Kevin James Talks Playing with Billy Joel, Playing Cops

Timothy Kuratek/CBS ©2016 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved(NEW YORK) — Actor Kevin James and Billy Joel are both from Long Island, New York, and they’re pals: Kevin even appeared on stage with Billy twice last year — and on Live with Kelly, he told Kelly Ripa and her guest co-host Busy Phillips what the experience was like.

In 2015, James appeared on stage with Billy the night he broke the record for the most shows ever performed at New York’s Madison Square Garden by a solo artist.

James also appeared on stage with Billy a few months later, when Billy played the final show before Long Island’s most famous concert venue, the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

James explained that he and Billy plotted to prank the audience by having the actor come out and play the intro to “Miami: 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)” on piano — intentionally badly.

“That’s all I learned was the beginning, James explained. “I played it and played it, and I thought I was getting really good…I was rehearsing with him, and I said, ‘Look…I’m kind of wondering if I should play a little worse, so people don’t recognize it.”

“And he said, ‘I don’t think you could.’ He literally said that without missing a beat. And I was like, ‘Oh, OK: We will go with what I have then. We’re good.”

The former King of Queens star’s new sitcom, Kevin Can Wait, debuts on CBS Monday night at 8:30 p.m. It’s set in Long Island, and casts James as a retired police officer whose wife and three kids have to adapt to him being home with nothing to do. He admitted he’s “not as brave” as many of his friends, who became cops in real life. “That’s why I never played a real cop…I played a mall cop…they knew…that’s the only way that was going to be viable.”

James told Ripa and Phillips he “fought” to film the show in Long Island, New York, from where he and Joel hail, and where’s the show is set, “as Long Island is a character in the show.” It’s the first episodic sitcom to be filmed there — and it’s why James thinks he might convince Billy to appear on the show, as the actor previously told Newsweek.