Billy Joel's wife Alexis was "unimpressed" with his fame and talent when they first met.

The 76-year-old musician did everything he could to impress Alexis, 43, with his musical skills after they first met at a restaurant in 2009 but it was actually his cooking and their travel adventures that won her over.

Speaking in the new HBO documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes, he said: "When you meet someone who captures your imagination, it renews. I remember the first time I met Alexis, we went to my house, and I wanted to play the piano for her. It's a form of communication for me.

"I'm playing that [a song by the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff] and she's completely unimpressed with it, totally. She couldn't care less what I'm playing and I'm thinking, 'Oh OK, this isn't working'. She was very unimpressed with the whole Billy Joel thing, which impressed me. Because I thought, 'OK, maybe she's just here because she likes me, not the Billy Joel guy.'"

Alexis - who tied the knot with Billy in 2015 and went on to welcome daughters Della, nine, and Remy, seven - revealed Billy used to cook for her when she came home from her finance job and added: "We had a couple years together before we had kids and he had completely stopped doing shows. We travelled everywhere. We did a motorcycle trip from Maine down to Long Island, we were on boats 24/7. We were in Europe. We had so much fun."

Meanwhile, Billy's longtime booking agent Dennis Arfa, shared how happy he is to see Billy "raising his children and being so in love with them and Alexis and his family".

Speaking about the star - who is taking a break from touring due to his diagnosis of the brain condition Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH), Dennis told PEOPLE: "It's quite rewarding. I'm always rooting for Billy's happiness and his success. I've seen Billy have a lot of happy times through his life, [but] he's had to deal with certain adversity. I'm happy for him in this chapter, and I'm looking forward to the next chapter with him."