BILLY IDLE NO LONGER

BILLY IDLE NO LONGER

“I remember I worked at the post office one Christmas,” reminisces Billy Idol, “and I was singing to myself, and there was this guy who turned around to me and said, ‘Never try to earn a living by singing, man, because you haven't got a voice.’ And I thought, ‘Right, I’m gonna do it,' even though I wasn’t sure of myself for a long time. It’s like the old joke, y’know: There’s nothing like a good singer, and I’m nothing like a good singer.

I have that kind of sense of humor. I don’t need to take myself seriously to do what I do.”

But Billy Idol takes his music very seriously. Holdingja guitar and letting the words flow out from his soul means more to him than his image, money and even well-publicized girlfriend tiffs.

He takes his time with each album, making sure each stays true to the rock ’n’ roll love in his heart and that it’s just right for his fans.

“Records can save your life,” he says. “They can drag you out of the pit when your life is falling apart. They can give you warmth when you’ve gone cold and numb. They fill you with pride when the world is knocking you down. They can keep you alive when everything around you seems to be dying. You work hard and save your money to buy a record. If I put out a record, it’s going to have to have 10 songs I believe are the best I can do or I won’t bother.”

Billy first appeared on the music scene in the mid-'70s when he moved to London. “We started going to some quite strange clubs in London where you could look completely different. There were even girls with shaved heads. Since we were tired of listening to the old rockers, we became our own entertainment.”

Billy’s circle of friends soon became famous as “the Bromley Contingent”— members included the Clash, Siouxsie Sioux and a couple of Sex Pistols. Their philosophy was “change should be brought whenever it’s needed and you have to constantly renew what you’re doing or it becomes stale and boring.”

He formed the band Generation X, but after four years and three albums, the band broke up. Soon the punk movement began to stagnate in Billy’s eyes, and he, with much criticism from the British and American press, moved to New York City where he joined up with guitarist Steve Stevens for his first solo ajbum, Billy Idol, which featured the hit “Dancing With Myself.”

Billy had great success with that LP, the Don’t Stop EP, and the double platinum Rebel Yell. Instead of putting out a new album right away, Billy dropped out of sight and took his-time on the next one. Nearly three years later, he has finally come out of hiding with the product of his studio isolation, tfVhiplash Smile.

Billy was heavily criticized for taking such a long break between recordings, and much talk was going around as to whether he could still come up with hits.

Steve Stevens explains: “One of the reasons it took so long really, was because we had come off a really grueling 10-month tour with Rebel Yell. One of the problems is most groups come off the road and all they write about is ‘I’m sitting in a hotel room. .. ’ and we wanted to just get back to our lives and settle in a bit. Then once Billy started playing the news songs that he had written, we realized the musicians that we had from that tour weren’t really right for it. They would fail miserably. So we made the decision to actually do it ourselves. We said, ‘We’re finally in the position to use decent recording studios, and here’s all this gear, and now let’s use it.’ We got all our strengths together and just between the three of us (Billy, myself and Keith Forsey) we took care of all the musicianship. So obviously that means we take three times as long because you have to take three times as many functions.”

Emotionally, Whiplash Smile is a radical—what else would one expect?—departure from anything Idol has ever done. Billy’s stance had been that of a man determined to keep emotion alive at all costs, but the new album turns to a world that has never before appeared in his music, the world of relationships between a man and a woman.

“When things are new, it’s all so fast, wonderful and lovely, but it isn't permanent,” Billy states. “When you start looking for things that are permanent, new things suddenly become important. Things like your commitment to your ideas, how you’re determined to live your life. Then you have to juggle all those things and make them work. You have to flex and give a lot of yourself to the person you’re in love with, yet not let the people down who count on you in the outside world or surrender your values.

“The music on this album wrestles with the bad things, but tries to bring them together at the end in a more unified way. So at the end of each song, you’ve got some sort of answer, whether it’s an emotional answer or a feeling of the way to go. I'm trying to be honest. I suppose I’m trying to say I can’t give the perfect answers, but those songs are the answers I can give. The meanings might be a little messed up, but they’re a real person working his life out.”

Billy’s own personal answers are remaining true to himself and his music. “If I could never write music again or if I lost my love for it—that would be the rottenest thing in the world for me. I’d live the rest of my life in a black world with no vision. You have to have something you love to be able to love other people.”

Billy is doing what he loves the most— sharing his music with his fans. He’s been flashing his whiplash smile all across the country on the Whiplash Smile tour this past summer and hopefully Billy will soon have a new album out. But don’t pressure him. Billy is dedicated to give his fans quality instead of quantity.

Sharon Harrow