Gothic Theatre

Billy Idol

From Idle to Idol

By Carole Page

Born William Michael Albert Broad in Stanmore Middlesex on Nov 30th 1955. Billy was the first child of Bill & Joan Broad. Mr Broad decided when Billy was just 2 that they should all set off to follow
‘the American Dream’ & they relocated to Long Island in New York; it was here that sister Jane arrived two years later. The Broads returned to the UK after about four years, Billy bringing back many happy memories, in particular of the cars & the music. They stayed for a while in Mickleham, next door to The Running Horses Public House from Nov 1962 until July 1963, whilst their home in Goring, Sussex was being completed. In July 1963 the Broads eventually moved into Falmer Ave, with Billy being allocated the bedroom above the garage & they settled into their Sussex life. It was to be the beginning of an extra-ordinary life.

Billy now lives in Los Angeles, high in the Hollywood Hills. His home, a beautiful private haven overlooking the most spectacular views. His back catalogue boasts 3 gold, 3 platinum & a double platinum disc. His live shows have always brought raving reviews & have sold out arenas across the world, not least the Madison Square Garden in NewYork.
It was not an easy journey though & he struggled through battles,
both personal & professional. The lyrics to one of his early songs (English Dream) reflect this : “They shut all the doors…. But I KICKED ‘em down!..” & indeed he did.

He fought against drink & drug addiction. He refused to comply with the music bosses demand for conformity, “I never brushed my hair down & became David Cassidy” he insists, even when they removed his picture from the sleeve of his records in objection to his appearance.He spent a number of years in dispute with his father & in 1990 he survived a near fatal motorcycle accident which left him with a serious compound fracture to his leg, a broken arm & confined to bed for six months.

His unrelenting humour & optimism helped him through this.

“I thought…Thank God I wasn’t wearing my favourite leather jacket” he recalls & as the prospect of death stared him in the face, he thought
“I wish I’d left a ruder message on my answer phone”

His dogged determination has helped him through everything & always he has emerged stronger than before. The feud with his father has long since been settled & both Mr & Mrs Broad are immensely proud of their son & his achievements. Indeed it was Mr Broad himself who flew out to New York after receiving a letter from Billy that concerned him. He felt his son was in trouble & needed someone whom could guide him, in a way that he would listen to & it was a task he decided
he himself was the best person for. He succeeded & Billy left his New York existence for a new life in Los Angeles. Mr Broad was also the first to reply to a national newspaper article that had made a detrimental remark about his son.
“Go & see Billy’s show before you have any right to make such a comment” he told them.

Mrs Broad describes her son as being a normal, happy boy, bright & strong willed & who found the same amount of mischief as most other boys his age. She remembers their time in Goring as being a very happy period in their lives. Billy would hang out on the beach green with his pals & in the woods by the coast, sometimes venturing into nearby Worthing for bowling, or a visit to the pier.

The Broads were a religious family, with regular church & Sunday school & it was in Goring that Billy joined the St.Mary’s cub scouts,
eventually becoming a full scout. Although, it is reputed that he was later asked to leave after getting caught kissing a Girl Guide behind the hotdog stand at a church fete.

St Mary’s Church of England Primary School (where Billy passed his 11+ exam) & Worthing High School provided Billy’s education & it was here that one of the teachers unwittingly became responsible for Billy’s eventual stage name.

Not realising that Billy was actually bored at school, he described him as ‘idle’ in his school report. It was a comment which would stay in Billy’s mind for a long time. Regardless. Billy progressed well with his studies & when the family moved to Bromley in Kent in 1971, Billy transferred to the Ravensbourne Grammar school.

There was never any question that Billy was indeed a very bright student, but his need for constant stimulation & possibly an over riding compulsion to reject authority meant he didn’t really settle well.

“After boring Goring, no wonder I went wild in London” he exclaims, as he set out to discover the excitement of the capital. The distractions of which proved to leave too little time for studies & he failed to achieve the necessary requirements for a place at University. Mr & Mrs Broad of course were disappointed by this & arranged for Billy to retake his exams at Orpington College of Further Education.

Billy found this to be far more enjoyable, also he didn’t have to wear school uniform & could grow his hair long. It was with great pride he announced to his parents twelve months later that he had secured his place at Sussex University. He began his courses in English & Philosophy in Sept 1975. This of course coincided with the explosion of punk rock already breaking its way into the music industry & it had captured the imagination, soul & spirit of Billy. It was refreshingly ‘new’ & ‘different’ & Billy had identified immediately with it.
He began to realise that music held a far greater interest to him.
He wanted to be a part of the scene.

He became regularly seen with a group of like minded friends
at all the hip places in London. Instantly recognisable by their snappy & original dress,(Malcolm Mclaren’s SEX shop clothes & peg pants), they became known as the Bromley Contingent. Their admiration for the shocking & boundary breaking band, The Sex Pistols, grew & wherever the Pistols went, so too did the Contingents.

Of course Billy could never be happy as just an onlooker & before long decided he wanted to be a real part of this musical revolution. It meant there would be no time for his English or Philosophy studies.
At this time Billy was known simply as Bill Broad, he was the only one wearing drain-pipe jeans & short hair at the University (still then his natural colour) & he was becoming increasingly frustrated with his role as ‘student’. Billy refers to this Summer of ‘76 as the summer of Hate. During the rare heatwave of ‘76, Billy decided to set about realising his true dream. He already played guitar & his classmate Steve Upstone was proficient on bass. They formed Billy’s first band, The Rockettes.

They played some Animals, ‘We Gotta get out of this Place’, some Beatles, ‘Showdown,’ Smokestack Lightning, Roadrunner (Jr Walker version) You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling (Righteous Brothers) some Doors material & other songs, ‘trying to re-discover a primitive element in rock.’ They would play in the campus cafeteria at night & also did one gig outside the University at a local youth hall.
They also did an audition for Malcolm McLaren & Bernie Rhodes (Clash & Sex Pistols management) where they told Steve that he was the star & that of course is what Billy says ‘really drove him to prove himself.’

Nothing was ever recorded from this time however & it wasn’t until
Billy joined forces with Tony James, another fellow student & became Chelsea & eventually Generation X that they caught the attention of the record producers.

It was during this time that Billy decided his name (Bill Broad)
had too much of a skinhead suggestion & was not fitting to the image he was trying to create. The recollection of his teacher’s early comment triggered the idea of Billy Idle, but on reflection he decided that actually he wasn’t idle & that IDOL would be more fitting. He felt it was a way of making a point, but at the same time making fun of the idea.

Before this though, there was still the matter of an unfinished University course & when Sept 1976 arrived, Billy had decided that he would not be returning. He failed to mention this fact to his parents however & as September progressed, Mrs Broad began to wonder just how long the summer break was. On enquiry to this she was told very simply by Billy that he did not intend to return & the reason offered was “because all the girls wear flat shoes” Mrs Broad describes this day as a “very gloomy Sunday”.

The fact that his parents & in particular his father, didnt like the idea of him going into the music business was all the confirmation that Billy needed to know he had chosen the right direction & made him even more determined to succeed at it. It was not just a question of deliberately wanting to rebel against them, but eventually became more a case of wanting to prove that what he had chosen was not worthless.
Also, he has always insisted “I never wanted no proper job.”

Generation X (with Tony James on bass, John Towe on drums & Bob (Derwood) Andrews on guitar) played their first live show in November 1976 & began writing & recording their own songs.

In July 1977 their persistence paid off & they were offered a contract with Chrysalis Records.

Punk however gradually began to run its course & after their third album, some management problems, unrest within the band & an increasing disillusionment, Billy decided it was a good time to make a break & headed off to America on a solo venture, after ‘a two-week long farewell party.’ New York City was his first destination.

It was the start of a few very wild years as he endeavoured to prove himself to both the music industry & the listening public. His headlines were not always favourable & on occasion his personal activities received more attention than his professional achievements.
But always, Billy’s drive & unconditional belief in himself & his music carried him through. It wasn’t too long before he made himself heard in all the right places & the 1980’s brought huge successes for Billy with his co-writer guitarist Steve Stevens, at first with the self titled album Billy Idol in 1982, soon to be followed by the legendary Rebel Yell in 1983. The albums Vital Idol followed in 1985 & Whiplash Smile in 1986, with a huge tour to follow.

Billy began to feel his successes & enjoy them. Very soon, the trappings of life in the fast lane began to take their toll & toward the end of the ‘80’s, Billy decided he needed to make some changes. He uprooted from everything familiar, including his writing & recording partner Steve, & settled into the relatively slower pace of Los Angeles.

A new band, a new album & a new life followed, complete with an offer of a prominent role in the Oliver Stones movie of The Doors & another world tour to promote the already successful Charmed Life album.
These plans were sadly interrupted however when Billy suffered the near fatal motorcycle accident in Feb 1990. Billy would not allow it to delay things for too long though & in typical Idol style & with the tender nursing of his mother, he overcame all the odds & was back out on the road, much quicker than any doctor could ever have predicted.

The 90’s progressed & we all became gradually introduced to the wonders of the Internet & all things Cyber. Billy was keen to explore this new phenomenon & with a little influence from the publication Boing Boing, by Mark Frauenffelder, embarked on a brand new project, concept & image. 1993 brought us the innovative era & album.

An attitude of DIY is most notable with the Cyberpunk album. It was recorded in a home studio controlled by a Macintosh computer.
With new guitarist, Mark Younger-Smith & producer Robin Hancock Billy experimented with the boundaries of producer/artist by switching roles on some of the tracks. They used the computer as a tool to amplify & transmit live energy to the songs on the album.

Billy insists “It’s wrong to call this a computerised album, because we could play the whole thing by banging on one fucking drum, an acoustic guitar & me screaming. The computer was just a way to skip levels & get a jump start in the game ” The CYBERPUNK tour incorporated the very latest developments of technology, including telepresence robotry, VR interactivity, & real time “Blendo” video manipulation, in which Billy could tweak images from 20 “swarm cams” & present them on giant monitors. Nothing like it had been seen before.

Despite this, many fans felt that the album was unjustly overlooked at the time of it’s release. The concept of the album was ‘different’ & intriguing & some of the tracks are considered to be an example of Billy’s best work. Although some consider it wasn’t received as well as it should have been at the time. It seems more & more now that it is being ‘rediscovered’ & better understood & appreciated.

Sadly the tour of the album, No Religion, was not extensive & few were really able to witness the Cyberpunk experience in its full glory.
From 1993 to 1996, Billy took a break. He felt he wanted to take some time to ‘live a little’, enjoy his life & in particular his children. A brief Guest appearance in the Who’s Quadrophenia live stage production, a short appearance in the Wedding Singer film & a few other small projects took him into the late 90’s. 1999 brought confirmed recognition to Billy with his second wax model opening
in Las Vegas.

It was fatherhood that eventually calmed Billy after yet another of his life-saving trips to the hospital. Shortly after his discharge, as Billy was watching his young son playing innocently, a close friend pointed to the child saying “he wouldn’t forgive you if you died”.

However, I use the term ‘calmed’ loosely, as fans that have seen his
recent shows will verify. By a quirk of circumstances Billy hooked up once again with his old friend & co-writer, Steve Stevens around 1997 & they found the bond they had once shared so passionately was still very evident. They set about writing some new material together, some of which they have been airing during the most recent tours over the last four years. It may be some years since the hedonistic, crazy days, but there is no question that Billy still has that edge, the attitude & the unbridled passion for his music.

The shows are still ‘no holds barred’, raw, gritty & biting.
He has never lost contact with his fans & the shows allow a great personal interaction for both artiste & fans & a mutual respect & appreciation is always very obvious. He has a massive stage presence & an air of defiant arrogance. He is the leering, sneering, fist punching bad boy who frequently introduces himself on stage as “I’m Billy Fucking Idol”. However, off stage, he is actually quite gentle & sensitive. He is very knowledgeable & interesting to talk to & has a wonderful sense of humour.

He has an incredible openness & honesty & willingness to share everything with his fans, both the good & the bad experiences.
He wants his fans to know the truth, his truth & of course much of this is relayed in the lyrics of his songs, but also there is no subject that he shies from talking about. Billy always makes time to acknowledge his fans & express his thanks to us all. He always takes great interest in the Fan Club activities & responds with personal contributions, either by phoning, faxing or leaving a message on the Site.

2002 brought two VH1 music TV specials & a great insight into Billy’s life & career with the Behind the Music & Storytellers productions; these also allowed us to hear our favourite tracks in a fresh new acoustic form.

Billy is now still working with Steve Stevens on new material for a CD due for release hopefully next year. The reports & reviews of the recent tours have been raving & fans of every age have flocked from all directions to catch these shows. As Mr Broad suggested all those years ago…”Go see his show…” & witness for yourself the transition from Idle to Idol. No-one ever leaves disappointed.

Nothing seems to faze Billy for long & throughout everything, he has never fallen from his devotion. He has always managed to produce the goods & they have always been goods well worth waiting for. This I believe is why Billy remains so high in the regard of so many devoted fans throughout the world, both male & female, young & old.

“They heard it wrong, I said I was ‘into porn again – not born again!’”

“No deadlines… only headlines”

“It’s not necessarily about having talent… but about the attitude”