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Billy Idol still loves screaming \u201cmore, more, more.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou would think it would get boring, but no, actually, it’s actually almost more exciting. It’s a high that doesn’t fade,\u201d the bleach-blonde ’80s icon said of \u201cRebel Yell,\u201d the song that solidified the British punk rocker as a ubiquitous \u201880s rock star.<\/p>\n
Idol has been rocking out on stage for almost 50 years, but there\u2019s still magic for him in each performance. <\/p>\n
Bill Idol on punk, his world tour, and why he isn’t… dead<\/p>\n
\u201cThe old songs don’t seem to get old,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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Billy Idol performs during the Billy Idol: It’s a Nice Day to… Tour Again! tour in 2025 in Clarkston, Mich.<\/p>\n
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Getty Images North America<\/p>\n
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Idol spoke with LAist ahead of a new documentary about his life \u2014 Billy Idol Should Be Dead \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
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Billy Idol standing in front of a piece of artwork featuring an image of his younger self.<\/p>\n
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Unique Nicole<\/p>\n
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Getty Images North America<\/p>\n
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Like many rock stars (Keith Richards\u2019 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The documentary, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival this past summer, chronicles the \u201cWhite Wedding\u201d singer\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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 \u2026 to find out who you are and be it. And that’s kind of what I did,\u201d Idol said. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019t consider them any one genre. Punk, he said, \u201cwasn’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 \u201880s or \u201890s and 2000s has been the music I’ve made in my solo career.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In \u201cCradle of Love,\u201d which was filmed just after Idol\u2019s motorcycle accident in which he almost lost a leg, Fincher had to shoot Idol from the waist up. <\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn’t bend my leg,\u201d Idol said. \u201cDavid Fincher had this idea about me being a sort of a picture on the wall, which would come to life \u2026 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Idol writes many of his songs and said he enjoyed bringing his music to a different medium. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was fun. \u2026 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Now working with younger artists like Miley Cyrus and British rocker YUNGBLUD, Idol is always looking for new ways to keep current. <\/p>\n
\u201cI actually performed with [YUNGBLUD] in England,\u201d Idol said of his young some-might-say lookalike. \u201cI do see a lot of myself in him. I can see a number of performers in him \u2026 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
And while he\u2019s more careful and taking care of his whole body these days \u2014 including a pilates routine and tonal weight system \u2014 Idol has lived in L.A. since 1987 and does still get out and explore California on his motorcycle.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course you have to get back on,\u201d he said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Billy Idol\u2019s latest album, Dream Into It, is out now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keep up with LAist. If you’re enjoying this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":297337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[103982,151672,1582,276,151673,2961,224,5337,10161],"class_list":{"0":"post-297336","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-billy-idol","9":"tag-billy-idol-interview","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-dream-into-it","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-yungblud"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115361372415456171","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}