Billy Joel: And So It Goes, From the Inside, Part 1

Documentary First, Episode 256. Christian Taylor talks with Steve Cohen, Billy Joel's creative director and an executive producer of the HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes, in the first of two parts. 44 minutes. Released July 16, 2025.

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How do you make a documentary about a man who doesn't want to talk about himself?

For years, people came to Billy Joel wanting to make a film about his life, and for years he said no. "I don't want to talk about myself anymore," he told Steve Cohen. "All of my life is in my music." Then a small group came together: Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner, director Susan Lacy and HBO. Steve went back to Billy and told him that if he said yes, there would be no editorial involvement. Billy's answer: "What have I got to hide?"

In Episode 256 of Documentary First, host Christian Taylor talks with Steve Cohen, who has worked beside Billy Joel since 1974 and is an executive producer of Billy Joel: And So It Goes. Christian grew up on Long Island in the eighties and has been a fan since she was 13, and she opens the conversation in tears. Steve tells how, at 20, he lit his first show with Billy in a field house in Milwaukee, and was called back to the hotel pool afterward sure he was about to be fired. Instead, Billy handed him a drink and welcomed him to the band.

Steve explains how Susan Lacy, the creator of PBS American Masters, came to direct with Jessica Levin, one of them new to Billy's world and the other, as Steve says, a fan who knows more Billy Joel minutiae than he does. He tells why he had to persuade Billy's first wife, Elizabeth Weber, to take part, and why he believes the film couldn't have been made without her. And he shares how Susan put Billy at a piano for every interview, his "security blanket," until Billy told her, "You get me to go places that I don't normally go."

In this episode, you'll learn

• How a 20-year-old lighting designer joined Billy Joel's band in 1974
• Why Billy taught Steve to "let someone else call you an artist"
• Why Billy Joel refused to tell his own story for years
• How Susan Lacy, Tom Hanks and HBO came together to make the film
• Why Billy Joel agreed to no editorial control
• How Susan Lacy's own family history shaped the film's Holocaust story
• How Steve persuaded Elizabeth Weber to take part
• Why Billy calls his relationships the "skeleton key" to his work
• Why every interview with Billy happened at a piano
• How Susan Lacy builds scenes from stacks of printed transcripts

Questions and answers

What is Billy Joel: And So It Goes?

Billy Joel: And So It Goes is a two-part HBO documentary directed by Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin. It premiered at the Tribeca Festival on June 4, 2025, and aired on HBO on July 18 and July 25, 2025, running nearly five hours. Its executive producers include Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, Sean Hayes and Steve Cohen. Billy Joel sat for interviews but had no editorial control.

Who is Steve Cohen?

Steve Cohen is Billy Joel's longtime creative director and an Emmy Award-winning production and lighting designer. He started a lighting company at 20, and Billy Joel was its first client in 1974. He has since designed tours for artists including Elton John, the Eagles, Mariah Carey and *NSYNC, produced the documentary The Last Play at Shea and served as an executive producer of Billy Joel: And So It Goes.

Why did Billy Joel agree to a documentary with no editorial control?

Steve Cohen says Billy Joel had turned down film offers for years because he didn't want to tell his own story. When the team of Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman, Sean Hayes, Todd Milliner, Susan Lacy and HBO came together, Steve told him he would have no editorial involvement and would have to trust the filmmakers. Billy answered, "What have I got to hide? It's all been out there. Tell the story honestly."

How did Susan Lacy come to direct the Billy Joel documentary?

Steve Cohen says Susan Lacy, who created PBS American Masters, lives near him on the East End of Long Island and reached out to him. Their first conversation ran three and a half hours. Later, when Todd Milliner asked whether Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman could join as executive producers, the one condition was that Susan Lacy direct. She then brought in Jessica Levin as a producer and made her co-director.

How did Susan Lacy get Billy Joel to open up?

Steve Cohen says Susan Lacy insisted that every interview happen at a piano, which Steve calls Billy's security blanket. After a first interview at Billy's Florida house full of distractions, most sessions moved to Steve's homes in East Hampton and Boca Raton, where Billy felt at ease. Each interview went deeper, and Billy told her, "You get me to go places that I don't normally go."

Why is Elizabeth Weber important to Billy Joel: And So It Goes?

Steve Cohen says the film couldn't have been made without Billy Joel's first wife, Elizabeth Weber, and he had to persuade her to sit down with Susan Lacy. He says she was a key partner in Billy's early career and that songs like "Just the Way You Are" were written about her. As Steve puts it, there are three sides to every story: his side, her side and the truth.

Where can I watch Billy Joel: And So It Goes?

Billy Joel: And So It Goes streams on HBO Max.

Chapters

Times match the YouTube video.

• 0:00 An Interview of a Lifetime
• 2:06 How Steve Cohen Met Billy Joel in 1974
• 5:09 The 100th Show and a Five-Hour Film
• 11:47 "Let Someone Else Call You an Artist"
• 13:49 How Susan Lacy Came to Direct
• 17:59 "What Have I Got to Hide?"
• 22:20 Classical Roots and the Holocaust Story
• 25:04 Elizabeth Weber and the Love Songs
• 30:32 Relationships Are the Skeleton Key
• 33:52 Interviewing at the Piano
• 38:14 Stacks of Transcripts and Nonlinear Editing

Watch the film

Billy Joel: And So It Goes streams on HBO Max. Full credits are on IMDb.

DocuView Deja View picks: Steve's picks come at the end of the conversation, in Part 2. See every guest pick on the DocuView Deja View page.

About the guest

Steve Cohen is an Emmy Award-winning production designer, lighting and video designer-director, and film and television producer. Raised in Canoga Park, California, he has worked with Billy Joel since 1974 and is his creative director. Over five decades he has designed, produced and directed tours and events for Elton John, the Eagles, Mariah Carey, Justin Timberlake, *NSYNC, Britney Spears, Lenny Kravitz, Reba McEntire, Paul Simon and many others. He produced The Last Play at Shea (2008) and Billy Joel's Madison Square Garden documentaries, and produced and designed the CBS special Billy Joel: The 100th, Live at Madison Square Garden, which won Emmys for lighting design, sound mixing and technical direction. He is an executive producer of Billy Joel: And So It Goes (HBO, 2025).

Related conversations

The conversation continues in Steve Cohen, Part 2, on his own story and his DocuView Deja View picks. The film's directors talk about making it in their own episodes: Susan Lacy, the creator of PBS American Masters, and Jessica Levin.

About Documentary First

Documentary First is a weekly podcast about the people behind documentaries and how the work changed them. Host Christian Taylor, director of the award-winning The Girl Who Wore Freedom, talks with filmmakers, distributors, entertainment lawyers, actors and more, from Ken Burns and PBS American Masters creator Susan Lacy to first-timers, across nearly 300 conversations. Each week brings one of two formats: a long-form conversation with the people behind films for HBO, Netflix, PBS and independent film, or The Deep Dive, where Christian takes one insight from a recent conversation and follows it wherever it leads. Listen Notes ranks the show in the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide. New episodes every week.

Follow the show | Support on Patreon

This episode is sponsored by Artillery Sports. Use the code DocFirst for 10% off your first order at artillerysports.com.

Full transcript

This transcript was made from the recording and lightly cleaned up. It may contain small errors.

Steve Cohen: Thank you.

Samantha Goldstein: Thanks.

Christian: never do this. I never push record from the beginning, but I don't want to miss a second of my time with you. And I apologize. I said I was not going to do this, but I already am. I'm so emotional. I'm so happy to meet you. I cannot even stand it. I have been a fan since I was in high school. So I didn't want to say this until I got here, you know, or tell anybody, but I've just been overwhelmed with the thought of meeting you to just tell you thank you.

Steve Cohen: Aww.

Christian: for everything that you have done. I am really speechless. I don't know how I'm gonna get through this podcast. You helped me get through high school, you and your band. I'm from Long Island. I was there in the eighties. So I followed Jaws career ever since I was like 13. So this is an interview of lifetime for me. When it came across my desk, I just couldn't say yes fast enough. So anyway, I'm sorry for crying and I'm just totally sorry for fangirling. I'll get myself together, but I wanted to get that out of the way so that I could have a really good interview and focus on you.

Steve Cohen: different health. That's alright. Well, I don't know what to say. mean, you know, look, I mean, this has been an amazing, an amazing journey for me. You know, I met Bill in 1974. We started working in 1974 and like that is, you know, it's defined most of my, most of my life. mean, you know, well, I was, I was 20, I was just about to turn 21 and he was 25.

Christian: you How old were you?

Steve Cohen: Piano Man, think, had just come out maybe six months before then. And I started a lighting company out in California and cold called a bunch of bands. And this was, you know, this was when the rock and roll touring industry was very, very, very, very primitive and very young. you know, we basically were, we basically made this stuff up as we went along and Bill and I met and we developed a relationship and I learned a lot of my work ethic from from him and from us just showing up and doing the deal. And in November of 1974, I remember I did my first show with him and it was in a field house in Milwaukee. And at the time, I think the record was Street Life Serenader and the show opened up with a song called Street Life Serenade, no, it's Street Life Serenader. And I did the show, we finished the show, I was loading out, the band was gone. I think I probably had had 15 conversations with him and the sound engineer came back and he said, Billy wants to see you. And I was like, I thought I was fired. I mean, I'm like thinking, that's it, you know, it's the end. And we were staying at a holiday inn, not far from downtown. And it was one of those holiday inn courtyards with the pool in the center. And I got out of the car and they were sitting around the pool and there was a bottle of vodka and a bottle of Kahlua sitting on the table. And Billy says, Bill says to me, you want to drink? And I said, sure. said, well, we're drinking black Russian. So he mixes vodka and Kahlua and he hands it to me. And I'm just waiting for the hammer to drop. And he says, well, Steve, says, we just been sitting here trying to figure it out. The song list was the same. The sound was the same. The band's the same. but the audience reacted in places that they've never ever reacted before. through a process of elimination, we figured out it must've been the lighting. He said, so here, welcome to the band. And I never looked back, you know, and I never looked back. And I have to say that, you know, from that point on, I sort of got a belief of like what this thing was about, that I was on stage just as much as they were. but my responsibility was to take what they were doing and give it to you guys in the audience. And he trusted me. What can I say? He trusted me. So that's 51 years ago.

Christian: That's mind blowing. It's mind blowing. You know, we've jumped in here and this is why I started record because I record because I just knew I didn't want to miss a second, but I need to go back to the beginning and say welcome everybody to documentary first. This is a documentary first podcast where we talk about documentaries. don't even remember the beginning of my documentary podcast anymore. I'm so overcome and fan girling because we are here talking to Steve Cohen and we just, hit the big time right now. are just in, I mean, to me, it's just Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And I just can't thank you enough for being on our podcast today. We're talking about your new film. You're the executive producer of Billy Joel. And so it goes a documentary that just premiered at Tribeca. But we're gonna just talk about a whole host of things. I watched on a plane not long ago, another one that you were the executive producer of. I think it was called Turn the Lights Back On, and it was just the concert tour, of the, was it the 100th?

Steve Cohen: Yeah, was, well, you're talking about the 100th show at Madison Square Garden. Yeah, we filmed the 100th show at Madison Square Garden. Turn the lights back on was the new single, but that was the culmination of 100 shows at Madison Square Garden, which I had the honor of being the EP on that and the lighting designer and won a little piece of hardware, won an Emmy. Actually, the show won three Emmys and

Christian: Yeah, you did.

Steve Cohen: Yeah, I mean, it's been a great couple of years. I think that the thing that stands out to me now is now that this incredible project is given birth and Susan Lacey and Jessica Levin's film is now going to be out for everyone to watch. There's this kind of sigh of relief and sort of anticipation of how it's going to be received. There's a little bit of bittersweet because Bill, as we know, has decided to take some time off for his health. So our touring world is sort of wound down for a while, which has always been a great part of my life. you know, life is a very interesting thing. It gives you challenges and the best part about it now is that I've had some time to reflect on all these years of working with him. And then I have a... I have a document that everybody gets to see to sort of get a feel of what our life was like and all of that stuff. Because basically this film, as much as it's about Billy, tracks my career because I've been there all the way through with him. So it's.

Christian: I mean, what's so great is that we got to learn about all of you. You know, I was thinking about this as I was watching this. And let me just tell you everybody, first of all, it doesn't come out until July 18th. So I don't know when you're listening to this, but today is June 26th when we're recording. And we're going to try to drop this really quickly because we want to get you excited for the release of this. It is a two-part documentary series. And I'm going to warn you, it is. Five hours long, right? So, but I would never ever have known it because I mean if you were a Billy Joel fan, I got up one time to go to the bathroom and that was in between the parts. And let me tell you, I started it. I don't know what time I started it, but I finished it at 2 a.m. because I didn't, I didn't get it. I didn't get it until late last night. And

Steve Cohen: Yep. Really.

Christian: I was like, I knew I had to watch it for today. I was not going to interview you. And I didn't read a single review because I wasn't going to do that. I wanted to watch it myself and I wanted to see what I, you know, I wanted to just take it all in and see what I thought and what I felt. And, and what was just wonderful about it was that I got to know you for real. You know, I mean, not only did I hear your story from when you were young, but I got to see you in an interview. mean, you were so articulate and just told the story so well because you've known Billy. mean, gosh, since you were kids, you were kids and.

Steve Cohen: Yeah. Oh, I mean, listen, we grew up together. he had already, when I first started to work with him, he'd already been a very, and as you saw in the film, very active musician from the time he was his teens. from the time he was in the Hassles and Attila and the first record, which I didn't meet up with him until after Piano Man came out. But you it's still, you compress it over 51 years. It's been quite a journey. So you liked it, you enjoyed the film.

Christian: my gosh. mean, really, couldn't, I couldn't stop. was, I was on the edge of my seat and I was trying to figure out, mean, I couldn't even go to sleep after 2 a.m. after watching it. And then I woke up this morning and I realized I was singing the songs in my sleep because I woke up and they were still in my head. But it wasn't just that, it was all the images. And I was trying to think about, I mean, I've loved Billy Joel, not because necessarily of his music, but I mean, I've... sung in choirs, have taken piano, and so I love music to begin with. And I have always found him to be one of the greatest underrated musicians of all time. I felt like he is a genius, and I've never really understood why, because I didn't know his whole story. But I, as a musically inclined person, would hear him, and I would be like, my gosh, those transitions and the way that he moves things together and the way that he brings all these different musical pieces and how does he do that? And then I could just, I could just feel that music, you know, and I just didn't understand how he did it. And so what was so great about all of this and listen, I listened to Sirius XM, the Billy Joel channel every single time it comes on. So this is similar to that. So if you listen to the Billy Joel channel, it's very similar to that, but like on steroids. And so, you know, how is music like It just is so, it weaves everything together so seamlessly and how it just is this like melting pot of melodies and it's just this big Afghan of everything woven together. Yeah, well, so was the film. The film.

Steve Cohen: I love it. I mean, not to cut you off, but it's really important when I talk to you and when I talk about this film to kind of set the table, because I want people that watch this film to understand a little bit of the evolution. My role in all of this is important, but my role was a collaborative role. One of the things about Billy that has been a through line in our relationship is that,

Christian: Yeah\!

Steve Cohen: we always, we very seldom take credit for things. And this is kind of, this sounds kind of weird, but it's, know, Bill always told me, he says, you know, it's not for, you know, it's not for you to call yourself an artist. Let someone else call you an artist. We just show up and work. And one of the things, you know, about this film, because throughout the past, I would say the past 10 or 12 years,

Christian: You're so humble, all of you. You always have been.

Steve Cohen: There have been quite a few people that have come up and wanted to make a film about Billy. And especially at this point in his career. And because my role is, the creative director, all of the television and film projects end up going across my desk, because he trusts me to be the visual guy and be able to sort of speak that language that he doesn't speak. And there were a lot of opportunities to do this, but they were all opportunities where it was like, hey, Bill, why don't you tell your story? And Billy said,

Christian: I don't

Steve Cohen: quite boldly from the beginning is I don't want to talk about myself anymore. All of my life is in my music. Like someone wants to take the time to go in and tell the story, that's fine, but I'm not going to talk about it. I'm not going to do interviews about it. There's all this archive out here, put it together, find somebody who can find a story and be done with it because it needs to be independent. I just don't want to have anything to do with it. For me, that's a daunting task because it's much easier if the artist is paying for it and you put the team together. So what happened was, and this is a real interesting story, is that Susan Lacey, who started American Masters, which was a groundbreaking show on PBS that she did for 30 years, and she was a documentary filmmaker par excellence, but basically her through line is the... brilliance of artistry and bringing those artists to life. So she had this incredible history of cherishing artists' stories and telling their stories through public broadcast. Turns out she lives in Sag Harbor. I live in East Hampton. We're on the East End. She finds me. She knows I have a relationship with Billie. She knows I work with Billie. Didn't know exactly the details of it.

Christian: my gosh.

Steve Cohen: She said, why don't you come over and we'll have a conversation. We sat down, three and a half hours went by like that. And we immediately bonded. And I walked away going, wow, if there's a chance to make a film, she'd be a really good person to make the film. But knowing in the back of my head that we were not in, we weren't planning to make a movie. We were in the middle of the Madison Square Garden run. The story hadn't been written yet. It wasn't over. didn't have a little bow to tie it up in. So I left with this, with this thing and I reported back to Bill I said, you know, we have, and he lives in Sag Harbor as well, I said, we have someone in town that's like pretty amazing and you know, if we decide to do it, he said, okay, well, we'll put that in the, know, in the thought process. Fast forward to Sony approaches her about doing a Billy Joel documentary and she reaches out to me and I'm like, I don't know what's because there were no plans. And then eventually what happened was,

Christian: What year is this? What year are we talking?

Steve Cohen: This is 2000, this is five, four years ago, four and a half years ago. So Todd Milner and Sean Hayes, who are friends of the Billy Joel organization, Sean's been a friend of Billy for a long time. Sean Hayes, Sean Hayes. Yes. Yes. The actor Sean Hayes and his partner Todd Milner. Well, they're both producers and they both produce, you know, television, comedy, animated stuff. And Todd and I had a friendship and we had a lunch out in,

Christian: Is this Sean Hayes, Sean Hayes? Like after Sean Hayes? Wow. I would have never put them together.

Steve Cohen: in LA and he said, let's do something with Billy. We have a scripted idea. have, I said, well, what else do you have as an idea? He says, well, what about doing a documentary? And I said, well, there's no plan to do a documentary, but if you got an idea on a take on a documentary, as long as it's independent, come up with it. So he gives me a one sheet. I read the one sheet. I sent it to Billy and Billy says, yeah, why not? So the way I talk about it, it's like, it's like the music stopped, you know, like everybody was dancing around and then all of a sudden, okay, now is the time. So about two weeks later, Todd calls me up and he said, would you be interested in having Tom Hanks and Gary Getsman as executive producers involved in this film? And I said, well, I don't know. Let me think about that. I mean, you know, I said, well, are you kidding? He said, well, they would love to be involved, but they have a choice of a director. And I said,

Christian: Yeah, well, I don't know. I mean, what is the resume? I think it's in birth.

Steve Cohen: Who is it? Well, it's a woman. I said, wait a minute. And it turns out that Gary and Tom wanted to be involved as long as Susan Lacey would direct. So it was sort of like, I called Susan, I said, I don't know, it's in the water here. And Susan had an all-around deal at HBO, which when we started to talk about this, we realized, wait a minute, Tom Hanks, Gary Getsman. Sean Hayes, Todd Milner, Susan Lacey, HBO, this means that A, the film will get made, B, it'll get made at a level that is commiserate to Billy, and C, it's independent, right? It's a story that we don't have any, that we have to do it. So I went back to Bill and I said, you know, this is the way to do this, but you gotta understand something. If you say yes to this, there ain't no editorial involvement.

Christian: distribution too. Rue.

Steve Cohen: You gotta trust these people to tell the story. And he looked at me he said, what do I gotta hide? Quote unquote. He said, what have I gotta hide? It's all been out there. Tell the story honestly. So my role in all of this has really been to take this huge pile of institutional memory, all of these histories, put them in front of these filmmakers. And of course, Susan Lacey then brought in Jessica Levin as a producer, then made her co-director. Then it was really the two of them.

Christian: It's so good.

Steve Cohen: And my role in all of this was facilitating, making sure the interviews would happen, do the job of being an executive producer, but at the same time, shine a light into corners and corridors that I only knew because of my experience. And I'll tell you, the experience for me has been so incredible because there were two separate people here. Susan Lacey, who really wasn't, was a Billy Joel fan, but didn't know Billy Joel.

Christian: What? Yeah, yeah.

Steve Cohen: Billy wasn't in her DNA. And Jessica Levin, who's a crazy sick Billy Joel fan, who knows more obscure Billy Joel minutiae than even I do as the co-director. So we had this wealth of knowledgeable energy to discover and tell this story. And the other point that Billy made whenever any question would come up was just, it's all in the music. If you bring it back to the music, then that will tell you the story of my life. And what Susan Lacey and Jessica have done in this film that I know you saw that I'm excited for people to see is show the audience that all of Billy's life experiences are filtered through the music, which is why 18,000 people stand up and sing every word of these songs because he speaks our language. He doesn't talk in metaphor and simile. talks like, you know, there's a line in the film where he says, I write like I talk, I write like I think. And I think that that has been, you know, the through line in why a guy who stops writing 25, 30 years ago, the songs are still as vibrant and vital and important and resonant as they were when they first came out. Even more so, I think. I think really, I think history has really done.

Christian: I

Steve Cohen: a really big service to Billy's catalog because in a great way, and I think the film shows this, he was a little bit before his time.

Christian: He was, you know, he, but this is what I thought. He was an old soul. He was an old soul back then when he was young and he just grew into it. And so now, you know, in his late seventies, now he's arrived, you know, he's arrived.

Steve Cohen: You know, I think the critics, he swum upstream with critics for very long time and Bruce Springsteen says it in the film. says, you know, at the time, you know, there was a certain rock and roll sensitivity that these rock and roll critics had that Billy didn't play into because it wasn't, you know, he was Broadway, he was Tim Panalli, he was standards. was, you know, he was writing stories about people's lives in a non sort of poetic-y, you know.

Christian: What?

Steve Cohen: Even though now, if you listen to these things, the poetry is as deep as anything. But at the time, it was, you know, he got a lot of pushback. you know.

Christian: Well, he never did what anyone else wanted him to do. He did what he wanted to do. And he says that absolutely clearly in the film. And it wasn't, was what was in him and what was going on in his life and what he saw. You know, there were times where people came in, asked him to do things like, you know, the Vietnam, his Vietnam buddies, you know, they came in, asked him to do that and then gave him that. But mostly, you know, it's all just about him and he's gonna write what he knows, regardless of what the time is, everything from his experience, whether it's childhood, he's gonna put it, know, if it's, don't know, the Beach Boys, he's gonna put it in the 90s, you know, it just doesn't matter, it doesn't care. And that's just what makes it so valuable today. just.

Steve Cohen: Well, and I think one of the things, you're right, and I think one of the things that I so respect about Susan and Jessica's work is that, you know, you know, Susan loves classical music. She comes from a classical family. So realizing that Billy Joel's, you know, upbringing is all based in classical music, that gave her a focus for her to uncover, you know, that side of Billy. And also his history and his relationship with his father and the Holocaust story that you see in part two, which is a part of his life that most people don't know, Susan had a very equal, relatable thing because that's her story as well. Her family were tragically involved in the Holocaust, they were Holocaust survivors. So I think it took a particular... type of filmmaker to be able to weave those very powerful life stories into the narrative of a songwriter. And I think, I believe that what they have done is give the Billy Joel fan a layer of knowledge and understanding of his work that you probably didn't know even as a Billy Joel fan, but to the uninitiated, to the person who's like, yeah, Billy Joel, yeah, I got it. Yeah, Billy Joel, right, know, just the way you are, Uptown Girl, whatever. Those casual fans now realize that there is gravitas in this man's life history that now go back and hear these songs through a completely different manner. And I think great documentary filmmaking to me, and you're a fan of documentaries, great documentary filmmaking, that is a home run. That's what you want to do. You want to show something about your subject that surprises you, confounds you, and illuminates your understanding of that artist. And we're very fortunate that they were incredibly focused, incredibly focused on always pinging this back to the music, always pinging it back to the lyrics, always pinging it back to the classical roots of those songs. So, you know, I think... I think that timing is everything. we are, as Stephen Hayden says, we're 50 years into the Billy Joel career. And Billy has always been the kind of person that didn't want to tell you the inspiration of these songs because the same reason he didn't like music videos, he wanted you to build this imagination in your head. know, Christie talks about that in the second part of the film where he wanted it to paint the air. wanted... you to visualize this. But at some point, he felt that it's not so precious anymore. It's like, yeah, I wrote, I fell in love and that motivated these great love songs. Yes, Just the Way You Are is about a woman. It's about Elizabeth. It's about my first wife. It's not about this thing. And what I really like about this sort of, you know, amorphous fantasy, what I do love about this with in part one and Elizabeth is a very dear friend of mine. you know, we, go back 50 years.

Christian: And she's as beautiful as ever. my goodness.

Steve Cohen: Oh no, and she, you know, this is a woman who I have to tell you after they, after she left and after they divorced, she, I make a joke, she went into the witness protection program. She, no one knew anything about her. She disappeared. She wanted to move on and develop her own life. Oh, she continued to work, but she worked in all kinds of other men, or she was big into philanthropy. She was a counselor.

Christian: this year. Did she work? she like continue to do?

Steve Cohen: you know, for troubled youth, she invented these products. She had all this other stuff.

Christian: This is so brilliant. when I think about like, I mean, first of all, Billy saw that brilliance in her and like, just, I didn't know about their love story and how long that lasted. Like I didn't know anything about that. she

Steve Cohen: Well, and it was key to us to tell this story. And one of the things I'm most proud about is that I had to get Elizabeth open enough to sit down with Susan Lacey to be able to communicate. The film couldn't have been made without her. There's no true documentary about Billy Joel's life that doesn't make that. And I knew how much she really didn't wanna participate. She didn't wanna...

Christian: Yeah\! with that. Ugh. No. Did it?

Steve Cohen: She didn't wanna go into those, those memories are painful, the memories, or for whatever reason, I can't second guess why Elizabeth didn't wanna do it, other than the fact that I knew that there was as much negative as there was positive about her. And my feeling about this was I was there. I always say there's three sides to the story. There's his side, her side, and the truth. And what I observed in that time,

Christian: Sure, course.

Steve Cohen: was this amazing collaboration and this partnership that I believe should have been celebrated. Well, you open up that can and suddenly you go, she's got a way was written about her. Everybody loves you now was written about her. Stiletto, big shot, just the way you are. She's always written to me. And if you go through all of those records before Nylon Curtain, there's a through line in their relationship.

Christian: I mean, like, too many albums were written about.

Steve Cohen: throughout all of this stuff that Billy, that Billy, you know, was not shy about. But one of the greatest parts about this film, and I think Elizabeth says this line, especially talking about just the way you are, is artists are artists. And they take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and they make magic. And that's exactly what Billy did in the relationships with her and the relationships with everybody else. Obviously the romantics in all of us, we love to know that there are love songs about a specific person, but I know for a fact that many of these songs are conglomerates of many of his relationships and also an extrapolation of what you believe a relationship wants to be.

Christian: Sure, and I mean, just things he sees or stories he hears or, you know, it's sort of like the Pianoman story where it's based in reality and there are, you know, things and people he meets, but it's not, you know, exactly. It's just stories he weaves together. But, you know, let's go back to Elizabeth, right? What I want to tell you is, as I was watching this, it was key for me to opening up Billy Joel and just drawing me into this story. I did have a connection here because I am a woman that is a divorced mom and I was a single mom. And so I remember like these early days of when you're young and there is that relationship there and you're building a family together and then there's that separation. But recently, my son is 35 now and his father and I have reconciled. And it has...

Steve Cohen: Fantastic.

Christian: changed my son's life. We've been talking about things. There's been healing. And one thing that I thought was so beautiful, whether it was true or not, but what came through the movie is Billy talks all the time about how he has made so many mistakes and he's just open about that. It's in all of his music. He's open about it in the interviews, but he says you have to learn from them, right? And you can see throughout that that he does learn from his mistakes. But here he is with people. that he has had broken relationships with, but they're in this movie and they are talking about their relationships with him and they're being open about that in ways that they're being extremely vulnerable. They're willing to share. They're sharing those intimate photographs or they're sharing intimate moments. And for me, that was a testimony not just to him, but you know, he talks about how all of his songs are based in people and relationships, not about politics, not about religion, not about the point of view. It's about relationships. And so

Steve Cohen: Well, the line that he says is if there's a skeleton key in my work, it is my relationships with others. really, you know, we spend, you know, I love that you're waxing poetic about this because, we spend our lives going through our lives, but the things that have meaning are our relationships with the people that are in our lives. And I think that's the resonance of Billy's music and his lyrics, even the classical stuff, that they are reflections of relationships. They're not the other. They're real and they're based in reality and based in real relationships, which is why you resonate. I used to say, Billy and I, we kind of look alike, we're bald, whatever, we're like average guys.

Christian: Yeah, I'm a little bit of that, you know, Long Island accent too.

Steve Cohen: Well, you know, it's, always say, Billy and I, it's like, know, when you, when I, when you have a dog, start to look like your dog. Like I'm his, you know, like I'm his pet, but, but, but it's, it, it's this thing that when we were playing the, all of these shows at Madison Square Garden and I would, I'd be out at the front of house and calling the lighting cues and doing, you know, doing what I do. And, and I would take my headsets off and I would look around and I would see the looks on these guys' faces, not so much the women, but the guys' faces who would. be singing at the top of their lungs at that stage. And all I thought about was like, when you go into the shower and you sing, you think that you are singing like Billy Joel or like Frank Sinatra or like whatever. These are these guys who are looking at a guy who's an average, lovey guy, know, sitting there playing the piano. So not only do you sound like him in your own mind, but you think you're him. It becomes this accessible relationship between you and him, which suddenly means that you own that material like he does. And there is nothing there is. It's no it's no longer an observation of an audience watching a performer. It's an audience being involved in that communication. And when we came back, we came back after Covid because we were gone for a year. We walked into the garden. We played that show the right after Covid and we we all cried for two hours. We couldn't stop. It was such an emotional It was such an emotional thing because you miss that communication with people. And Bill has been able to write this music that is sort of a gateway to all of those emotions. I, you know, listen, I'm the happiest guy on the planet to have this in my life. And now for you guys to see this from the honest, you know, when Billy said, I don't want to do any interviews. Take it out, make the movie out of archives. And Susan was like, She would talk to and she go, you know, that's not going to work. And I was like, well, I don't know how you're going to convince him. And she was like, put me in a room coach. And so I then as you know, cajoled, manipulated, you know, well, that was, that was the other thing that she had said. said, we have to put him by the piano. You know, every interview with Billy will be by a piano. And I said, that instinctually is correct because that's his security blanket. That's his, that's his comfort.

Christian: just sit next to a kimono. mean, that's, you know. Yeah. You said that. Didn't you say that? Yeah. And I love that line because you, you, what I loved about that line when you said that was that for me was like, you knew him. Like you knew him. Like you were like his parent, you know, you knew him that intimately. Yeah. That like, this is his security blanket. I know how to get him in a, you know, he just goes and sits there. This is his blanket. Just sit him right there. You know,

Steve Cohen: Yeah, that's his comfort zone. We're like brothers, And then what happened was, and this is what's so interesting is that he was supposed to do, you know, when she, when she set this up, she said, look, I need to be able to sit with him three, at least three or four times. And I said, well, I have a feeling you're going to need more than that, but let's start with three or four. every interview, he got a little bit more open, you know, he got a little bit more, you know, she got him to go deeper. The other thing that you'll know, and this is a little bit of inside baseball, the first interview we did in Florida in his house, and there was a lot of distractions. The kids were in the other room and all that other stuff. And I said to Susan, I said, let's do these interviews somewhere else. So most of the other interviews were done at my house. And I have two places. I have a place in East Hampton and a place in Boca Raton. And I have a piano in both. and he lives in Boca and he also lives in the East End. So the next four interviews, with the exception of one that we did at Susan's house, were at my house. So Billy walked in immediately feeling like, okay, I'm at Steve's house, so I'm already more comfortable, I don't have the distractions. And that part of my contribution to the film was like delivering an environment for Susan. to be able to make him be able to open up. And it was sort of like a one-two punch, like he was comfortable and she would get him and he was comfortable and she would get him. And by the last interview, which I believe the last interview, I can't remember the subject about it. I think it was the, in the film, it's when he talks about, so it goes, which I think was the last interview. There was a sense of... really going deep and a sense of relief. And she got that out of him. And after he got through, he looked there, he said, boy, you get me to go places that I don't normally go. So what ended up happening was he thought it would be a film about archives and history. And really it's not, it's him telling us how all of these things work. So I think Susan was incredibly clever about

Christian: No. Yes. I mean, that's what's so beautiful. I people that are listening to this, if you are wanting to be a documentary filmmaker, a director, and you know, whatever, a writer, what you have to hear in her work is that it is relationship. And like you're talking about, it's creating that space where your interviewee feels comfortable and it's creating that relationship. You know, I learned in my documentary from this Frenchman who You know, mine's a World War II documentary. And, you know, I went and I watched him and he knew so much about these World War II veterans that they began to feel like he was their battle buddy. And so they began to talk to him like they were, you know, he knew they were in a foxhole with him. And I was like, man, that's how it's done. And so that's what she did with him. You know, she learned, she knew, and she sat with him and made him comfortable. And you could feel that by the end, you know.

Steve Cohen: Yeah, and what ended up happening, which was so great about their collaboration, both Susan and Jessica's, was that she got this material and then you have this co-director who has this unbelievable wealth and depth of knowledge of the catalog and of the Billy Joel story that wove all of these narratives in through the materials. know, Susan, watched, I learned a lot obviously from her. You know, she dies, lives and dies by transcripts. And you know, every single interview, the transcripts are all printed out. And if you go into her studio, you'll see stacks and stacks with a paper where she will take lines of, of dialogue from four or five different interviews and then be able to weave together a narrative scene.

Christian: paper.

Steve Cohen: You know, these days the technology is so available and you know this, that you can now, you know, can Google search a word and a phrase. So if you're trying to get an emotional moment together in this film, you can access that information.

Christian: You put it in like avid and you say I want you know, I want hair or whatever it'll

Steve Cohen: and watch together and you get all of them, you know. And it was great to watch, to watch that process. So, so, you know, listen.

Christian: But here's what I want to say before I lose this. don't mean to interrupt you, I don't lose this. Here's what was so impactful for me as I'm thinking about this. I want to go back to the Afghan, right? That just came out because he did so much was woven together. And you're talking about how both of them brought their skills to the table and wove stuff together, whether it was what people said or whether it was archival material.

Steve Cohen: Go ahead.

Christian: And what I loved about what they did was it was not linear in any way. This story was not really linear in any way. I loved how they began it. I love how they ended it. It was just brilliant how they ended it with him, I think in Madison Square Garden about ready to sing Piano Man, I think. And then it went to like his very first audition maybe. of Piano Man and then you hear him sing it there and then it ends with him at Madison Square Garden. my gosh, it was genius. But there's that kind of genius all throughout it with how they decide to weave his moments together like that, right? It's incredible knitting together. what they do is it's not really about the songs necessarily. It's really about the... the motions and the stories that we can relate to. So not only what Billy went through, but what the people in his life went through, his ex-wives or his children or his bandmates. Like, I mean, I want to get back to the bandmates. That's something I want to hop to next. I mean, listening to what the bandmates went through or the producers went through who were in these deep relationships with him, right? You're grieving with them. And then you're all of a sudden relating it to your own life. And so he is this emotionally accessible thing. And you know what? You're learning from him. So you're learning as he's learning. So you're learning from his own mistakes. So it's not just this documentary that you're just getting information from, right? And it's the same with his songs. I mean, this is what is so incredible about this man. And here's the thing, Steve, this is why I wanted to meet you. He surrounded himself with people just like that. And you, your instrument was not a piano. Yours began with lighting, but it has expanded into so many other things. I mean, you took all this institutional knowledge that you had and you figured out how to weave it together. And you use the people in his life and everything you use like a piano or like a lighting kit, you know, to help make it. And so then we're learning. You know what I learned? I have the same sort of dysfunction in my family that he does. Like with, I don't hope my mother doesn't listen to this, like mothers or grandmothers that have emotional things and I have emotional things and just stories like that where what I loved about how you portrayed those difficulties emotionally is in families was he didn't dis or completely unpack all the negative stuff that he was really. You know, he was real about these pains were here and they affected me, but there's still that love there. And you guys did that in a beautiful way. It was, and so we're learning from him. And so that's genius.

Steve Cohen: One second, I've got a dog barking. want to let her out. Hold on.

Christian: It's okay. This is a great place if you want to take a break to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water or anything.

Steve Cohen: I I will. me run to the head and then I'll come back and we can talk some more because I think we're on a roll here. Great.

Christian: I'm gonna do that too. Yeah. And I want to talk, I do want to go into the bandmate thing and work. And I want to start with, I want to start with you. Like I really want to know about you. So I'm going to give you time to think about this in the head. I want to know about like where you were born and who your parents were. And I want to know about what makes you you.

Steve Cohen: Okay, I'll be back in five.