Billy Joel has given his first interview since a diagnosis of the brain disorder Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH) forced him to cancel all his upcoming gigs earlier this year.
Speaking on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast, the 76-year-old singer songwriter said that the condition is “not fixed, it’s still being worked on.”
“I feel fine,” he said. “My balance sucks. It’s like being on a boat. It used to be called ‘water on the brain...'"
When asked what brought on the condition, Joel said the doctors still didn’t know. “I thought it must be from drinking, I used to drink - like a fish - but not any more... They keep on referring to what I have as a ‘brain disorder’, so it sounds a lot worse than what I’m feeling.”
Joel didn’t give any indication of when he might return to live performance. The singer-songwriter did have dates lined up into 2026, including shows at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium and Anfield in Liverpool, but these were cancelled after he received the NPH diagnosis in March.
During a long hour-plus chat, Joel also revealed to Maher that at one point he considered bringing on board a songwriting partner: “I thought about it,” he confirmed.
He also discussed his passion for classical music - his only new album this century was a classical set, 2001’s Fantasies & Delusions. “It’s just music,” he told Maher. “And it can take me away somewhere else, completely. I get stoned from it. I literally get carried away listening to beautiful music.”
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