'I've been a total idiot, but now I'm approaching 60... clean and soberish': Billy Idol confesses all
His powerful Eighties anthems, White Wedding and Rebel Yell (both top ten hits in the UK) and U.S. No 1 Mony Mony made Billy Idol a rich, famous yet troubled man ‘hopelessly divided between the dark and the good’.
‘I’ve made some awful decisions in my life. But I’ve given it my best shot, even if I’ve been a total idiot sometimes,' said Billy Idol
The signature sneer is nowhere to be seen, the rebellious fist, so often raised and pumping, rests limply in his lap.
Billy Idol, the wild man of rock ’n’ roll, toys coyly with his teaspoon and blushes slightly.
‘I’ve made some awful decisions in my life,’ he says, the gentle growl of a voice still firmly south London with just a hint of posh plum, occasionally giving way to a rasping laugh that would make any pirate proud.
‘But I’ve given it my best shot, even if I’ve been a total idiot sometimes.’
Dressed down in standard-issue off-duty rock-star duds: black jogging bottoms, hoodie, provocative T-shirt and lashings of chunky jewellery, Idol, 58, runs a hand through his trademark peroxide peaks and stares hard at the coffee table in a plush London hotel suite.
‘It’s been quite a challenge writing my autobiography,’ he says.
‘I had to look at myself dispassionately at times and confront addiction and my various demons. I really thought I was indestructible.
'When punk rock proclaimed, “There is no future”, I took that pretty seriously.
‘So I’ve had to visit some places you’d rather hoped everyone had forgotten about. The drugs, the dreadful behaviour, the deaths…’
‘It’s been quite a challenge writing my autobiography. I had to look at myself dispassionately at times and confront addiction and my various demons. I really thought I was indestructible,' said Billy
A charismatic character concocted from equal measures of Elvis Presley and Johnny Rotten, Idol became a hugely successful pop superstar and highly lascivious sex symbol.
His powerful Eighties anthems, White Wedding and Rebel Yell (both top ten hits in the UK) and U.S. No 1 Mony Mony made their creator William Michael Albert Broad a rich, famous yet troubled man ‘hopelessly divided between the dark and the good’.
Dancing With Myself is a thrilling pillion ride through a life lived at full-throttle.
The memoir is accompanied by his first album of fresh material in almost a decade, Kings And Queens Of The Underground, a collection of confrontational yet confessional songs plainly influenced by the autobiographical process.
‘There’s something exhilarating about living so close to the edge,’ Idol reflects. ‘You know death is close but that makes it more exciting. It certainly gets the juices flowing.
‘The parties on the road weren’t just sexually wild, they were like something out of Ancient Rome.’
Such were the antics of Idol and some of his seedier associates that they formed the Boots and Scarves club, where the dress code was minimal to say the least.
‘I was trying to prove to my manager at the time that I was unmanageable,' said Billy
‘Once the party was in full swing,’ he recalls, ‘we walked around naked but for our biker boots and scarves.
‘I once put all the windows out of a tenth-floor hotel room in Edmonton, Canada,’ Idol sighs softly.
‘I was trying to prove to my manager at the time that I was unmanageable.
'In that respect it worked but it was rather… draughty.’
As early U.S. success went to his head, Idol took drunken issue with a luxury bungalow at LA’s Chateau Marmont, ‘taking out the windows with my elbows, screaming.
'I destroyed the TV and whatever else was in my immediate vicinity that sounded good crashing to the floor. Soon the place was in a complete shambles. I was going nuts.
‘Then I got rich,’ says the man still estimated to be worth £30 million. ‘That was a problem. Suddenly I had the money to over-consume, so I overdid everything by about 100 per cent.’
He bought Hollywood property, Harley-Davidsons and vintage guitars. He hired expensive managers, high-end hookers and only flew first class. He also bought a lot of drugs.
There have been periods in Idol’s career when his drug use threatened to eclipse his musical endeavours.
‘I overdosed loads of times,’ he says matter-of-factly. ‘But when you’re a junkie even that doesn’t scare you off it.
‘If the paramedics carted you off, you’d discharge yourself and be back on it the next evening because that was all that mattered to you.
‘There was no real rehab in those days either. The Betty Ford Clinic was open back then but if you were a young addict they just slung you in a mental asylum.
‘I still drink a small amount,’ he confesses. ‘I just have to watch it. No one who is a drug addict, sex addict, alcoholic and all those things is ever out of the woods. But I’m clean and sober-ish for now.
‘But there’s always been the music,’ he says. ‘That’s the satisfaction and fulfilment for me and hopefully happiness for the people who like the epic, wide-screen, panoramic noise I make.’
He stands, stretching his arms, as if embracing a stadium audience, and for a moment we get a glimpse of the unrepentant rocker, who laughs in the face of human frailty and curls his lip in the general direction of damnation.
‘I overdosed loads of times. But when you’re a junkie even that doesn’t scare you off it,' he said (Billy pictured with stand-up comic Sam Kinison, Madonna and David Bowie in 1987)
Billy Idol was born to be a star and punk was his chosen vehicle. He was famous as part of the ‘Bromley Contingent’, the Sex Pistols’ challengingly attired cheerleaders, before he ever sang a note.
But punk rock was ugly and Billy Idol was not. His chiselled cheekbones and flashing smile set him apart from his less-than-lovely contemporaries.
‘I was the male English Blondie, wasn’t I?’ chuckles Idol.
‘The fortunate recipient of some classic good looks. I’ve got my parents to thank for that.’
His father Bill Broad, who passed away this summer aged 90, had been a handsome naval airman, mum Joan, a nurse, was a striking Irish colleen.
Yet, neither parent initially approved of their son’s uncertain career choice as a punk pin-up. Even Idol’s peers weren’t convinced.
His band Generation X were viewed by punk purists as mere peddlers of pop. Peacocks conveniently draped in the finery of the time. They had a point. But more by luck than judgement, Idol had found and filled a hole in the market for a punk hunk.
And once the spiky-topped faithful copped an eyeful of Idol, he was bound not only for fans’ bedroom walls but many of their actual bedrooms.
Tony James, Idol’s Generation X bandmate, remembers his colleague’s ‘voracious sexual appetite’.
‘I’ve been lucky with ladies,’ Idol shrugs. ‘Lots of one-night stands, obviously. But the women I’ve loved, I’ve really romantically loved them.
'I got my heart broken a bit but I broke hearts too, so I’m hardly blameless.’
Over the years, Idol’s paramours have included the young Julia Roberts (whom he wooed on a plane), Heather Mills, Little House On The Prairie actress Melissa Gilbert and Miss USA Shanna Moakler. His written reminiscences also detail innumerable, anonymous cabin-crew conquests.
‘Although I’ve been with the same lovely woman for quite a while now,’ he says of stylist Lindsay Cross, his girlfriend since 2012.
‘And let me tell you, exclusivity is pretty sexy.’
‘I was the male English Blondie, wasn’t I The fortunate recipient of some classic good looks. I’ve got my parents to thank for that,' he said (pictured: Billy with his sister Jane and their parents in 1974)
After a reasonable run of Top 40 hits with Generation X, Idol packed his bags and moved to New York where, after initially having a tough time of it, he worked his charm again.
‘I wouldn’t say I sold punk to America,’ he contends.
‘But I certainly sold Billy Idol to America. I was the perfect man to flog the product.’
His timing turned out to be immaculate. Music video had just arrived and Idol’s looks and hooks were perfect for the glossy new format. If Madonna was queen of MTV by the mid-Eighties, then Billy Idol was its leather-clad king.
Despite having once been dismissed by Johnny Rotten as ‘the Perry Como of punk’, Idol is respected within his profession: Miley Cyrus knocks out a gutsy version of Rebel Yell, he has duetted with Joni Mitchell and Tom Petty, Prince approves of him and Tom Jones is a fan.
My Way songwriter Paul Anka has covered and coveted his songs. Even now, festival rockers like Queens Of The Stone Age and Nine Inch Nails reverentially play Billy Idol numbers.
Idol’s legendary reputation was cemented in 1998 when he was cast in a cameo alongside Adam Sandler in comedy smash The Wedding Singer.
The spoof Eighties movie used Idol’s song White Wedding as a central motif and revealed a sweeter side to the rocker as he gently sent himself up playing ‘a rock ’n’ roll cupid’.
Billy's airman father Bill Broad, who passed away this summer aged 90
Yet such was his notoriety, Idol’s own character was becoming cartoonishly grotesque. At the height of his Eighties fame, I bumped into him in the corridor of a California hotel just as the sun was coming up.
The previous evening he had performed on the same bill as Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills, Nash And Young and The Grateful Dead. Idol had been celebrating since coming off stage.
‘Do you want to go for breakfast?’ he asked, nodding towards the bar.
It was at this point that I had to remind the sloshed singer he was wearing absolutely nothing but a big smile.
‘Hang on,’ he grinned, clutching his punk rock credentials. ‘I’ll go and get some clothes on.’
Having secured a pair of leather trousers from his room – this was a decade when Idol appeared not to own a solitary shirt – we repaired to the restaurant and drank cocktails all morning. He was charming, if squiffy, company.
‘I remember that now,’ he laughs, covering his face.
‘I believe an Englishman should always dress for breakfast!’
But the boozy levity was to be short-lived. In February 1990, Idol received an abrupt reminder of his mortality when he was involved in a near-fatal motorbike accident.
Returning to an LA recording studio in the early hours, he ran a stop sign at an intersection and his Harley-Davidson collided with a car, causing multiple injuries, including fractures to his arm and leg.
‘The doctors thought I might lose my life,’ he shudders. ‘Looking back, it changed everything.’
Following weeks in hospital and five surgical procedures, a steel rod was inserted into Idol’s right leg.
Bullishly (the medics said foolishly) keen to get back in the showbiz saddle, he returned to the stage, supported by a stylish black cane, just eight months after the crash, having already performed in the video for his hit Cradle Of Love, shot from the waist up, high as a satellite on hospital morphine.
‘In a way that made me stop taking heroin, because when I finally got out of hospital I realised that I’d never be able to get my hands on any drug as pure as medical-grade morphine.’
Undeterred by the accident and its fallout (‘I had to go cold turkey – I could barely walk, it was horrible’), Idol promptly laid out £10,000 on another custom Harley (‘the first time out on that I was a bit nervous’) and rode without significant incident until 2010, when he hit a discarded tyre on the road and suffered a hairline fracture of the foot.
‘Not quite so rock ’n’ roll, that one,’ he admits. ‘LA rock gods shouldn’t get sidelined by a sore toe.’
Since relocating from New York to LA in the late Eighties, Idol has become a low-key fixture on the Hollywood celebrity circuit and counts Madonna, Mickey Rourke, Sharon Osbourne and Courtney Love among his friends.
Yet he can still become tongue-tied around true Tinseltown royalty.
Billy on stage during his eighties heyday. 'It has been a semi-solitary existence,' he said
‘I was sitting with Sean Connery and Michael Caine,’ he splutters, ‘and all I could think was, “It’s James Bond and Harry Palmer!” I couldn’t speak! Totally starstruck.’
Idol often speaks of meeting his heroes with a hint of regret. He was ranting incoherently when introduced to Keith Richards.
He annoyed Mick Jagger with his druggy behaviour and rambling interjections. He was pie-eyed the night he met Bob Dylan and Tom Petty, although he fondly remembers ‘having great fun’ with David Bowie and Madonna one night in 1987.
He also attended the New York launch party of Madonna’s explicit picture book Sex in 1992.
‘A very good read!’ says Idol with a knowing leer.
Today, despite his regular dalliances with destiny, Idol is in good physical shape.
This he puts down to decent genes, lifelong vegetarianism and the energetic live show he tours around the world – plus an exercise regime that would be more age-appropriate for his beloved Chelsea FC.
‘In the last eight years I’ve started to do a daily pilates routine,’ he says, patting a toned stomach.
‘And a small TRX Navy Seal workout. You can’t do too much of that.
'I can’t, anyway, it’s a bit brutal and not much fun at all. But it achieves in one hour what it might take three days to do normally.
‘I’ve always believed in re-energising. You have to put in energy if you want to put it out. I’m a singer so I’ve got to look after my body.
'Working out also reminds me that I don’t want to completely destroy myself, that there is something worth preserving and living for.’
In the Kensington penthouse, Idol remains contemplative but he isn’t complaining.
‘It has been a semi-solitary existence because I’m charting my own course and mining my own personality.
'That’s the lot of an artist. And that can be lonely at times.
‘There have been times when I thought I’d lost my mind. But I try to keep on an even keel now. I’ve got off the bipolar seesaw.
‘I’m almost 60! My body and brain can’t handle that level of excess any more. Something’s got to give and if I’d carried on the way I was going then something serious would have given. And I can’t do that. I’ve got my kids to think of.’
He speaks with touching tenderness about his children, Willem Wolfe, 26, a musician (whose mother Perri Lister remains one of Idol’s great loves), and Bonnie Blue Broad, 25, a student, born after Idol’s affair with Linda Mathis, a Californian 13 years his junior.
‘I hope my kids love me, faults and all,’ he sighs.
‘We all know I haven’t always been the best dad or the best person. They’ve seen me at my worst so now hopefully they can see me at my best.
‘I like to think they’re proud of what I’ve done,’ he says quietly, then unleashes one last hearty laugh. ‘Proud of the music anyway.’
The album ‘Kings And Queens Of The Underground’ is released on Oct 20. ‘Dancing With Myself’ is out now (Simon & Schuster, £20).
To order your copy at the special price of £16, order at mailbookshop.co.uk before Oct 26; p&p is free for a limited time only. Billy Idol will be touring the UK from Nov 5
Individually designed and handpainted one-off busts by Jimmie Martin
