NEED TO KNOW
- Billy Joel opens as much as ipromiseyoumedia about reflecting on his life for a brand new documentary
- Joel mentioned his purpose with the movie was for the administrators to “simply inform the reality”
- “There was some self-revelatory stuff,” Joel says
Billy Joel likes to let his music do the speaking. Take, for instance, “Vienna,” a music concerning the legendary rocker’s difficult relationship along with his late father Howard. Or his 1973 observe “You’re My House,” a romantic ode to his first spouse, Elizabeth Weber.
By means of a catalog of greater than 120 songs, Joel, 76, has made expressing himself by music his forte. However talking concerning the moments that formed him? That’s a special story — one which, for the primary time, is being instructed in a brand new two-part HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes (now streaming).
“I’ve resisted this sort of factor for therefore lengthy. I’m sick of speaking about myself,” Joel tells ipromiseyoumedia in an unique interview. “Among the silly stuff I did, that’s painful to speak about. [But] they requested me for some thematic steering. I mentioned, ‘Simply inform the reality.’”
And they also did. The documentary, directed by Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin, is a uncommon, revelatory glimpse into the personal world of one in every of rock music’s most enduring acts — and the way he overcame substance abuse, psychological well being struggles and extra to search out peace and happiness along with his spouse, Alexis, and his three daughters.
“There was some stuff I came upon about myself. There was some self-revelatory stuff,” Joel explains, whereas Lacy provides: “He truly thanked me for connecting the dots of his life, and he mentioned, ‘I now perceive why I did what I did.’ I feel it was a revelation to him in some methods as nicely, this story.”
Joel’s story in fact contains his extremely profitable music profession, all through which he’s offered greater than 150 million data and gained 5 Grammy Awards because of hits like “Piano Man,” “Simply the Means You Are” and “We Didn’t Begin the Fireplace.” Although he hasn’t launched a pop album in 32 years, Joel’s cultural relevance has by no means wavered, thanks partly to his epic, 10-year Madison Sq. Backyard residency that resulted in July 2024.
However the lesser-known facets of the rocker’s life paint one other image, a compelling and typically tragic story that features the painful absence of his father from a lot of his life, an advanced starting to his marriage with first spouse Elizabeth Weber (Weber was married to Joel’s buddy and bandmate Jon Small once they first met), struggles over time with alcohol abuse and a contentious relationship with the media.
“My purpose was to get it over with,” Joel says bluntly of his preliminary involvement within the movie. “Once I do interviews, folks simply ask you about your self and also you get somewhat self-conscious about it will definitely. It’s nearly embarrassing. Once you’re speaking about your private life indifferent from the fabric… I suppose there’s somewhat little bit of wariness concerned.”
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Nonetheless, Joel opens up like by no means earlier than within the movie, which options interviews with members of his interior circle, together with his sister Judy, daughter Alexa Ray, 39, and extra, plus longtime pals like lighting designer Steve Cohen and reserving agent Dennis Arfa.
“Billy has all the time been a blue-collar man, a person of the folks. He’s all the time been sincere. He’s humorous, he likes to entertain,” Cohen, an government producer on the movie, says of what it’s wish to be pals with Joel behind the scenes. “I feel all of that got here by within the documentary. I didn’t see a lot of a distinction between the Billy I do know and work together with day-after-day and the Billy on this movie.”
That’s to not say that revisiting among the most troublesome moments of his life was straightforward for Joel. (His latest prognosis of the treatable mind situation regular strain hydrocephalus just isn’t addressed within the movie, although Joel tells ipromiseyoumedia he is “okay” and “doing my finest to work with it and recuperate from it”).
“You understand typically you had been a jerk and you probably did one thing silly otherwise you had been unsuitable, otherwise you had been imply and also you didn’t imply to be. Though I all the time preserve that the one authentic factor any of us actually does is make errors,” he says. “I used to be apprehensive, possibly I’m going to hate this factor, as a result of it’s so much to ask of any person, a lifetime of labor. [But] on the finish, I didn’t hate it, which, to me, is the true praise.”
The movie is structured round Joel’s iconic music catalog, as he admits that a lot of his lyrics are autobiographical. “Massive Shot,” he says, is a “hangover” music, whereas “I Go to Extremes” covers the ups and downs of his marriage to then-wife Christie Brinkley. “Vienna,” he explains, is about his father Howard, who left Joel, his mom Rosalind and sister Judy when the star was 8 years outdated, and finally settled within the Austrian metropolis, the place Joel tracked him down years later.
“[Co-director] Susan Lacy identified that a number of the issues I used to be looking for had been my father in my life, and I acknowledged that within the documentary,” Joel says. “I mentioned, ‘You recognize what? I feel that’s true. I used to be in search of my dad.’”
Although Joel introduced he’d be all however retiring from performing and public life in 2011 — “He misplaced his will,” says reserving agent Arfa. “He was at a really low level” — the entertainer loved a profession resurgence in 2014 when he launched his Madison Sq. Backyard residency, which wound up lasting a decade.
“I am so grateful for the assist we have had from individuals who come to see us. It is staggering to me. And a number of it I do not even perceive, however I do not query it. It is a blessing in my life,” he says. “I feel it is the communal facet of it. When everyone is absolutely having fun with what you are doing they usually’re singing alongside and going together with you they usually’re rooting for you, it is nearly like a Woodstock expertise.”
Cohen emphasizes that his longtime pal’s dedication to the craft is what fuels him.
“That’s been a piece ethic by line in Billy’s life,” Cohen says. “You make errors. He all the time mentioned to me, ‘You present up. You do the very best you may. You admit while you’re unsuitable and also you let different folks inform you how good you might be. You don’t inform your self how good you might be.’”
“I hope followers stroll away realizing how f—ing human he’s, and I hope they arrive again listening to those songs once more with a deeper affection,” Cohen provides. “I hope that you just stroll away from this factor going, ‘I now justify my fandom. I do know why this man is pretty much as good and why I reply to it, as a result of that’s the type of man I can relate to his life. I can relate to these feelings.'”