Billy Idol On Dreaming His Iconic Career Into Existence

I have no real qualms with this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class, except, damn, Billy Idol should have made it.

Not only does Idol deserve it for his amazing career with Generation X and as a multi-platinum solo act, but the timing would have been so perfect with Idol having made one of his best albums, Dream Into It, this year.

As I found out when talking to him the record, which features appearances by Avril Lavigne, Joan Jett and Alison Mosshart, is very much a look back at his iconic career. I spoke with Idol about the album, tour, being a grandfather and more.

Steve Baltin: It’s funny that you’re nominated this year and you’ve made one of the best albums of your career.

Billy Idol: Yeah, it’s kind of fantastic timing. I enjoyed Ozzy’s induction solo, I really enjoyed being part of it. It was a great night. There are so many people I saw that I know and I met a million people. I didn’t know Jelly Roll, playing with Wolfgang van Halen and stuff and just hanging out. It was a great night. My motorcycle has been in the Rock Hall of Fame for like five years so I might as well be.

Baltin: I love “John Wayne.”

Idol: That’s actually my favorite on the record.

Baltin: But like “People I Love,” for example, where you talk about letting down people you love. Were you surprised by some of the writing on this record?

Idol: Yeah, exactly. I didn’t tell my parents, I’m leaving university and joining a punk rock group, they didn’t even know what a punk rock group was. He saw that, all their dreams for me just went like those cartoons, we’re like going to pieces in front of you. So, you’re really upsetting them, but you had to do what you loved. Then, just doing this job you’re just not always there. I couldn’t be at my daughter’s graduation. So, I sent a card, congratulations. But this job is a bit like that. It rips you away from family at times and so you kind of hurt sometimes the people you love. So, that was the thing we were making the documentary during the Coronavirus, which is going to come out quite soon around the time of the album. So, I was bouncing off what we were talking about you know my life in the documentary so it’s easy to bounce off that and make the album very much about different facets of my life and talk about but not spell out your life talk about it in imagery and give you vignettes or feelings about what my life was like rather than spell it out but I enjoyed it. Then the album is my life, “77” is the punk rock days. “Too Much Fun” is coming to America. Then “John Wayne” and “Wildside” are realizing about human relationships and dealing with growing up or whatever and then “I’m Your Hero” is about having grandchildren and seeing that they see you, they know you now. They don’t know your backstory and they love granddad and stuff like that. So you get to talk about all these different things. I’ve got one foot in the past, one foot in today, and one foot in the future on this album in a way lyrically.

Baltin: I’m a big believer in writing being subconscious. So, are there things that were revealing in this record that surprised you in a good way?

Idol: Yeah, I didn’t really realize how much making the documentary was making me reappraise my life because I’m 69. So, you find you are at this vantage point where you can really see your life and then actually doing the documentary at the same time, I got it spelled out. Like actually going back and revisiting like where we started this punk rock club in London the Roxy because there was this unofficial ban on all the punk rock groups, The Sex Pistols had broken up the Marquis club so a lot of the clubs. “Let’s have an unofficial ban.” So, we started our own club, The Roxy. Then going back and thinking about things like that, that was a bit of a dream to have a club that we start and then we could rehearse there and play in it and of course the first night that we put on people at the club, there was a clash, The Heartbreakers and Generation X. It was just a killer night and so you dreamt up your life really in a way. That’s what the album’s kind of talking about, like the Aborigines in Australia, we dreamt up the landscape. We never thought with punk rock it was going to go mega, we just thought it’s going to last six months, maybe a year, maybe two years. Then it went kaboom in England. You could never imagine that. So we were doing this purely for the love. That was the thing. It paid off in spades. That says a lot to me about why you should do things in life.

Baltin: When you look back on it, does it seem in a way not surprising that you are here nominated for the Rock and Roll All Fame because of the success of friends and punk rock?

Idol: I went to school with Siouxsie and Steve Severin in the Banshees. So, 1973, 74 we were talking about what we wanted to do, and we were following the scene in the States and what’s going on in CBGBs. Then we were digging David Bowie and people like that, and we wanted to be part of this music revolution we were seeing. I knew and then watching us both get somewhere and really love and create a style, we created definite styles for ourselves and all of that. You couldn’t have imagined all that. It was just so exciting to do that and then end up spending your life doing that. It’s been really fantastic. Then being able to talk about all that on this album and then even doing an album that’s satisfying at this stage of your life. I could never have imagined that, sitting here today being excited about music and giving a damn and still caring and loving it, really loving what we do. It was a life I, I could say, I dreamed into it. There was a door, I saw the door opening and we were bored with what was going on. There was a massive depression in England at the time. America was depressed. So, if America is depressed, Europe’s really f**ked. And England was just tearing itself apart. Not so different from what’s going on today in America actually, where England’s always a bit of a microcosm. In a way, you’re able to talk about all that. And with this album, look back on the vista of your life, the documentary helping to realize I’m at this vantage point I’ve never had. Even when I wrote my book, I wasn’t quite at this vantage point. We can really see what happened. And you’re a little bit divorced from that person too. You’re still him, but you’re not the young guy anymore.

Baltin: Like you say you have grandchildren now, you are a totally different person than the person who wrote “White Wedding and “Rebel Yell” and Generation X songs and in a way you can almost look at those as a fan. So, when you think about touring in a is it fun to revisit those songs because it’s like a different person.

Idol: Yeah, but there are also touchstone things in the songs that don’t get old. That’s “White Wedding,” “Rebel Yell,” “Dancing With Myself,” I don’t know what it is. They just don’t get old when I perform them, they don’t get boring. I’ve done, I can’t think how many times I have done “Rebel Yell,” t’s like a million f**king times, but it’s always fresh. I don’t know how. How is it still fresh, Steve? It’s because there was something intrinsic built into it at the time we made it that doesn’t get old. It’s alive. We really cared at the time. Something about Keith Forsey did an incredible job working with us and helping us as musicians to get somewhere or come to terms with writing songs. Then we’ve had a long time working together where we’re still excited. We give each other room and we don’t crowd each other. All of that kept the bond strong, and keeps us firing each other up. I couldn’t have imagined any of that.