

The 58-year-old Dubliner has since directed a number of successful feature length films including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), Rat (2000) and the hugely popular Mike Bassett: England Manager (2001), a sequel to which is due to be released next year. He has also been nominated for 27 Emmy Awards and five Golden Globes.

However, it is Barron’s creative output during the Eighties, when he was working with and producing music videos for artists such as Fleetwood Mac, Madonna, Dolly Parton, A-ha (Magne Furuholmen from the band designed the artwork for the memoir), Paul McCartney and David Bowie, that forms the basis of this fascinating memoir, released earlier this month.

Let’s go back to how it all started. How did you arrive at a stage when Michael Jackson’s agent is calling you to ask you to direct the video for Billie Jean?

SB: I left school early and became a camera assistant; a tea boy, really. I leaned to make a great cup of tea and got very involved with a lot of good film crews, who were doing a lot of good films. At the time I was really good at the tea and I think I was quite efficient at being perceptive of what might be needed.

Egg ‘n’ Chips and Billie Jean: a Trip Through the Eighties is available now: amazon.co.uk/dp/B00PG2BBAA

SOURCE: Telegraph