William Haislip Squier (, born May 12, 1950) is an American musician, singer, and songwriter who had a string of arena rock and crossover hits in the early 1980s. His best-known songs include "The Stroke", "Lonely Is the Night", "My Kinda Lover", "In the Dark", "Rock Me Tonite", "Everybody Wants You", "Emotions in Motion", "Love Is the Hero", "Don't Say You Love Me" and "The Big Beat". Squier's best-selling album, 1981's Don't Say No, is considered a landmark release within the arena rock genre, bridging the gap between power pop and hard rock.
Described as a personification of early 1980s rock music, Squier's most successful period ranges from 1981 to 1984, during which he had five Top 10 Mainstream Rock hits (two of which were number ones), two Top 20 singles, and three consecutive platinum-selling albums, along with cyclic MTV rotation and radio airplay. Even after falling out from mainstream favor and chart success, which some say is because of the 1984 video for "Rock Me Tonite", Squier has maintained his presence on rock radio and his music used in many films and video games. Squier largely stopped recording music after the commercial failure of the 1993 album Tell the Truth, but has continued to perform smaller tours, one-off concerts, and occasional collaborations.
His 1980 song "The Big Beat" contains one of the most-sampled drum breaks, used by artists such as Run-DMC, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z, UTFO, and Dizzee Rascal. "The Stroke" has also had a fair amount of sampling, most notably in Eminem's 2013 hit "Berzerk".
Career
Early life and first bands (1950–1974) Squier was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts. He is a 1968 graduate of Wellesley High School. While growing up, he began playing piano and guitar, but did not become serious with music until discovering John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers (with Eric Clapton). When Squier was nine, his grandfather taught him piano for two years. He became interested in guitar after getting one from his older brother (or, as another story goes, he bought a guitar from his neighbor for 90 dollars). Squier formed his first band, the Reltneys, when he was 14.
Squier's first public performances were in 1968 at a Boston nightclub in Kenmore Square named the Psychedelic Supermarket, which is where he saw Eric Clapton and the band Cream. This encouraged him to take music more seriously, and he formed the band Magic Terry & the Universe with a school friend. In the early 1970s, Squier tried out with various short-lived bands, beginning with the Kicks alongside future New York Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan. Squier also briefly attended Berklee College of Music in 1971. Squier wanted to become a teacher, but instead went back to New York to play with the pop band the Sidewinders.
Piper and solo career (1975–1980) In the mid-1970s, Squier encountered his first real experience with the music industry after striking a record deal with his new band Piper, which went on to release two studio records, Piper and Can't Wait. The band was praised by critics: reviewing the self-titled album, Circus magazine touted it as "the greatest debut album ever produced by a US rock band". Piper was managed by the same management company as Kiss and opened for them during their 1977 tour, including two nights of a sold-out run at New York's Madison Square Garden. Squier served as both main songwriter and frontman of the group.
Despite receiving considerable success at the local rock scene, Piper broke up. Squier signed a solo deal with Capitol Records in 1979 and started working on his solo debut The Tale of the Tape, which was released in spring 1980. The album provided him with strong momentum, spending three months on Billboard's album chart, though peaking only at #169. Squier's first singles "You Should Be High Love" and "The Big Beat" missed the charts but got moderate radio play nationally. Along with Bobby Chouinard, his backing band consisted of Alan St. Jon on keyboards, Cary Sharaf on lead guitar, and Mark Clarke (who previously had short jobs in Uriah Heep and Rainbow) on bass.