Rolling Stone interview series Unknown Legends features long-form conversations between senior writer Andy Greene and veteran musicians who have toured and recorded alongside icons for years, if not decades. All are renowned in the business, but some are less well known to the general public. Here, these artists tell their complete stories, giving an up-close look at life on music’s A list. This edition features drummer Chuck Burgi.
Once a month for the past decade, almost without exception, a town car has pulled up to Billy Joel drummer Chuck Burgi’s home in West Milford, New Jersey, around 1 p.m. and taken him to Madison Square Garden so he can perform for 20,000 people. Two or three other days in any given month, the car takes him to the airport so he can play to three times that number of people at sold-out football stadiums all across America. There hasn’t been a new Billy Joel album in 30 years, but somehow the crowds grow bigger every year.
“This is a dream job,” says Burgi, who spoke with RS a couple weeks before the news broke that Joel’s MSG residency will end next year. “For me, what is really exceptional is that Billy’s music taps into so many parts of me as a drummer that I spent years working on. There’s a little reggae, a little jazz, and there’s also aggressive stuff like ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ or ‘Pressure.’ By the time I’m done playing any show with him, I feel like I’ve given a lot of what I have to give as a player.”
Burgi landed the job in 2006, when Joel parted ways with longtime drummer Liberty DeVitto. Prior to that, Burgi logged many years on the road with Meat Loaf, Hall and Oates, Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, Enrique Iglesias, and Blue Öyster Cult. He’s also played on albums by Bon Jovi, Diana Ross, Michael Bolton, and several other big names, but he’s largely made his living on the road.
“I don’t think I ever felt like I was in the session world,” he says. “Drummers like Steve Gadd and Jerry Marotta were in the session world. They could read music really well. I spent much of my time, not necessarily by choice, taking work on the road.”
That road started for Burgi in Montclair, New Jersey. His father was a stockbroker by day and amateur drummer by night. Many of his earliest memories revolve around jams that his parents held in their living room with neighbors from around the block. “My dad won a Gene Krupa drum competition when he was out of high school,” he says. “When the neighbors came over, they’d play everything everything from [Duke Ellington’s] ‘Caravan’ to [Erroll Garner’s] ‘Misty.’”
During one family jam session, a local high school student who Burgi had never met knocked on their door. As crazy and improbable as it seems, it was future Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh.
“He was driving home from a gig with his high school band, and they heard the music my parents were playing,” Burgi says. “He wanted to know if he could bring a couple of his band members in. My parents’ get-togethers had no piano player to speak of until Joe brought his mother over after that. She was a scotch-swillin’, chain-smoking fool who could play anything from boogie-woogie to Beethoven.”
The two young musicians grew close after that. “Joe ended up being like my older brother for about two years, until he graduated high school,” Burgi continues. “Then he ended up being my hero as his career expanded. I thought that maybe I had a shot at doing it too.”
Burgi’s high school cover band played bars all across Jersey. During his free time, he traveled into Manhattan to see shows at the Fillmore East, including the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Canned Heat, Sly and the Family Stone, Humble Pie, and Steppenwolf. He spent his 17th birthday deep in the mud at Woodstock. “The most intense performers were Sly and the Family Stone on Saturday,” he says. “I watched the Who play at sunrise. We left when Jimi Hendrix was playing the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ [on Monday morning]. We hadn’t slept for three or four days. I lost my sleeping bag. It was muddy. I was hungry. Looking back, I saw it as a badge of courage just to get through it.”
When Burgi was in 10th grade, guitarist Al Anderson joined his band. After graduation, Burgi enrolled at Berklee College of Music, but he dropped out after just a few months to focus full time on his work with Anderson. The partnership didn’t last long. “Al was like, ‘I gotta go to England. Jimi made it there,’” Burgi recalls. “I didn’t see him for two years. Next thing I know, someone goes, ‘You gotta to the Beacon Theatre. You gotta see Al.’ I was like, ‘Who is he with?’ ‘This guy named Bob Marley.’”
Anderson was a pivotal part of the Wailers from the Natty Dread sessions in 1974 all the way until Marley’s death in 1981. Seeing his bandmate achieve his dreams convinced Burgi that it was possible for him too, but it wouldn’t start happening for him until much later in the Seventies.
What was your first significant work in the studio?
I recorded with [jazz fusion] guitarist Danny Toan for Atlantic records on his [1977] album First Serve. It was the first national album I played on. Max Weinberg was the other drummer on it.
I’m sure you learned quickly that playing on in the studio is a very different art than playing on the stage.
Very, very different. But I got hooked. I wanted to do that as often as I could. I played with friends on records. I tried to get into the studio as much as possible. Around this time, I joined [jazz fusion guitarist] Al Di Meola for his tour [for the album Elegant Gypsy]. That tour lasted about seven months.
On that tour, you’re playing drum parts originally played by Steve Gadd.
Steve Gadd and Lenny White! Oh my God, two of my heroes. There wasn’t ever a moment where I wasn’t thinking, “At some point someone is going to take me aside and say, ‘I’m sorry. You shouldn’t be here.’” But that didn’t happen. Through that tour, I got to meet the guys in Weather Report. I got to meet Jaco [Pastorius] and Joe Zawinul, another one of my heroes. I got to meet Wayne Shorter. It was a really mind-boggling experience to be on that tour.
How did you wind up in Brand X after that?
At the end of that year, we had a break. I was already a big fan of Brand X. I think they had three records out at that point: Unorthodox Behaviour, Moroccan Roll, and Livestock. A friend of mine called me up and said, “Listen, can you do a jam with this bass player from Brand X? They’re looking for a drummer.”
We went to the House of Music, where Bat Out of Hell was recorded, up in West Orange, New Jersey. We set up in a room, and I jammed with Percy [Jones], the bass player. My good friend was on guitar. It was just the three of us. We must have played for about an hour, all different, weird stuff. That was what I wanted to be doing at that point, playing fusion, jazz rock.
I got a call about a month later saying, “Listen, the band wants to play with you again. They’re going to be out on tour.” I was in L.A. working with another band. I got together with them at the Roxy on Sunset in the afternoon. I jammed with them, and I got call from their manager saying the band wanted me to join. That next year, the beginning of 1978, I flew to London and lived on a farm for a couple of months while we recorded.
You went from filling the shoes of Steve Gadd to filling the shoes of Phil Collins.
Yeah. I can’t tell you how many sleepless nights between the two of those I had. I always felt out of my depth, but I thought, “I have the energy, and I think I know what I’m doing. I think I know what these people need.” I had a lot of luck since there were probably a lot of people that were more schooled, knew more about music than I did. I was on pins and needles the whole time we recorded the album Masques, going, “I’m going to suck. They’re going to tell me to go home.” We got through it. And it was all live in the studio.
This was a pretty unique time where a band like Brand X could tour and play large venues without a vocalist.
Absolutely. As a fan, when I was younger, I transitioned from rock & roll into jazz rock. It kind of went from Hendrix to the Tony Williams Lifetime, which had [guitarist] John McLaughlin in it, and then to Mahavishnu Orchestra. After I heard Mahavishnu Orchestra, all I wanted to do was play that type of music. I managed to eke out a living playing clubs, but my heart was always in fusion. I got into Brand X at the tail end of the wave of bands being able to make a living doing that experimental, busy, dense, instrumental stuff.
As soon as MTV hits, that stuff is over with, at least on a commercial level.
It totally ended. Fortunately, a year after leaving Brand X, I got a call from a friend of mine saying, “Hall and Oates are looking for a drummer.” I went, “Are you kidding?” I loved “Sara Smile” and “Rich Girl.” I went and auditioned, and got the job to be with them for two years. That was a big turnaround. Huge turnaround.
That’s an understatement, from Brand X to Hall and Oates…
If I ever see them again — and I nearly did when Daryl was supposed to guest with Billy Joel, but it just didn’t work out — I have to thank them for their patience, since I played so much. I think I played well with them, but I played way more than they needed. I did the best I could.
Tell me about making the Hall and Oates album Voices.
They had most of the album done. Jerry Marotta had played the drums, and had been with them for a couple of years. I got to know Jerry when he was with Peter Gabriel and I was with Brand X. We used to sit in the same lobbies together and talk and get to know each other. Brand X and Peter had the same management company.
When I joined, Voices was nearly done. But they wanted to recut a couple of songs that they thought I might be better on than what Jerry did. We recut a couple. I think the last song I did was a remake of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.” Now, I didn’t know about click tracks. I didn’t have any chops for pop recordings. I went in there and played the best I could. They kept the track. It ended up going Top 20, and I suddenly heard myself on AM radio all the time. That was mind-boggling.
Most of that first year was touring with them behind all their hits, and a couple of select songs, including the remake of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.” That was the only song I played live that I actually had a part in making. Everything else was me doing my idea of whoever played drums on their hits. It was really fun.
What did you learn from being on the road with Daryl and John?
They were consummate pros. I got along with both John and Daryl well. Daryl was, by far, the best lead singer I’d ever worked with at that point. I had known and worked with Joe Lynn Turner. We were old friends, and he was my favorite singer until I started working with Daryl.
They were great guys, great band leaders. They let me do my thing with very little input. Anything that needed to be finessed, they left up to the bass player or another member of the band to talk to me. It was easy.
Tell me about making Private Eyes.
I made half the record, and they wound up tossing it out. They ended up keeping one song and I left. It was a parting of the ways. I wanted to play harder stuff. They wanted me to be somebody I didn’t want to be at that point.
The one song you’re on is “Your Imagination.”
Yeah. It was just a jam to a drum machine. I had cut other songs, but they didn’t use them. And probably rightfully so. I wanted to to turn them into the Police. I wanted to do more reggae-influenced music. I wanted to be harder. We had a really easy parting. I just called [Hall and Oates manager] Tommy Mottola up to say, “I’ve had another offer from another group.” He was like, “This is great. We were going to call you and say we wanted to get somebody else.” I went, “Good. I wish you luck.” I went on to work with a band called Balance. They were on a subsidiary of Columbia. And Hall and Oates got [drummer] Mickey Curry, who was awesome.
How did you wind up joining Rainbow?
I’m old friends with Joe Lynn Turner. He called me up and said, “Listen, we have a tour coming and a record to do. Ritchie [Blackmore] is not happy with the present drummer [Bobby Rondinelli]. Would you be interesting doing a jam?” They had already done Straight Between the Eyes and Difficult to Cure. Both albums had big radio hits. I went, “Yeah, I’ll show up.”
I went to a jam out in Long Island. I thought it went really well. Ritchie was in a very, very non-communicative mode that day. When we were done playing, he just unplugged and walked out. I remember looking at Joe and [bassist] Roger [Glover], who really is an affable, sweet man, and going, “Well, I guess that went well.” They laughed and went, “Don’t worry. That’s just him.”
That was my first experience with Ritchie. He didn’t even look at me while we were playing. He just stared down at the stage. Then he didn’t even thank me or anything. He just put his guitar down and walked out.
As I was packing up, Roger came up to me and said, “I have a solo record I want to do. Would you like to play on it?” We started working on his album Mask. About halfway through that, he said, “I need to go to Copenhagen to produce the next Rainbow record.” Ritchie had picked this kid from Long Island to play drums. I don’t even know his name, but I wished him well.
About two weeks later, I get a call late my time, and probably really early over there. It was drunken Roger and Joe going, “Dude, you have to to get on a plane over here. We’ve been going two weeks and don’t have one take with this guy.” So I went and talked to their management the next day, and flew out to Copenhagen without any idea of what I was doing or getting into.
I’m sure it was stressful. They had been through so many lineup changes, and they had the great Cozy Powell on drums at one point.
[Big laugh.] I thought Bobby was great. Up until that point, I had never worked with a double bass drum. With Brand X, I just threw it up there and did what I could. Bobby was schooled and studied. I thought he was an awesome player. Starting that project was beyond stressful. By the time it was over, I was sure I would never see any of those guys again. Lo and behold, I get a call a couple of weeks later from their manager. “Hey, Ritchie wants to know if you want to go on the road.”
I was floored. I went, “You’ve got to be kidding, but sure.” It was really one of the best decisions I ever made. I had a blast. We did a really cool recording at Budokan with a 32-piece orchestra. Unfortunately, the band had been off for a couple of months. I felt we could have played even better. But it has some really cool moments.
Ritchie was my hero. When “Hush” came out back in the late Sixties, I just thought, “That guy is absurd.” And then Machine Head came out. Oh my God. Once I learned Joe was in the band, I went out and got the records that he sang on. Of course, by then, I thought it was the best stuff he’d ever done. I was thrilled to be back in a band, and working with my favorite singer.
When the tour started to wind down, did you hear any hints that Deep Purple might be reforming?
No. I gotta be honest. We jammed a lot of cool stuff, which ended up going on [Deep Purple’s] Perfect Strangers record. I remember jamming on the song “Perfect Strangers.” I thought, “Man, when we get in the studio, this is going to kill.” Then we got off the road, and I got a call a week later from their manager Bruce [Payne]. He goes, “I got good news, and I got bad news. You’re going to be on payroll for a little while longer, but the band is stopping. Ritchie and Roger are putting Deep Purple back together.” That’s the music biz. Whatever. I spent another couple of wacky years trying to help Joe get his solo record going after this.
How did you wind up on the first Bon Jovi record?
When I joined Balance, I did their record at the Power Station. I met Tony Bongiovi, Jon’s cousin. He was a co-owner of Power Station, and Jon was the night janitor. He used to come and hang out in the doorway while we did a session. I got to know him, got to talk with him. At the same period of time, I got to record with a bunch of other people through Balance management. I got to play on Michael Bolton’s first solo record.
And I got a call from a guy that produced a band called Arc Angel, which was different than Arc Angels with Charlie Sexton. His name was Lance Quinn. Lance wound up producing most of that first Bon Jovi record. And kind of like I was when I started, [Bon Jovi drummer] Tico [Torres] hadn’t settled in to how to record yet. They had some songs by him that they were going to keep, but they wanted to recut them. So I got a call from Lance to come to the Power Station. I finished recording the record. I think I played on five songs and was credited with either bass or “additional musician.” I think they now credit me on drums.
You’re not on “Runaway,” right?’
No. That was a one-off cut with the guy who did A&R with Atlantic Records, Frankie LaRocka. It was just a one-off to play for record companies. Once Jon got the deal, Tico had joined.
How did your Meat Loaf chapter start?
That actually started though Bobby Kulick, who I met in Balance. By the time I got the call about Meat Loaf, I left Balance to join Rainbow. I hadn’t talked to Bobby in a couple of years. He called me out of the blue and said, “What are you doing?” I go, “I’m in between gigs. What’s up?” He goes, “This artist I used to work with has just called me. He wants me to join the band again. He’s having lots of issues with people he hired. I want you to come in and play with them. You have two days. Listen to Bat Out of Hell, all the songs on that record.”
I went in, auditioned, and that was it. I actually think Bobby pushed more buttons than I knew, since he came to get my full drum set for my audition. I guess Bobby was like, “You’re going to want this person.” This was at the end of 1986.
This was years past Meat Loaf’s peak. What sort of places were you playing?
I join the band, we rehearse in Manhattan, and at the end of 1986 we do a bunch of TV shows: David Brenner, Solid Gold… Then we started a full-blown tour of Europe. Our first two shows were TV shows in London. Our first gig was the first of two nights at Wembley Arena, sold out. They recorded a live album on both nights.
He was one of the most intense performers in rock history. What was it like to watch him just lose his mind every single night?
Oh man. In my estimation — and he said this on VH1 — 1987 to 1990 were probably the peak years for his performing and his voice. And I had never worked with a personality like him. Onstage, he had endless energy. He was all about theatrics. I had learned how to watch and read somebody pretty good, especially after working with Ritchie, but Meat was a one-of-a-kind, tour-de-force human.
Man, he was killing it, maybe overkilling it. That was his forte. “If you could do something two times to make it good, why not do it 20 times? It’ll be even better!” His choices weren’t always the best, but he gave it a million percent every time we played.
What was it like to be with him offstage? He was the first person to admit he was an emotional, volatile guy. Was it ever hard?
He’s no longer alive. If he was, I would preface this with, “Meat, I’m just going to tell it like it is, like it was for me.” He was so many different people on any given day. If one of us in the band saw him before the others, we’d be like, “What Loaf do we have today? Happy Loaf? Sad Loaf? Mean Loaf? Bad Loaf?” Bobby Kulick came out with a lot of these names.
He was very volatile. He was also very over the top. Sometimes he was really tough to be with, when he was angry, when he was scared, when he was feeling insecure. He used to scream at the band. He’d take out his anger and frustrations on us when we were on the band bus. We’d be all sitting in the lounge. He’d come in and scream and yell, not necessarily at any one of us, but just to vent his rage or frustration. We had no place to go. You couldn’t get up and go to your bunk, so you had to just sit there and take it. It was like being berated as a teenager.
I guess to try and think about it from his perspective, this is a guy with a traumatic childhood that was briefly one of the biggest names in rock. It all went away in an instant. His money went away, his fame went away, his voice went away… I imagine it was all way too much for him to process.
Oh yeah. He was the biggest bunch of people I’ve ever known. He was like that little girl with the curls. When he was good, he was great. When he was bad, he was absolutely hideous. I worked with him for almost seven years. It was on that tour, the very first tour, that I met my wife.
How did that happen?
She and her sister had been living in Germany. They were Air Force brats. They were living in Frankfurt, working for the guy that produced the record that the tour was going to be for. A guy named Frank Farian, who went on to produce Milli Vanilli.
Frank produced the album that I joined Meat Loaf to promote, Blind Before I Stop. My then-girlfriend and I hit it off immediately. She sang all the backgrounds on that record with her sister. And then Meat Loaf got to know them and asked if they wanted to go on the road. They said yes.
I met everyone in Manhattan, and immediately fell in love with Amy [Goff]. We had a tumultuous seven years of working together in the same band and being in love. Many years later, we married. And we’re still together. Those were the craziest of times ever.
Did you meet Jim Steinman?
Many times. He came to every New York show. He came to London. I met him probably half a dozen times.
I’m sure you heard a lot of talk about Bat Out of Hell II, since they spent years planning it.
Yep. It was years before it happened. They were getting ready to go record it when I left. He said they weren’t going to be touring anymore. I had an offer from the guys in Blue Öyster Cult.
How did you feel when Bat Out of Hell II just exploded? You must have been shocked.
It was hard. It was really weird because the drummer live was somebody that I talked Meat into using. When happened was I said to him, “I’m going to join Blue Öyster Cult.” He said, “That’s great.” Then I got a call from his mangers saying, “Listen, we have another week coming up of touring.” I said, “I’m booked, and I’m going to honor that.” I gave them the name of a guy that ended up staying in the band until Meat Loaf passed, Johnny Miceli.
It’s so crazy that Meat Loaf scored the biggest hit of his career at the peak of the grunge era. It just doesn’t make any sense.
No sense at all. Honestly, having gone through those almost seven years for myself, I looked at it and was happy for his success. But man, I knew I couldn’t emotionally have done any more with him. A lot of stuff came to a head during the end of our time working together.
We parted amicably, but Meat and I came to blows a couple of times. It wasn’t physical, but I finally yelled back at him and expressed some of my anger and frustration, because he led everyone in the band along for the longest time. “Stick with me. I can’t pay you more than this, but I’ll use you on the next album and there’s going to be a huge tour.” For a long time we all went, “OK, that sounds amazing.”
I have to say that I’ve been in so many bands. That band I was in when I first joined was one of the most special groups. It had chemistry. It’s the same in Billy’s band. You can’t buy that. Similarly to a good sports team, you can’t buy the talent to make a killer team. You can have the components, but is there magic? Is there something special? Is there a chemistry? A lot of times there isn’t, no matter how much management spent on some of the best players in the world.
Tell me about your time in Blue Öyster Cult.
It was really fun. I did two records with them. The first one [Cult Classic] was a labor of love for them. It was kind of like a karaoke album for me. What happened was they needed to get their hands on their original recordings, but they couldn’t. Some of them had been lost. Their relationship with Columbia had petered out years before that. What they needed to do was re-record all their biggest songs and have them sound like the original. Not re-imagine them, but almost karaoke versions of them. It was very unfulfilling. It wasn’t for another two years or so that they got a budget to finish up another couple of demos we had done. And I ended up playing on most of that album, Heaven Forbid.
I’m sure for Buck, Eric, and Allen, this was a pretty rough time. They didn’t have a Meat Loaf-like comeback in the Nineties. This just wasn’t their era.
Absolutely. Not only that, every time I played with them, I wanted to make them heavier. I wanted to make them Pantera. I was listening to Pantera nonstop for heavy music. And geez, then Nirvana came along and destroyed what was left of the Eighties bands, and flipped the music business upside down. They were between a rock and a hard place.
You were in Red Dawn briefly. That seems like a good band that had terrible timing.
Totally bad timing. God, it was such a good band on disc. We never gigged. We never toured. We had a blast putting the music together and recording it. It was produced by our-now musical director [in Billy Joel’s band], David Rosenthal. I’ve known David since I joined Rainbow in 1983. He was in Rainbow for two years by the time I joined.
What was it like to rejoin Rainbow in the late Nineties? I’m sure it felt very different.
It felt very different, but it was exceptional. I thought the album was they did [Stranger in Us All] was a little unadventurous drum-wise, but it had really good songs. I was unsure about the way the world was going to greet the band, but it was an incredibly successful tour.
I met the bass player, Greg Smith, doing the Red Dawn album. Then we went our separate ways. He was with Alice Cooper. Then he managed to join up with Ritchie while I was in Blue Öyster Cult and they recorded that album. But Ritchie wanted more out of the drums than he was getting at the time. That’s all I knew. Greg suggested they called me. I was still with BOC, but I said, “OK, I’m done.”
How did Doogie White do as a lead singer for Rainbow?
He was awesome. He was such a fan, and such a sweet man. I thought the band was exceptional. This was Doogie’s first shot at playing hard, melodic rock. He was such a sweetheart. I loved the other guys in the band, and I got along great with Ritchie. I thought he was playing better than when I played with him in 1983.
Those sets were pretty cool since you were doing a lot of Deep Purple covers.
Yes! We did “Burn.” We did “Perfect Strangers.” I was like, “Now I know what it’s like to play this song for real!” We had messed around with it at soundcheck right before Rainbow broke up. But I had a blast on that tour. We went all over the world, and played really big places. It was nothing but fun.
By 1997, Ritchie decided he didn’t want to do hard rock anymore, and he went in a very different direction.
Yeah. I saw that coming. Fortunately, I had already been offered a whole year of traveling with Enrique Iglesias. That was a big translation.
How did that happen? It’s such a big departure from what you’d done before.
It came about only because I had gotten to know Tommy Byrnes, who is still the guitarist with Billy. He and I started recording projects together. He was producing all these young people that were trying to get record deals. I wound up being his guy to do all sorts of studio stuff. He literally called me up and went, “Hey, I got this gig. It’s going to be a year of work. You’re not the artist’s first choice, since the artist wants the Billy band.”
Liberty said he didn’t want to do it. Billy said he was going to take that year off. Crystal [Taliefero] said yes. Dave Rosenthal said yes. Then he called me up and said, “I think you should do this.” And then wham, we were on the road.
It’s interesting that Enrique wanted Billy’s band. He has such a different sound. I guess he saw him live and really liked it.
Absolutely. He saw Billy live and he wanted the lights, and he wanted the band. He got most of the band, and he got the same lighting director [Steve Cohen] we have to this day. We cobbled together a kick-ass show for him.
Enrique was really young and just starting out.
I think he was 21. He had already sold upwards of 15 million records by the time I met him.
It must have been such a different experience for you to play to screaming young people.
Man, it was insane. The first tour that we did was on the strength of the two albums [Enrique Iglesias and Vivir] that were out. They were both in Spanish. We played mainly in the South of the United States. We did a whole Spanish world tour. It was months all over Central and South America, Mexico. We did two months in Spain.
Oh my God. It was the craziest thing I’d ever done. I played and had time off in all these countries that I knew, as a gringo, I’d never go with any rock & roll band ever. I would be hard-pressed to ever see them, let alone play to these huge crowds of girls.
The girls weren’t screaming for Blue Öyster Cult or Rainbow.
No. It really was like being in the Beatles with him. There were so many big shows where the girls were screaming so loud that we could hardly hear ourselves.
Right around that time, Enrique was about to make a big breakthrough in the U.S. Suddenly he was all over MTV and Top 40 radio, singing in English.
Yeah. Enrique finally hit radio three years after I joined him with “Bailamos.” I think it was the first song he had sung in English, though it had a Spanish title. I did that tour. We did a lot of TV. Unfortunately, we were doing a lot of playback because that particular album, Cosas del Amor, was so differently produced than the first two that we had to go in a different direction to pull it off live. And the band wasn’t the same people for the most part. We couldn’t get Crystal, David, or Tommy back. The music was a real departure from the almost Journey vibe of his first and second records with a lot of long guitar solos. The last album I toured on was very pop, a complete left turn.
How hard was it on your family life to be touring all the time?
My first marriage exploded because I was on the road all the time, and also because by the time I met Amy, who is now my second wife, it just ended up being that suddenly we’re in a band together. That made a big difference. Up until then, I’d never been with a woman that knew what the business is from beginning to end. Because we had been on the road together for almost seven years, I ended up going through a divorce.
I’d be with my first wife and I’d go, “I don’t know you at all, and you don’t know me.” It was a mistake getting married. We didn’t have children. I never wanted to have children. I don’t know how other guys did it. I was like, “I don’t want to be an absent dad.” I’d watched it happen too many times with friends.
You’re a nerd to begin with if you get into the music business. If you get good on an instrument, it’s like being a hockey nerd or a soccer nerd. By “nerd” I mean you have to be so focused on that all the time that your social life dwindles. If I’m not on the road with my family, the band I’m touring with, I see maybe one friend at home.
Relationships change being on the road this much. You miss weddings. You miss divorces. You miss deaths. You miss birthdays. You miss funerals. You miss everything. It takes its toll on a lot of your life.
How did you wind up playing drums in the Billy Joel Broadway musical Movin’ Out?
Through Tommy [Byrnes], again. I took a year off when I finally left Enrique. I made a deal with Amy, who was singing all the jingles known to man in New York with her sister. They were on every big jingle and TV commercial singing backgrounds and leads. I cut a deal with her and said, “I’m done with the road for a while. I want to learn how to use a computer and make music on it.”
While I was home, Tommy called me up and said, “Listen, I’ve got something else. I don’t know if you want to do it, but I’m putting a band together that’s going to audition for these producers. It’s doing Billy’s music. Do you want to check it out?” I said, “Tell me what I gotta do and I’ll be there.”
We got together at SIR in Midtown long after he called me. Man, we rocked it, rehearsed for a couple of weeks. Then the dancers came in and we did a producer’s showcase. Within a couple of weeks, we were off to Chicago to rehearse the show, put it together, and open initial viewings in Chicago with the hopes of being able to bring it to Broadway. It was nuts.
That’s a very different lifestyle. You can sleep in your own bed every night.
Oh, my God. It was really a dream come true, because I had been living in Manhattan for a long time and always had to fly out to work. When that show finally opened on Broadway, I was living on the Upper West Side. If I wanted to, I could be home in 20 minutes by cab once the show was over. It was fabulous. It was my one and only time being on Broadway.
Did it ever get monotonous to do a show that was that locked in?
“Monotonous” may not be the best word since that was my first opportunity to get to know Billy’s music, which was really varied. We actually got a chance to re-write one or two of the songs in terms of the rhythm and structure. It was just more of an ordeal. I had never played eight two-hour shows a week, week after week after week. Man, for the first couple of months, I was shattered at the end of every week.
When we were in Chicago, they used to have cast parties on Mondays, which were our days off. And I was just shot. I used to go see a masseuse and pray that I’d be together enough. My hands were all split and ripped up. I’d pray I’d be in shape enough to start rehearsals again on Tuesday.
Drumming is obviously so much harder physically than playing bass, guitar, or basically anything else.
I had seen Liberty play a couple of times with Billy. He was a real hard hitter, great showman. I thought, “Jesus, if I’m going to be doing this, I have to be 100 percent every second. I have to at least bring the energy as a player that he did whenever I saw them.” The was extra hard. I was hitting harder than I ever had, and trying to emulate him.
You met Billy during this time, right?
Yeah. Several times. He’d sometimes come out for the curtain call when everyone would come out and get introduced. He’d take a bow. We’d usually play “New York State of Mind,” which wasn’t in the performance, but was always a curtain-call favorite of his. Then sometimes he’d ask us, “Listen, the next time I come, give a listen to this song.” We started playing some other stuff. That was like, “Oh, my God, I’m actually going to jam with Billy.”
How were you first approached about taking the job in his actual band?
Once every year for the previous three years, Tommy would come to me and say, “Do you want to go on the road? Billy’s going to go on the road. He’d like you to play with him.” And it never happened. By the time it was really going to happen, the show was winding down. I didn’t believe Tommy at all. But he said, “Literally, we’re going to go on the road.” I was like, “Yeah, whatever.”
Then he called me at home before one of our last shows and said, “Dude, you have to commit to this. He wants you to be in the band.” At this point I was like, “Are you fuckin’ kidding?” That was it. We were closing the show, and they carted out my gear to the rehearsal place. I was rehearsing with Billy during the day, and doing Movin’ Out at night.
I’d imagine this was pretty stressful. Billy had one drummer for 30 years. He played on most of the recordings. The fans all knew and loved him. Did you feel a bit weird coming in to replace him?
Yes! The same thing happened when I joined Rainbow or when I join anybody. Liberty had been there for so long, and played on all the big songs. It’s been about 18 years since I’ve been with Billy, and I’m only now getting a handle on how to be me in that band. For so many years, I felt like I was playing through the ghost of Liberty, not only to the crowd, but in my own head. Now I feel like a part of the band, but it’s taken a long time.
Your first show with Billy was in Sunrise, Florida in January 2006. This is somewhat of a mythical night for Billy fans, since he opened the show backwards by playing “Piano Man” and then did this long run of super-rarities. It’s unlike any other Billy show in history.
It was such a hard evening. I’m raring to go. To preface this, I had done about 1,400 shows with Movin’ Out. I had muscle memory that was torqued to the speed we had agreed upon for all the dancers. None of of those tempos were the way that Billy wanted to play them. I started to slowly try and get OK playing Billy’s set more like the album tempo.
Then the first big show, I’m all revved up. I look at the setlist and go, “A waltz? I’m going to start the show with a waltz!” Oh, my God, it was so hard.
That night he played “Laura,” “The Great Wall of China,” and “Famous Last Words.” I think it’s the craziest set he’s ever done.
Absolutely. And it was my first show. I thought I was horrible. People looked confused. Of course, I think they’re hating me, but also hating the music selection. There was no impetus to our performance. It started leaden, and then went downhill from there.
He learned quickly you can’t do the show backwards.
Yeah. That was the weirdest set we’ve ever played, and probably the hardest first show I’ve ever had with anybody.
You did a ton more shows in 2006. You went all over.
Yeah. We toured a lot. It wasn’t until we went to Japan and did a pretty substantial tour there that I started to feel like I had an idea of how to be me in Billy’s band.
Tell me how you work with Crystal Taliefero, since you are both on percussion.
Well, we learned to work together, and got to know each other, and love each other, on the Enrique tour. Being back in a band with her and Billy was just like, “Come here, give me a hug!” I was so in love with her when I met her. And I still am. She’s just a tour de force. And she’s an incredible player. I’ve never had any issues working with her or anyone else in the band, some of whom are my oldest friends, like Mark [Rivera].
When Billy spoke to the press back then, he often said he was about to retire from touring. Did you worry that the job would be short lived?
Yes. Oh, my God. Every year after the first year was, “He wants to go out and do it again? Really?” We’re still there. And yet he’s just so iconic as a writer, performer, and singer, and he’s still killing it. It’s such a thrill for me to be up there onstage with him, because he still gives a million percent and is still playing and singing his ass off.
What’s your best memory from Last Play at Shea in 2008?
To be honest, the Shea shows were some of the last shows we had with a sound man who I had trouble with. The Shea shows were fraught with me not hearing well. The guy was subsequently let go fairly soon after that. But those were a real struggle to get through.
The highlights were just looking out at the crowd. We worked so hard during the day for both of those shows, and it was a crushingly hot summer. We were onstage all afternoon rehearsing the guest for that night. Then we had to get up and do it all again.
I think one of my highlights was playing “Walk This Way” with Steven Tyler. And of course, the best memory was having Paul McCartney show up at the last show.
As a Beatles fan from childhood, playing “Let It Be” with Paul at Shea Stadium, where you’re Ringo, must have been beyond surreal.
Oddly enough, that happened to be one of the Beatles song I’d never, ever played. We started the set with “I Saw Her Standing There.” We had no idea what we’d be performing with him, but that was one of the ones that was thrown out. I happened to have been listening to a Live at the BBC version. I thought, “I’ll play it that way.”
To me, it was so momentous to be onstage with Paul McCartney during the last days at Shea, where he’d played with the Beatles. It was just this huge, weird circle to complete, and to be up there with Billy. It was surreal and I was in so much shock. The next day, it felt like I had been in the longest-lasting car crash that anyone had ever lived through. There was so much coming at me with the guest artists and their songs. And then our big setlist at both shows. When it was finally over, I don’t think it hit me for a month that we had just done what we had done. It was monumental.
How were the tours you did with Billy and Elton John?
Those were awesome. They were a whole other thing. I was a big fan of his when his first record came out. When that live in the studio album [11-17-70] came out, that was just a jaw-dropping piece of music. To be on the same stage with him…and [drummer] Nigel [Olsson]. I was in love with Nigel. I wanted to marry him.
He was such a beautiful guy when he was a kid with the long hair. I wanted to be him. I wanted to look like him. That was never going to happen. But to be onstage with him all these years later was crazy, and to be playing “The Bitch is Back.”
It’s really hard to articulate how momentous those experiences are. You work your whole life to hopefully have maybe one or two of them. And then to have the opportunity to play with all these heroes, like Roger Daltrey at Shea, Paul McCartney, Steven Tyler, Garth Brooks. It was crazy. And then to be on a tour with Elton and his band. It was nothing but a blast, really extraordinary.
I saw the 2008 show at Hammerstein Ballroom where Bruce Springsteen played with Billy and his band for Obama. That was pretty amazing.
That was another milestone, because by then I was intimately aware and a fan of Bruce. We were his backing band, pretty much. He dragged Roy Bittan along to be his piano player. And to be hanging with Bruce and Patti [Scialfa], getting to know other, he was just the salt of the earth, such a cool guy. We’ve gone on to have him guest with Billy at the Garden, which was just otherworldly, to play a couple of his biggest hits.
In 2009, Billy stopped touring and made it clear he was done. Did he tell the band that was it? How did that work?
He was having a lot of trouble with his hips. He was also having a lot of trouble with his wife at the time [Katie Lee]. He was miserable. None of us could console him. You could just see that he was in pain. He was in physical pain. His heart was breaking because of what was happening with him and his wife at the time.
He eventually wrote a letter to all of us that said, “I don’t know what the future holds, but as of now, I’m done.” He wished us luck. It was devastating. It was a very sweet, heartfelt letter. I really appreciated him going the extra mile. In other circumstances, the artist wouldn’t say anything to me. I really thought when we stopped playing that that was going to be it. We were off for almost three years.
You began playing with Billy Joel tribute singer Michael DelGuidice during this time.
Yep. It was another one of those perfect things — like, “I know the music!” I didn’t do it all the time, but it happened that his drummer of many years, an old friend, was eager to start another group, so he didn’t want to commit to many shows. I wasn’t going to do it at first, but Tommy was like, “You should do it. It’s fun. You don’t have to worry about not knowing the material.”
I got to know Michael. He’s turned out to be another freak of nature, one of the most incredible vocalists I’d ever worked with. He’s a good drummer, a great bass player, a great guitarist, a ridiculous vocalist. The man is just…where did you come from?
Your ego wasn’t bruised by going from Shea Stadium with Billy to a tribute band playing those same songs?
Nah. I was grateful to be able to keep paying bills, to keep working. I thought the band was awesome. I thought, “If this is the legacy…” At that time, Tommy and I were both members of Billy’s band, and we were playing with Michael. I thought, “This is a real fitting tribute to what that band was like, and Billy’s music.” I was actually quite proud to be working with them. It was fitting a big gap in people’s desire to see him or hear his music. We worked a lot for those three years I was with him.
I watched 12-12-12 on TV. I remember thinking it was a somewhat off night for Bruce, the Stones, the Who, Roger Waters, and McCartney. Then you guys came out and just friggin’ destroyed the place. It was unreal. Did you feel that on the stage?
Oh, my God. I felt like the top of my head exploded. It was freaky. Billy had gone through everything he had gone through. He had even stopped drinking at that point, so he was thinner. He was so focused. It was like a brand new person. He wasn’t in pain physically. He was working through or on the other side of the heartbreak. And here we are at the Garden. It was just magic. My throat had my heart in it. I could barely catch my breath during the three songs we played. I know I played some of them too fast.
I was just so freaked out, and so amazed that we were doing it again. We just rehearsed for a couple of days. Mainly it was the band. Billy came in and out of those, as he likes to do. But man, to get in front of the Garden and know this is being broadcast…
A lot of people were struck at that show by Billy’s voice. His body ages, but his voice doesn’t seem to age for some reason. It’s almost freakish.
In fact, it’s gotten better in a lot of ways. He’s much more expressive now than I’ve ever heard it, and I’m going on 18 years with him. And I’m blessed that he’s still wanting to do it. But it’s such an extraordinary thrill to be playing with this guy. He’s firing on all cylinders.
You must have been shocked when you first learned about the monthly MSG residency.
I thought I sucked at 12-12-12. I’d been playing with Michael, but not with him. And we played everything faster in “Big Shot.” I didn’t like my performance, but I was blown away by Billy’s. He was so incredible, and impeccable. It wasn’t until the next day I got calls from people going, “Holy shit, you guys were good.”
I believe that was impetus for the residency. The people at the Garden were like, “Wait a minute?!” Billy’s performance blew everyone’s mind wherever it was televised, whoever was watching, all over the world. Suddenly it was like, “OK, we’re going to get back together and we’re going to start touring again, and we’re going all over the world.” It set fire to the next level of his career, and mine. It was all because of that night.
Walk me through your typical day when you play the Garden. What happens when?
I get there around 2:00 or 2:30. It’s always freezing. The Garden is always cold, especially around hockey season. I usually get there and they’re still doing line checks, testing mics, making sure everything is working. I go into the band dressing room. There’s a big-screen TV. Sometimes there’s a hockey game on if it’s hockey season. Sometimes it’s a basketball game.
I chill out and talk to members of the crew, people that have been working with us for years. I’m talking about the people that do the hospitality and set up the food for us. Then I might wander onto the stage and try not to get in the way of what’s going on there. Sometimes they are adjusting stuff in the ceiling, so they don’t want any band members going near their gear until those guys come down.
When it’s good, I get up there and go behind my kit. I wait for the other band members to show up. I shoot the shit with my tech or any of the other guys involved in the show, the audio guys or the video guys. We’ve become such a big family. There’s never any lack of someone to interact with. You know them, you know their kids, you’ve seen pictures of everything they do. It really is an extraordinarily big and extended family.
On the way in I may have gotten a text like, “Hey, listen to this song, a song we never do. Billy wants to try it and soundcheck.” So I’ll go on my computer or my iPad and start listening to it. If it’s not something I’m familiar with, and many times it isn’t, I’ll make a cheat sheet so I can bring it onto the stage. And when we finally get ready to do the full band soundcheck around 4:00, we can run through that song.
I was stunned the other night when you did “Los Angelenos.”
I learned about that on the way into the Garden. I think we may have tried it once at a rehearsal years ago. Years ago. And that was it. Suddenly it was like, “Hey, we’re going to try this at soundcheck.” That was one of those days where as soon as I got in…I had some other stuff to do with gear. I was swapping out some new drums I got sent with the drums I’d been using. And I listened to the song and made some cheat sheets. We ran through the song at soundcheck once. Billy was like, “How do you want to end it?” We decided on an ending. That night, we did it for the first time in 40 years.
There’s been so many great guests, but Olivia Rodrigo was really interesting since she’s so young and was doing a song that references Billy. What was that like?
She was unique since she was a phenomenon that I didn’t really know about. She’s so much younger. I didn’t know anybody who knew her music, since everyone I hang out with is old. Going on YouTube and getting sent one of her performances from one of the music awards, I was like, “Oh, my God, she’s a superstar!”
The song was unique. It wasn’t hard rock. It wasn’t really pop. It was a cool, quirky tune. I did my best to learn her recorded version and the slightly differently live version we had been sent to peruse. She came out and was really sweet at soundcheck, and looked ten years old.
We ran through it, I think, only once. We were prepared. It was like, “OK, bye.” We finished our soundcheck. Next thing we know, she’s coming out during our performance. And people went nuts. I was like, “I’ll be interested to see how many people in the audience know who she is.” As soon as he announced her, there were so many young people in the audience that went, “Oh, my God!”
She also did “Uptown Girl.”
Yeah. That was very, very cool. It was a wonderful experience, as have been most of the guests we’ve had. Everybody has been an incredible person to get to know, and to play with at the Garden.
I spoke to Billy a couple of years ago. He was telling me he was shocked that he’s still able to play stadiums even though he hasn’t released an album in over 30 years. Are you ever stunned to walk onstage at a football stadium and see the size of the crowd?
Yeah. But what’s weird is it’s something I thought we could attain. When I started getting comfortable with him, I started realizing, “Oh, my God. This band is so good. His songs are so friggin’ good.” One of the first shows I did with him in 2006 was the Tokyo Dome in Japan. It was playing a big place like that that made me realize, “This is potentially so far from done.” Now, we hit a lot of roadblocks. I thought we came off the tracks those three years where I never dreamed we’d get together again. But I do pinch myself and I do thank my blessings because this experience with Billy and the band is so beyond the coolest thing I could imagine.
You play two or three Billy shows a month. What fills up the rest of your time?
I had a band with [Billy Joel bassist] Andy Cichon that filled up all my spare time last year. But I have a mom that just turned 99. I got her into a Medicaid-certified facility about 30 minutes from me. I was in a band called Tokyo Motor Fist. We were slated to do a third album for Frontiers, the Italian pop/melodic rock company. I had to leave them since they started doing shows. It wasn’t a tour, but they were doing dates.
I see my mom almost every day. I’m the only family member up here. I’ve got two other brothers left, and they both live in California. The only other close person is my niece. She’s kind of like my daughter, but she lives in South Jersey, and that’s two hours away.
My mom is all there [mentally]. I’m very blessed. It’s more time-consuming than I ever thought it could be, and I’m grateful to be able to give back to her. She’s a big reason why I continue to do music. She was always a big, positive force in my life. I’m blessed to have her still.
What do you hope to accomplish in the next five years?
I have this home studio. At some point, I’d like to get good enough at being my own engineer/producer where I’m able to advertise recording for other artists. I don’t care who they are, but I’d work out of my house. I’d send them a track that they can mix and is pre-engineered for their use. I’m not there yet. It’s a slow road. I need to be my own engineer and player. I did it when I did the last two Tokyo Motor Fist albums, but it was so time-consuming for me. I’m still struggling.
I’d like to see Billy continue working. I’m hard-pressed to see past the end of the year. Just to stay in shape to do Billy’s stuff takes about two hours out of my day, every day. Working out, sitting on the drums…I play to click. I play to some pre-recorded stuff. I’ll play to some of our performances, just as if we were doing a gig.
The difference between playing a Billy song in my basement and at Madison Square Garden is like shooting a bullet and throwing a bullet. They don’t meet at all, but I do my best. Just to get through the next year will be very fulfilling, and very challenging.
We’re approaching both the ten-year anniversary of the Garden residency, and the 100th show of the Garden residency.
Yeah. That’s maybe next March? I just had my own personal 100th show with Billy at the Garden, since there were 12 Gardens in 2006. When I tacked them onto the 88 we hit at the March show, that became my 100th show.
I’ve given up trying to predict when he’ll stop. [Note: After this interview was done, Joel announced the MSG residency will end in July 2024.]
I believe that as an artist he’s so not peaked. Every once in a while I hear him say, “Ehh, I don’t know if I still got it.” I go, “Are you kidding? Everything that’s happening is because you still got it.”
If he ever decides to put the Garden on hold, it would only open up the opportunity to do more shows at a bigger scale. We could do a string of different, big shows. We’d certainly come home after each one. He wants at least 10 days between shows. Boy, he deserves it. I like it, too. I’m so shot after we play.
I’d like to see this go for another couple of years, minimum. It’s just such a cool, cool thing. It’s hard to express how deep it is, how wonderful, and how fulfilling it is for me. I think it’s the same for everybody. It’s on a level that most people will never experience. When most people go on tour, those tours end, and they don’t get to see those people at all. Because we don’t tour, we’re constantly like, “Hey!” It’s always new again, and yet it’s still going.
It feels that way in the audience. I’ve heard “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant” 10,000 times in my life. I wouldn’t usually sit at home and put that song on at this point. But when he plays it at the Garden and I’m singing it along with 20,000 other people, it feels fresh again.
Yeah. I’m blessed to be playing on this level with someone I consider to be the American Beatle. His songs are as deep and crazy as the Beatles songbook. We go deep, left and right, every time we play the Garden.