How Billy Idol Helped Start a New Revolution in the ‘80s

Billy Idol’s journey to America is one that changed a lot of things, both for his own career and the fans that would eventually heard many of his hit songs that dominated radio and MTV in the ’80s.

It’s just one part of his impressive career that he’s now revisiting in a few different ways. There’s a forthcoming documentary which has been taking shape over the past few years, which helped to inspire his forthcoming album, Dream Into It. It’s hardly a retrospective victory lap, because the singer has kept diligently working on music in recent years, releasing a pair of strong EPs back to back, 2021’s The Roadside, which was followed a year later by The Cage.

Those projects, combined with similarly innovative excursions like the first-ever live concert that he performed at Hoover Dam in 2023 help to demonstrate Idol’s continued dedication to exploring his craft in new and creative ways. Dream Into It is the next chapter, a conceptual work that takes stock of his entire career, seen through a musical lens. The album is set for release April 25, days before he hits the road for the start of his summer tour with Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.

The legendary rocker checked in with the UCR Podcast  recently for a short chat on the day that it was announced he’d been nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. During the conversation, he offered a preview of the upcoming album and discussed other topics, including 1993’s Cyberpunk and his overall history with concept albums and rock operas.

What did you realize was interesting to you, going through the process of making this record and charting the overall journey you’ve been on?
We were doing a documentary and and so when I came to make this album, I just bounced off the documentary because that’s literally what we were doing. You couldn’t help but think about your life and all of the different elements. You know, the punk rock days, coming to America, going solo, becoming a bit of a drug addict…and then getting [sober, I] stopped being a drug addict. We started to write the songs, kind of thinking about [those things]. Writing a song about 1977, writing a song about coming to America — that sort of thing — and what it was like in those days. So the album is a little bit about the story of my life, almost in chronological order. That’s how we’ve even done the track listing. We didn’t do it like that in the old days. You always did it [with] a hit single first and the second single second. But this [album] is telling a story, that’s the story of my life. Really, that’s what Dream Into It is about. The first single, “Still Dancing,” is [the story] encapsulated into one song.

Watch Billy Idol’s ‘Still Dancing’ Video

Yeah, and “Still Dancing” has kind of a cool full circle feeling to it. What do you love about having this be the first thing people are hearing from the album?
Well, it’s great, because I think it is a bit of a touchstone thing. It’s not so different from what we’ve done before. And at the same time it, it really does encapsulate my whole life. It’s got the energy and the vitality of my whole life as well, [and] what I’ve put into my life. [It has] the energy we believed things should have when we came out of punk rock.

You mentioned coming to America. How did America change the picture for you?
Well, of course, living in England, I knew what English people liked. I had to think a bit more about what [Americans liked] when I came to America. But at the same time, it was about looking into yourself and dragging out whatever it is you wanted to put into music. That was really the core celebrity, if you know what I mean. Also, too, it was the beginning of a new decade when I came to America. So you were thinking about that too, that we were going forward with the music — and we were making the music that was creating the music of that decade, the ’80s.

READ MORE: 5 Reasons Billy Idol Should Be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

I appreciate some of the folks you got to collaborate with on this album. Avril Lavigne and Joan Jett, for example. They’re different generations, but they both seem like kindred spirits when it comes to what you do.
Yeah, it’s fantastic, working with some female artists. I’ve never really done that many duets before, so it was fantastic. There’s three on this album which is kind of wild and they were really fun to do. The girls really liked the songs and it just worked. As soon as we did it, we could see that it worked and it was the right idea. You can tell almost immediately if it’s going to work or not. Everything happened really easily.

This new album is a conceptual work. One of our favorite records here at Ultimate Classic Rock is Cyberpunk. That album was and is such a groundbreaking piece of work, Billy. You were pushing the limits of technology as you worked on that record. What sticks with you about the experience you had making that album?
Well, it was really good fun. It was more like making an indie record. We actually made it in my house. I was using the beginnings of the Pro Tools system, so it was kind of the future of recording and the idea that you could record at home — really, that’s what everybody does today. Even the album I’ve just made, a large part of it was recorded in a very small room at my producer’s house and then we went into a studio to do some of the drums and stuff like that that needed more of a sonic sound. But a lot of it was done just like I did Cyberpunk all of those years ago. That’s the thing about this sort of home recording equipment, so many people could make music because of it. I think it was the future and all of that excited me.

Watch Billy Idol’s ‘Shock to the System’ Video

How much did you grow up as a fan of concept albums, rock operas and things like that?
We were growing up during the time of the ’60s when there were [albums like] Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or Tommy and all of the Who [albums], Lifehouse, Quadrophenia — a lot of people were making concept albums. Even David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust, you know? It was always part of what we grew up listening to [musically]. The music was very eclectic. People didn’t make one album just doing one thing. They made very different songs in amongst the album. I think that’s what we tried to do, even ourselves. When we made albums, we’d try to make music that covered a number of different styles. I certainly did that in my solo music. I deliberately did that. I think even the Clash were doing that, [making] dramatically different music, one minute doing a blues song, then a reggae song and a punk rock song. That’s kind of what we grew up with, we grew up with people making eclectic albums.

You’re going to be out with Joan Jett this summer. I wondered what your memories are about the moment you met Joan?
I met Joan in 1978. I was coming to America to do a Generation X press tour. I went to New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, I hung out at the Whisky a Go Go, watching the Germs and Black Flag. After that, I hung out with Joan around the corner in a room with 20 other girls all dressed like the ’60s. They were all dressed in go-go gear and little go-go boots. It was pretty fun. I was the only guy. Pretty exciting.

As we consider your recent Rock Hall nomination, one cool thing you got to be a part of last fall was paying tribute to Ozzy Osbourne. What do you appreciate about Ozzy as a fellow artist and creative person and just the overall legacy that he has, both personally and with Black Sabbath?
Well, I saw Ozzy when I was 12 or 13. It was like one month before the first Black Sabbath album came out in England. I was sitting there watching Ozzy and his tassels were touching me during the gig, because we were right at the front. That was the music that was really inspiring us. Things like “Paranoid” went on  inspiring us into punk, you know. Those guys were sort of leading the way. We watched them putting their music together and then later on, taht’s what we sort of did in punk. We did our own version of our own scene and sort of took music on, just like they did.