It is more than 40 years since Billy Idol stormed out of the punk scene and on to worldwide fame, with his bleach-blond spikes, flashy swagger and signature snarl. And he’s still sneering, rocking, and rebelling – even if these days that means refusing to accept that, for someone turning 70 this year, he should be acting his age.
It’s why the release this week of his ninth studio album, Dream Into It – Billy’s first full-length album of new music in over a decade – could be considered an act of rebellion in itself. The irrepressible rocker is also getting ready to embark on an extensive two-leg North American tour, beginning on Wednesday, with a European leg between June and July. And he doesn’t seem to have lost any of his famous rebellious spirit or rock’n’roll energy.
Last year, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of hit album Rebel Yell, Billy belted out the title track while perched on the top of the Empire State Building – wearing the same black leathers, chunky silver necklace and porcupine peroxide hair that made him an 80s icon.
And last week Billy – a grandad-of-two – posted a photo of himself on X, bare chest on show under a ripped T-shirt, alongside pop-punk princess Avril Lavigne, who features on his new single, 77, writing: “Two generations of rebellion.”
Released this week, 77 has stormed to No1 in the US iTunes rock chart, and reached the top 5 in most countries around the world, while the singer’s new album looks set to be his most successful since the height of his fame. His YouTube channel, meanwhile, passed the million-subscriber mark earlier this week, with the singer proudly showing off his Gold Button plaque on social media.
It has been a lifetime of defying both etiquette and expectations which began in Stanmore, north London, in November 1955, as William Broad, the son of a power tool salesman died and a surgical nurse mum.
The young William went to church with his parents and attended Cub Scouts, but as a teen he was obsessed with music. He remembered: “The first thing I did in front of an audience was read from the Bible in church. But I rebelled against all of that.
“I wasn’t trying hard at school, and eventually, between the ages of 14 and 16, my dad didn’t talk to me for a couple of years. I had really long hair and he couldn’t stand it. What I liked about the music scene was that it gave you a sense of freedom. It was just so alive, as opposed to your parents who were still so fuddy-duddy.”
In 1976 Billy, who had enrolled in a philosophy with literature degree at Sussex University, told his parents he was quitting the course after just a year to join a punk rock group. “My parents were always going on about getting qualifications. They didn’t even know what a punk rock group was, let alone what it meant to join one,” he recalled.
The band, newly-formed retro-rock group Chelsea, in which Billy, who joined as a guitarist, used his stage name Billy Idol – coined after a chemistry teacher described him as ‘idle’ on a school report card – and dyed his hair blonde.
After a few weeks he left and co-founded Generation X, one of the first punk bands to appear on Top of the Pops.
The band released six singles and two albums that made the UK charts, but it was after they disbanded in 1981 that turned him into a megastar stateside.
Moving to the US that same year, the chart success of White Wedding and Dancing with Myself, from his first solo album – along with his cartoonishly bad-boy roguishness – made him a poster boy for the newly-launched MTV and the dawn of the music video age.
His second album, Rebel Yell, which sold 2million copies, and singles such as Eyes Without a Face which reached No4 in the US, established the bad boy rocker as one of the biggest stars of the Second British Invasion, alongside bands like Duran Duran, Wham! and Culture Club.
But fame also nearly destroyed him. In his autobiography Dancing With Myself the singer remembered how, at the height of his 80s success, his life consisted of “never-ending broads and bikes, plus a steady diet of pot, cocaine, ecstasy, smack, opium, Quaaludes, and reds.”
He said he became convinced he was “next in line to die outside an LA nightclub or on some cold stone floor, surrounded by strangers and paparazzi”.
But he recalled: “I was having a great time. Today I can see I was on a tightrope hovering between life and death, but at the time I didn’t care. I ignored the dangers.”
Revealing the closest he came to death, in 1984, the same year that singles Rebel Yell and Flesh For Fantasy were topping charts around the world, he said he snorted five lines of a “strong Persian brown heroin” before everything went black and he realised he was dying.
While his friends frantically tried to save him, Billy said he was so high that he craved death, thinking, “Let me sleep, let me dream. I don’t want to be awake – I’m an emperor!”
In 1988 girlfriend and Hot Gossip dancer Perri Lister gave birth to his first child, Willem Wolfe, but dumped him soon after when she caught him cheating. He had a second child a year later, daughter Bonnie Blue with 19-year-old girlfriend Linda Mathis.
In 1990 Billy suffered a serious motorbike accident when he ran a stop sign on his Harley Davidson that almost caused him to lose a leg, and his fear of making his children orphans forced him to put the worst of his rock’n’rock excesses behind him.
Last year Billy remembered how the accident made him “think I should not be a drug addict anymore and stuff like. It took a long time, but gradually I did achieve some kind of discipline where I’m not really the same kind of guy as I was in the 80s.”
Describing himself as “California sober”, he said: “I can have a glass of wine every now and again. I just tell myself I can do what I want, but then I don’t do it. If I tell myself I can’t do anything, I want to do it. So I tell myself, ‘You can do anything you like.’ But I don’t actually do it.”
Billy, who gained US citizenship in 2018, lives in the Hollywood Hills with his long-term girlfriend, model and actress China Chow, 50, was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2023.
And this year the legendary rocker, who gets 11.1M monthly listeners on Spotify, is up for induction in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Asked earlier this month why he should get the fans vote, he replied with typical spunk: “Because I’m just f***ing incredible!
“It’s pretty amazing that I went from something like punk rock in England to mainstream success in the States. And then I carried on making the music, living the rock’n’roll life. I didn’t stay in my lane. I took chances. I’ve gone beyond what people expect.”
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