Billy Squier

William Haislip Squier (, born May 12, 1950) is an American musician, singer, and songwriter who had a string of arena rock and crossover hits in the early 1980s.

His best-known songs include "The Stroke", "Lonely Is the Night", "My Kinda Lover", "In the Dark", "Rock Me Tonite", "Everybody Wants You", "Emotions in Motion", "Love Is the Hero", and "Don't Say You Love Me".

He is a 1968 graduate of Wellesley High School.

While growing up, he began playing piano and guitar, but did not become serious with music until discovering John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers (with Eric Clapton).

When Squier was nine, his grandfather taught him piano for two years.

The only child became interested in guitar after a classmate sold him one for US$90.

Squier formed his first band, the Reltneys, when he was 14.

Squier's first public performances were in 1968 at a Boston nightclub in Kenmore Square named the Psychedelic Supermarket, which is where he saw Eric Clapton and the band Cream.

This encouraged him to take music more seriously, and he formed the band Magic Terry & the Universe with a school friend.

In the early 1970s, Squier tried out with various short-lived bands, beginning with the Kicks alongside future New York Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan.

In the mid-1970s, Squier encountered his first real experience with the music industry after striking a record deal with his new band Piper, which went on to release two studio records, Piper and Can't Wait. The band was praised by critics: reviewing the self-titled album, Circus magazine touted it as "the greatest debut album ever produced by a US rock band".

Squier also briefly attended Berklee College of Music in 1971.

Squier wanted to become a teacher, but instead went back to New York to play with the pop band the Sidewinders.

Piper was managed by the same management company as Kiss and opened for them during their 1977 tour, including two nights of a sold-out run at New York's Madison Square Garden.

Squier served as both main songwriter and frontman of the group.

Despite receiving considerable success at the local rock scene, Piper broke up.

Squier signed a solo deal with Capitol Records in 1979 and started working on his solo debut The Tale of the Tape, which was released in spring 1980.

The album provided him with strong momentum, spending three months on Billboard's album chart, though peaking only at #169.

Squier's first singles "You Should Be High Love" and "The Big Beat" missed the charts but got moderate radio play nationally.

Along with Bobby Chouinard, his backing band consisted of Alan St. Jon on keyboards, Cary Sharaf on lead guitar, and Mark Clarke (who previously had short jobs in Uriah Heep and Rainbow) on bass.

Described as a personification of early 1980s rock music, Squier's most successful period was from 1981 to 1984, during which he had five Top 10 Mainstream Rock hits (two of which were number ones), two Top 20 singles, three consecutive platinum-selling albums, and videos in MTV rotation.

His 1980 song "The Big Beat" contains one of the most-sampled drum breaks, used by artists such as Run-DMC, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z, UTFO, and Dizzee Rascal.

Following a small but fairly successful summer tour with Alice Cooper in 1980, Squier got in contact with Queen guitarist Brian May and asked him to produce his next album.

Due to scheduling conflicts, May declined, but he recommended Reinhold Mack, who had produced Queen's most recent album The Game. Squier and Mack joined forces to produce Don't Say No, which earned rave reviews and spawned three hit singles.

The first, "The Stroke," became his breakthrough hit, hitting Top 20 in the US and reaching the top five in Australia, as well as charting high in Canada and in Britain, where the song remains his only chart entry.

"In the Dark" and "My Kinda Lover" were successful follow-ups.

The album also includes "Lonely Is the Night", which became a radio favorite and one of his signature songs, despite not being released as a single (however, in Britain, it was the B-side for "In the Dark").

Squier was also popular on the new MTV cable channel, where his straightforward performance-based videos received heavy rotation.

Don't Say No peaked at #5 on the Billboard 200 and lasted well over two years on the chart, eventually selling over 4 million copies in the US alone, making it Squier's most commercially successful album.

Squier was known for being a perfectionist and short-tempered at producers sometimes.

He ended his partnership with Mack after disagreements between the two escalated because of artistic differences.

Squier's best-selling album, 1981's Don't Say No, is considered a landmark release of arena rock, bridging the gap between power pop and hard rock.

Despite the problems, Squier's third album Emotions In Motion was released in 1982 and became very successful, although in the long run, it didn't catch its predecessor in sales.

Nevertheless, the album hit #5 in both US and Canada, sold approximately 3 million copies, and spawned the successful radio and video hits "Emotions in Motion" and "Everybody Wants You".

The latter is notable for being Squier's first #1 on the Mainstream Rock chart and holding the place for six weeks straight, more than any other number one in 1982.

During the tour for Emotions in Motion, Squier and his band served as openers for the North American leg of Queen's 1982 Hot Space Tour and later, he finally became a headliner act for the first time.

Even after falling out from mainstream favor and chart success, which some say is because of the 1984 video for "Rock Me Tonite", Squier has maintained his presence on rock radio and his music used in many films and video games.

Squier largely stopped recording music after the commercial failure of the 1993 album Tell the Truth, but has continued to perform smaller tours, one-off concerts, and occasional collaborations.

"The Stroke" is sampled in Eminem's 2013 hit "Berzerk".

Squier was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts.