On July 18, Billy Joel will leave his estate on Long Island’s North Shore to take a 15-minute helicopter ride to Manhattan for what will be his 100th career performance at Madison Square Garden. For the last four years, the “Piano Man” has been “in residence” at the iconic, 20,000-plus-seat arena, each month performing sold-out shows to adoring audiences. It is an unprecedented achievement in his long, hugely successful career.

And later this year, on September 7 at Chicago’s Wrigley Field and on September 21 at Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium, he will cap off his concert tour of Major League Baseball stadiums across the nation.

Since joining his first band in 1964, Joel has sold more than 150 million albums, toured the globe and become a rock legend and one of the richest entertainers in the world. “I’m a very lucky man,” he says.

Related: 10 of Billy Joel’s Best Duets

He also has triumphed over very difficult odds. As a Jewish boy, he was haunted by the deaths of his father’s family in the Holocaust. When Joel was 8, his parents, Howard Joel and Rosalind (Nyman), divorced and his mom struggled to raise him and his sister, Judy, on an income so limited that Joel went to work at 14 playing piano in a local bar to help support them.

Piano Man, his breakthrough album (Alamy Stock Photo)

His rise to superstardom was never easy. Along the way he attempted suicide, crashed three cars, had a double hip replacement and three failed marriages, was swindled out of millions of dollars and twice entered residential rehab for substance abuse. And through it all, he wrote and released hits like “The Stranger,” “Just the Way You Are,” “She’s Always a Woman,” “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me,” “New York State of Mind,” “Uptown Girl,” “The Entertainer” and the song that came to be his calling card, “Piano Man.”

Parade visited Joel at his motorcycle gallery, 20th Century Cycles, in Oyster Bay, a charming historic hamlet on a harbor of the Long Island Sound. Joel, 69, lives a few minutes away with his fourth wife, Alexis Roderick, 36, and their two daughters, Remy, 1, and Della, almost 3. Roderick, a former wealth-management planner for Morgan Stanley, and Joel married in 2015. Joel has another daughter, Alexa Ray, now 32, from his nine-year marriage to model Christie Brinkley, his second wife. He was also previously married to Elizabeth Weber Small, and to chef and Food Network personality Katie Lee.

Related: Christie Brinkley and Her Daughters Dish on Lessons Learned from Mom

Sitting at a table in the gallery, surrounded by his collection of bikes, Joel basks momentarily in a breeze that wafts through an open door, then lights a cigar and smiles.

Joel owns about 100 motorcycles (Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo; Myrna Suarez)

How many motorcycles do you own?

There’s about a hundred. They’re a lot cheaper than cars and they’re fun to mess with.

You love boats too.

Yeah. I grew up about 15 miles south of here in the middle of Long Island. As a little kid, I always liked boats and the romance of living on an island.

Is that why you try to help local fishermen and the lobstermen? Your songs often speak for working people. [Joel has raised millions to help the East Hampton Baymen’s Association.]

I’m not a spokesman for anybody, but I know these guys and I write what I see. If you’re a fisherman and you’re out of work, there’s no safety net. You’re screwed. I relate to that. I’ve been criticized for writing about unemployed factory workers and fishermen. I know exactly what I’m talking about. We musicians invented unemployment. Look up “unemployed” in the dictionary, and there’s a picture of a musician. We had a hard time, it was a struggle. I have a lot of empathy for people who struggle like that.

Was your childhood difficult?

My mom had a tough time, struggling to make ends meet. Women who had to work weren’t treated very nicely. There were no good-paying jobs for women then.

Your mother died in 2014. Was she the person closest to you?

Yeah.

Your dad was a classical pianist. Why didn’t you go into classical music?

I did play classical music the first 12 years that I took lessons. I got pretty good. But I didn’t have the ambition to be a concert pianist. I knew I wasn’t going to be Beethoven, who is God to me. I wanted to write my own music.

At 14, you got a job playing piano in a bar. Is that why you dropped out of high school?

I didn’t drop out of high school. I went through 12th grade. I just didn’t show up for classes because I was working at night. At the end of my senior year, my high school said, “You don’t have enough credits.” So I said, “To hell with it. I’m not going to Columbia University, I’m going to Columbia Records.”

When did you decide you wanted to be a rock star?

I was 14 or 15 in 1964, and I was asked to be in a rock band. Couple of guys played guitars, I played keyboards. It was my first gig. We got hired to play at a church dance, Holy Family Church in Hicksville. We sounded pretty good. Everybody’s clapping, kids are dancing and a girl I had a crush on was actually looking at me, a girl who hadn’t looked twice at me before. Virginia. You know “Come out, Virginia” [a lyric from “Only the Good Die Young”]? And I said, “Oh, my God, she’s looking at me. Wow, this is great.” I was thrilled. The end of the night, the priest gives us each $15. I said, “You mean you get paid for this?” That was it! This is what I’m going to do.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Class of '99 (GAB Archive/Redferns/Getty Images)

When did you start writing your own songs?

Around that time. I started writing ersatz Beatle tunes.

Why the Beatles?

They weren’t pretty boys, like Fabian and Frankie Avalon. They looked like working-class guys from Liverpool. They weren’t Pat Boone pushing a religious agenda. I remember the look on their faces on The Ed Sullivan Show. They were kidding around, having fun, like they couldn’t believe their luck, and I loved that. They wrote their own music. They played their own instruments. They weren’t the greatest singers in the world, but the harmonies were great. The Beatles put it all together in terms of playing, writing, singing, performing, recording. And the timing of it was just impeccable. I decided when the Beatles came out that I wanted to be a musician. I loved music. I loved the sense of community.

Related: Celebrate the Beatles With this Fab Merch

What was it inside you that the Beatles triggered?

Emotion, this incredible passion.

I thought, If I can stir that kind of passion in people, that would be fantastic. If I can create my own music, if I can get the girls to scream, wouldn’t that be great?

When you were 23, you moved to L.A. for three years. Why?

Because in the early ‘70s, L.A. was the center of the music business. Cold Spring Harbor, my first album, was recorded in Los Angeles. It was a bad record deal. I signed away my rights, everything, And I went on a tour and nobody got paid. I never saw my record anywhere. To make a living, I got a job in a piano bar in L.A. I wanted to be a songwriter, really.

Why do entertainers get swindled so often?

We’re myopic. Musicians, you know, aren’t looking at the account books. That’s all an abstraction to us. My theory was, if I get good enough, I’ll be able to make a living. That’s all I ever wanted to do.

You’ve done better than that.

[Laughs] Look at this, this has gone nuts. One hundred motorcycles? This [success] is way beyond anything I ever imagined.

Do you credit luck or talent for your success?

We think luck has a lot to do with it. [But it was] timing. We caught this wave, postwar baby boom, we were all kind of on the same page at one time, when the Beatles hit. We were all mourning the death of John F. Kennedy. Look at the timing of that. That was November of ’63, he was shot. And he was our guy. He represented youth and vigor and progress and looking forward. And then he was gone.

July 18 will be your 100th performance in Madison Square Garden. The arena is the biggest in New York, and you now fill it every month.

I think that’s luck. I’m from New York. Madison Square Garden’s my hometown venue. It was natural for them to pick me to play there. We sell [seats] in the round every night. A lot of acts don’t play the back [of the arena], just the front. We play it all.

Related: Watch Miley Cyrus and Billy Joel Sing “New York State of Mind”

Why do crowds keep coming?

I’m an unlikely candidate for a rock star. I don’t look like a rock star. I’m like the eternal underdog. In my songs’ lyrics, there’s a lot of acknowledgment that I’m a screw-up, you know—I’m human. I’m as lost as you are. Like you, I’m just trying to find my way. I guess people like that.

In the last 12 years or so, you’ve written only two songs. Why did you stop?

I couldn’t be as good as I wanted to be. It drove me crazy. The drinking was part of it. If I couldn’t be as good as I wanted to be, I’d just drown it with booze.

You have a reputation for being unhappy.

I know I’ve got a reputation that I’m this depressed guy. I’m not—I’m a happy guy.

Yeah, but you do have that rep.

Yeah, OK. I was in rehab twice. The first time in rehab, in ’02, I wouldn’t even stay. I was only there for a couple of days. The press was all over the place. I said, “I got to get out of here.” The second time was at Betty Ford [in 2005], which was not a lot of fun. I was drinking too much. I said, “This time I’m going to stick it through for a month.” It was one of the best things I ever did.

What about drugs?

I’ve tried everything; I’m a musician, come on. But I never had a problem with that.

Is fame worth the price?

There was a time in my life, like 15, 20 years ago, things were rough for me, and I didn’t like the fame aspect of it at all. I didn’t like the press, the difficulties maintaining your relationship with one person.

Did fame cost you marriages?

Yeah, yeah. I had to work. I was on the road. I was gone all the time. It’s not good for a relationship. I ended up doing what my dad did. He was never home. I wanted to be a home dad, which I am now. I have two little kids, and if I’m not working at the Garden or at a stadium, I’m home with them.

You’ve been married four times. What attracts you to women?

Oh, God, everything! I love women. My whole life is women. My children are women. My wives are women. It’s a great muse to write about, relationships with women.

[Second wife] Christie Brinkley said she was your muse.

Of course she was! She’s the most beautiful woman in the world! What was she doing with me? Are you kidding me? Women are fascinating. Women are deep, man. They see things in us that we men don’t see.

Related: Christie Brinkley on Aging Gracefully

Joel with his wife, Alexis Roderick (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)

Where are you happiest?

At home with my children. I love being with my little kids.

What are you proudest of?

My ability to move on with life. I’ve had difficulties in my life, but it never stopped me from continuing. I’ve had divorces, it didn’t stop me marrying again. Troubles with business didn’t stop me from doing business. I have no bitterness about anything, even people who rip me off, I let it go. I’m content with that. I’m happy. I’m having a happy ending.

What’s a song you love?

It’s a summer song. [He sings.] “Summertime, summertime, sum, sum, summertime…” Summer songs are oldies. Like “See You in September,” “Summertime Blues,” “Summer in The City,” “There’s a Summer Place.” There are a lot of good summer songs.

Billy Joel: I’m No Mozart, but I Can Fake It

Joel says he remembers starting out playing piano and loving it—but realized early on that he just didn’t have the patience, drive or desire to become a classical pianist.

“I did play classical music, the first 12 years that I took lessons,” says the singer-songwriter superstar who’d go on to become known for dozens of hit songs throughout the 1970 and ‘80s, including the classic “Piano Man.”

“I got pretty good. But I was never going to be a concert pianist, I knew that. I didn’t have the ambition. It’s a lot of studying, a lot of work, a lot of rehearsal. I wanted to write my own notes, I didn’t want to play other people’s notes.

“So when I was a kid, taking lessons, I started fooling my mom. She would be listening in the other room. I’m supposed to be learning a Mozart piece, and I’d make up my own Mozart. I had a good enough ear to know how to fake Mozart. So my mom would be listening, at the end of an hour, she be like, “Oh, that was pretty good, you learned that one fast.”

“The next day, I wouldn’t remember what I played the day before, so I’d start playing something else. “What’s that?” she’d ask. “Oh, that’s the second movement.”

“By the end of the week, I’d have like, five movements that I made up. I had no tape recorder or anything, I don’t remember what I played. Then I would go to the teacher, and the teacher would yell at me, because I hadn’t learned anything!

“But it was fun to be able to play the piano!”

Madison Square Memories

Joel will play his 100th show at New York’s legendary Madison Square Garden on July 18 and remembers his first trip, as a child, to the former facility (torn down in 1968). “Singing cowboy” Gene Autry was performing.

“We were in nosebleed seats. I thought it was the biggest place I’d ever seen. It was a Christmas show and we saw Gene Autry singing ‘Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer.’

“He stopped singing and said, ‘I want everybody to sing.’ But I didn’t sing. Then he stopped again and took out his six-guns. ‘Stop the music!’ he shouted, and started shooting his guns. Then he went, ‘I said, ‘Everybody sing!’ It scared the hell out of me. I started singing, ‘Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer…’ That was my first experience with Madison Square Garden.”

Beatlemania

“Postwar baby boom, and we were all kind of on the same page when the Beatles hit, and we caught this wave,” remembers Joel. “We were all mourning the death of John F. Kennedy. That was November of ’63, when he was shot. And he was our guy. He represented youth and vigor and progress and looking forward.

“And when he was gone, Lyndon Johnson and the old-school guys came in and it all turned into a pile of crap. But in February of ’64 the Beatles arrived. Bang! We grabbed them, and we made them our new Kennedy. They were us. We were all on the same page. The timing of it was incredible.”

Holocaust Horrors

“I was aware of it as a young age. My [paternal] grandfather, Karl Joel, escaped. The rest of the family got wiped out. They were all shipped off to Auschwitz, and they all got slaughtered. My father’s family were the lucky ones. Even though they lost all their money, their business, everything, they got out.”