Billy Joel Talks Retirement and Elton John in New Yorker Profile

Billy Joel has no plans to make another album anytime soon, according to a New Yorker profile of him by Nick Paumgarten.

He told the magazine that he no longer has "anything to prove anymore", and basically just doesn't want to deal with the hassle:

??"I'm not crazy about going into a recording studio and doing that kind of life again, or taking on another project where there's other people involved - arrangers and orchestrators and conductors and producers. I don't want to deal with it.

It's a megillah.

You have to have a certain amount of ambition to want to do all that.

And I look back at the guy who was the recording artist, this Billy Joel guy, and I think, who the f*ck was that guy? He was very ambitious, very driven, and I don't feel like that anymore.??"

The extensive piece covers a variety of topics: Joel's childhood, numerous divorces, alcoholism, even his rocky relationship with Elton John.

Paumgarten brought up a 2011 Rolling Stone interview with John that saw him [John] calling Joel a "conundrum," adding that "We've had so many cancelled tours because of illnesses and various other things, alcoholism," and described Joel as "pissed."??

Joel also described playing "Piano Man" live as "feeding the elephant" and Paumgarten notes that he concluded the heart-wrenching "Just the Way You Are" by dryly noting "and then we got divorced" at a recent concert in his ongoing Madison Square Garden residency.

??Joel will conclude his year-long once-a-month residency with shows on November 25th and December 18th. Tickets are sold out. ?