Billy Joel’s dream supergroup would include Don Henley, Sting and “maybe” John Mayer.
The ‘Piano Man’ has named the Eagles rocker, former Police frontman and the ‘Half of My Heart’ star as the musicians he’d recruit to form the ultimate all-star ensemble.
Howard Stern asked him: “Wouldn’t it have been great if George Harrison and Tom Petty had asked you to be in The Travelling Wilburys?”
The Travelling Wilburys, the legendary roots rock supergroup, comprised Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, and the late George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty.
However, Joel suggested: “Me, Don Henley and Sting. And maybe John Mayer on guitar.”
Asked why he never got around to forming the group, he replied: “Well, everybody’s busy.”
Stern then said Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney would make a good member.
However, Joel insisted: “He was in the super-est group of all-time. I don’t have the nerve to do that.”
But he did say his bandmate, Sir Ringo Starr, would be cool as the drummer.
Sting is supporting the ‘Uptown Girl’ hitmaker at some shows on his North American tour.
The 74-year-old star released ‘Turn the Lights Back On’, his first single in 17 years, earlier this month.
Joel explained the huge gap was because he had lost the “fun” of writing songs.
Speaking with his co-writer Freddy Wexler on ‘Audacy Check In’, he said: “It was fun. Music is fun. Rock n’ roll was fun. It was all about having fun — and I kind of lost that and I turned the lights off because it wasn’t fun anymore.”
The ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ hitmaker explained how other people encouraged him to get back into the studio but he “always resisted it”.
He added: “I studiously avoided it because songwriting had become painful. I have this high bar. I said to myself, ‘If I don’t reach that bar, I beat myself up and I punched myself and I hate myself.’ So, I stopped doing it because I got tired of feeling like that.”
But when he heard what Wexler was working on two years ago, his love for creating new music began to return.
He said: “The melody, the chords, the chord progression, even the time signature was something that struck me immediately, and that’s how I relate to music.
“This particular lyric in this song, I’ve had these thoughts, I could have written these lyrics verbatim. I’ve chewed on these words and I’ve thought of these words, and I’ve said these words before. It was all kind of falling into place — and who am I to fight that?”