by Billy Idol
New York teemed with life lived at close quarters, in the raw, close to the edge. Just off the end of Jones Street was 1 Sheridan Square, where my mate Ace Penna lived, his first-floor window permanently open in the summer so that you could shout up to him from the street. Ace, a friend of Brendan Bourke’s, had worked with some of the up-and-coming New York bands, and I would sometimes hang at his place before going out on the town. We used to watch Saturday Night Live reruns every night, which was a great education about the Blues Brothers, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, because we never saw these early SNL shows in England. With that irreverence fresh in our memory banks, Ace and I would hit the street. He turned me on to this “new Irish band, U2” and played me their album, Boy. The group was already making its mark in the States.
I really needed my own place, and when a room came free in Ace’s building, on the opposite side of his floor, I rented it. The extent of my belongings at the time included a mattress, my guitar, a stereo, and the small portable black-and-white TV on loan from Brendan Bourke. The apartment was bare of furniture. I found a discarded couch on the street one day and brought it back for something to sit on. My mate Mark May had returned to England, but he planned on coming back soon. Perri was also still back in England at this point, and I missed her desperately. With the exception of my band, I was on my lonesome in the middle of the wildest 24/7 city in the world.
We had a few new songs, plus some Generation X material, so we played some “jump-up” gigs, where you get up semi-unexpectedly and play mainly for the fun or hell of it, to create a buzz. These dance and after-hours clubs didn’t have many live bands, but they had big audiences that were familiar with my music and me. They were great places to launch an indirect attack, kind of a “hit ’em when they ain’t looking” strategy. Also, these gigs were another character-building and bonding activity for my bandmates and me.
One night, we played a 1:00 a.m. gig at AM/PM, an after-hours club, and the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones, who was also living in New York at the time, joined us on guitar for “Dancing with Myself.” I don’t think Jones thought too much of Steve Stevens at the time, but I thought he was great. I knew even then I would need every one of the many textures Steve Stevens’s guitar playing would bring.
Another time, we did a show on Danceteria’s tiny first-floor stage. The PA wasn’t much, but it was the spirit that mattered. An added benefit that had not gone unnoticed was that all my bandmates could get into the club for free once we had played there. I don’t know if we were any good, but it was all in the punk get-up-and-do-it-yourself spirit—just the way I had done everything else thus far in my rock ’n’ roll life. I enjoyed bringing that sense of adventure to my solo endeavor. These ad hoc shows trained us to be ready for anything, including playing with unfamiliar gear or in unexpected circumstances. In such events, the energy is fraught with tension, but once it’s released, the band plays with an abandon that is truer in nature to the rock ’n’ roll spirit. The audience responds to that kind of spontaneity more so than to something that’s been planned and worked to death. The band put that jump-up spirit and energy into every live performance we did.
Perri and I had managed to keep up a long-distance affair through letters and stolen phone cards. I met tons of girls in the clubs, but Perri is one of a kind. I loved her wild look, but I also dug the nutty person she was, with all the eccentricities that come with artistic people. Back in London, Perri had formed a spin-off dance troupe, Spinooch, after leaving Hot Gossip over a managerial rip-off, but that didn’t work out, so she came back to New York to stay. We had a blast being together in this new world of love, kicks, and possibilities. We both had hopes that we could find our way to success in the States. So, for the moment, we had New York City to entertain us, and we had each other.
At Keith Forsey’s suggestion, we made plans to record the album in L.A. in February ’82. It would be a fun break from the icy chill of a New York winter that seemed to stretch into infinity. But I was conflicted about going. I was both excited and a little sad, as I knew I’d be missing Perri again once I got to L.A. But on a shoestring budget, and with a number of songs yet to be written, this disparate group of New York musicians and an Englishman needed to continue bonding—socially and musically—if my experiment was going to work. Perri and I would savor our time together before I had to leave. We sat before a glowing log in our small apartment, having the occasional bag of street H. Other times, our friend Bobby Belenchia from Yonkers, who worked at Famous Ray’s Pizza nearby, brought a log with him. The label money barely covered the rent, so thank god Bobby also came with a pizza. That winter, we lived on air, weak heroin, and New York pizza slices.
Perri and I brought the best out in each other. When it came to overindulgence in bad habits, however, we also brought out the worst. At the time, what we were doing seemed to be merely par for the rock ’n’ roll course. Alcohol and drug addiction seemed requisite: that was how we were turning the world around. Up was down, and night was day. Looking back today, I can see we should have known there would be ramifications for being so ambivalent. But the drug’s effects were so strong, they hypnotized us into thinking nothing would ever go wrong. We were dancing with the devil, all right; in fact, we were arm in arm, swinging each other around. I felt like I was in another dimension, my own private world, at once engaged with reality but somehow removed at the same time. A calm descended that nothing but the need for more could replace.
I was a functioning drug addict, if there is such a thing. I’d rarely shoot dope, just snort the weak NY street shit two or three times a week. I didn’t have the money to do it every day, plus I had too much to do. I didn’t want to be dope-sick all the time. Three days in a row and you could get quite dope-sick—nothing you couldn’t shake off if you had to, but you still felt vile. I never wanted to get hooked on the needle. I didn’t want to get too fucking serious about anything other than Perri and music, at least for the moment.
I was celebrating my first nine months in the States, and I had a lot to show for it, with an EP, a great new guitarist, a new band, and a fistful of new songs to record under my belt, songs that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere in the chaos of the city that never sleeps. At first it was hard to distinguish the good ideas from the bad ones. Then, sometimes unexpectedly, one of the tunes, perhaps a melody with half-formed words, would suddenly form a sentence that gave me goose pimples or a warm flow of energy that told me I might have found something special that could be developed into a song. I believed that only by living life to the fullest could one ingest sufficient unique experiences to gain something that could be regurgitated in the form of a song.
We also had some great records to listen to in that West Village apartment. We listened over and over to Alan Vega’s solo album Collision Drive. He was doing club dates around the city with a pickup band that looked like they probably played in a Holiday Inn, with black flares and feathered haircuts. Still, they played Alan’s forward-driven machine beat just great, so looks can be deceiving. I had been hanging out with Vega, whether he was playing with Phil Hawk on guitar or with Martin Rev in Suicide. I traveled up to Boston with him and Marty for a gig at the Rat, and another time I took my first U.S. train journey to Philadelphia to see Alan play a solo club gig.
He would stare straight at Perri and me while he sang the ballad “Je T’Adore.” There was our compadre, singing to us from the stage. It was really romantic. “Je t’adore, Perri. I love you, I love you, baby.” I liked that Alan had a rep for both the performance side of his art and also the soft “I love you” romantic side, like Suicide’s “Cheree,” or my favorite, “Dream Baby Dream.” “You gotta hold on tight . . . to life,” he’d croon, twitching and smiling to himself. “That’s all you got, baby.” A punk with a heart? What’s wrong with that?
Alan was a wild man, punching himself with the microphone and rolling around onstage, all the while punctuating the performance with his soul-man grunts and howls. Suicide drove most people away, b
ut I loved them for the visionaries they were. Phil Hawk and I would be the only ones smiling at those gigs amid the looks of horror and disgust all around us. But I loved Suicide and Alan’s solo gigs, and I started to work with Phil to see if there was something we could do together. We decided to collaborate on a song, “It’s So Cruel,” for my first solo album.
Alan Vega was leading the way to the future. His band was playing this tight-groove, machine-rock blues that was old and new at the same time; he had a million influences, and wasn’t afraid to show them. One minute he’d be a raging Otis Redding, and the next, a lizard-like lounge singer.
Perri and I also saw the great reggae artist Burning Spear at Bond International Casino in Times Square. He played for three hours to a half-empty room whose denizens included Perri, me, and the Go-Go’s. We were stunned at how beautiful songs like “Marcus Garvey” were. We also got to see one of the Clash’s ’81 gigs at Bond’s and Public Image’s infamous Flowers of Romance show at the Ritz, where Johnny Lydon and company played behind a curtain, causing a riot in the enraged audience, who pelted the sheet with beer cans before the performance was cut short.
Perri and I were hooked on performance art, working on ours and watching others do theirs, then enthusing about it. Often, our discussions would get lost among the sensationalism and drugs.
Just before I was due to leave for L.A. to record with Keith Forsey, while in Bill Aucoin’s office I noticed that Kiss had recorded a song with Lou Reed, one of my all-time heroes. He probably did it because Bob Ezrin, who also worked with Kiss, produced his album Berlin. Thinking he might write with me, the office set up a meeting with him at his favorite NY pizza place, John’s on Bleecker Street near Seventh Avenue. I had seen him play four times: once at an outdoor festival in Dulwich in ’72, then on the Rock ’n’ roll Animal tour in ’74, opening for the Who at Charlton football ground in ’74, and in an intimate NYC setting in ’78 for the Take No Prisoners tour.
Lou sat in the shadows. We made some small talk about New York and what I’d done since moving there. When I proposed we write together, he responded that I would have to pay him an inordinate sum for every half hour we collaborated. I knew Lou had been in the game a long time, and I could see his veteran scars showing, but this shocked me, with my punk egalitarian ways. The thought of paying to write with someone was almost funny. I wasn’t after working with Lou for his name value. He was our King of Rock ’n’ roll, the Rock ’n’ roll Animal, the man fronting the Velvet Underground at Max’s. I saw Berlin through his eyes—he was Metal Machine Music! Still, it was cool to meet him and he was great, but I got the punk message reaffirmed right there. Fuck heroes. Just write your own goddamn songs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
HOLLYWOOD DAZE AND TEQUILA NIGHTS
Sunset Strip, Los Angeles
THE NIGHT WAS DARK AT midnight in Los Angeles, and the wail of a police siren followed me as the speeding car I was in careened down a side street and blasted into an intersection, barely missing another vehicle. With a screeching of brakes, the automobile in which I was riding slid just past the other car, missing it by inches. I clung tightly to the dashboard for dear life, certain I might die at any moment. Inexplicably, the driver made a mad dash on a parallel road, but then a police car began desperately trying to follow us in a wild chase. Its red beacon and flashing blue light reflected its rapid pace and echoed the crazed look of the nervous officers whose wide-eyed stares were practically pressed to the windshield in pursuit.
I was being driven by a washing machine salesman high on a couple of Percodans he’d taken after having four wisdom teeth removed earlier that day. The glazed look on his face told me the pills had kicked in and were influencing this mad behavior. “Why don’t you just pull into a driveway and hope they pass us?” I asked in desperation. Amazingly, he did so, but managed to smash into a gatepost before backing up and careening down an alley just big enough for us to drive through. The police were right behind us, looking more agitated than ever, if that were possible. The grim scowls on their faces seemed to ask, Why are they running?
We pulled around a tight corner by some garages at the back of the alley, and the mad dash came to a grinding halt with a screech of the brakes just short of someone’s backyard fence.
The bright headlights of the cop car with its harsh white beams shone into our car, the stillness punctuated by a voice crackling from a bullhorn: “Keep your hands on the dash where we can see them. We want to see those hands!” Slowly, out of the dark shadows of the back lot emerged the figures of two men, guns drawn. One moved to the passenger side, motioning with his snub-nosed .38 for me to get out of the car, keeping my hands in view. Another grabbed my black friend, G.A., who was sitting in the back of the car, dragging him roughly along the concrete on his knees, placing him in front of the piercing white beams, making him put his hands on his head. After I got out of the car, they put me alongside G.A. I noticed their treatment of the two white guys in the car was a lot different from the way they were treating G.A. Land of the free? I thought to myself.
When they demanded to know where the drugs were, I laughed. “If we had any money, we might have some.” I explained the story of the washing machine salesman’s dental problems. They didn’t believe me—my calm answer seemed to leave them nonplussed. By now, a police helicopter was buzzing above us, illuminating us in the harshest spotlight I’d experienced in my still-fledgling career. More squad cars arrived on the scene, including the California Highway Patrol, the famed CHiPs I knew only from TV.
“Where are the drugs?” they demanded. I answered with the same tale. By now, they had learned that the driver was the car’s rightful owner and that none of us had a record. They began to believe that my story was, in fact, the truth. The Percodan had caused our driver to flip out, and as none of us was holding anything incriminating, they finally let us go, giving the driver a small fine for crashing into the gatepost of the house and demanding that G.A. take the wheel. My first day in L.A. to record my first solo album had ended up in a police chase.
The next day, I headed to Westlake Studios for a writing session. We still didn’t have the full complement of songs for the album. Keith Forsey set me up in the control room with my Epiphone semi-acoustic and a drum machine. “See what you can find,” he said, and left the room to give me space to allow “Jah to come down” to invade my senses and infuse the session with some heavenly splendor.
Luckily for me, I didn’t have to wait too long. Jah must’ve known I needed something special on this day. I stared at the blank piece of scrap paper in front of me. Taking the pen sitting alongside it in hand, I wrote white wedding at the top. What made me think of that? Well, my sister had recently gone to the altar pregnant. And while that fact was perfectly all right with everyone, seeing as how she loved the guy, I started thinking about how, in the more recent past, this would have been called a “shotgun wedding.” I started to imagine an alternative reality, one in which I was pissed off at this violation of my sister and I arrive at the wedding hell-bent on revenge.
I started playing to the drum machine set to a standard 4/4 beat, and then chugging in B, my favorite key, the key of “Ready Steady Go,” “Your Generation,” etc., I started to sing this eerie first line:
HEY LITTLE SISTER WHAT HAVE YOU DONE / HEY LITTLE SISTER WHO’S THE ONLY ONE?
Is this guy in love with his sister in an incestuous way, hating the thought of anyone else having her? The lyrics imply it, but without spelling it out—they create an uneasy feel.
HEY LITTLE SISTER WHO’S YOUR SUPERMAN / HEY LITTLE SISTER SHOTGUN
Then I added a simple chord change, from D to E to B. “It’s a nice day for a white wedding.” E to D to B . . . “It’s a nice day to start again.”
This was probably me echoing my own experience of beginning again after the Gen X breakup. I circled around this verse/chorus idea for a few minutes before settling on a chugging B again.
THERE IS NOTHING FAIR IN THIS WO
RLD GIRL / THERE IS NOTHING SURE IN THIS WORLD / AND THERE IS NOTHING PURE IN THIS WORLD / I LOOK FOR SOMETHING LEFT IN THIS WORLD / START AGAIN!
That gave me a middle for the song. I continued to work around these ideas. I began to play a B-minor over the chugging B-D-E/B-E-D chord changes and simply picked up and down the strings, giving the music what sounded like a “spaghetti western” feel with which we could start the song.
Twenty minutes after I had started, I came out of the control room to find Keith sitting right outside the door, reading a magazine. “Teach,” I said, “I’ve done my homework.” At first he couldn’t believe I had come up with something that quickly. Still, after he examined my work tape and heard a bit of explaining from me, we immediately started to construct a more coherent demo that we could play for the whole band. I played the bass and guitar, and we made a twenty-minute demo that incorporated all the pieces of the song. If overlong and repetitious, it still gave us a picture of the song and something we could edit with the whole band there.
I was pretty knocked out by my efforts and glad that I’d come up with something of the caliber of “Dancing with Myself.” This time, I had written it on my own, without a collaborator. So this is how this solo stuff works, I thought to myself.
ONE NIGHT I’M KNEELING IN a back alley with two different California police forces training their guns on me, the next I’m in my second-floor room at the Sunset Marquis in a pissed-off mood, wondering whether I should dropkick the room phone over the balcony into the pool below like a rugby star attempting a field goal. While I was imagining the announcer intoning solemnly, “William Broad is about to make the winning kick,” and was set to deliver a deathblow to the offending instrument, a security guard in the courtyard shouted, “Don’t you dare kick that phone!”
Calling the manager on his walkie-talkie, he yelled out, “We’ve got a weird guy destroying hotel property—over.” The hotel manager was angry when he arrived at my door, threatening to throw me out of the hotel, but he relented when he saw it was just a phone. Putting on my best English gentleman airs, I offered, “I’m so terribly sorry, but I’ve just heard the news my grandmother is dying in the UK, and I’m dreadfully upset.”
