Billy Squier recalled being told he’d never work again after refusing an invitation to tour with Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band.
He spent four years as a member of the former Beatle’s touring group from 2006. But in a recent interview with radio host Eddie Trunk, Squier explained that he was originally asked to hit the road several years earlier.
“Ringo actually asked me to go out with him around 2000, and I didn’t,” Squier said. “I felt that it was incredibly flattering just to be asked to do it. But I had two little godchildren in my life, and I really wanted to spend the summer with them. So I thanked him and didn’t do it.”
He noted that “it was quite interesting because the guy who’d left him at that time told my agent, ‘Billy will never work in this industry again.’ It’s one of those lines – you go, ‘What? OK, well, that’s the way it goes!’ I know why I’m doing what I’m doing.”
The warning proved to be without merit; Starr called Squier back later. “So I said yes,” he recalled. “I thought, ‘Yeah, why not? It could be fun.’ You know, they take care of you, you play with some great musicians, you play with a Beatle – how bad can it be? It was great – I had a great time. I did a couple of years with him and that sorta got me going again.”
After leaving the band, Squier wrote and recorded the first songs he composed in years, although he didn’t officially release them, posting them on his website only for a short time. Now that he’s returned to action with the recent debut of a new song, “Harder on a Woman,” he noted there was a possibility that the tracks he laid down in 2009 may be released at some point.
Rock Stars Flipping You Off
There’s at least one final vestige of rock’s provocative spirit that remains: flipping somebody off.