There was once another band named Attila
Chances are, the Attila you’ve come to know is the rap/metalcore group fronted by Chris “Fronz” Fronzak. But they weren’t the first Attila! The Dangerous Minds blog recent dug up “Attila,” a psychedelic metal band created by Billy Joel in 1969.
The band’s outfits were more ridiculous than modern-day Attila and so was their drama. DM reports: “Perhaps even more fascinating than the sound (or those nutty outfits) is the love story behind Attila’s demise. Billy began an affair with his drummer’s wife Elizabeth, and though Small was a philanderer himself, he and Elizabeth had a small son together, and she told Billy if he confessed, she’d leave both men. Racked with guilt, Joel attempted suicide by drinking furniture polish, putting him in a coma.”
They only had a one-year run.
Billy Joel described the project:
End of the sixties, I was in a two-man group. We were heavy metal, we were going to destroy the world with amplification, we had titles like ‘Godzilla’, ‘March of the Huns’, ‘Brain Invasion.’ A lot of people think [ I ] just came out of the piano bar… I did a lot of heavy metal for a while. We had about a dozen gigs and nobody could stay in the room when we were playing. It was too loud. We drove people literally out of clubs. ‘It was great, but we can’t stay in the club’
You can listen to their debut full-length album below. It was band’s only release before breaking up in 1970.
