Billy Idol on his first album in over a decade, surviving addiction, the Rock Hall and more
When Billy Idol first entered American consciousness in the early '80s, leather-clad and bleached hair in tow, he not only brought a punk rock sound to the mainstream. The Englishman brought a new attitude, a new, rebellious way of being.
In the time since, songs like 'White Wedding,' 'Rebel Yell' and 'Eyes Without a Face' have become instant classics — for those who've worn a spiky jacket and those who've only imagined what it might be like.
Now, over four decades later, he's got the wisdom to reflect. It's led to a new documentary about his life, 'Billy Idol Should Be Dead,' which will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival — and a new album, the polished punk-pop of 'Dream Into It.'
'It was a gradual process, really,' he said of 11 year span between albums. 'It wasn't so much that we didn't want to make an album, it was more like we were building up to doing this.'
Idol discussed with The Associated Press this week his new album and forthcoming documentary, his past struggles with addiction, his first-ever Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nomination and more.
Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.
AP: You've described 'Dream Into It' as autobiographical. I thought your last album, 2014's ' Kings & Queens of the Underground,' pulled from your life as well.
IDOL: Being this age, in particular, 69, when you look back, you can really see your whole life, how it plays out. And maybe it's also having grandchildren. My children are having children.
You sort of reach this vantage point where you can really look back and see all the sort of different eras of my life. And you can sing about it. And I think I didn't go deep enough with the songs I did on 'Kings and Queens.' I thought lyrically I could go deeper. That's one of those regrets I had about the last album. So I really went for it, and I went for more imagery, (on 'Dream Into It,' in the) way of talking about my life. I'm not spelling it out exactly.
AP: There are a lot of rock 'n' roll women on the album. Joan Jett, Avril Lavigne and The Kills' Alison Mosshart are all featured.
IDOL: (Mosshart's) voice is just incredible. And of course, Joan Jett, I've known since 1978 after a Germs/Dead Kennedys concert. We hung out at the Whiskey A Go Go in Los Angeles. I was on a Generation X promotion tour for the first album. And then Avril, I mean, I've just been watching her career forever and she's fantastic. So, it was just great.
AP: The documentary has an evocative title, 'Billy Idol Should Be Dead.' It sounds like it may dive into your past struggles with addiction.
IDOL: There was a point in my life when I was living like every day, like, 'Live every day as if it's your last.' One day, you're going to be right.
In the '70s, in England, you know, young people, we had this feeling that we were being completely ignored. You were even being told that you had no future. And so, we just didn't think beyond the day-to-day existence. It was probably only when I really started having children and stuff like that, I really starting to realize I (should) try start to give up drugs and things.
I've always flirted with death, in a way. Even riding motorcycles, you're staring at the concrete. It's right there, you can come off that thing and get horribly messed up. And I've done it. It's horrible. You find out how human you are, how vulnerable. There's lots of things about my life that, yeah, I did kind of call death at times. Not really mean to, but you just were living like that.
Imagine if it was today. If I was doing what I was back then today, I would be dead because I would have run into fentanyl.
AP: I've heard that sentiment from other performers.
IDOL: When we were young, with lots of drugs and stuff, one minute people were there and then next week they weren't.
We were just living the rock 'n' roll lifestyle 24/7, dressing like it, thinking like it. And in those days, it embraced drugs. It's just what it was like. I took acid at 12 and a half, 13 (years old.)
You get sucked into that world and it takes a hell of a long time to get away from it. And that's partly what I'm singing about in the album as well. There's a point in my life where I was very drug addicted, and it ruins relationships. Yeah, I'm lucky that I've kept the brain I've got, because some people went brain-dead and some people ended up in jail forever. Or dead.
AP: You're nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for the first time. Do you think your younger punk rock self would be excited?
IDOL: I do sort of think about Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry and Little Richard. 'And what? Are you going to be in something with those guys?' You know, Buddy Holly. These are some of the seminal people who turned on the people that turned me on, you know? Somewhere down the road, it led to punk rock.
Also, my motorcycle has been in the Rock & Roll of Fame for like five years. So I might as well be in it, too.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Metro
37 minutes ago
- Metro
Jack Grealish next club odds after Man City star axed from Club World Cup squad
Jack Grealish faces an increasingly uncertain future at Manchester City, with the Englishman expected to be left out of Pep Guardiola's squad for the Club World Cup. Grealish played a limited role for City towards the end of the season and was left out of the matchday squad for the final game of the season versus Fulham. The 29-year-old started just one league game in 2025, with Guardiola conceding the winger could move on in the summer. 'Of course, Jack has to play,' Guardiola said in May. 'He's an unbelievable player that has to play football every three days. 'It didn't happen this season and last season either. He needs to do it – with us or another place. Wake up to find news on your club in your inbox every morning with Metro's Football Newsletter. Sign up to our newsletter and then select your team in the link we'll send you so we can get football news tailored to you. 'It's a question for Jack, his agent, and the club. If he stays it will be fine and he fought like he fought from day one to make a contribution.' With several clubs circling ahead of the transfer window, the Telegraph reports that Grealish will not be in City's squad for the Club World Cup in what is perhaps the clearest indication yet that his future lies away from the Etihad. The decision is said to have been made to allow Grealish the best opportunity to find a new club ahead of next season. Securing a transfer away from Manchester may prove difficult given his £300,000-a-week wages, and an initial loan deal could well be on the cards. Perhaps hoping to take advantage of that loan opportunity could be Everton, who have been installed as the bookies favourites to sign Grealish. The Toffees enjoyed a resurgent second half of the season under David Moyes and will look to kick on next campaign as they move into their new stadium. Antonio Conte's side could be in the market for a new left-sided attacker after selling Khvicha Kvaratskhelia to PSG in January and Italy has proven a great place for ex-Premier League stars to find another lease of life. Everton – 7/2 Tottenham – 4/1 Napoli – 9/2 Newcastle 5/1 Aston Villa – 6/1 AC Milan – 13/2 Any Saudi Pro League club – 16/1 Nottingham Forest – 16/1 Odds courtesy of Bet365 (subject to change) Grealish need only look at how Scott McTominay has blossomed since joining Napoli from Manchester United last summer, with the Scotland midfielder recently named Serie A MVP. Tottenham and Newcastle have also been touted as favourites to make a move for Grealish as both sides look to fill out their squads ahead of a return to the Champions League. More Trending And a return to Aston Villa could also be on the cards, with Grealish's former club priced at 6/1 to make a swoop for their former star. Wherever he may end up, Alan Shearer believes it is imperative that Grealish departs the Etihad as soon as possible, saying after the FA Cup final: 'His time is up at Man City. He has to leave. 'For Pep Guardiola to bring on a debutant, a young boy, and [Ilkay] Gundogan rather than Jack Grealish when Man City are desperate for a goal… his time is up. 'He's done at Man City, he has to leave. For whatever reason Pep is done with him, he doesn't like him. His time is up, it really is.' For more stories like this, check our sport page. Follow Metro Sport for the latest news on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. MORE: Leny Yoro names shock ex-Arsenal star as 'toughest striker' he's ever faced MORE: Lisandro Martinez makes Man Utd transfer decision after surprise Napoli links MORE: Why are Chelsea playing in the Club World Cup 2025?
ITV News
2 hours ago
- ITV News
Bruce Springsteen fans arrive in Liverpool for ''The Boss'' gig
American rockstar Bruce Springsteen will take to the stage later in Liverpool for his first ever performance in the city.
South Wales Argus
3 hours ago
- South Wales Argus
Groundbreaking gay author Edmund White dies at 85
White's death was confirmed on Wednesday by his agent, Bill Clegg, who did not immediately provide additional details. Along with Larry Kramer, Armistead Maupin and others, White was among a generation of gay writers who in the 1970s became bards for a community no longer afraid to declare its existence. He was present at the Stonewall raids of 1969, when arrests at a club in Greenwich Village led to the birth of the modern gay movement, and for decades was a participant and observer through the tragedy of Aids, the advance of gay rights and culture and the backlash of recent years. A resident of New York and Paris for much of his adult life, he was a novelist, journalist, biographer, playwright, activist, teacher and memoirist. Author Edmund White at his home in New York in 2019 (Mary Altaffer/AP) A Boy's Own Story was a bestseller and classic coming-of-age novel that demonstrated gay literature's commercial appeal. He wrote a prizewinning biography of playwright Jean Genet and books on Marcel Proust and Arthur Rimbaud. He was a professor of creative writing at Princeton University, where colleagues included Toni Morrison and his close friend, Joyce Carol Oates. He was an encyclopaedic reader who absorbed literature worldwide while returning yearly to such favourites as Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Henry Green's Nothing. 'Among gay writers of his generation, Edmund White has emerged as the most versatile man of letters,' cultural critic Morris Dickstein wrote in The New York Times in 1995. 'A cosmopolitan writer with a deep sense of tradition, he has bridged the gap between gay subcultures and a broader literary audience.' In early 1982, just as the public was learning about Aids, White was among the founders of Gay Men's Health Crisis, which advocated Aids prevention and education. The author himself would learn that he was HIV-positive in 1985, and would remember friends afraid to be kissed by him, even on the cheek, and parents who did not want him to touch their babies. White survived, but watched countless peers and loved ones die. Out of the seven gay men, including White, who formed the influential writing group the Violet Quill, four died of complications from Aids. As White wrote in his elegiac novel The Farewell Symphony, the story followed a shocking arc: 'Oppressed in the fifties, freed in the sixties, exalted in the seventies and wiped out in the eighties.' But in the 1990s he lived to see gay people granted the right to marry and serve in the military, to see gay-themed books taught in schools and to see gay writers so widely published that they no longer needed to write about gay lives. 'We're in this post-gay period where you can announce to everybody that you yourself are gay, and you can write books in which there are gay characters, but you don't need to write exclusively about that,' he said in a Salon interview in 2009. 'Your characters don't need to inhabit a ghetto any more than you do. A straight writer can write a gay novel and not worry about it, and a gay novelist can write about straight people.' In 2019, White received a National Book Award medal for lifetime achievement, an honour previously given to Morrison and Philip Roth among others. 'To go from the most maligned to a highly lauded writer in a half-century is astonishing,' White said during his acceptance speech. White was born in Cincinnati in 1940, but age at seven moved with his mother to the Chicago area after his parents divorced. His father was a civil engineer, his mother a psychologist 'given to rages or fits of weeping'. Trapped in 'the closed, snivelling, resentful world of childhood,' at times suicidal, White was at the same time a 'fierce little autodidact' who sought escape through the stories of others, whether Thomas Mann's Death In Venice or a biography of the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. 'As a young teenager I looked desperately for things to read that might excite me or assure me I wasn't the only one, that might confirm my identity I was unhappily piecing together,' he wrote in the essay Out Of The Closet, On To The Bookshelf, published in 1991. Even as he secretly wrote a 'coming out' novel while a teenager, he insisted on seeing a therapist and begged to be sent to boarding school. Edmund White was one of the leading gay American authors (Mary Altaffer/AP) After graduating from the University of Michigan, where he majored in Chinese, he moved to New York in the early 1960s and worked for years as a writer for Time-Life Books and an editor for The Saturday Review. He would interview Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote among others, and, for some assignments, was joined by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Socially, he met William S Burroughs, Jasper Johns, Christopher Isherwood and John Ashbery. He remembered drinking espresso with an ambitious singer named Naomi Cohen, whom the world would soon know as 'Mama Cass' of the Mamas and Papas. He feuded with Kramer, Gore Vidal and Susan Sontag, an early supporter who withdrew a blurb for 'A Boy's Own Story' after he caricatured her in the novel Caracole. 'In all my years of therapy I never got to the bottom of my impulse toward treachery, especially toward people who'd helped me and befriended me,' he later wrote. Through much of the 1960s, he was writing novels that were rejected or never finished. Late at night, he would 'dress as a hippie, and head out for the bars'. A favourite stop was the Stonewall and he was in the neighbourhood on the night of June 28 1969, when police raided the Stonewall and 'all hell broke loose.' 'Up until that moment we had all thought homosexuality was a medical term,' wrote White, who soon joined the protests. 'Suddenly we saw that we could be a minority group — with rights, a culture, an agenda.' His works included Skinned Alive: Stories and the novel A Previous Life, in which he turns himself into a fictional character and imagines himself long forgotten after his death. In 2009, he published City Boy, a memoir of New York in the 1960s and 1970s in which he told of his friendships and rivalries and gave the real names of fictional characters from his earlier novels. 'From an early age I had the idea that writing was truth-telling,' he told The Guardian. 'It's on the record. Everybody can see it. Maybe it goes back to the sacred origins of literature – the holy book. 'There's nothing holy about it for me, but it should be serious and it should be totally transparent.'
