Hired Gun Page #4

[Russell] Certainly, Lib and Doug's contribution,

is what stood out in those records,

because, frequently, Billy would

record in a stripped down way,

and we'd even do a lot of the basic

tracks with just basic drums.

Phil came in and he said to Liberty,

"Why don't you play this backwards samba?"

And Liberty is a real Rock n Roll drummer, and he...

it's against every grain in his body to play these...

samba type line of beats.

And he turned it around. It was like, boom...

[imitating drums]

[playing piano] And he gave it more of a flow.

[singing] Don't go changin'

To try and please me

And it just...

It flowed along a lot better.

[Russell] Lib was right at the core of those songs.

And his mindset was just really

perfect for those records,

because he had that tough Rock n Roll

attitude about those songs.

Yet, he knew when to put

it out there and when not to.

So, these were really parts that really

brought the song out of the grooves.

Liberty DeVitto, some people may not know,

but this guy has got 30 plus

years with the same artist.

Now, in the hired gun business,

three years is a lot.

Thirty, is unheard of.

He, definitely is, one of those guys that made

the band he was in.

Billy Joel sounded like Billy

Joel because of Liberty DeVitto.

The Keith Richards of that band.

There's no question.

Ow, right here,

Topo Gigio, the Italian drummer...

[Liberty] When you see a Billy Joel

album, if you look at the back

of The Stranger, it will say,

"Words and music by Billy Joel."

It won't say,

"Music arranged by..."

anywhere.

Because we all arranged the songs.

Only The Good Die Young,

he wrote it as a Reggae tune.

And then, I'm like, "This is terrible.

It's really bad."

I looked at Billy and I said,

"You know, the closest you've

ever been to Jamaica is,

Jamaica, Long Island, where you change

trains on Long Island railroad."

Only the good die young

[Liberty] My drum part, the intro,

was I always loved the song called Up From The Skies,

that is on the Jimi Hendrix,

Axis:
Bold as Love album,

And Up From The Skies starts like that...

[imitating drums]

And has that quick...

Sol kind of like thought about that song when I said,

"Let's do it this way."

And it turned out to be good.

Come out, Virginia, don't Let me wait

[Hook] I had spent my entire younger years

trying to develop some kind of skill

Playing guitar.

That's the only thing I cared about.

I practiced hours and hours and hours a clay.

Not because I wanted to make sure I was good,

I played because I really loved it.

It was fun.

You could hear yourself getting better.

You could pick up things that

you couldn't do a week ago.

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