Billy Joel hasn’t been hiding lately — the 67-year-old pop-rock legend is on a well-deserved victory lap, regularly playing his hits to sold-out arenas when he’s not taking care of his infant daughter. But, Joel has famously not released a new album since 1993’s River Of Dreams. Aside from recording a handful of covers (Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Lloyd Price, Gerry Goffin & Carole King) and standards duets, Mr. Piano (that’s his nickname, right?) has shared only two non-instrumental songs in the past 24 years: “All My Life,” a 2007 Valentine’s ballad for his third ex-wife, and “Christmas In Fallujah,” a charity collaboration with his daughter’s ex-boyfriend Cass Dillon the same year. So it’s quite a surprise that he “is planning a potential collaboration with a major pop star,” according to The LA Times. That pop star is Pink…

Joel says he quit writing songs because his standards were so high that the process became a source of agony. “I’d turn into a caveman — walk around kicking things,” he said. But he also lost interest in what was going on in pop.

Yet a spark of the old songwriter remains. As Joel sipped Crown Royal from a plastic cup in the moments before he went onstage, he mentioned that he and Pink had recently gotten together and thrown around some ideas. He wasn’t sure what would come of it but said he’d had a good time.

Intriguing. You can check out the whole profile, which is running in advance of Joel’s first show at Dodger Stadium on 5/13, here.

This is the best part:

When he plays cities outside New York he likes to drop in bits of songs by local artists. [In Atlanta] they ran through a few bars of “Stand” by R.E.M., which felt like somebody’s dad had crashed the college kegger. Joel winced. “Not doing that,” he said.

Smart man.