Spinal Tap has nothing on Billy Joel's metal band, Attila, who turned it up to 12

Thundering drums, indulgent solos, libidinous lyrics — you might not expect such stuff from Billy Joel. But for one glorious, gonzo moment, Joel put it all on display in his two-man heavy metal band, Attila. Their sole, eponymous album, released on Epic Records in 1970, remains the strangest disc in Joel’s catalog.

"Some people have called it the worst record of all times," drummer Jon Small, the band’s other half, told Newsday in a recent interview. "But there are some people who really like it."

The would-be rock gods of "Spinal Tap II: The End Continues" have nothing on Joel. "Attila" sounds like an artifact from a bizarro universe, one in which Joel became not a radio-friendly singer-songwriter but instead a rival to Ozzy Osbourne. Fifty-five years later, Small remembered his time in the short-lived band as one of unfettered creativity and youthful freedom.

Attila was born out of the 1969 demise of The Hassles, Joel’s first recorded band, which included the Jericho-based Small. Newly band-less, Joel and Small returned to their old rehearsal space in the basement of a Syosset wallpaper store run by Small’s mother. After lugging down Small’s drums and Joel’s massive Hammond B3 organ, the two friends began noodling around.

Joel has said he was obsessed with the newly emerging Led Zeppelin at the time, but Small said a jolt of inspiration came from Lee Michaels, a Los Angeles-born keyboardist who played with only a drummer. Watching Michaels perform at Island Park’s Action House one night, Small said, “We looked at each other and said: We could do this.”

The two jerry-rigged Joel’s Hammond to a Marshall amplifier to produce a gnarly, raunchy tone that approximated an electric guitar. “It was this mean, mean sound, you know?” Small said. “That’s how the group came to life.”

Somehow, concert booker Irwin Mazur secured the fledgling duo a record deal and a $50,000 advance, according to Small. (Mazur's father owned the Plainview nightclub My House, where The Hassles often played.) Sometime in 1969, in a studio in Manhattan, the two musicians recorded their album in a single day with no producer, Small recalled.

“They trusted us to make this record,” he said. “Mistake!”

The results could safely be described as startling. The album cover, which features the two shaggy-haired musicians clad in barbarian fur and armor — and surrounded by hanging carcasses of beef — sets the tone for what’s inside: An eight-song, 40-minute blast of unhinged, psychedelic proto-metal. Joel pushes his voice upward into Robert Plant’s screaming register and coaxes Jimmy Page-style squeals from his Hammond, while behind him Small shifts from tribal rhythms to jazzy swing to ominous marches.

Most remarkable are Joel’s lyrics. He’s in a vindictive mood on “Revenge Is Sweet” (the title rhymes with “Now I'll make you kiss my feet”), while on “Tear This Castle Down” he mixes his Arthurian metaphors (boats, ruins, isles). On the frenetic rocker “Rollin' Home,” Joel delivers a come-on line for the ages: “Now’s the time, when we’re in the mood / You can be the wine and I’ll be the food!” There's also a nearly eight-minute instrumental, “Amplifier Fire,” broken into two movements called “Godzilla” and "March of the Huns.”

Of the latter, Small admitted: “It was horrible.”

In Small’s telling, Attila played just two shows: One at the Action House and another at The Daisy in Amityville. But tensions over Joel’s ongoing affair with Small’s wife, Elizabeth Weber, were coming to a boil. One night at the Dix Hills home the three shared, Small said, he punched Joel in the nose — and Attila was no more. (Eventually, the three not only mended fences but also worked together: Weber became Joel’s manager and Small directed the video for Joel’s No. 1 hit “Tell Her About It.”)

Today, a vinyl copy of “Attila" can fetch as much as $800 on eBay, while a cassette might sell for $30. It’s not available via streaming, though you can find bootlegs on YouTube.

“At the time that we were doing it, we both really enjoyed it,” Small said of the band. “We were just happy to be out there playing."

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com