I always argue that Billy Joel should be embraced as an artist of masculine, heterosexual camp—like a Broadway Bruce Springsteen, perhaps (not that Born to Run: The Musical isn’t going to happen one day, but I digress). As far as pop music goes, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more earnest chanteur, but finding that radio-friendly voice has been a strange journey for ol’ Billy. Prior to becoming the piano man, he was in Attila, a short-lived (1969 to 1970) two-piece hard rock band (or heavy prog metal duo if you prefer) with drummer Jon Small.
In Billy’s own words:
End of the sixties, I was in a two-man group. We were heavy metal, we were going to destroy the world with amplification, we had titles like ‘Godzilla’, ‘March of the Huns’, ‘Brain Invasion.’ A lot of people think [ I ] just came out of the piano bar… I did a lot of heavy metal for a while. We had about a dozen gigs and nobody could stay in the room when we were playing. It was too loud. We drove people literally out of clubs. ‘It was great, but we can’t stay in the club’
Attila’s intense amplification was achieved a result of running Joel’s Hammond organ directly into Marshall amplifiers.
Perhaps even more fascinating than the sound (or those nutty outfits) is the love story behind Attila’s demise. Billy began an affair with his drummer’s wife Elizabeth, and though Small was a philanderer himself, he and Elizabeth had a small son together, and she told Billy if he confessed, she’d leave both men. Racked with guilt, Joel attempted suicide by drinking furniture polish, putting him in a coma. After a brief stay in a mental hospital, Billy eventually told Jon, Jon broke Billy’s nose, and Billy and Elizabeth ended up together (married for 10 years, actually—she’s the waitress “practicing politics” in “Piano Man.”)
Needless to say, Attila didn’t make it through all that drama, but I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say it’s not as bad as critics have made it out to be (though even Joel himself called it “psychedelic bullshit”). Think Deep Purple, Wolfmother, Iron Butterfly, etc, though not really as good. However, if you’re looking for something new to listen to in the back of a carpeted van under a blacklight, you could do worse! There’s also just something compelling about the experimental line-up—this is a two-piece acid rock outfit with a heavy sound despite having absolutely no guitars!
Considering they posed with carcasses on their album cover—just like the Beatles—it’s sad that there is no documentation of the group’s live act. The two men actually made up later and Jon Small produced one of Joel’s live videos.