Background and career
William Haislip Squier (, born May 12, 1950) is an American rock musician, singer, and songwriter who had a string of hits in the early 1980s. His best-known songs include "The Stroke", "Lonely Is the Night", "My Kinda Lover", "In the Dark", "Rock Me Tonite", "Everybody Wants You", "Emotions in Motion", "Love Is the Hero", and "Don't Say You Love Me". Squier's best-selling album, 1981's Don't Say No, is considered a landmark release of arena rock, bridging the gap between power pop and hard rock. Described as a personification of early 1980s rock music, Squier's most successful period was from 1981 to 1984, during which he had five Top 10 Mainstream Rock hits (two of which were number ones), two Top 20 singles, three consecutive platinum-selling albums, and videos in MTV rotation. Even after falling out from mainstream favor and chart success, which some say is because of the 1984 video for "Rock Me Tonite", Squier has maintained his presence on rock radio and his music has been used in many films and video games. Squier largely stopped recording music after the commercial failure of the 1993 album Tell the Truth, but has continued to perform smaller tours, one-off concerts, and occasional collaborations. His 1980 song "The Big Beat" contains one of the most-sampled drum breaks, used by artists such as Run-DMC, Alicia Keys, Jay-Z, UTFO, and Dizzee Rascal. "The Stroke" is sampled in Eminem's 2013 hit "Berzerk".
Squier was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts. He is a 1968 graduate of Wellesley High School. While growing up, he took piano lessons starting at age eight. Bored with the lessons after three years, his grandfather paid him to continue for a while longer. Squier became interested in guitar after a classmate sold him one for $90. He formed his first band, the Reltneys, when he was 14. He became more serious about music when he discovered John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers.
Squier's first public performances were in 1968 at a Boston nightclub in Kenmore Square named the Psychedelic Supermarket, where he saw Eric Clapton and the band Cream. This encouraged him to take music more seriously. He formed the band Magic Terry & the Universe with a school friend. In the early 1970s, Squier played with the short-lived bands Kicks, alongside future New York Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan. Squier also briefly attended Berklee College of Music in 1971. Squier was planning to become a teacher but instead went back to New York and played with the band the Sidewinders.
In the mid-1970s, Squier encountered his first real experience with the music industry after striking a record deal with his new band Piper, which went on to release two studio records, Piper and Can't Wait. The band was praised by critics: reviewing the self-titled album, Circus magazine touted it as "the greatest debut album ever produced by a US rock band". Piper was managed by the same management company as Kiss and opened for them during their 1977 tour, including two nights of a sold-out run at New York's Madison Square Garden. Squier served as both main songwriter and frontman of the group. Despite receiving considerable success at the local rock scene, Piper broke up. Squier signed a solo deal with Capitol Records in 1979 and started working on his solo debut The Tale of the Tape, which was released in spring 1980. The album provided him with strong momentum, spending three months on Billboard's album chart, though peaking only at No. 169. Squier's first singles "You Should Be High Love" and "The Big Beat" missed the charts but got moderate radio play nationally. Along with Bobby Chouinard, his backing band consisted of Alan St. Jon on keyboards, Cary Sharaf on lead guitar, and Mark Clarke (who previously had short jobs in Uriah Heep and Rainbow) on bass.
Following a small but fairly successful summer tour with Alice Cooper in 1980, Squier got in contact with Queen guitarist Brian May and asked him to produce his next album. Due to scheduling conflicts, May declined, but he recommended Reinhold Mack, who had produced Queen's most recent album The Game. Squier and Mack joined forces to produce Don't Say No, which earned rave reviews and spawned three hit singles. The first, "The Stroke," became his breakthrough hit, hitting Top 20 in the US and reaching the top five in Australia, as well as charting high in Canada and in Britain, where the song remains his only chart entry. "In the Dark" and "My Kinda Lover" were successful follow-ups. The album also includes "Lonely Is the Night", which became a radio favorite and one of his signature songs, despite not being released as a single (however, in Britain, it was the B-side for "In the Dark"). Squier was also popular on the new MTV cable channel, where his straightforward performance-based videos received heavy rotation. Don't Say No peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and lasted well over two years on the chart, eventually selling over four million copies in the US alone, making it Squier's most commercially successful album. Squier was known for being a perfectionist and short-tempered at producers sometimes. He ended his partnership with Mack after disagreements between the two escalated because of artistic differences. Despite the problems, Squier's third album Emotions In Motion was released in 1982 and became very successful, although in the long run, it did not catch its predecessor in sales. Nevertheless, the album hit No. 5 in both US and Canada, sold approximately three million copies, and spawned the successful radio and video hits "Emotions in Motion" and "Everybody Wants You". The latter is notable for being Squier's first No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock chart and holding the place for six weeks straight, more than any other number one in 1982. During the tour for Emotions in Motion, Squier and his band served as openers for the North American leg of Queen's 1982 Hot Space Tour and later, he finally became a headliner act for the first time. British newcomer Def Leppard supported him and he helped the band break through in the US, in conjunction with the release of their breakthrough album Pyromania.
Squier began writing songs for his fourth album Signs of Life in late 1983 after finishing his first headlining arena tour. He planned to have Robert John "Mutt" Lange as producer. However, Lange was already reserved by The Cars and suffered a breakdown afterward. Squier brought in Jim Steinman, whom he admired for Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell, which he described as "the most passionate and exciting rock record of our time". Steinman showed enthusiasm for the project and he got along well with Squier and his band, despite his role in the studio being significantly smaller than usual. The resulting album was a departure from Squier's typical guitar-heavy hard rock into a more keyboard-oriented style, with hints of Steinman's Wagnerian producing approach. When Signs of Life arrived in late July 1984, Squier was at the peak of his career. Fueled by the songs "Rock Me Tonite" and "All Night Long", the album brought his third consecutive platinum certification. The music video for "Rock Me Tonite", which featured Squier dancing in a bedroom wearing a pink tank top, proved a controversial choice by director Kenny Ortega. The 2011 book I Want My MTV promoted it as the worst video of all time. Martha Quinn, an MTV VJ when "Rock Me Tonite" was released, commented, "I don’t remember that video being poorly received at the time." Whether it was the video or the shift in music style or other factors, Squier stopped selling out shows. He dismissed both of his managers and insulted Ortega for misleading and deceiving him. Ortega has denied Squier's accusations.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
