Topline:
Rock legend Billy Idol stopped by the LAist studios for an interview with host Josie Huang to talk about his long career and what's next for his music.
Why now: Idol has been busy. He's touring in support of his new album, Dream Into It. And a new documentary on his life premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival this past summer.
Read on ... to find out what Idol thinks about punk, being on stage, YUNGBLUD and more.
Billy Idol still loves screaming “more, more, more.”
“You would think it would get boring, but no, actually, it's actually almost more exciting. It's a high that doesn't fade,” the bleach-blonde '80s icon said of “Rebel Yell,” the song that solidified the British punk rocker as a ubiquitous ‘80s rock star.
Idol has been rocking out on stage for almost 50 years, but there’s still magic for him in each performance.
“The old songs don't seem to get old,” he said.
Idol spoke with LAist ahead of a new documentary about his life — Billy Idol Should Be Dead — while on the last leg of his most recent tour, which hit the Kia Forum at the end of September alongside Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. The tour now heads to South America.
Like many rock stars (Keith Richards’ incredible autobiography, Life, comes to mind), Idol lived hard when he was coming up in the business and that time came to define his public persona.
“That was a particular period of my life, there was just like a 10-year period, I was a bit of a drug addict and stuff. But I've always lived a little bit on the edge. I think it was part of exploring this world that we were going into, the music world,” he said.
The documentary, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival this past summer, chronicles the “White Wedding” singer’s personal experiences and his place in music history; the title references a near-fatal heroin overdose in 1984 and a serious motorcycle accident in 1990.
“We were just embracing that freedom of that kind of lifestyle that we'd dreamt of. I always felt David Bowie and Lou Reed and people like that, John Lennon, were always telling you … to find out who you are and be it. And that's kind of what I did,” Idol said. “I found out who I was and that's what you've been listening to, you know? This is what I thought I could bring to it.”
Over the decades, Idol secured his place in the rock world, first alongside his band, Generation X, and then as a solo artist in 1981. Gen X was called a punk band, but Idol doesn’t consider them any one genre. Punk, he said, “wasn't a uniform look and or sound. I think it meant your vision of what punk was, and what we did in Generation X, that's kind of my answer. And then my answer to the ‘80s or ‘90s and 2000s has been the music I've made in my solo career.”
Coming up at the height of MTV, Idol also helped define the MTV aesthetics, developing a visual style with then-up-and-coming directors like David Fincher that was uniquely his own.
In “Cradle of Love,” which was filmed just after Idol’s motorcycle accident in which he almost lost a leg, Fincher had to shoot Idol from the waist up.
“I couldn't bend my leg,” Idol said. “David Fincher had this idea about me being a sort of a picture on the wall, which would come to life … and this way you didn't have to show me. I could just be on this box kind of leaning forward and it would look like I'm in action.”
Idol writes many of his songs and said he enjoyed bringing his music to a different medium.
“It was fun. … In that case, David Fincher came up with that idea, but a lot of the other videos, it really was coming from me in a lot of ways,” he said.
Now working with younger artists like Miley Cyrus and British rocker YUNGBLUD, Idol is always looking for new ways to keep current.
“I actually performed with [YUNGBLUD] in England,” Idol said of his young some-might-say lookalike. “I do see a lot of myself in him. I can see a number of performers in him … but it's kind of fantastic. It's great seeing people excited about a performer like him and someone who's that excited about rock and roll music.”
And while he’s more careful and taking care of his whole body these days — including a pilates routine and tonal weight system — Idol has lived in L.A. since 1987 and does still get out and explore California on his motorcycle.
“Of course you have to get back on,” he said. “We used to go up and down the coast and stuff or to Ojai. There's great riding up there. In California, there's so many different environments, so you really can go and see all sorts of different places.”
Billy Idol’s latest album, Dream Into It, is out now.