Billy Joel picks his dream supergroup
Supergroups are often short-lived stints of ambition, burning bright and fast. Beginning with Cream in the 1960s, the term came to encompass groups made up of pre-established musicians, combining their influence to produce something bigger than any of them individually.
Perhaps the most famous example of this was the Traveling Wilburys, a collaborative project first dreamt up by George Harrison. The Beatles drummer recruited folk legend Bob Dylan, Electric Light Orchestra leader Jeff Lynne, rockabilly staple Roy Orbison, and head of the Heartbreakers Tom Petty.
Though the band lasted just four years, they brought in a number of other musicians, including Harrison’s son Dhani and King Crimson drummer Ian Wallace, but piano man Billy Joel never made the list of recruits. This was an oversight Howard Stern was particularly disappointed in, as he discussed with the Piano Man when he appeared on The Howard Stern Show.
The host implied that Joel would have been a great addition to the group had Harrison and Petty considered him, prompting the pianist to share his own plans for a supergroup. “I wanted to do something like that,” he admitted, “I thought about putting together a band, me, Don Henley, Sting and maybe John Mayer on guitar.”
It’s a star-studded lineup – combining the rocking stage presence of the Eagles frontman with the soft piano stylings of Joel, the genre-blending work of Sting with the wallowing melancholy of Mayer. But Joel doesn’t see it ever coming to fruition, shrugging, “Everybody’s busy”.
Though schedules may never align, Joel maintained that he does keep in contact with Sting. He also speaks with McCartney but doesn’t see the songwriter as a potential supergroup collaborator, finding him too intimidating to approach. “He was in the super-est group of all time,” he explained, “I don’t have the nerve to do that. I can’t.”
Joel also shouted out McCartney’s Beatles bandmate Ringo Starr as a potential drummer, while Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page were contenders to take up the guitar. They’re bold choices, the combination of which would certainly attract the attention of rockers past and present.
There are some mammoth names amidst his picks, well and truly putting the super in the supergroup, and it seems a shame that the project is merely limited to a conversation on a talk show. Fans are left to imagine how Joel’s keys might match up with McCartney’s songwriting and Page’s rocking riffs.
