Billy Squier biography
William Haislip "Billy" Squier (born May 12, 1950) is an American rock musician. Squier had a string of arena rock hits in the 1980s. He is 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
Squier was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts. He is a 1968 graduate of Wellesley High School. While growing up, he began playing piano and guitar, but did not 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.
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 the 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. In the early 1970s, he joined The Sidewinders, and played with members including Mike Reed, Alex Phillips, Henry Stern, and Bryan Chase. Squier left the group to form the band Piper, which released two albums in the mid '70s,
Piper and
Can't Wait, but left 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 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 second album Don't Say No. May declined due to scheduling conflicts, but he recommended instead Reinhold Mack who had produced one of Queen's albums, 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 reaching top 5 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 most tracks 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.
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