If you believe everything you read, Billy Joel has a short fuse and a hard right.

It`s an image that has trailed him ever since he cracked the big time in 1977 with the multiplatinum album ''The Stranger.'' But it goes back even farther than that, to the late `50s and early `60s, when he was growing up poor in a one-parent home in Hicksville, L.I.

There he ran with a leather-jacketed gang, sniffed glue and spent a night in jail. Then he went on to win 23 of 26 fights as a teenage welterweight boxer (until a punch busted his nose), finally dropping out of high school to pursue the life of a rock `n` roll piano man.

Even the sedate concerns of a musician brought out the pugilist in him. He`s been involved in years of bitter, costly litigation over the copyrights to his songs-''I`m naive . . . I`ve been taken advantage of,'' he says without a trace of self-pity. He has had a running battle with tabloid journalists and music critics; he has responded to their unkindest cuts with a few stiletto-tipped remarks of his own, using the stage as his bully pulpit. And he still ends his shows with one piece of pithy advice: ''Don`t take any

(expletive) from anyone.''

(His current tour, which has been selling out all over the country, brings him to the Rosemont Horizon Monday and Tuesday, as well as on April 23-24.)

Built low to the ground, with a barrel chest and thick thighs and buttocks, Joel even looks like a scrapper, and he has the scars to prove it. Besides the broken nose, which left one nostril smaller than the other, he has suffered sprained and cracked ankles leaping about the stage, and his hand was mangled in a 1982 motorcycle accident-''there`s no bone in the top of my left thumb,'' he says, wiggling the flesh and cartilage as proof for an aghast visitor.

But there`s a lot more to Joel than a clenched fist and scar tissue.

Though he has sold millions of records, played sold-out shows from Los Angeles to Leningrad, and is, of course, the husband of model Christie Brinkley, Joel remains unimpressed with his own notoriety. He still hangs with the boys, longtime pals from the penny-ante days like drummer Liberty DeVitto, and he`ll knock down the drinks and swap stories into the wee hours.

''We did some damage to a few brain cells last night,'' laughed Joel, shuffling barefoot about his hotel room in Syracuse, N.Y., in a T-shirt and sweat pants. After a thunderously well-received show before 40,000 fans at the cavernous Carrier Dome a few days ago, Joel and the gang awoke after noon to gobble a breakfast of Chinese carryout and chocolates.

The mood was upbeat and the ''put `em up, pal'' days seemed long gone.

''I probably focus my energy better than I used to, when I was combative with just about everything,'' said Joel, settling into a sofa. ''Now I don`t sweat nickle-and-dime stuff. I still get mad-at the post office, the bank, the telephone company-but I don`t get mad anymore at silly little things that aren`t important. I don`t think I`m mellowing; I`m just getting smarter.''

The more mature Billy-he`ll be 41 on May 9-also has been steadied by his marriage to Brinkley, and the responsibilities of being a parent to a 3-year- old daughter. It`s a situation he hints at in one of his new songs,

''Shameless'': ''And I`m changing, I swore I`d never compromise/But you convinced me otherwise.''

''My wife`s the person I spend my life with, and I value her opinion greatly,'' Joel said. ''I mean, from the time I get up, it`s `Does my tie match my shirt?` She would know, right?''

Brinkley has been one of the few anchors in Joel`s life, which has been fraught with changes in recent years. His aptly titled new album, ''Storm Front'' (Columbia), reflects some of that turmoil. The biggest move occurred when Joel decided to retool his band and replace producer Phil Ramone after

''The Bridge'' album and tour in 1987. He retained only drummer DeVitto, guitarist David Brown and saxophonist Mark Rivera from the old days, and brought in four new faces.

''It was a very difficult decision for me,'' Joel said. ''The bass player (Doug Stegmeyer) had been with me since `72 and the other guitar player

(Russell Javors) since `76. I`m loyal, but you can be loyal to a fault sometimes.''

Complacency had set in, and though Joel maintained that ''I never had a problem'' with Ramone, a creative partner on such hit albums as ''The Stranger'' and the lush, layered ''The Nylon Curtain,'' he chose guitarist Mick Jones of the British hard rock band Foreigner to produce ''Storm Front.'' ''It`s like being married to a wonderful woman, but what you need is some kind of flaming affair,'' Joel said. ''I may work with Phil again, but Mick is a songwriter and a musician (unlike Ramone), so he has a whole new understanding of what I do.''

Most of all, Joel was looking for ''that British approach to production. . . . Americans tend to walk into a studio as if it were a temple, they`re reverent about the equipment there. The British walk in and all they see is potential; they`ll see a piece of equipment that`s supposed to be used for a vocal effect and use it on a guitar.

''I think it goes back to the European tradition of decadence. The British tend to be somewhat kinky. During the day, they walk around in bowler hats and umbrellas, and at night they go home and spank each other. It makes for interesting records.''

''Storm Front'' is indeed one of Joel`s more sonically ambitious, hardest-rocking efforts, though arena-rock numbers like the title track and

''Shameless'' sound somewhat shrill. The more subdued material-especially the fisherman`s lament, ''The Downeaster `Alexa,` '' and his tale of two friends, ''Leningrad''-works best.

In concert, however, the album`s potential emerges. The addition of percussionist and backup singer Crystal Taliefero and multi-instrumentalist Mindy Jostyn in particular gave Joel`s Syracuse show a spark and energy that recalled his wilder, piano-bench-kicking tours of smaller clubs in the `70s. Taliefero is a belter in the best gospel tradition, and her duets with Joel added a stirring, sexually charged dimension to ''Innocent Man'' and

''Shameless.'' In turn, holdovers like DeVitto appeared reinvigorated; the balding drummer waged war on the skins and cymbals throughout the show and gave Joel`s set a rock edge that critics often don`t give him credit for.

Symbolic of this newfound toughness is that, on the current tour, Joel isn`t playing his classic ballad ''Just the Way You Are,'' which, alongside

''Piano Man,'' is probably his signature tune.

''I still think it`s a good song, but it just doesn`t sit with me right now,'' Joel said. ''There`s a different kind of energy on this tour.''