It’s 12 years since Billy Idol last released an album. Why the long gap? Label
problems? Band politics? Drug hell? Or was Idol simply out of step with the
musical fashions of the past decade? All of the above, it turns out, which
helps to explain why it has taken him so long to get himself back on track
after the failure of his 1993 Cyberpunk album threatened to derail his
career.
“Actually, this is one of the quickest records I’ve ever made,” says Idol, as
he sits on a comfy sofa in his luxury London suite, ready to discuss his new
album, Devil’s Playground. “It just took 12 years to get to the starting
point.”
The hotel’s rooms, somewhat bizarrely, have windows facing onto the atrium, so
we can hear the tinkling of the pianist in the restaurant. It is an
incongruous musical backdrop for a man who fronted a punk band and is best
known for raucous solo hits such as White Wedding and Rebel Yell, but it
becomes clear that there’s more to Idol than the stereotypical sneering
rocker we remember.
Idol’s musical journey began when William Broad (as he was born) fell in with
punk’s Bromley contingent, which included the Clash’s Mick Jones, as well as
Tony James. Co-opting the Idol name, he hooked up with James in a band
called Chelsea and, later, in Generation X, whose hits included King Rocker,
Valley of the Dolls and Dancing with Myself. Then, in the 1980s, Idol
reinvented himself as an MTV icon, with a telegenic sneer and spiky bleached
hair.
Cyberpunk embraced a new electronic sound, but his fans didn’t like the album.
He had already parted company with his guitarist and songwriting partner,
Steve Stevens, and his record label was swallowed up by a larger company.
“The question they asked was ‘What do we do with him?’, rather than ‘What
does he want to do?’.”
Idol can sympathise with their belief that, in the mid-1990s, he was a problem
that needed fixing. “When grunge was huge, it couldn’t help but make me look
old-fashioned,” he says. “And I was running lickety-split into my drug
addiction. I was going from the swing to the slides — heroin to crack, back
to heroin again, then over to ecstasy — partly because I’m a binge artist
and partly, I’m sure, because I had no outlet for my musical ideas.”
In 1994, Idol suffered his second near-fatal overdose, a wake-up call that
triggered his long climb back. “I had a couple of kids, and I realised that
I had to wise up about being a dad,” he says. But it wasn’t just his
responsibility toward Bonnie and Willem (then 5 and 6) that prompted Idol to
turn his life back round.
His rehabilitation was spurred by an eclectic collection of events and
memories.
First, he set out on a series of motorcycle rides. Idol found these calming
and therapeutic — despite nearly losing a leg in a crash in 1990. (It took
five operations to save it following the pile-up, which happened on the day
he completed the album Charmed Life.) “Suddenly, your problems aren’t
problems, they are just the scenery on the road, and you know you can get
past them,” he says.
The bike rides also threw up some interesting memories. Idol remembered
filming his cameo appearance in Oliver Stone’s The Doors. “Stone’s a driven
guy. I watched him day after day: action,cut; action, cut; action, cut.”
Idol mimics Stone looking for the perfect take. “He talked about ‘your body
of work’. That really hit me. It reminded me that if I really wanted to do
this, it would be a bit of a plod.”
Here we realise that, despite his yobbish image, Idol is a man who takes his
career seriously, a man who is proud that, when the punk scene fizzled out,
he was able to reinvent himself and conquer America, and who — back in his
mid-1990s nadir — was determined that he could turn things round.
Two musical figures played a role in inspiring his comeback, but if you tried
to guess who they were, we’d be here all week. A documentary on Burt
Bacharach struck a chord. Idol noted that a man who had once seemed so out
of date was now acclaimed by a new generation of fans. And Idol couldn’t
shake the image of Frank Sinatra, whom he’d seen performing in Las Vegas.
Even at the end of his career, Idol remembered, Sinatra was still
incorporating new material, still experimenting, still determined to put on
a great show.
Idol’s next step was to swallow his pride and admit he needed Stevens with
him. The pair had split in 1987, after the Whiplash Smile album. “There was
a bit of burnout, a bit of drug agitation. And yes, you do get some ego
things,” says Idol. “It was good to realise that no, I need that guy.”
Idol and Stevens put together a new band and began touring the old songs.
Idol’s record company released a greatest-hits album, forecasting sales of
100,000, but when he hit the road, it sold more than 1m. After seeing a New
York show, Merck Mercuriadis, head of Sanctuary, offered Idol a deal.
In November 2003, the new band began writing new songs: the result is Devil’s
Playground. “We went all over the Billy Idol map,” says Idol, and one listen
to the new album makes it clear that the man has a wider musical range than
a nodding acquaintance with the big hits would suggest: punk, power ballads,
rockabilly, classic 1960s- style pop and even a hint of country are all
included.
The album kicks off with a couple of no-nonsense rockers: Super Overdrive and
Rat Race. Having laid down some backing tracks for the former, the band were
stuck for a title, until the guitarist happened to look down at one of his
effects pedals. Idol has a fine history of nicking song titles from
products. Ronnie Wood once invited him to a party he was throwing for Mick
Jagger’s birthday, where Idol found himself standing opposite Jagger, Wood
and Keith Richards, each of whom was holding a bottle of a Southern sour
mash called Rebel Yell.
After the new album’s opening onslaught, Rat Race is a big rock ballad with a
thunderous chorus. Then things start to diversify. Sherri, with its echoes
of Mony Mony, is further evidence that Idol’s melodic sense is informed by
more than punk, as is the confusingly titled Cherie. I suggest to Idol that
it is reminiscent of one of Neil Diamond’s mid-1960s gems — A Little Bit Me,
A Little Bit You, perhaps — half expecting Idol to be insulted by such an
MOR reference, but he embraces it. “That’s the sunshine of the album,” he
says. “Not every song has to be dark and serious.”
Either Sherri or Cherie would make killer singles. Sadly — although
predictably — Sanctuary has released Scream, the most formulaic rocker on
the album, which will doubtless confirm many people’s preconceptions that
Idol is a one-dimensional caricature.
The final proof that he really isn’t comes when we discuss Plastic Jesus, a
song about alcoholism. Idol mentions that it’s an old country song for which
he has written a new melody. He sings the original, then explains: “I just
made it a little more religioso.”
The Billy Idol map, it appears, is full of unexplored lands.
Devil’s Playground is released on March 21. Billy Idol plays the Download
festival on June 10
