PIPER rockin' to the top

PIPER rockin' to the top

The music business isn’t the easiest place to get ahead as most would-be rock stars rapidly discover when they first try to get a recording contract, a manager, and big amplifiers. Sometimes they luck out; the right song released the right week—and zoom they’re on their way to wondering how come nobody makes any money with a hit single. But more often, the musicians who make it in the biz have more than luck on their side.

In fact, the truth be known: those casual, off-hand attitudes of “I’m only in it to rock and roll” very often hide a calculating, hard working, hard praying bunch of people who know they’ve got to be more than ready if they want to take advantage of a “lucky break.”

Billy Squier’s group Piper is excellent proof that there has to be a lot of hard work run down before you can begin to luck out. Billy has paid his musical dues. He played in the late 60’s New York rock scene with Magic Terry and The Universe, jammed with Jimi Hendrix .and Johnny Winter, was a member of that memorable Boston group, The Sidewinders, and wound up at the Berklee School of Music for a brief period of time.

“I had seen a lot of my friends get into a thing of playing in bar bands just to be doing something and then end up compromising just to make a living at it,” Billy says of his decision to go out on his own after the collapse of the Sidewinders. “I figured that you could be the greatest guitar player in the world playing in a bar in New Hampshire, and nobody might ever see you,”

The result was a decision to approach the rock business a little differently, Billy refers to it as his “industry approach” and remembers how he did it, “Going to press parties, making tapes, and meeting as many people as I could in the business.”

From this experience Billy learned what it really takes to put a hit band together. He spent two years

forming Piper, writing the material for the first album, and finding the right business team to guide his career—Aucoin Management who also represent Kiss and Starz. Then he found a producer, John Anthony, whose credits include Queen, Ace, and Genesis. The result was a hot first album and the respect of the industry that here was a very professional new band to reckon with.

Talking about the beginning of Piper, Billy says his concept of himself as a rock artist has changed. “Right now, my singing is more important to me than my guitar playing, and my songwriting is more important to me than my singing— a few years ago it was exactly the other way around.”

Billy is the first to point out that Piper is more than just a one man band. When he first began to get the band togther, many of the pepple around Billy suggested that he call the band Squier or else go out as a solo artist. “I didn’t want to do that because I really like the idea of a band. It’s like having a gang as a teenager, and I like being part of something that gives me strength instead of having to be everything.” So Piper was born with the original line-up including other talented players who Billy found: bass player Danny McGary, drummer Richie Fontana, guitar player Alan Nolan, and guitar player Tommy Gunn. Then Billy had to chose a name of the band: Piper was picked after “three weeks of looking at names. I like it because it doesa’t limit us; it gives us room to grow in any direction we want musically.”