Looks like BIlly Joel is ready to step back into the limelight. The singer-songwriter took a back seat from music after being diagnosed with a brain disorder earlier this year but is now taking on interviews and is seemingly back on the promo trail.
And appearing in the bright spotlight of Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast, Joel pulled no punches when prodded and prompted by the show’s host.
The pair met ostensibly to promote Joel’s new two-part, five-hour HBO documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes, which itself is no stranger to revelation. The film contains details of Joel’s two suicide attempts in his early 20s and his subsequent high-profile divorces, alongside his decades-long wrestles with fame-plus-money-power-and-drugs.
And it seems that, with the documentary under his belt and following his recent bout of ill health (with a long and winding road to recovery ahead), Joel isn't bothered about offering his opinion on his fellow superstars. The Beatles included.
Prompted to pick his favourite double albums - “How about The White Album?” sets up Maher, serving up the admittedly divisive and frequently debated Beatles record - Joel takes the bait.
“I’m not a big fan of The White Album,” he begins. “Some people love it, but I hear it as a collection of half-assed songs that they didn’t finish writing because either they were too stoned or they didn’t care any more."
“I think John was disassociated at that time and Paul was carrying the weight,” he continues. “I think they almost broke up a couple of times, but it was all smoothed over for the ten years that they were famous. And sometimes they were more prolific and sometimes they weren’t. And I hear that in some of those things.”
“Which is a song I don’t like"
Elsewhere, Joel is pleasingly honest and frank about his own work too, playing down a Maher favourite, Tell Her About It, as "a song I don’t like. I was trying to do a Motown song. I was trying to be Diana Ross and The Supremes." He does recognise the genius of Uptown Girl, though: “It was an homage [to Frankie Valli]”.
“I opened for Frankie Valli in 1984 and I remember him saying how flattered and thrilled he was”, notes Maher.
And despite the brickbats earlier, Joel has nothing but praise for the Beatles and John Lennon when it comes to discussing his own Laura. “I was channelling John Lennon. It was Beatle-esque. I couldn’t deny it. That’s what I was going for.”
And back on the subject of double albums… The Who's Tommy? “There was a lot of filler on Tommy,” Joel concludes.
Billy Joel: And So It Goes is available to watch on HBO now.
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