Billy Joel

Musician magazine, date tbd

Joel at Hard Rock Live, Hollywood, Florida, January 2023. Photo © Geoffrey Clowes

In the early 1980s I flew from the Bay Area to New York City for the first of what would become three interviews with Billy Joel. We met at the office of his manager, who was also his wife at the time, in a modest strip mall — perhaps on Long Island, though I can’t be sure now. I got there first. A while later Billy drove up on his motorcycle, parked it and then stepped inside. He removed his helmet and leather jacket, revealing jeans and a white t-shirt. We shook hands and then settled to talk.

Our second meeting took place maybe eight or nine years later, in 1989, just before the release of Storm Front. Like the first one, this was on assignment for Keyboard Magazine. Much had changed: This time we met at the Beverly Hills Hotel. His publicist, my longtime friend Mitch Schneider, met me in the lobby and escorted me into the elevator. We rode up a few floors before the doors opened inside a sumptuous suite. Billy was waiting. Again we shook hands but this time he gave me a close look. He seemed to be studying my face for some reason.

“What?” I asked.

He nodded knowingly, pointed at me and said, “You’ve changed your glasses.”

In fact I had, since our first encounter when he was only on the cusp of superstardom — from thick frames to thin, or maybe vice versa. I expressed astonishment that he would notice and remember such a small detail after so many years.

He replied, smiling, “Well, I’m more aware of these things than I used to be. I mean, I’m married to a supermodel now.” Of course, he was referencing Christie Brinkley.

Maybe five later we got together once more. This time I showed up on time at a small bistro on Manhattan’s East Side, on a rainy afternoon. His people waved me over to the bar and explained he was running long on the interview scheduled before mine. I could see him in an adjoining room with whoever the other writer was, an empty bottle of wine to the side, two glasses being emptied as they spoke.

While waiting, I spoke with his entourage, recalling our previous interviews. When I mentioned how impressed I had been with Billy’s intelligence and capacity for memory, they chuckled. But when I finished with the Christie Brinkley reference, a kind of awkward silence set in. Only later did I learn that the power couple had recently split up.

(Note to self: When preparing to profile a celebrity, even if for an article focusing on artistry rather than gossip, get current on the gossip anyway.)

So this last interview was quite different from the ones we’d done before. Of course Billy remembered me. He asked how things were now that I had the new gig at Musician. I asked if there was another interview following me. “No,” he said, laughing. “I saved the best for last.”

Then, “Hey, should we order another bottle?” And he did.

At this point, I have to say that Billy’s was feeling quite … comfortable. He was in his element; we might as well have been talking in that Italian restaurant. It’s possible we even ordered “a bottle of red” and “a bottle of white.” Certainly they weren’t his first of the evening. So as the conversation ensued, he spoke expansively, candidly, unconcerned with how many eyebrows his more provocative comments might raise.  Ferociously intelligent, Joel was also more than willing to voice controversial opinions, whether releasing long suppressed anger about the Dodgers abandoning Brooklyn, his music sales compared to Beethoven’s, why Prince is overrated and so on — so much so that at one point I did what I often did in such situations, which was to simply look at my recorder without interrupting him, to remind him that all of this is on the record.

We called it a day after a little more than an hour. As we got up from the table, he said something in French — I can’t remember what, just some kind of a quip. I replied with, I hoped, similar wit and bilingual accuracy; he laughed and threw his right arm around my shoulder. That’s the last I ever saw of him.

When I got back to the Musician offices on Times Square, I shared the tape with my staff. All were amazed and entertained at hearing Billy Joel slam the “Pharisees” (his word) who were strangling the music business. At times he seemed angry, though he refrained from naming any villains specifically. Since my story was slated for the “Front Man” section of the magazine, a one-page Q&A with a major artist just after the table of contents, I had to edit severely. In so doing I omitted the most volatile stuff because it seemed like a hit job to run it without proper context. What remained was terrific, but what was lost was, frankly, a lot more volatile.

Sadly, it was the practice at Musician to minimize expenses on cassette tapes by recording over older interviews. But for some reason, I retained this particular transcript, probably because I sensed it needed more attention than that one Front Man page.

Final thoughts: Billy Joel is one of the smartest people I’ve ever encountered as a music journalist. Given that, interviewing him isn’t hard at all. You could just outline a few basic questions ahead of time, toss them in the air and let him run with it. But the more you dig, the deeper the conversation can go. It’s worth the effort, especially when the artist has got a lot to say.

Joel performs at Super Bowl XLI between the Chicago Bears & the Indianapolis Colts, Dolphin Stadium, Miami, Florida, February 2007. Photo (c) Anthony Correia

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Let’s talk about some of these workshops you’ve been doing with college students.

They’re master classes where the audience gets to ask me anything they want regarding recording, composition, the music business, performing, touring — anything about the music business. I realized recently that when kids ask me “How do I get played on the radio? How do I get signed by a record company?”, when I was signed by a record company it was in ’72. That was a long time ago, so I have to say at this point, “I don’t know.” Everything was different. But I have all this information about the business and getting screwed and publishing and lawyers and managers and booking agents and how things work. I got a lot of stuff in my head.

You were interested once in being a teacher.

Well, that was a long time ago too. But I like being able to teach, so it’s a natural evolution. Once you’ve learned something, pass it along. Help the next group of people ….

The Old Ball Game

What might you like to pass along here?

[Joel pauses for a few seconds, then continues.] You know, I don’t follow professional sports anymore. When I was a little kid I loved the Brooklyn Dodgers, and when those sons of bitches moved out of Brooklyn to Los Angeles, I mean, you wanna talk about betrayal? So I became a Yankee fan. And if you want to see a team that had no allegiance to its fans, every time somebody got big, they moved.

Well, the Dodgers got a better offer on the West Coast. Who can blame them for moving?

Now, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a business being driven by money. That’s what business is: Business is money. But just when you got attached to a player, he left. Free agency. They don’t care about us. So should I invest all that caring in them? So sports became unimportant to me. Now I don’t give a rat’s ass. Everybody asks me, “What do you think about the Yankees?” I don’t care! It’s not important. I just like a good game anymore.

Photo © WENN Rights Ltd. / Alamy Stock Photo

To an extent, that’s what happened in the music business. The bean counters came in. You and I know that the baby boomers made this the huge industry what it is. We bought albums in volumes that became units, where we became the product. And product was expected of certain artists who were signed. Record companies became conglomerates and international consortiums. Columbia became Sony — and still the artists had to finance production of their albums, even though parent companies like Sony had all the hardware. But you had to pay to use it. They made the lion’s share, so it’s all on their end of things. Now, I don’t want to start sounding like the Artist Formerly Known As Prince, like I was a slave. But that’s the way the business works.

Do you know I’ve sold close to 100 million records worldwide — or units, whatever they are? Do you know how many units Beethoven has sold? I’m like an amoeba compared to this man. But I always did it for the love of the music. I never created music to become rich or become a rock star. I did it because it fascinated me. It was all for me, my own entertainment. Because there’s an alchemy to this stuff, there’s a wizard, there’s a magic. There’s just something so powerful to be able to manipulate sound.

My younger brother Alex lives in Vienna. Today is his birthday. He conducts an orchestra in Baden. He’s just looking to get himself work. He doesn’t want to be known as Billy Joel’s brother. The guy’s a classically trained musician. He’s dedicated his whole life to learning music. The new bohemians aren’t pop stars; they’re classical musicians.

When I was starting out in rock ’n’ roll, nobody was signing us. We were poor. We were hippies. We lived in crappy little flophouses in the East Village. My brother and his friends are all these nutzoid guys. They don’t have two nickels to rub together. They live in these little shitholes. They have no heat in the winter. They share beer and girlfriends. And those are the new bohemians, extremely talented musicians.

But pop guys? The record companies are scrambling to sign guys who can’t write, can’t sing, can’t play. I’m just sick of the hypocrisy.

Are labels deliberately avoiding musicians who are too well-trained?

The music business is not driven by music. It’s driven by bean counters. It has nothing to do with music. It has to do with radio formats, which are narrow-casted now and are separating us from each other. You either like heavy metal or you like soft rock. I’m one of those soft rock guys, which to me sounds like soft cock guys. They advertise their stations, like [in an oily voice] “We have less talk and more Billy Joel.” Well, if I was a girl, I’d say, “Well, he’s got a soft cock.” I’m sorry. I’m not a soft cock, but they play my music. What am I gonna say — “Don’t use me”? Beethoven wrote soft and loud music. So did Mozart. So does every musician, unless he’s one of these dentist office guys.

But if some prince in Vienna hires Mozart to provide soft music for his soiree, isn’t that a parallel to the music business paying people for pabulum today?

Yeah, but Mozart would say, “Okay, you want a Pachelbel’s Canon for your daughter’s wedding? Fine.” Then he’ll take the money, turn it around and write the most obnoxious, insanely driven music. It’s these goddamn bean counters and radio format people who try to put us in a box. I love Led Zeppelin. I love Guns N’ Roses. I love rock ’n’ roll as much as anybody. But put out a single of mine, and the ones that get programmed more are the soft ones. Half of the music I make is raucous, but it’s difficult for them to program. The hard rock stations don’t want to play Billy Joel because it’s difficult for their audiences to accept him. Well, fuck you! I’m pissed off at radio. They’re a bunch of goddamn wimps. If they never play my records again, I don’t give a rat’s ass.

It’s not just the radio stations …

It’s the record companies too. They want the shortest distance between two points. It’s like, “Why should we push Billy Joel’s good stuff? Why don’t we push Billy Joel’s soft stuff?” So I can’t ever write anything soft again? Everybody’s expecting “the new Billy Joel ballad.” I don’t write ballads! I write an album’s worth of material at a time. I don’t want it all to be bang, bang, bang, bang! When you think of Beethoven, what do you think of? Hard or soft?

He covered the entire spectrum.

Exactly! The greatest musicians did that. If the Beatles had been typecast by radio after “Yesterday,” would we have ever been able to hear “Helter Skelter”? I’m sick of these fuckin’ rabbis and priests. Fuck ’em. Fuck ’em all.

Who, the radio programmers?

No, the critics who say that unless you’re this kind of a rock & roll guy, you’re not an authentic artist. I read an article in The New York Times where [French composer] Pierre Boulez is quoted as saying, “Unless you understand the need for serialism, you’re useless.” Fuck you, man! Where does that leave the rest of us? Music belongs to every human being in the world. Damn you for denying the ability to hear music.

Radio doesn’t seem to be denying listeners the opportunity to hear your music.

Hey, excuse me! I’m sorry!

I’m only saying …

I write the music first. Then I write lyrics. So I’m translating the music so people can understand what I did. Then I’ve got to translate it into a video so the dumbos can get an idea of what it’s all about. I’m a pissed-off musician. I’ll always be a pissed-off musician. I’m fuckin’ sick of being a goddamn clown. “I am the entertainer?” Well, fuck you! I don’t want to be an entertainer. Not anymore.

Is this why you’re moving more in a classical direction in your writing?

I’ve been writing classical music for years.

But are you moving more in that direction because you’re finally fed up with all this?

There’s no difference  between popular and classical music. Music is music. You’re a musician? What do you play?

I’m a piano player.

Do you think there’s that much of a difference between a well-written pop song and a classical composition? A popular song written by someone  like George Gershwin or Cole Porter or John Lennon, is it really all that different from Schubert and Mozart? The romantic repertoire, like pop tunes, breaks down to melody. It’s tonality. We’re in an era where it must be atonal, it must conform to serialism.

Well, the minimalists rebelled against that.

Thank God for rebellion! Would Rachmaninoff have written what he wrote if he adhered to what the orthodoxy said? Fuck dogma! Music is music.

I’m writing a book right now with a guy named [radio consultant] Tony Rudel, who’s the son of the famous conductor Julius Rudel. We’re trying to point out the parallels between classical music and popular music. If you like Led Zeppelin, you’ll probably like Wagner. There’s not really all that much difference; it’s just a matter of how orthodox we want to be.

Should we be boxing ourselves in? We’re missing Mozarts. Does it have to be a song? Does it have to be programmable? Does it have to be atonal? I hate those people. These intellectuals, these music critics, they really can’t disenfranchise people from music they don’t like. They can’t change anybody’s mind. When you hear something you like, a critique of it is not going to change your mind. Music is completely subjective.

Different Strokes, Same Old Folks

Beethoven borrowed themes from folk sources …

Exactly! Mozart’s music was sung by the guy in the street. You know, there’s a theory that dinosaurs became birds. To me, classical music became popular music. It became opera arias. It became a shorthand. And that became operetta. And then it became musical theater.

From Gilbert and Sullivan …

… to George M. Cohan. It’s not all that damn far! Then you had Lerner and Loewe, and Richard Rodgers. To me, Richard Rodgers is maybe the most important writer of my century, much more important than Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein and John Cage and Stockhausen. Fuck all those guys! Richard Rodgers wrote music, modern music, with modern tonalities and modern themes, because he knew how to write songs. Okay, Victory at Sea: So the government commissioned the piece. Can you imagine the U.S. government commissioning music? This is a wild concept.

I’m sorry. I’d rather subsidize musicians than weapons. America is now gonna be the policeman of the world because we subsidize wars. Why should we subsidize art? We are barbarians, that this is even a question!

If classical and popular music are so similar, what differences keep them from being identical?

In classical music, at the entry level, you must either be a child prodigy or you must be so formally studied that you’re probably in your early twenties before you can even get your foot in the motherfucking door. Rock ’n’ roll says, “You can play these three chords? You’re in.” The entry level is much more forgiving, much less demanding.

Although some people play those three chords more persuasively than others.

Yes, but that’s up to the listeners to decide. The point is, you can get in easier.

When I joined a rock & roll band, when I was fifteen, I was already eleven years as a classical piano student. I was head-over-heels the best musician in the band, way above everybody. I was dead serious. These guys in the band were gonna go on to college and get other jobs. I was like, “What do you mean you’re not gonna be here for the rest of your life? Fuck you!” I was like Mussolini. They were like, “It’s just a band thing.” “What do you mean, ‘just a band thing’? This is music!” They all thought I was nuts. I was so intense. I couldn’t deal with a lack of commitment. “Don’t tell me you can’t come in here because you’ve got homework. Who gives a fuck about homework? I’m talking about music! I’m talking about rehearsal!”

When did you know for a fact that this was what you wanted to do with the rest of your life?

I knew when I was fourteen, my first gig. This girl I had a crush on, she looked at me. I loved what I did. I got paid fifteen dollars, which in 1964 was like fifteen hundred dollars. I said, “You get paid for this shit? You gotta be kidding me!” That was it; it was all over but the shouting. There was no backdoor. I didn’t graduate from high school. I didn’t give a fuck about that shit. I wasn’t going to Columbia University; I was going to Columbia Records.

Elton John & Billy Joel take a bow at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., July 2009. Photo (c) Alexis C. Glenn / UPI / Alamy Stock Photo.

Who’s In Control?

With artists like Prince leaving major labels to strike out on their own, at least for a while, have we entered an era when even mid-level musicians might take greater control of their options for recording and performing?

The more a musician takes control of his career, the better. But when you talk about Prince, we’re all supposed to celebrate his “new freedom.” I don’t really like the guy that much. He’s talented but he’s highly overrated. He’s gotten more press than he deserves. I don’t think he was that good to begin with. He’s been given a lot more credit than he’s due. If I get slaughtered for this, I don’t care.

My question was actually about changes in the industry …

I’ve always been in control of what I’ve done. I just wasn’t watching the dollars. If you’re doing it just for the money, you’re fucked in the first place. If you’re reading this article to figure out how Billy Joel made a lot of money, then fuck you. That’s not what it’s all about. All I wanted was to be really, really good. But it turns out that in this world, if you’re really good at something, there’s a value to it and money comes to you.

I am not an extraordinary musician. After I’m dead, if my work lives on, I might be considered to be extraordinary. But I know that I’m not. I consider myself competent. I’m happy to be competent. To be competent in an era of incompetence might make me appear to be extraordinary. That’s my theory of my success, because there’s an incredible amount of incompetence in this business. People talk about their look and their politics. How about knowing your notes? How about knowing what to write? About knowing what came before you? Critics tend to encourage this thing of, “Fuck everybody who came before! Kill ’em! Burn ’em! Flame ’em out!” That’s a terrible mistake. Sure, there’s a resentment over being in the shadow of what came before you. But there’s a reason why what came before is so important: They were good! How about just competence?

I get mad about incompetence. If somebody comes over to my house to fix the electrical, and they don’t know how to do it, and they send me a bill and it’s still not fixed, fuck you! I’m not gonna pay the bill. How about just having that as a level of competence?

But if you’re an incompetent musician, why would the people buy your work?

People buy a lot of incompetent music.

Why?

Because everything is promotion-oriented. You have Access Hollywood, E! Entertainment … and if you look cute, your record will get more play than a guy who’s not as cute as you. If you don’t have a video, a song with a video will get more play than yours.

I did twenty-five radio interviews via satellite about two weeks ago, and all everybody asked about was, “If you could be a mustard, what kind of mustard would you be?” What does that have to do with music? This is insane!  This is disgusting! I don’t want to make-believe I’m better than anybody else. I’m just sick of the stupidity.

I’ve been doing this all my life. I’ve been able to make a living as a professional musician since I was eighteen years old. That’s more than thirty years! And you’re asking me, “Why do you want to get into classical?” That’s crap. I want to do the music I want to do just because it’s the music I want to do. If you ask, “What’s the reason for your success?”, I did it because I liked it. What’s so hard to understand?

Well, if someone asks why you’re moving into classical music, that reinforces the validity of classifying music by categories.

I’m doing what my heart tells me. I can no longer try to recreate the music that was popular when I was a teenager. I don’t want to wallow in nostalgia. “We loved The Stranger. We think that was your best stuff. Why don’t you go back and do that again?” Fuck you, you know? The last song I wrote on The River of Dreams was “Famous Last Words.” The gist of the lyric was, “These are the last words I have to say.” I have nothing else to say.

I’m so goddamn tired of being literal. I don’t understand why popular music must be so literal. My girlfriend is an artist. She doesn’t paint literally. I’ve learned a great deal from her, but I don’t want people being mad at her because I haven’t written words.

What’s wrong with writing words?

What’s wrong with music? I want to write music that’s just music. Fuck lyrics! People just don’t hear music without words. It’s like, “Did you write that for Christie [Brinkley] when you were breaking up?” Fuck you! I don’t want to tell you!” [Joel hums the opening notes to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.] Do you know what that was about? I want to write music that’s just music. What’s wrong with that? I’m sick of the tyranny of the lyric. I say, “Lyricists, throw off your chains. You have nothing to lose.” Fuck that! Just touch people. Music is a form of medicine. You’re a doctor. I’ve got three doctorates of music; that and three dollars gets me over the Triborough Bridge.

So write what fucks the shit out of you. When you write, why do you write? Because you have to write. You’re a human being. You have emotions. You must write something! You know what? Write for a girl you wanna fuck. What I’m telling you is no different from two hundred years ago. A musician shouldn’t write for the radio. Radio sucks! Everybody thinks they’re Howard Stern on the radio. They’re idiots! They’re jerks! It’s terrible, what’s on the radio. Music should be controlled by the musicians, not the bean counters, not the disc jockeys.

But most musicians have to play other people’s music now and then, just to pay the rent at wedding gigs or whatever.

I understand. You gotta go where the gigs are. Get as much work as you can as a musician. But write like you feel. Don’t write for the radio. Don’t write for an audience. Don’t write for a demographic. Don’t write for magazines. Write for yourself! I’ve always written only for me. I don’t give a fuck about all this other stuff. I want to create something to perform for you people. Rock & roll was always defined by the artist. Well, fuck that. Carole King, one of the greatest writers of all time, she’s not that great a singer. She’s kind of whiny. Bob Dylan is not a great singer. What’s wrong with writing? What ever happened to the art of writing?

Would you ever collaborate with someone else who would write lyrics for your music?

Why should I? Did Beethoven have to write music with lyrics? Did Mozart? Chopin? Copland? Who says I’ve got to write goddamn lyrics? Do I have to write lyrics for the rest of my life? Please, God, just let me write music.

Photo (c) Alexis C. Glenn / UPI / Alamy Stock Photo

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