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Billy Squier
William Haislip Squier (/ˈskwaɪ.ər/, born May 12, 1950) is an American musician, singer, and songwriter who had a string of arena rock and crossover[clarification needed] hits in the early 1980s. His best-known songs include "The Stroke", "Lonely Is the Night", "My Kinda Lover", "In the Dark", "Rock Me Tonite", "Everybody Wants You", "Emotions in Motion", "Love Is the Hero", and "Don't Say You Love Me". Squier's best-selling album, 1981's Don't Say No, is considered a landmark release of arena rock, bridging the gap between power pop and hard rock.
Described as a personification of early 1980s rock music, Squier's most successful period was from 1981 to 1984, during which he had five Top 10 Mainstream Rock hits (two of which were number ones), two Top 20 singles, three consecutive platinum-selling albums, and videos in MTV rotation. Even after falling out from mainstream favor and chart success, which some say is because of the 1984 video for "Rock Me Tonite", Squier has maintained his presence on rock radio and his music used in many films and video games. Squier largely stopped recording music after the commercial failure of the 1993 album Tell the Truth, but has continued to perform smaller tours, one-off concerts, and occasional collaborations.
His 1980 song "The Big Beat" contains one of the most-sampled drum breaks, used by artists such as Run-DMC, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z, UTFO, and Dizzee Rascal. "The Stroke" is sampled in Eminem's 2013 hit "Berzerk".[citation needed]
Squier was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts. He is a 1968 graduate of Wellesley High School. While growing up, he took piano lessons starting at age eight. Bored with the lessons after three years, his grandfather paid him to continue for a while longer. Squier became interested in guitar after a classmate sold him one for $90. He formed his first band, the Reltneys, when he was 14. He became more serious about music when he discovered John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers.[citation needed]
Squier's first public performances were in 1968 at a Boston nightclub in Kenmore Square named the Psychedelic Supermarket, where he saw Eric Clapton and the band Cream. This encouraged him to take music more seriously. He formed the band Magic Terry & the Universe with a school friend. In the early 1970s, Squier played with the short lived bands Kicks, alongside future New York Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan. Squier also briefly attended Berklee College of Music in 1971. Squier was planning to become a teacher but instead went back to New York and played with the band the Sidewinders.
In the mid-1970s, Squier encountered his first real experience with the music industry after striking a record deal with his new band Piper, which went on to release two studio records, Piper and Can't Wait. The band was praised by critics: reviewing the self-titled album, Circus magazine touted it as "the greatest debut album ever produced by a US rock band". Piper was managed by the same management company as Kiss and opened for them during their 1977 tour, including two nights of a sold-out run at New York's Madison Square Garden. Squier served as both main songwriter and frontman of the group.
Despite receiving considerable success at the local rock scene, Piper broke up. Squier signed a solo deal with Capitol Records in 1979 and started working on his solo debut The Tale of the Tape, which was released in spring 1980. The album provided him with strong momentum, spending three months on Billboard's album chart, though peaking only at No. 169. Squier's first singles "You Should Be High Love" and "The Big Beat" missed the charts but got moderate radio play nationally. Along with Bobby Chouinard, his backing band consisted of Alan St. Jon on keyboards, Cary Sharaf on lead guitar, and Mark Clarke (who previously had short jobs in Uriah Heep and Rainbow) on bass.
Following a small but fairly successful summer tour with Alice Cooper in 1980, Squier got in contact with Queen guitarist Brian May and asked him to produce his next album. Due to scheduling conflicts, May declined, but he recommended Reinhold Mack, who had produced Queen's most recent album The Game. Squier and Mack joined forces to produce Don't Say No, which earned rave reviews and spawned three hit singles. The first, "The Stroke," became his breakthrough hit, hitting Top 20 in the US and reaching the top five in Australia, as well as charting high in Canada and in Britain, where the song remains his only chart entry. "In the Dark" and "My Kinda Lover" were successful follow-ups. The album also includes "Lonely Is the Night", which became a radio favorite and one of his signature songs, despite not being released as a single (however, in Britain, it was the B-side for "In the Dark"). Squier was also popular on the new MTV cable channel, where his straightforward performance-based videos received heavy rotation. Don't Say No peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and lasted well over two years on the chart, eventually selling over 4 million copies in the US alone, making it Squier's most commercially successful album.
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Billy Squier
William Haislip Squier (/ˈskwaɪ.ər/, born May 12, 1950) is an American musician, singer, and songwriter who had a string of arena rock and crossover[clarification needed] hits in the early 1980s. His best-known songs include "The Stroke", "Lonely Is the Night", "My Kinda Lover", "In the Dark", "Rock Me Tonite", "Everybody Wants You", "Emotions in Motion", "Love Is the Hero", and "Don't Say You Love Me". Squier's best-selling album, 1981's Don't Say No, is considered a landmark release of arena rock, bridging the gap between power pop and hard rock.
Described as a personification of early 1980s rock music, Squier's most successful period was from 1981 to 1984, during which he had five Top 10 Mainstream Rock hits (two of which were number ones), two Top 20 singles, three consecutive platinum-selling albums, and videos in MTV rotation. Even after falling out from mainstream favor and chart success, which some say is because of the 1984 video for "Rock Me Tonite", Squier has maintained his presence on rock radio and his music used in many films and video games. Squier largely stopped recording music after the commercial failure of the 1993 album Tell the Truth, but has continued to perform smaller tours, one-off concerts, and occasional collaborations.
His 1980 song "The Big Beat" contains one of the most-sampled drum breaks, used by artists such as Run-DMC, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z, UTFO, and Dizzee Rascal. "The Stroke" is sampled in Eminem's 2013 hit "Berzerk".[citation needed]
Squier was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts. He is a 1968 graduate of Wellesley High School. While growing up, he took piano lessons starting at age eight. Bored with the lessons after three years, his grandfather paid him to continue for a while longer. Squier became interested in guitar after a classmate sold him one for $90. He formed his first band, the Reltneys, when he was 14. He became more serious about music when he discovered John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers.[citation needed]
Squier's first public performances were in 1968 at a Boston nightclub in Kenmore Square named the Psychedelic Supermarket, where he saw Eric Clapton and the band Cream. This encouraged him to take music more seriously. He formed the band Magic Terry & the Universe with a school friend. In the early 1970s, Squier played with the short lived bands Kicks, alongside future New York Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan. Squier also briefly attended Berklee College of Music in 1971. Squier was planning to become a teacher but instead went back to New York and played with the band the Sidewinders.
In the mid-1970s, Squier encountered his first real experience with the music industry after striking a record deal with his new band Piper, which went on to release two studio records, Piper and Can't Wait. The band was praised by critics: reviewing the self-titled album, Circus magazine touted it as "the greatest debut album ever produced by a US rock band". Piper was managed by the same management company as Kiss and opened for them during their 1977 tour, including two nights of a sold-out run at New York's Madison Square Garden. Squier served as both main songwriter and frontman of the group.
Despite receiving considerable success at the local rock scene, Piper broke up. Squier signed a solo deal with Capitol Records in 1979 and started working on his solo debut The Tale of the Tape, which was released in spring 1980. The album provided him with strong momentum, spending three months on Billboard's album chart, though peaking only at No. 169. Squier's first singles "You Should Be High Love" and "The Big Beat" missed the charts but got moderate radio play nationally. Along with Bobby Chouinard, his backing band consisted of Alan St. Jon on keyboards, Cary Sharaf on lead guitar, and Mark Clarke (who previously had short jobs in Uriah Heep and Rainbow) on bass.
Following a small but fairly successful summer tour with Alice Cooper in 1980, Squier got in contact with Queen guitarist Brian May and asked him to produce his next album. Due to scheduling conflicts, May declined, but he recommended Reinhold Mack, who had produced Queen's most recent album The Game. Squier and Mack joined forces to produce Don't Say No, which earned rave reviews and spawned three hit singles. The first, "The Stroke," became his breakthrough hit, hitting Top 20 in the US and reaching the top five in Australia, as well as charting high in Canada and in Britain, where the song remains his only chart entry. "In the Dark" and "My Kinda Lover" were successful follow-ups. The album also includes "Lonely Is the Night", which became a radio favorite and one of his signature songs, despite not being released as a single (however, in Britain, it was the B-side for "In the Dark"). Squier was also popular on the new MTV cable channel, where his straightforward performance-based videos received heavy rotation. Don't Say No peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and lasted well over two years on the chart, eventually selling over 4 million copies in the US alone, making it Squier's most commercially successful album.