Attila was an American rock duo from New York City, most notable for having featured a young Billy Joel.
Billy Joel and Jon Small broke away from their band the Hassles and formed Attila in 1969. The instrumentation was organ and drums, with Joel also handling the bass lines with a keyboard, similar to the Doors' Ray Manzarek. Their creative partnership ended in 1970 when Joel ran off with Small's wife, Elizabeth, whom he later married, although this did not end their collaborations, as Small produced Joel's 1982 "Live From Long Island" video in addition the 1990 "Live at Yankee Stadium" Video and the 2011 ' performance. Small became a music video director for artists such as Run DMC, Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire and Travis Tritt.
Their only album, Attila, was released on July 27, 1970. No singles were released from the album and it did not chart. Joel himself has described the album as "psychedelic bullshit".
The track "Amplifier Fire, Part 1 (Godzilla)" later appeared on Joel's 2005 box set My Lives.
In addition two songs Wonder Woman & Holy Moses from the Attila album would make its way onto the 2025 soundtrack for the Bioflick "And So It Goes"
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote that "Attila undoubtedly is the worst album released in the history of rock & roll â hell, the history of recorded music itself. There have been many bad ideas in rock, but none match the colossal stupidity of Attila."
Julian Cope described the album as "an extremely entertaining joke that Billy wasn't in on. But I've gotta say, I dug his trip, and the record still puts me in a good mood every time."
All tracks written by Billy Joel and Jonathan Small.