The American songwriter, pianist and singer Billy Joel recently released “Turn The Light Back On”, his first single in decades and he was promoting the song and his new tour dates on Howard Stern’s radio show.
During their conversation, Stern said that he always thought that Billy Joel should have been part of the supergroup The Traveling Wilburys. Active 1988 to 1991, the band was formed by George Harrison, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lyne and Bob Dylan. Then Joel revealed (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage) that he actually tried to form a supergroup once.
The musicians Billy Joel would like have in his dream band
“I’ve thought about putting together a band (which would have) me, Don Henley, Sting and maybe John Mayer on guitar. Everybody is busy (so we couldn’t do it). (I maintain a friendly relationship with) Sting, I call. McCartney (too), I talk to him a lot.”
Howard Stern then told Joel to call McCartney and invite him to form a supergroup and he replied: “He was in the superest group of all time. I don’t have the nerves to do that, I can’t”.
He was then questioned by Howard Stern who he would like to have as a drummer if he could choose. He said: “Ringo would be good. Ringo is a great drummer, he doesn’t get the credit he deserves. He was phenomenal, he knew what (was) the right thing to play. (Ringo) didn’t get in the way of the great writing and the novel productions that they did. He played the right thing, which sometimes is the hardest thing to do.”
“My favorite (guitarist) died recently: Jeff Beck. The other guy would be Jimmy Page, I love Jimmy Page. It would be great (to have him as a guitar player), he is a great musician.”
Joel then played the riff of Led Zeppelin’s classic song “Kashmir” on his piano and said: “I mean, brilliant, brilliant music.” Billy Joel already had the chance to play live with Sting, Don Henley, John Mayer and Paul McCartney.