Billy Joel says he hasn't released a rock album in 21 years because he hates the 'horror' of modern celebrity culture

  • Legendary singer says he doesn't want to 'rip myself open and let everyone see everything'
  • Last album success was River of Dreams in 1993, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year 
  • Billy Joel the recording artist was 'very ambitious' and 'I don't feel like that anymore'  
  • Currently plays one show a month as part of his residency at Madison Square Garden in New York

By Daniel Bates In New York

Published: 10:56 EST, 20 October 2014 | Updated: 19:22 EST, 20 October 2014

Billy Joel has revealed that he has not made a hit album in 21 years because he hates modern celebrity culture.

The 'Piano Man' singer said that he does not want to 'rip myself open and let everyone see everything' so is staying out of the studio.

He described how he despises what he called the ‘horror of celebrity’ and said that he is no longer comfortable with the demands it places on an individual.

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Billy Joel told the New Yorker that he does not want to 'rip myself open and let everyone see everything' so is staying out of the studio

Billy Joel told the New Yorker that he does not want to 'rip myself open and let everyone see everything' so is staying out of the studio

Joel, 65, had his last major album success in 1993 with River of Dreams, which reached no.3 in the charts in the UK and won the Grammy for Album of the Year.

But since then he has become more known for his personal turmoil and has battled alcohol abuse and depression.

In the last twenty years the culture of celebrity has changed dramatically too with the rise of social media meaning that there is ever more of a bleed between the personal and the private.

In an interview with the New Yorker magazine, Joel, who has sold more than 150 million records, said that now he does not feel like he has ‘anything to prove any more’.

Billy Joel pictured performing in his heyday back in 1978 

Billy Joel pictured performing in his heyday back in 1978 

He said: ‘What I do have at this point is a horror of celebrity….

‘...I was seeing it begin to happen when I was doing ‘River of Dreams.’ I had gone through this celebrity craziness with Christie (Brinkley, his ex-wife), and the divorce.

‘I felt like there was a proctoscope up my butt.

‘Everybody interrogating, analyzing - everything I wrote was fraught with meanings - and I said: ‘Wait a minute, I don’t want to rip myself open and let everyone see everything. It was no longer comfortable. Enough! I gave you enough!’

Joel added that it was easier to write material before he became famous as people ‘tend to draw their own conclusions’ from your music after you are a public figure.

He said that he felt at that point ‘your image becomes more powerful than the things you create’.

Joel has been married three times including to Brinkley, with whom he has a grown-up daughter.

Billy Joel has been married three times, including to supermodel Christy Brinkley, with whom he has a grown up daughter (couple pictured in 1988)

Billy Joel has been married three times, including to supermodel Christy Brinkley, with whom he has a grown up daughter (couple pictured in 1988)

Billy Joel and his daughter Alexa Ray Joel pictured performing during the Rainforest Foundation Benefit Concert in New York City in 2008

Billy Joel and his daughter Alexa Ray Joel pictured performing during the Rainforest Foundation Benefit Concert in New York City in 2008

The last album he released was a collection of classical compositions called Fantasies and Delusions which came out in 2001 but only reached no.83 on the Billboard chart in the U.S.

Joel is currently playing one show a month at Madison Square Garden in New York as part of a residency at the famous arena.

In the interview he said that now there is ‘no fear’ in his life but that he has no desire to start recording again.

Joel said that he is also turned off by the idea of working with ‘other people’, by which he meant arrangers and producers.

He said: ‘I don’t want to deal with it. It’s a megillah. You have to have a certain amount of ambition to want to do all that.

‘And I look back at the guy who was the recording artist, this Billy Joel guy, and I think, Who the f*** was that guy?

‘He was very ambitious, very driven, and I don’t feel like that anymore.’

 

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