Billy Squier (born William Haislip Squier, in May 12, 1950 in Wellesley, MA) is an American rock musician. Squier had a string of arena rock hits in the 1980s. He is probably best known for the song "The Stroke" on his 1981 album release Don't Say No. Other hits include "In the Dark", "Rock Me Tonite", "Lonely Is The Night", "My Kinda Lover", Everybody Wants You, "All Night Long" and "Emotions in Motion".
Biography
Early life
While growing up, Squier began playing piano and guitar at an early age, but didn't become serious with music until discovering Eric Clapton. When Squier was nine, his grandfather taught him how to play the piano. He took lessons from his grandfather for two years. After he stopped taking piano lessons, he became interested in guitar and bought one from a neighbor for $95. Squier took guitar lessons for a couple of months until he decided to teach himself and had mastered it by the time he was 15.
Early career
Billy Squier's first public performance was at a Boston nightclub in Kenmore Square called the Psychedelic Supermarket in 1968 which is where he saw Eric Clapton and his band Cream perform. Squier originally performed with the band Magic Terry & The Universe, which also included Klaus Flouride, who went on to play with The Dead Kennedys. He then performed with The Sidewinders that premiered during the early 1970s. He played with members including Mike Reed, Alex Phillips, Henry Stern, and Bryan Chase. Squier left the group to form the band Piper, which released a couple of albums in the mid '70s, Piper and Can't Wait, but broke off soon after. Bruce Kulick of KISS fame played with him during this period also. Upon reviewing the debut Piper, Circus magazine touted it as the greatest debut album ever produced by an American rock band. Piper was managed by the same management company as Kiss, and opened for Kiss for some of their most memorable performances during their 1977 tour, including the second and third nights of a three-night, sold-out run at New York's Madison Square Garden.
Squier signed with Capitol Records to release his solo debut in 1980. Tale of the Tape was a minor hit, partly because Squier played a mixture of pop and rock, which earned him a large crossover audience. The song "You Should Be High Love" received a fair amount of play on album rock stations, but no single cracked the pop charts. Years later, the song "The Big Beat" was sampled in rap songs.
Squier asked Brian May of Queen to produce his album Don't Say No. May declined due to scheduling conflicts, but he recommended instead Reinhold Mack who had produced one of Queen's most successful albums ever, The Game. Squier agreed, and Mack went on to produce Don't Say No. The album became a smash, with the lead single "The Stroke" becoming a hit all around the world, hitting the Top 20 in the US and topping the singles chart in Australia. "In The Dark" and "My Kinda Lover" were successful follow-up singles. Squier became a monster act on the new MTV cable channel as well as on Album Rock radio, with every track on the Don't Say No album receiving airplay. Don't Say No reached the Top 5 and lasted well over two years on Billboard's album chart, eventually selling over 4 million copies in the US alone. What distinguishes the album is the longevity of the tracks, many of which still receive recognition on "classic rock" radio stations.
1980s Peak
Billy Squier's third album for Capitol, Emotions in Motion, was released in 1982 and became nearly as successful as Don't Say No. The album also climbed into Billboard's Top 5 and sold just under 3 million copies in the US alone. The lead single was the album's title track, but the album's biggest hit was "Everybody Wants You" which held the #1 spot on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks for 6 weeks and reached #32 on the Hot 100. Squier was also popular on MTV. That same year, he recorded a song, "Fast Times (The Best Years of Our Lives)" for the film Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Two years passed between Emotions in Motion and Squier's next album Signs of Life. It was his third consecutive Platinum album. The album's first single release, "Rock Me Tonite" was Squier's biggest 'Pop' hit. It reached #15 on Billboard's Hot 100 - as well as #1 on the Album Rock Tracks chart - in late 1984. However, the video for the track (directed by Kenny Ortega, from Xanadu, High School Musical, Michael Jackson - This Is It) which shows Squier dancing around a bedroom in a pink tank top, frequently appears on "worst music video ever" lists.
Billy Squier's career took a major downturn afterward. His next two albums, released in 1986 and 1989, sold in the neighborhood of 300,000 copies each. He began playing smaller venues like music theatres. The 1990s would find Squier largely off the radar and recording and performing considerably less.
Squier is also known for his collaborations with Queen frontman Freddie Mercury on Squier's 1986 release Enough is Enough ("Love Is The Hero", "Lady With A Tenor Sax"). Mercury also sang background vocals on Squier's hit single "Emotions in Motion", along with Queen drummer Roger Taylor. In 1983, Squier did his first headlining arena U.S. tour with Def Leppard as opening act. On the VH1 show Ultimate Albums (Def Leppard "Hysteria" episode), Squier revealed that his career as a chart-topping rocker came to a rapid and sudden end with the release of the "Rock Me Tonite" video, derided by his fans who saw him as a guitar hero.
Later years
Nevertheless, Squier continued to record music throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He released Hear & Now in 1989, which featured the singles "Don't Say You Love Me" (which peaked at #4 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart) and "Tied Up".
In 1991, Billy Squier released Creatures of Habit, which yielded only one single, "She Goes Down," which also peaked at #4 on the Mainstream Rock chart. The title of the track refers to oral sex, and the music video is a very rare item, mainly because it features nude females and sexual metaphors throughout.
Squier released his final album with Capitol Records in 1993, Tell the Truth, which featured different sets of musicians performing the various tracks. Squier called it his finest album since Don't Say No, yet Capitol did little to promote the album, and Squier walked away from the music business to pursue other endeavors.
In 1998, Squier released his last studio album to date on an independent label, a solo acoustic blues effort entitled Happy Blue. He embarked on a mini-tour to showcase songs from the album, which included a stripped-down acoustic version of his classic rock mega-hit, "The Stroke."
As time passed, many of his albums became out of print, leaving the albums of "Don't Say No" and some greatest hits compilations; however, many of his albums are now being reprinted.
Recent activity
Squier played a special acoustic show at BB King's in NYC on November 30, 2005. Highlights of the show were acoustic versions of "Everybody Wants You", "Nobody Knows", "Learn How to Live", "The Stroke", "Christmas is the Time to Say I Love You", and most of the 1998 Happy Blue CD. VH1 Classic and New York hard rock radio icon Eddie Trunk introduced Squier that night as "one of the great singer/songwriters in the history of rock."
Squier now lives in New York's Upper West Side. Sampling of "The Big Beat" continues. The late Jam Master Jay's reference to the song as a classic beat in the early days of hip hop has paid great dividends for Squier. The three piece hip hop group performed a track live at The Funhouse entitled "Here We Go", using the song's backbeat. Jay-Z's "99 Problems," a massive hit in 2003, is based on that beat, as well as British grime/hip-hop MC Dizzee Rascal's "Fix Up, Look Sharp" and Kanye West's "Addiction".
Squier's hobbies include such various activities as mountain climbing and gardening. He also has written an award-winning screenplay.
In 2006, Squier joined Richard Marx, Edgar Winter, Rod Argent, and Sheila E touring with Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band. A documentary of the tour including a full length concert performance is now available on DVD.
In 2008, Squier joined Colin Hay, Edgar Winter, Gary Wright, Hamish Stuart and Gregg Bissonette touring with Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band.
In 2009, Squier launched a nation-wide summer/fall tour with a band that included drummer Nir Z, guitarist Marc Copely, long-time bassist Mark Clarke and keyboard player Alan St. Jon.
In 2010,Squier followed an invitation to join James Montgomery & Friends in Boston.
A month later,Squier joined harp player James Cotton at the James Cotton Blues Summit,Lincoln Center in New York City. (Blues Legends Hubert Sumlin,Taj Mahal, Pinetop Perkins...)
In the fall of 2010, Squier played at the Iridium Jazz Club in NYC a 'Billy Squier Blues Deluxe' with The Uptown Horns, The Les Paul Trio and Jeff Golub. For the first time "The Work Song" was played live. The Show displayed Squier's guitar chops and his distinctive voice.
Influence and legacy
Aside from being featured in Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s and Guitar Hero 5, "Lonely Is the Night" also appeared in the season four episode of TV series Supernatural, entitled "Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester."
"The Stroke" can be heard in the films Blades of Glory, Billy Madison, Crank 2 and is heard briefly in Let's Go to Prison.
Everybody Wants You was used in American Idol
RZA referenced Billy on Masta Killa's "Iron God Chamber." On the 2006 song, RZA said: "I got a bigger beat than Billy Squier" at about 1:22. The song appeared on Masta Killa's Made in Brooklyn.
Hard rock band Buckcherry cover "The Stroke" frequently in live concerts, while Damone have recorded a version of "Everybody Wants You" for the CW Network.
The drum track from "The Stroke" can be heard throughout the song "Opticon" by Orgy.
Jay-Z's "99 Problems" samples the drum beat from Squier's "The Big Beat".
"Everybody Wants You" is featured on USA Network's advertising of the upcoming second season of their television series Burn Notice.
In 2008, the song “Christmas is the Time To Say I Love You” was released as downloadable content for the Rock Band games, as part of a special Christmas pack.
More songs were used in the movie "The Hangover", Tv Series "CSI New York"
Personal life
In 2002, he married Nicole , a professional German soccer player. They divide their time between a home on Long Island and an apartment in the famous San Remo on Central Park West in Manhattan. Billy Squier is an active volunteer for the Central Park Conservancy, doing the hands-on "dirty work" by maintaining 20 acres of the park, as well as promoting the Conservancy in articles and interviews.
Discography
- Tale of the Tape (studio, 1980)
- Don't Say No (studio, 1981)
- Emotions in Motion (studio, 1982)
- Signs of Life (1984) #11 US
- |Enough Is Enough (studio, 1986)
- Hear & Now (1989) #64 US
- Creatures of Habit (1991) #117 US
- Tell the Truth (album)|Tell the Truth (1993)
- A Rock and Roll Christmas (various artists, compilation, 1994)
- 16 Strokes: The Best of Billy Squier (compilation, 1995)
- King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents Billy Squier (1996)
- Reach For The Sky: The Anthology (compilation, 1996)
- Happy Blue (studio, 1998)
- Absolute Hits (compilation, 2005)
External links
- Official website
- Billy Squier at VH1.com