Billy Idol Biography

On his drug addiction:
“I tried to knock heroin on the head by becoming a crack addict. That was me for the next 15 years.”

On Generation X’s musical inspiration:
“We were saying the opposite to the Clash and the Pistols. They were singing 'No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones', but we were honest about what we liked. The truth was, we were all building our music on the Beatles and the Stones.”

On ‘King Rocker’:
"I didn't want to be in an 'agit-prop' band. I hated all those people in the student union, with their crummy political views, who had votes about squatting. We wrote ‘King Rocker’ about John Lennon and Paul McCartney having a fight with Elvis about who was the king of rock and roll."

On his music videos:
“That was a pretty bland time of corporate rock and afternoon television music, and we wanted to bring in a little more danger and after hours fun into it. Maybe that’s why we looked like vampires.”

On his punk roots and the punk ethic:
“I definitely took punk with me wherever I’ve gone. That was the whole idea really. I wanted to transform my music, but I didn’t want to ever lose sight of that punk rock attitude. Whether we turned to hard rock or disco or whatever the hell else we did over the years, that helped give the music a spirit it would not have had if I hadn’t come out of the punk movement.”

On ‘Idolize Yourself’ and its meaning:
“It’s funny what you have to do to carve out your own niche. But everyone should idolize themselves, shouldn’t they?”

Looking back on his career in ‘Idolize Yourself’:
“For all the up and downs, there’s some quality there. So I feel like I can walk into my house justified. The highs were very high – sometimes too high – and the lows were low, but somehow it still holds up.”