Just two years before releasing his 1971 debut Cold Spring Harbor and eventually becoming the Piano Man, shooting out hits like “Just the Way You Are,” “My Life,” and his iconic “Uptown Girl,” Billy Joel was immersed in distorted organs and writing songs about Godzilla, Wonder Woman, and castles with his metal band Attila.
Joel’s heavier rock phase began in 1966 when he joined the Long Island, NY-based band, the Hassles, who released two albums, their eponymous debut in 1967, featuring two songs written by Joel—”Warming Up” and “I Can Tell”—followed by their second album, Hour of the Wolf, in 1969, which was predominantly written and co-written by Joel.
“A lot of people think I just came out of the piano bar,” Joel said in a 1985 interview with Dan Leer. “I did a lot of heavy metal for a while.”
By 1969, Joel left the Hassles behind in search of something heavier and formed the hard rock duo Attila with his former bandmate Jon Small. With Joel on bass and keyboards and Small on drums, the duo had more Black Sabbath, Iron Butterfly, and Ronnie James Dio-era Rainbow vibes.
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“We had titles like ‘Godzilla,’ ‘March of the Huns,’ ‘Brain Invasion,’. said Joel. “We had about a dozen gigs, and nobody could stay in the room when we were playing. It was too loud. We drove people literally out of clubs. [They would say,] ‘It was great, but we can’t stay in the club.’”
Joel said that people “went fleeing from the place” whenever Atilla played live. “We had about a dozen gigs, and nobody could stay in the room when we were playing,” he added. “It was too loud. We drove people literally out of clubs.”
Masked by an Attila the Hun theme, Joel also played a heavily distorted Hammond B-3 organ, plugged into a Marshall stack. “If you’re going to assault the rock world and crush it under ten Marshall amps, wouldn’t Attila the Hun, who plundered Italy and Gaul and slaughtered quite a few innocents along the way, work as a role model?” joked Joel. “I was 19, and at that age, if you’re loving your heavy metal. It’s all about thrash, kill, metal, slash, burn, pillage, repeat.”
In 1970, the band, which Joel later called “psychedelic bulls–t,” released their self-titled debut with the two dressed as Huns surrounded by slabs of meat on the cover. Entirely co-written by Small and Joel, the album also features the songs “California Flash,” “Rollin’ Home,” and “Revenge Is Sweet.”
Perhaps the most epic track, “Amplifier Fire,” is a nearly eight-minute-long instrumental saga of Godzilla and the band’s namesake, Attila the Hun. The album closed with another distorted instrumental, “Brain Invasion.”
“We were going to destroy the world with amplification,” joked Joel in a 2012 interview with Alec Baldwin. “This was like a heavy metal thing. We heard Zeppelin. It blew our minds.”
Shortly after releasing Attila, the duo split after Joel ran off with Small’s wife, Elizabeth, and later married her. “Thank God it didn’t happen because I would’ve screamed myself right out of the business,” Joel told NPR. “I decided I no longer want[ed] to be a rock and roll star. I got that out of my system. I was about 19 or 20. I want to write songs now.”
Coincidentally, Small and Joel ended up working together again years later. Small, who became a music video director for Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks, and other artists, produced Joel’s video for “Концерт” in 1987 and his 2011 Live at Shea Stadium performance. Decades after its release, Joel still paid respect to his early metal days and featured the Atilla track “Amplifier Fire, Part 1 (Godzilla)” on his 2005 box set My Lives.
Though Attila’s debut didn’t make any movement, Joel created his own spot in metal history. Here’s a look back at three songs he wrote with Small for Atilla.
“Wonder Woman”
The opening track on Attila, “Wonder Woman,” is partly an homage to the superheroine of DC Comics and the red-headed woman who stole his heart, then left it freezing cold.
Wonder Woman – with your skin so fair
Wonder Woman – with your long red hair
You have the velvet touch
You have what I want so much
My love is burning fire
My need is my desire!
Hey, hey!
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah!
Ooh-ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh-ooh
Wonder Woman – stole my heart away
Wonder Woman – made it right today
You came in the dead of night
You brought me a firelight
My brain has lost control
My heart is freezing cold
Hey, hey, hey!
Whoa, oh, oh!
Ooh-ooh-ooh
Ah-ah-ah
“Tear This Castle Down”
Dressed up in shipwrecks and being deserted on a desert island, the more fantasy-driven “Tear This Castle Down” metaphorically hovers around a battle within and surviving the elements of life.
Cast on a desert isle
Beside a cool green sea left our loaded bags
Another turn for me nothing but a wreck
Is lying very near but I have a need
Will have to come from here
And it’s a strange place
To live my life in too and it’s a hard time
To start all over shipwrecked!
Abandoned! Tear this castle down!
Lost on a dreary plain
We sigh alone, unclean left our loaded bags
Another turn for me closing books and wealth
The answers have to learn
Meaning where to stop
And watch the castle burn
“Holy Moses”
With hints of Iron Butterfly, the penultimate “Holy Moses” is another story about a loveless woman who has frozen his heart. Joel and Small also filmed a promotional video around the track, shot at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York, and featuring the two on the Cyclone rollercoaster.
Standing in the pouring rain
Waiting for the midnight train
Holy Moses!
Oh, my roses
Have been cut
Along with the laughter
Holy Moses!
She supposes
I won’t need
Her love ever after
Hey!
Frozen by the heart that’s gone
Reaching out to touch the soul
Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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