No one would accuse Billy Squier of being a ground-breaking artist, or even one who swam against the tide of radio excessiveness. But the guitarist who reopened the Top 40 door to pop rock in the early Eighties is not exactly in the limelight these days. And though his music is extremely mainstream, it's not exactly dominating the charts, either.
Somehow, Squier has fallen into a niche of pop rock that just doesn't fit into the MTV-clone environment. He continues to spin out heavy--but not filling--guitar rock with his signature overdubbed vocals. And many of his songs have Top 40 written all over them. So why is this man no challenge to Richard Marx?
"It all comes down to commerciality," Squire says during a phone interview before a show in Minneapolis. "People try to capitalize on what's popular and soon music becomes very stale. It becomes a pot that is stirred in one direction. But I think a lot of bands are getting sick of that."
Yet in 1981 it was Squier who helped push the musical stew in that very direction with Don't Say No, his second solo effort after leaving the going-nowhere-fast group Piper. The LP reminded radio programmers held hostage by the cheesy ballad that rock 'n' roll could still be Top 40.
Squier assaulted the territory held by Air Supply and REO Speedwagon, who were concocting a multi-platinum formula set to the tempo of "Endless Love." Rock was sitting out in the other dugout with Judas Priest and AC/DC when Don't Say No came on big in the summer, fueled by the single "The Stroke." A fusion of hard-edged guitar and ironic lyrics, the hit was the perfect compromise and led to other singles--"In the Dark," "My Kinda Lover," "Lonely Is the Night"--that showed Squier had a definite talent for a catchy riff and a certain pop sensibility.
"The success of that album really had to do with what was going on at the time," Squier says. "There was a void in certain kinds of music and an openness to mine. Don't Say No, with all modesty, is a landmark album."
Well, it wasn't exactly Sgt. Pepper, but the album did resurrect pop rock in a way that groups like Journey and Styx had abandoned. Squier's music was rooted firmly in the late Seventies. It was Foghat with teen-age heartthrob capabilities. It was radio-ready Aerosmith. It was Bad Company with chewy guitar riffs and decent vocals. It was highly successful.
Yet "successful" isn't exactly the adjective that comes to mind when describing Squier's music today. The guitarist hasn't produced another album that's even come close to the popularity of Don't Say No. A new Squier song will make its appointed rounds on AOR and then disappear, maybe making a brief appearance on the charts but never sticking around long enough to propel an album.
That lackluster track record could be attributed to Squier's failure to do anything new with his style. As he says, "I'm a rock 'n' roll guitarist. That's it. I don't think I've changed radically. I don't want to fuck with the basic things." It could also be because the guitarist works out of New York and avoids what he calls the "volatile" scene in Los Angeles, where the hits have been happening lately.
But the real reason for Squier's current slide could be that once he reopened the door for rock 'n' roll pop, he was trampled underfoot. Soon bands like Night Ranger, .38 Special, and Bon Jovi replaced the guitarist on the pop-rock airwaves. One could even argue that Squier contributed to his demise when he helped a floor sweeper at New York's Power Station named Jon Bon Jovi cut a demo tape. "I don't look at an artist being commercial," Squire says. "In Jon I just saw a lot of enthusiasm. Now suddenly there's a million bands that sound like Bon Jovi." What these bands picked up on was Bon Jovi's marketing coup--the all-popular, tear-jerking power ballad. Squier usually makes a fool out of himself when he gets mushy, as on the sappy tribute to John Lennon, "Nobody Knows," from Don't Say No. But on his new album, Hear and Now, he is beginning to find a way to work his guitar riffs into Bon Jovi-style arrangements. Squier enlisted the help of songwriter Desmond Child, who helped pen such Bon Jovi chart busters as "You Give Love a Bad Name," "Living on a Prayer," and "Bad Medicine." "I spent a lot of time working on the songs myself, and since Desmond was a friend I asked him to take a look at a few songs," Squier says.
The results on the new album are "Stronger" and "Tied Up." The former has a strong melody and a catchy, horn-fueled backbeat. "Tied Up," a cliche festival both lyrically and musically, is still ample proof of why Child is so successful. You have to wonder why Squier's label Capitol Records didn't release these potential hits from the new LP first, opting instead to release "Don't Say You Love Me" as the first single. That song was notable only for its hilarious "Just say . . . huh" refrain. It's also a bit too close for comfort to "The Stroke," a Squier song that came to the surface and sank like a crude- oil-soaked Alaskan sea gull in a span of a few weeks.
The rest of the album does prove Squier hasn't lost his keen sense of pop. "Don't Let Me Go" is one of the guitarist's most accessible tunes, mixing acoustic and electric guitars with vocals that slide between first gear and overdrive with a slight grind. The song treads near the power balladry that has always eluded Squier. The rest of the album is well-crafted for mainstream pop. "I feel this is an important record for me," Squier says. "I wanted it to reflect my influences, so I spent a lot of time writing new songs and working on them. The stuff on this album has more consistency. People tell me this is the best record I've made."
Those "people" could very well be record executives who like what they hear. Much of Squier's new material reflects more of what is on radio these days. For example, horns appear on several songs. "The Work Song," in particular, has the get-down-and-dirty feeling that is reminiscent of Aerosmith's Permanent Vacation phase. But Squier has always co-opted styles of the current past and put his stamp on them. After all, Squier isn't underground, he's mainstream and needs to find a way to get back on the radio.
It would be easy to say that with all his musing about the copycat commerciality of the record biz, Squier is guilty of hypocrisy. But that could only be said if Squier were currently successful. And he's not. What Squier seems to really hope for is another Don't Say No coup in which he can find commercial success again on his own terms. "I think the climate is opening up to guitar rock, heavy music and less of a dance focus," Squire says.
But Squier shouldn't be worrying about Milli Vanilli. He needs to worry about Warrant, Poison, and Bon Jovi. Then again, Squier also envisions a time in the near future when bands will shy away from MTV cloning and sound-alike styles, which is about as likely as the national deficit disappearing overnight. It's almost as if Squier wants to close the doors on pop rock again just to have one more chance at opening them.
