Billy Idol - 'Billy Idol Should Be Dead'

18:25Billy Idol:But he wrote it in capital letters, and I just thought my dad's going to kill me, but I always remembered that. And then so for a short time in punk rock, I was calling myself Billy Idle, I-D-L-E, you know, and then a lady was writing a piece for Sounds magazine. Caroline Coon was writing a piece for Sounds magazine about the Sex Pistol fans. She was calling us the Bromley contingent because a lot of us came from Bromley. That's where I was living. We were all pals, Susie in the bench, Steve Severin and Susie Sue, who lived in Bromley or Chislehurst or all around that area. And Bowie came from that, from Beckenham Bromley and also from Brick Brixton and also Peter Frampton.

19:13Billy Idol:They kind of all went to this Bromley Technical School. But anyway, there was a number of people who came out of Bromley. So anyway, she was going to do a piece about the Bromley contingent, these Sex Pistol fans, who we were Sex Pistol fans, following them out. And she said, well, what do you want to be called in this interview? And I said, well, I was Billy IDLE. She said, well, what about Eric Idle of Monty Python? That's his real name. And I went, oh. So she said, well, look, you've got 24 hours. Tell me tomorrow. And by the next day, I said, Billy IDOL. And that's when I kind of went for it.

19:57Scott Feinberg:And it kind of is appropriate for somebody in punk, right? Because of all the other Sid Vicious, Johnny Rodden, everybody had a kind of a cutesy name, right?

20:06Billy Idol:Yeah, and it was kind of be your own hero. I was going to be my own hero kind of thing. But also it was much better for the 80s. That's the other thing too, is because then you had Madonna, Billy Idol, Prince. You know, like it sort of actually worked for the 80s much better than it did work for punk, but it works, super worked for the 80s. So it's like I already was creating something that could go on into the 80s without knowing it.

20:31Scott Feinberg:I think one thing that people associate with you, and it was on the cover of Rolling Stone and everywhere, the sneer. Was that something that was just natural or was that part of the creation of this character in a way, Billy Idol? I mean, when you're in your daily life, I think from what I recall of the documentary that I think your family would not necessarily call you Billy Idol. They would call you William or something, your actual name. So I imagine to some degree, Billy Idol's a character that you're playing is the sneer part of the character.

21:07Billy Idol:Well, yeah, I suppose so, yeah. You know, I did develop a persona to be on stage, I suppose, is, you know, what you'd say. Yeah, you just wanted to, you know, we were out to entertain other people our age, really, and that's the other few people that were into this music, because there was only a few people into it. I don't know, in the whole of England, it can only have been a couple of thousand who were seriously into it, like in terms of like, you know, really into it, like, you know, following what was going on and CBGBs and, you know, like I had the little white label of Johnny Jewell by television and, you know, we were like really seriously following what was happening.

21:48Billy Idol:But, yeah, we worked sort of like out to sort of create a sort of a stage persona, a little bit different from William Broad in a way, but not that it's not me. It's just heightened. It's heightened. Yeah, it's exaggerated. You know, it's you performing a song that's saying something. Right. You're going to dig into what the song lyrics are saying and sort of project that. And that's a little bit probably where the sneer came. I think Sid Vicious used to do it a bit as well.

22:18Scott Feinberg:And to an extent, maybe a little bit Elvis, right? He kind of had a lip curl or whatever, you know, sort of. I don't know.

22:26Billy Idol:Yeah, of course. Yeah, sort of a bit of an Elvis fan too.

22:28Scott Feinberg:Well, one of the really interesting things I learned from the documentary is that, you know, I guess there was kind of a, because maybe there weren't so many people that were into the punk scene in the early days, they were very, the people who were, were very kind of proprietary about it. And there was this idea that if you weren't, or the fact that you were kind of more middle class and that you were a good looking guy and all of that in a way made some people initially in the early days resist you.

23:06Billy Idol:What did you make of that? Well, it was in England, yeah, the punk rock movement was very working class. That's the way it was. It wasn't really looked upon in the same way in America. You didn't get that feeling that the groups at CBGBs weren't sort of making class a big distinction, I didn't think necessarily. But in the punk rock scene in England, yeah, it was a little bit, was a working class, kind of a bit more of a working class movement. But at the same time, I mean, we were just seriously into it and didn't really think about that. You only ran into that when you were still doing interviews and stuff.

23:43Billy Idol:They started to run into some journalists who were working class themselves, and so they wanted it to be this pristine working class movement. I felt like punk could be for everybody, really. It was all to do with you coming up with what your songs were about. And I think in terms of Generation X, we sort of made our songs more about social messages, where, say, the Clash were more political. Even the Pistols had a political side with anarchy in the UK. Well, I think we had a very young audience. We had a very young teenage audience. So we made the songs more about social issues. I've been thinking like we're stuck on the subway in New York going on.

24:29Billy Idol:There's a thing in London, the Tube, Circle Line. We're stuck on the day by day or on a kind of a, like we're automatons just on a circle line going round and round and being made to work for other people. So we just wrote songs more about teenage problems, really. And there were other groups a bit like that, like there was a band from Northern Ireland that was on teenage kicks. There was other bands. We had a very young image. I looked like I was 16, even though I was 20. You know, I looked like I was 16. I looked five years younger.

25:04Scott Feinberg:Yeah, yeah.

25:05Billy Idol:So we got a very young audience anyway, yeah.

25:07Scott Feinberg:Well, so you arrive in America in 81, March 81, as we've said, Dancing With Myself is already playing in clubs and everything when you arrive. But you were looking for your new songwriting partner to succeed, Tony James. And through management, I guess is how you've said you came to Steve Stevens. Yes, Steve Stevens. And my question, though, is how much do you think that timing generally played in your favor? The fact that you guys were introduced and met and connected when you did, but also that 81, I believe, is also the exact same year that MTV goes on the air. First 24-7 cable network dealing with music, centering on music, music videos.

26:00Scott Feinberg:I mean, do you think that this new solo artist that's coming out at that time, Billy Idol, separate from Generation X and everything before it, could Billy Idol have taken off in the way that he did without A, Steve, or B, MTV?

26:18Billy Idol:Yeah, probably not, no. I mean, I had a manager, Bill O 'Coin, he managed Kiss, and he'd been in television initially in the sort of late 60s, early 70s, and he still had a finger in television. He knew there was going to be this 24-hour cable, music cable channel. They didn't have a name for it yet. He just knew there was going to be this 24-hour music cable channel and that I would be perfect for it. That's what he knew. So I wanted to come to America anyway. I knew if I'd stayed in England, there's a chance nothing would happen. Just because in England, things go through very fast. I mean, you can do a tour of England in three weeks and it's over.

27:01Billy Idol:You know, that's where's America. Yeah. Three weeks, you've only just begun. You know, it's going to take three years to do the whole of America, you know. But Bill knew that MTV was coming and I'd be perfect for it. And then also he had met Steve. He'd been following Steve Stevens' career in New York. And when I came to New York, he said, you should meet Steve and just see if he's the right guy. And once I met him, I was looking at other people as well, but once I met Steve, I really liked him right from the word go. And once I saw what he could do on the guitar, I knew this is the guy. I can go anywhere I want with this guy.

27:42Billy Idol:Whatever I want to do, he can do it. and that was just huge because we had a great guitarist in Generation X Bob Durwood Andrews was a great guitarist and I knew I needed a great guitarist and there was Steve Bill O 'Coin knew him and I liked him immediately and then I just said to him initially man I need to put a group together because we'd done this EP this Don't Stop EP which I'd just used a pickup band that Keith had put together and Keith Forsey had put together in LA. So I said to Steve, I've done this EP, I really need to put a band together. What about if we just put a band together and we'll see if we just like working together?

28:29Billy Idol:And that's what we did. We liked working together and we just kept going, really.

28:34Scott Feinberg:And so in 82 is that first studio album, Billy Idol, which just proud people's just to remind people that's white wedding hot in the city white wedding i think you said you came up with in 20 minutes which is incredible i let you go for so long it's a nice day to start again

29:00Billy Idol:come on it's a nice day for a white wedding It's a nice day to start again

29:15Scott Feinberg:And that was really the first example, I think, maybe of a music video catapulting you to an even higher level, right? Because the song charted okay, not bad at all, but the music video for that, and then a year later with the second studio album, Rebel Yell, with those two is when music videos really began to be almost synonymous with you, right?

29:42Billy Idol:Well, there was a kind of a pushback from the radio when they sort of discovered that I had a punk rock image because they believed that punk rock image doesn't sell advertising dollars. Well, once MTV got really going and then the kids watching the television, and seeing the videos, they would like the music. They start asking, you know, phoning up the radio stations, we want this music. The platform of MTV soon showed these radio stations that there was, you know, they could sell advertising dollars and it all fell away, you know. I'm sure the other artists were facing that too. I'm sure Prince in a way and maybe Cindy Lauper, we were all facing this kind of, people didn't want to let go of the 70s, you know, but we were out to prove the 80s was going to be great, you know.

30:33Billy Idol:Yeah. And so, yeah, MTV gave me this sort of platform that I could, it helped me to break all over the world because as MTV grew, my fandom grew.

30:44Scott Feinberg:And that was the reason why, you know, some people might say, why were artists like Billy and others, well, you know, I think Mick Jagger might have been the first, why were you guys willing to do the I want my MTV promos when they didn't really have any money to offer you at that time? But your philosophy, I think, has always been because that's actually helping myself, right?

31:05Billy Idol:I just believed right from the start that MTV was going to go mega. You just knew. They just didn't have a lot of videos, really. What's the word I'm looking for? They didn't have a lot of content. But then we were coming up with the content for them, really. So it was like a symbiotic relationship, really, where they had the platform but didn't have the content. we had the ability to provide the content, music and imagery. And that was exciting because punk was very much about that. It was very much about creating your own image. You were creating yourself. You know, it wasn't somebody else, it was no Svengali somewhere saying, you're going to be called Billy Idol, you're going to wear this haircut, you're going to wear these shoes, you're going to sing this song.

31:51Billy Idol:No, no, it was us saying, I'm going to call myself Billy Idol, I'm going to wear these shoes, I'm going to have this haircut, I'm going to curl my lip. I'm going to sneer. I'm going to like, I'm going to go crazy up there. I'm going to have sex with you if I can, you know, sort of thing. You know, so you just, but anyway, that's, that's, I think that's the thing. They had the platform, but we had the content. They needed us. We needed them. And it was the way to break the stranglehold of the 70s radio was through this platform. Also too, the college radio really helped a lot. College Radio helped break White Wedding, which then the video then went mega.

32:28Billy Idol:And the same thing with Rebel Yell and Eyes Without a Face. It just, it kept getting bigger and bigger. The more MTV expanded and the more people saw, the more they're into the new music, into the new fashions. And they started to forget about the 70s. You know, they started to think about the 80s as being a bona fide decade with its own look, its own sound, its own stars.

32:52Scott Feinberg:And as you say, these things fueled each other because, I mean, Eyes Without a Face is a terrific song, but MTV calls attention to it, and then all of a sudden you have, at that point, I think your highest charting song yet, number four, all the way to number four on the Hot 100 with Eyes Without a Face, and the album I think also went to number four, Rebel Yell, the highest. Number six, I think. Number six. Take the credit. I think so. I think so. No, so...

33:22Billy Idol:Yeah, too, the other thing, too, was, yeah, breaking through with Eyes Without a Face with a ballad. Yes. Because obviously people are used to this sort of up-tempo stuff. But then breaking through and having my biggest single was really this mega ballad, which then Steve had that explosive guitar riff in the middle. Nobody was quite doing a song like that at that time. I think the nearest thing, too, was Drive by the Cars, but they didn't have an explosive guitar riff in the middle. It was just a basic ballad. Whereas we went from a ballad into an explosive piece, almost like a rap piece, which is kind of what I was doing because I was watching Grandmaster Flash and African Bombata and all those sort of bands at the Ritz or wherever, around New York.

34:09Billy Idol:So I kind of did a rap. It's not my own way of doing a rap. So in a way, we sort of smorgasbord a number of things together. Yeah. But that was huge, I think, going, you know, we'd had White Weddings and Dancing With Us and Rebel Yells, but now we had a massive ballad. I think people then knew, oh, Billy Idol can do... A bunch of things. He can do... Yeah, he can go all over the map, which is what I knew I could do with Steve Stevens. Eyes without a face Eyes without a face God knows you can preach Your eyes without a bitch

35:06Scott Feinberg:And I'll just note that some of the music videos that people still talk about and remember frame by frame because they probably watched them in rotation for weeks on end. Certainly White Wedding, which I think you said was with David Mallett, Dancing with Myself, Toby Hooper, and then Cradle of...

35:25Billy Idol:Yeah, that's the other thing I wanted to bring into making the videos. I wanted to bring in people who made movies. And I liked Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It was an independent movie. I thought someone like Toby Hooper could bring that independent kind of vision into a music video. Totally. And also then we worked with the guy who did Howard the Duck or whatever it was. He did Flesh for Fantasy. So I worked with a number of people who sort of brought film directors into.

35:53Scott Feinberg:I just want to make sure that you get credit for, you were ahead of the movies on David Fincher with Cradle of Love.

36:00Billy Idol:Yes, that's the other thing too. We worked with people like that who are going to be massive in the sort of film world.

36:07Scott Feinberg:And that one, Cradle of Love, wins the MTV VMA for best video from a film. I know, rock the cradle

36:21Billy Idol:But it's a way to turn so low Yeah, rock the cradle

36:34Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

36:43Scott Feinberg:It's funny to listen to people who, I think Adam Levine, for instance, and other people today, they said their sexual awakening was the girl crawling across the floor. So anyway, you had numerous impacts on people in different ways.

36:57Billy Idol:Yes, I think Miley Cyrus says they were like pornography. the only downside i guess to the mtv association and the video musics was that

37:08Scott Feinberg:it brought in a different sort of fame than you had been accustomed to i think you've said that over the ensuing years it actually almost got to be too much where you know it's one thing to have people people who are fans of music but when you bring in the visuals it's a it's a whole different bargain.

37:27Billy Idol:Yeah, then it didn't matter if people, you know, they knew you from your image and whether they liked your music or not, you know, so that the whole world knows who you are, whether they like your music or not. So that was kind of a big difference to just people, the cool people knowing who you were. Because initially, you know, in New York, that's the people who knew who I was, knew about what was going on in England, you know, they knew what had happened but yeah as things exploded with mtv and then the kind of people at home i was in the people's front rooms basically and it didn't matter whether you yeah you know it became more about that uh everybody in the world kind of whether they like music or not knew who knew that if they saw the blonde spiker here that's billy idol right and then people could even recognize me by my lips you know i could be wearing a hat a miller high life t-shirt sandals board shorts someone him i've voice and then go, your lips, you're Billy Idol.

38:25Billy Idol:That's how crazy it got. And so that wasn't so easy to deal with. And then you tended to get trapped in little rooms because if you walked outside of one of these little rooms that you were in, things could go crazy. Yeah.

38:39Scott Feinberg:You know, so. Well, it was around that time, I think you've said that, you know, drugs became a bigger part of your life. And I wonder if that was a coincidence or if that was a, if you would attribute that to almost being like a coping mechanism to having, you know, you lose your anonymity, you become this, this famous as you were at that point after Rebel Yell. I mean, the fact that it was then three years before Whiplash Smile, the next album, which obviously, you know, the music remained great. Even that's one of the things that's kind of most amazing to me when you talk in the documentary about the volume and variety of of drugs that you you were dabbling with over the years like the the you were still unbelievably prolific and the quality of the music was great with whiplash smile that's to be a lover number six on the hot 100 sweet 16 on and on and yet i wonder what do you think if you were to kind of think back at that time what was fueling the kind of desire and eventually addiction to drugs?

39:43Scott Feinberg:Is it stress of dealing with what you're now dealing with? Is it pressure to maintain a certain level of success? Is it something else? What do you think was going on then?

39:55Billy Idol:Yes, all those things really in lots of ways. Yeah, you are sort of faced with following up what you've already done, trying to keep the ball rolling in terms of success and that. And obviously you want to do stuff, you want to do good work. That's what you really want to do. But you're up against a kind of, yeah, you're starting to be up against deadlines and stuff like that, which that hadn't been a problem before that much. But, yeah, a lot of pressure and stuff. And, of course, nothing really prepares you for success, really. You know, nothing. I mean, you just, you'd no idea really until you, until it's happening to you what it's really like.

40:39Billy Idol:So a lot of it is, yeah, that does take a lot to deal with it. And I think, yeah, lots of ways once, especially as your world was in some ways expanding so much, in other ways it was shrinking, you know, you were looking for ways to still sort of have experiences and that. And one way of doing that was sort of like, was sort of, because we're looking for how to write songs. you need experiences, you know. You can't do everything by just observing others, you're observing yourself. Well, you need experiences, you need things to happen. And I think in some ways you use drugs for that sort of, to speed up time so that things happen, then you have things to write about, you know.

41:21So I think there's that that goes along with

41:26Billy Idol:wanting to keep success going, is that, yeah, you're sort of looking for a way to have experiences, that you can write about. And how do you write about just being stuck in a little room? Right.

41:36Scott Feinberg:After a while, you can't. Well, and I know that with Whiplash Smile, you've said the other thing, that you were in the midst of all the different challenges that you were facing at that time, that it was still a desire to show a different side of yourself. I mean, that one is with To Be A Lover, for instance, or others. That's a different, maybe more vulnerable, more romantic side of yourself than you'd ever allowed yourself to show before.

42:05Billy Idol:Yeah, well, I was in love with Perry Lister at the time, although we were kind of breaking up. So, yeah, that was the thing. You were going to write about what was happening to you in your daily life. So a lot of that album was about our relationship. And, yeah, that's kind of what you just started to do. Whatever was happening in your life, you wrote about it. and whatever it was. Yeah.

42:59Billy Idol:In some ways that opened, just embracing sort of different subjects or embracing singing about this love affair was sort of, in another way, opened me up to a load of other people being into my music because you weren't just singing about some of the sort of things in punk were just, you know, you were expanding your subject matter really. That's what I was doing over time. one way or another. I was, by doing that, by writing about whatever your experiences were and not being frightened to share that with people. And I started to do that on my first solo album, and that carried on on Rebel Yell, Whiplash Smile, and Charmed Life and to this present day.

43:45Scott Feinberg:Absolutely. Just to come back for one second, if you don't mind, to the kind of idea of what might lead somebody to fall into addiction or whatever. Why do you think people from the world of punk are associated with it in one way or another? Lou Reed, you know, the Sex Pistols, the New York Dolls, so many others, including at one point yourself. Why was heroin the drug for so many people that were involved with punk?

44:13Billy Idol:Yeah, I don't know, really. I don't know exactly why. I just think, well, in England, it's really easy to get a hold of, you know.

44:22Scott Feinberg:That helps.

44:23Billy Idol:we're on a direct thing from Afghanistan to Paris to London like this. So maybe there's that element, but I suppose really it's just there is no one telling you not to do things in a way. You're wide open to whatever you want to do. And I think you're exploring sexual things just as you're exploring music, you're exploring sort of the drug world as well, and just sort of it became part of it. It wasn't just me doing it. The whole scene was going in that direction. I think we weren't closing ourselves off from things. And at first, drugs kind of do... There's a honeymoon period where they do help you to write songs or whatever or come up with ideas.

45:10Billy Idol:But then after a short time, that honeymoon closes down and then you find that you're imprisoning yourself. but it takes a while for you to realize that's what's happening, you know.

45:25Scott Feinberg:And you say there's no one to tell you no, but what's one of the more poignant things about the doc, I think, is that your father, with whom you'd had a kind of strained relationship going back to when he couldn't really understand you as a kid, and you talk about there's a few years where you just kind of got the silent treatment or whatever, he stepped up when you really needed it. Maybe you didn't welcome it in the moment, but it was, he kind of rose to the occasion, right? Yeah, he did really.

45:53Billy Idol:And I really needed that at that time. You needed somebody telling you they super cared about you. Yeah. And that, yeah, the road you were going down could end up in disaster. And that's obviously not what we were trying to do. We were just trying to sort of like expand our horizons and sort of live this kind of rock and roll life that we'd read about or dreamt about, really. But at the same time, you didn't want it to destroy you, so it was great that there was someone like my dad and my mum and dad cared enough to kind of come and rescue me at times when I was getting too close to the edge, you know.

46:32Billy Idol:And that happened a number of times, you know. But somehow I got through it, you know.

46:37Scott Feinberg:And we'll just say the rest of the 80s, with your Vital Idol remix album in 87 is the one with your second time covering Money, Money. First one, I think, had been back in 81. Now this one is the one that becomes your first number one or your number one on the Hot 100.

47:02Billy Idol:Here she come now, say, money, money

47:09Billy Idol:Shoot him down, turn around, come on, moaning

47:16Billy Idol:Hey, just give me love and I feel all right now You gotta toss that turn and feel all right

47:27Scott Feinberg:And one of the crazy things, I don't even know that this was, I think I came across this in other research, not from the documentary, But did you remember that your, so this is your cover of Tommy James and the Shondells, right? But when it went to number one, it displaced another cover of Tommy James and the Shondells. That was, I think we're alone now. So that's, yeah, crazy that that back-to-back weeks.

47:52Billy Idol:And there's also Joan Jett doing Crimson and Clover around the same time. There's like a huge Tommy James, the Shondells revival kind of thing.

48:00Scott Feinberg:They probably didn't know what hit them there. Suddenly they're back. But the rest of the 80s, so, you know, there's the great big tour supporting Whiplash Smile. You're moved to L.A., I think, in 88, I believe, right to where we're sitting now is where you came. Then, unfortunately, I guess, you know, in the way that they talk about, like, I guess Altamont was the end of the 60s, even if it was whatever. Like, for you, it was this terrible motorcycle accident was the end of the 80s, right? Because this is, even though it's February 6, 1990, you've just finished Charm Life and you're getting your life in a good place.

48:35Scott Feinberg:And then, shit, you know, you can't catch a break with that one. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess the question, though, is do you think you came away from that accident and the long recovery a different person?

48:53Billy Idol:Well, a little bit in the sense that I had already been trying to, like, kick heroin and stuff in the late 80s. And this was like the final kind of, you know, because I was on this kind of massive pain, you know, pain box. And it was this kind of pure morphine. And I was really going, when are you ever going to be this high again? Never. So I knew really that this was the final thing really that sort of showed me I had to get off drugs really. So gradually through the 90s, I gradually started to put drugs in the rearview mirror. It just took a really long time. It takes much longer to get off them than it does to get on them.

49:46Scott Feinberg:And not many people don't. So it's really kind of an incredible achievement and testament to you that you, I mean, there are a lot of people from your contemporaries who aren't here.

49:59Billy Idol:Yeah. There's a lot of people. I remember, you know, people dropping off along the way, you know, like there'd be, you know, a girlfriend or something. You should be working at the limelight behind the bar, you know, and then the next week you're not there, you know. because so it was happening all the time, not just the people in the groups. The whole scene was like that. And, yeah, and then also I started having children too and then what are you saying to them, you know, over time? What are you saying to your children that you can't live in a world without drugs or anything, you know? Right, right.

50:32Billy Idol:So it's another thing I just thought I've got to get off to save my own life but also, yeah, for what am I saying to other people?

50:40Scott Feinberg:Totally. And once you were literally back on your feet after the accident, I'll just note that you have Cradle of Love, the single from that goes to number two. You got creative, I think, even with the music video. You couldn't be... I know there were things that the accident cost you, which you talk about in depth in the doc, you know, the doors, the part, the larger part in the doors.

51:02Billy Idol:Yeah, Michael Madsen's part, I would have done that, which you never know, that could have opened up a whole other thing. Although whether I would really have been in the right frame of mind to really have an acting career, I don't know, because I was a bit of a drug addict at the time. But there again, I nearly was the Terminator 2 as well. That would have been incredible, you know. And then I would have just done whatever James Cameron said, you know, because I wouldn't have had a clue, really. I would have just done whatever he told me to do. I would have just done it, you know.

51:36Scott Feinberg:But as you say, maybe it was actually all a blessing in disguise because the 90s, it seems like largely, yes, there was still new music you're putting out with cyberpunk, and then there was a gap after that. But it seems like that was maybe a period that it was good that you could get yourself together and be at home with your family and do those things that...

51:59Billy Idol:Yeah, you see, my son was living with me one week on, one week off because me and his mother had broken up. And I was taking him to school and stuff like that. I actually was enjoying being his dad in some ways. It was like it was a kind of a way of getting away from the drugs and stuff. Yeah. And I was enjoying that in lots of ways. I had a daughter as well, Bonnie. And so I was sort of being a bit of a parent as well. And that's sort of how the two worlds go together. I don't know 100 % if they do.

52:33Scott Feinberg:Well, and one thing that the doc I don't believe referenced but was a big thing for people of my generation was you show up in The Wedding Singer. And that was 97, I believe, 98. Yeah. And 98. And I still laugh whenever I think about it. What was it? Don't you talk to Billy Idol that way or whatever. So, you know, you were never out of the minds of people, but it was just, and then you said when, by the time you came back, I think it was 12 years after that sixth album, after Cyberpunk, you come back in 05 with Devil's Playground. By that point, the kind of level of fame or the heat of the fame that had existed before was more manageable, right?

53:20Scott Feinberg:Yeah. And that helps a lot too.

53:22Billy Idol:I mean, because I watched what was going on, like, I watched what happened to Britney Spears, you know what I mean? and you could see how the paparazzi, how the level of fame, it can drive you nuts. Yes.

53:35Scott Feinberg:Yeah, totally.

53:35Billy Idol:You know, and so there was an element I sort of backed, I was glad in a way I backed off a bit because I don't know if I would be here today in this frame of mind if I hadn't have got control of myself back then, you know, because it could have driven me nuts and I might not be here today. I much prefer to be here today.

53:59Scott Feinberg:Us too. In the years after Devil's Playground, which I just reverenced, there's also a number eight studio album, Happy Holidays in 06, number nine, Kings and Queens of the Underground in 14. But then these last five years have been pretty, must have, you know, for a lot of people with the pandemic and things, it was weird and surreal. But I wonder for you, first of all, referring to the pandemic, there was this unexpected resurgence of dancing with myself because that's all anyone could do. So I don't know how aware you were that that was going on.

54:32Billy Idol:Oh, yeah. I remember Tom Hanks making it. He said this is my number one coronavirus song because he caught, he was quite early in Australia. Yes. And he talked about it then, you know, that I danced with myself being the number one. because he'd done that song Big, that film Big, where it was all my music in it. So I think he remembered back to him doing Big and Dancing with Myself being a coronavirus anthem. And then we started to put out EPs. We put out an EP in 21, an EP in 22, and now an album in 24.

55:08Scott Feinberg:And that's The Roadside in 2021, The Cage in 2022, and Dream into it in 2025. but something connected to another recent guest of this podcast and a fellow Oscar shortlistee along with you. You were with Miley Cyrus on Nightcrawling from her album Plastic Hearts.

55:26Billy Idol:That's right. In 2020. Andrew Watt, producer.

55:29Scott Feinberg:Yes.

55:30Billy Idol:Sometimes my thoughts are violent. Sometimes they bring me to the light. Sometimes I sit in silence. Sometimes I'm running for my life I found a meaning Just what I needed But on the far from me In that reflection Creating attention Under the disco board Yeah, yeah, yeah Not crawling

55:59Scott Feinberg:2023 star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame 2025 nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame It's been a busy five years And throughout that whole period, and I think even maybe just slightly before it, starting in 2019, was this documentary, which I wonder if you can talk about just what was the impetus for it. I know that you were, from what I've read, very adamant, you know, we don't need a behind the music kind of thing. Like, if we're going to do this, let's do X, Y, or Z. So how did it come about and what did you want it to be?

56:34Billy Idol:Well, yeah, I mean, I think what happens is, you know, in the next year, 2026, I will have been doing this 50 years. You really do have a vantage point as you get into your 60s and 70s. You do have a vantage point that you didn't have before, and I think you can see the landscape of your life, really. and I think you can then, I think you're in a position to look at it and quantify it and be able to talk about that and in a serious way which you maybe couldn't have done that earlier in your life because you just weren't far enough along the road to really see the landscape of your life and I think that's what happened and it just made sense to do a documentary and also we started to think about the fact you wanted to capture people while they're still here.

57:33Billy Idol:My dad had died in 2014 and then my mum passed on in 2020, so we just got her in the documentary. And I think there were things like that that were starting to happen that were making you realise if we really want to capture people while they're still here, this was the moment to do a documentary and a serious one, one with gravitas.

57:56Scott Feinberg:Yes, yeah. And very artistically creative. It's not just the archival footage that you see in other documentaries, but there's the black and white interviews, there's the animation, there's all these different kinds of flourishes that feel somewhat, you know, sort of just appropriate. Frida, if you're the subject, it should be a little different than your run-of-the-mill doc. And I guess part of that also involves having not just the greatest hits, which are throughout there, but also something new. I guess part A, what was it like for you to see the first time you saw a cut of the documentary?

58:36Scott Feinberg:And part B, how did that maybe, did that fuel your desire to have a song on the end credits?

58:44Billy Idol:Well, one thing about the coronavirus happening while we were making the documentary was it kept interrupting us making the documentary because there was these waves of the different versions of the virus that were going on and that kept coming and succeeding waves that kept stopping us doing the documentary, but it also meant we lived with it at certain different stages. You could really see over time and what was missing from it. So funnily enough, that gestation period, the sort of six years or whatever it was of the coronavirus, wasn't that bad in the end. It actually aided the documentary because we got to see more and more what we wanted it to be about, what it needed, what was missing, and what interviews we might need.

59:35Billy Idol:And so it didn't hurt in the end. Funnily enough, doing it during the coronavirus actually aided it in some ways. And as I say, we got my mother in there just before she passed on the next year. So we were lucky to get her in it. And it was really important she was in it. She understood a lot more why someone would want to do what I was doing. Dad didn't quite understand, couldn't understand. My mum had a bit more of a musician herself. So she understood a bit more.

1:00:07Scott Feinberg:And so to watch it back, as you say, I know you were seeing it as it came together, but you see the finished or close to finished cut. What's it like to watch your life kind of flash before your eyes? But also, B, did that fuel the original song that you then put on there?

1:00:25Billy Idol:Well, yeah, we wanted, you know, obviously we, you know, we put the documentary together and we put, we created a montage piece towards the end of the documentary before the credits, kind of almost in short form, almost showing you what you've just watched in a short form, in a montage form of little bits and pieces throughout the body of the documentary, kind of creating this kind of emotional end. And what we didn't have was music to go along with it. And I just thought if we could write a song that could go into this piece of montage where we're kind of wanting you... The rest of the documentary, you've seen my life, but now we wanted you to feel what I went through in some ways, and that's what we tried to do with creating a song for this montage, and we came up with Dying to Live.

1:01:25Billy Idol:And when I met Josh Ralphs, it made sense that we might do it with a string quartet, which I'd never done before. I'd never, I had had some orchestral instrumentation on Kings and Queens of the Underground, an album I'd done. Yeah. But we'd never actually done something where it was me singing to a string quartet. And I quite liked, I mean, I grew up with the Beatles and stuff like that, so I liked Eleanor Rigby and, you know, some of the George Martin orchestrations for I Am The Walrus or whatever is pretty incredible. But also I liked Tony Visconti did some orchestrations for some Mark Boland songs for his, in the documentary Born To Boogie, he did three songs, I think, one of them was Children Of The Revolution, I think, where it was Mark singing his songs to a string quartet.

1:02:20Billy Idol:I loved that. I thought it was great. And that's what kind of made me think, what about if we try something I'd never tried before which was really just me just singing with a string quartet maybe the quartet doubled I suppose is what it kind of is a doubled quartet what about if I'm singing that maybe that will sort of A, bring out the lyrics of the song and maybe bring out the emotional content of this montage and help you sort of feel what I'd gone through not just sort of you'd just seen it, but now you're going to feel what I went through. And they thought the string quartet would help you to focus in on the lyrics.

1:03:02Billy Idol:And the lyrics being, you know, with this idea... It's kind of the story of my life, really. That's really what they are. It really is dying to live. It really is the story of my sort of musical life, really. It's sort of what I decided to do with my life from punk rock onwards, where I got a chance to sort of live my dream, really. This was the sort of dream I had of doing music, of having an artistic life. And now you're going to feel the emotions of someone who's got to live their dream and has completed artistic life and is still finding that sort of vibrant and it's still going on. It's not ending as well.

1:03:45Billy Idol:It's carrying on. It's growing.

1:03:47Scott Feinberg:With a hunger to live, dying to live, also, I guess, can mean a bunch of things. but you're not going anywhere.

1:03:53Billy Idol:No. Yeah, no. If anything, you're not sure if this is even a stepping stone into your future.

1:04:00Scott Feinberg:Right.

1:04:00Billy Idol:In some ways, you know, you're not sure. I'm not sure if this isn't the beginning point in some ways, possibly. Because there's lots of ways you're still only just now finding out what you're capable of. And the records turn Like we did when I was young And I still don't know if I've only just begun And the record spins as a soundtrack to my sins Baby, I'm dying, dying, dying to live So I dream into it

1:04:43Scott Feinberg:Such a beautiful song. And I guess with our last minute, if I can just a few, just the first thing that comes to your mind when I raised a few topics. The afternoon that they announced the Oscar shortlist. You've won a lot of awards. You've been nominated for a lot of awards. There's something kind of cool about an Oscar, I would think. What did it mean to you to see that out of, I think, 100-plus candidates, you're in the final 15 with some pretty amazing other artists for this song that means a lot to you, I know.

1:05:15Billy Idol:Well, it's just incredible. I mean, you can't imagine things like that, especially if I go back and think about the young me, even prior to punk. Could I ever imagine what was going to happen that one day you'd even be in a shortlist together with all these other great people doing fantastic work? And then I'm there alongside them. I mean, it's pretty incredible. That in itself is an award. For sure.

1:05:43Scott Feinberg:the best and worst part of getting older. What's your take on that?

1:05:48Billy Idol:Well, you know, of course, you don't have the energy you once had. I mean, I used to have energy to burn. I could stay up for days on end. You know, I'd be trying to get rid of the energy. I've had so much. And now, now, now, now, now, there's no, it's no, now I have to sort of parcel up my energy. But as long as I kind of harness my energy and decide where to use it, I can do what I've always done. It's just you have to sort of like, you have to do that. You just have to plan out where you're going to use your energy. Yeah. And that's the meat that you're seeing today.

1:06:21Scott Feinberg:It's amazing. You look great. You have amazing energy. Are there contemporaries, competitors, however you want to call them, of yours from, let's say, the early MTV era, your fellow artists, whatever, who are you still the most in touch with?

1:06:39Billy Idol:well there's still people from my era Morrissey the cure and I mean there's loads of people still out there doing it Iggy's still going a lot of the people we sort of loved are still there in one form or another it's the sad David Bowie's gone and I still find that hard to uh accept really I just don't I still think he's alive well in the scene

1:07:04Scott Feinberg:in the dock where you see them in the back of the club. I'll let people discover for themselves, but that's pretty great. Songwriting or singing, which do you get more satisfaction out of?

1:07:15Billy Idol:Both, really. I mean, they go together, really. They've always gone together.

1:07:20Scott Feinberg:You've got grandchildren now. Do they, as I say, like, do you know who I am? Do they know who you are?

1:07:29Billy Idol:Yeah, they know I'm Billy Idol sort of thing. You know, they've seen my shows.

1:07:35Scott Feinberg:That's got to be kind of cool. They're old enough now to, what's their feedback when they watch some of the old music videos or things like that? What do they say?

1:07:43Billy Idol:Yeah, I don't know. What if they've seen? Yeah, they have seen my old videos, I think. So I think their mum's shown them to them and that. Well, I think I know Mary Jane. She's the younger one. I know she loves music, and little Poppy does too. but I think Mary Jane is a bit more as if she's watching Taylor Swift and she said a couple of times she was watching Taylor Swift she turned around to her grandmother and said I want to do that. How do you feel? That's what I was like at seven years old. That's what I was doing. I want to do that.

1:08:21Scott Feinberg:Would you encourage or discourage that? Well, it's not the easiest life because a lot of sort of stress that comes along with it because you are sort of running your own world.

1:08:34Billy Idol:But at the same time, if you can deal with that, it's got a lot of great pluses. And there's a lot of great people you get to know. And it's very exciting what can happen if you just try. Last one.

1:08:49Scott Feinberg:if you had stayed in college and you had not come back to see, you know, the pistols, or if you had, let's just say, you'd stayed in college, you'd done what your parents wanted you to do, what do you think your life would have looked like?

1:09:07Billy Idol:God, I don't know. I hate to think about that because it wouldn't have been my dream. It would have been me compromising or doing what somebody else wanted me to do or me just trying to survive you know whereas doing this I wasn't just surviving I was I was going beyond I was going into a dream that I had and um and then you find out the music affects other people in ways you could never have imagined and all of that it feeds you it feeds you and you're getting so much back from doing it that I don't know you You just can't imagine life not being like this. You don't want it to end. You want it to go on forever, you know.

1:09:50Scott Feinberg:Awesome. Well, thank you for all the music. Thank you for doing this. Really appreciate it. It was great. Thank you.

1:10:01Scott Feinberg:Thanks for listening to Awards Chatter. We really appreciate it and would really appreciate you taking just a minute more to subscribe to the podcast and to leave us a rating and review on your podcast app. and to follow us on Twitter and Instagram, where our handle is at Awards Chatter. On those platforms, we announce upcoming guests and provide details about special live recordings of the podcast that you can attend. Until next time, thanks again for tuning in.