Highlights
- Billy Joel's former drummer, Liberty DeVitto, filed a lawsuit against Joel in 2009, claiming unpaid royalties.
- The lawsuit was settled out of court, so the exact amount DeVitto received is unknown.
- DeVitto and Joel have since reconciled and are now on good terms, with Joel even agreeing to write the foreword for DeVitto's memoir.
As one of the biggest stars in music history, Billy Joel has found many ways to make a huge fortune over the years. More recently, Joel's Madison Square Garden residency has made him a truly staggering amount of money. In the past, Joel also managed to become rich through physical media sales since he is one of the best-selling artists in music history.
With Joel's music bringing in so much money, you'd certainly think that there would be more than enough to go around. However, a former drummer that Joel worked with claimed that the legendary singer and songwriter refused to pay him the royalties he was owed.
Who Is Billy Joel's Longtime Drummer, Liberty DeVitto?
Throughout music history, there have been a lot of bands that have taken the world by storm and became widely respected. On the other hand, there have also been a lot of solo artists who managed to stay in the spotlight by themselves for years.
When people list the most successful solo artists of all time, they would be making a massive oversight if they don't include Billy Joel. That said, the truth is that Joel worked alongside several musical artists during his career.
For many, many years, Joel trusted a drummer named Liberty DeVitto to provide him with the rhythm that any song needs. Tapped to tour with Joel for decades, DeVitto also contributed to the singer's most successful albums and songs.
Between 1976 and 1993, DeVitto performed on eleven of Joel's albums. DeVitto also went on the road with Joel up until 2006 when it was announced that he wouldn't be joining the singer on his tour at the time.
On top of all the work DeVitto did with Joel, he collaborated with several other famous musicians. Some of the other artists that DeVitto worked with in the studio include Carly Simon, Mick Jones from the band Foreigner, and Karen Carpenter.
Inside Billy Joel's Lawsuit With His Former Drummer
When Billy Joel and Liberty DeVitto went their separate ways, it took many in the music business by surprise. After all, not only did the two longtime collaborators stop playing together after roughly three decades, nobody initially offered an explanation for their split aside from "musical differences".
Several years after DeVitto left Joel's band, observers began to realize there was bad blood between the longtime collaborators. The reason for that is in May 2009, DeVitto filed a lawsuit against Joel seeking years of royalty payments that the drummer said the famous singer owed him. Joel's record company Sony Music Entertainment Inc was also named as a defendant.
Typically, when there is a musical lawsuit, it is easy to say exactly how much the litigant is seeking. According to DeVitto's lawyer, however, they didn't actually know how much money they believed Joel owed.
According to the Telegraph's article about the lawsuit, DeVitto "helped the 'Piano Man' craft some of his biggest albums". According to DeVitto's lawyers, he was entitled to royalties, but he wasn't sure how much his client was owed, so they insisted that Joel's sales should be subject to an audit.
After DeVitto filed his lawsuit in 2009, it didn't take long for things to come to a head. Less than a year later, it was announced that the former longtime bandmates had settled the lawsuit out of court.
When it was announced that the lawsuit was over, a lawyer for Joel named Paul LiCalsi commented on the agreement. However, all that LiCalsi was willing to say was, “The case has been amicably resolved.” As a result, there is no way to know how much money DeVitto walked away from the lawsuit with.
Since the lawsuit was settled out of court, there isn't a definitive way to know if Joel really did owe DeVitto unpaid royalties. After all, Joel could have settled only because he wanted to avoid the time and expenses it would cost. On top of that, Sony Music Entertainment could have pushed Joel to make a deal since many companies insist on settling lawsuits.
What is clear, however, is that DeVitto almost certainly got a payday of some sort from his lawsuit. After all, why would DeVitto agree to settle his lawsuit if there was nothing in it for him?
Are Billy Joel And Liberty DeVitto Friends Now?
After Billy Joel dismissed Liberty DeVitto from his band before his 2006 tour, the drummer had hard feelings for a long time. DeVitto would go on to express his anger when he was interviewed for a 2016 documentary about musicians titled Hired Gun.
DeVitto would then go on to pen a memoir titled "Liberty: Life, Billy and the Pursuit of Happiness" which was released in 2020. While talking to Rolling Stone at the time of his memoir's release, DeVitto revealed that he was still angry when he began working on the project. “I was the ‘angry old man."
As time went on and DeVitto was able to release his resentment during his interview for the documentary, his perspective began to change. DeVitto would go on to take accountability for his relationships that had gone wrong including with an ex-wife.
DeVitto also grew to realize that the harsh things he'd written about his old bandmate Billy Joel were a mistake. As he explained to Rolling Stone, he decided to edit his book to be fair to Joel and his ex-wife.
“I had to go back and think about what I’d written. I went back in and rounded out the rough edges.” "I began thinking about how Billy thought, why he did the things he did. And also why I did the things that I did. The more I thought about all that, the more I thought, ‘Life is too short to be angry all the time.'”
As Rolling Stone's article revealed, DeVitto wasn't the only one who decided to make peace. Once the drummer reached out to Joel, the two reunited, and left on good terms for the first time in many years.
"When he was nearly done writing it, he reached out to Joel via email, and the two old friends agreed to meet up for breakfast and finally make peace. Joel even agreed to write the foreword for the book, something that would have been unimaginable just a couple of years ago, when they communicated solely through lawyers and angry comments back and forth in the press."
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