Dancing With Myself

by Billy Idol

  Upon arriving at the cover shoot, which took place prior to the interview, E. J. Camp, the photographer, didn’t seem satisfied until I was bare-chested, wearing a loincloth fashioned from a T-shirt, with bleached blond bog-brush hair, dangling chains, glow-in-the-dark rosaries, and metallic crosses around my neck. The getup made me uncomfortable, as I remembered the terrible reaction John Travolta had gotten by shedding his shirt for the cover to promote Staying Alive, the Saturday Night Fever sequel he’d made with Sylvester Stallone. I naively asked E. J. to promise me she wouldn’t use the pictures if I didn’t like them, not realizing publisher Jann Wenner was the final arbitrator of all such decisions.

  All my misgivings were at the forefront of my mind when I came to do the interview with E. Jean Carroll, the journalist. She was a nice enough lady, but unfortunately, we (in truth, mostly I, in my dope-sick state) consumed several bottles of red wine with our dinner at Emilio’s in Greenwich Village. By the end of the interview, when Ellen Golden showed up at the table, my insecurities rushed to the surface, and I found myself leaning into the tape recorder raging on about how much I hated Rolling Stone and didn’t want to be on the cover. If we had done the interview earlier in the day, and I hadn’t been so drunk, I would never have said anything like that. But once it started, the vitriol came pouring out.

  By the time the check came, I was already pretty wasted. “I’ll let you pay,” I slurred, “but it better be a good article, you cunt. Otherwise, stick it up your ass. Anyway, Rolling Stone sucks. . . . If they were clever, they would have bought their own TV channel and put me on it. I know they’re rich enough.” Meanwhile, Carroll’s tape recorder was silently whirring, taking it all in.

  I couldn’t stop myself, and of course my rant made it into the final article. “Don’t fuck with me, motherfuckers!” I rambled. “ ’Cause I’m going to be rich enough soon. I’ll be at your economic level, and then fuck you, Rolling Stone.

  “I want to be on the back of that motherfucker! Don’t put me on the front! I think it sucks being on the front of Rolling Stone!”

  Speaking into the recorder mic, I continued to drunkenly ramble, “I love you all, you motherfuckers. But you should have fucking had a bit more respect when I came up in 1977, ’78, to see you in your Fifth Avenue offices! But I don’t care. Maybe now you understand that I am worth being on the front cover of your magazine—for the right reasons, motherfuckers! Don’t fucking put me on if you don’t like me or my music! Fucking don’t put me on it!”

  Carroll responded that her story on me was probably going to be a cover.

  I told her I didn’t like the picture they used of me in the year-end issue. “I thought it sucked,” I said. “And they better not fuck with me again.”

  The irony of my knee-jerk reflex “punk vs. establishment” bashing of the magazine was that I actually loved many things about Rolling Stone. In its coverage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, the publication was one of the few media outlets that actually stuck up for the ex-Beatle in his immigration fight against the U.S. government. I admired their books on Dylan, and of course I was a huge fan of Hunter S. Thompson’s gonzo-style journalism. Unfortunately, I shot myself in the foot, and what came out was this drunken, dope-sick rant that I couldn’t justify even if they betrayed my request not to use the photos I shot with E. J. Camp. Admittedly, when the magazine came out, my audience was thrilled to see me nearly naked on the cover, with my buttocks on the pages inside, even if the “end” didn’t justify the means. With the benefit of hindsight, my mindless venting would’ve been better off consigned to a garbage can. I should’ve been just happy to talk about how well the Rebel Yell album had come out. Unfortunately, I don’t believe we talked about music at all in the interview, which was mainly my fault, and a missed opportunity for me to have picked up artistic credibility from the critical community.

  I should have known better, but I was under stress, addicted, drunk, and slightly hopped up on coke. And this was the result. Even though it made me look like I didn’t give a shit about anything at all, I really cared about the music I was making with Keith and Steve. It’s just a shame none of that got in the interview. I have no one to blame but myself.

  Those ragged interviews only confirmed that I was just a ticking time bomb hastening my own fall from grace. And it wouldn’t be the last time I put my foot in my mouth. Dickens’s oft-quoted line “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” could well have been written about me. That infamous Rolling Stone cover might have boosted my short-term career prospects, but it harmed my chance at earning a measure of long-term credibility for my music, all thanks to me.

  In part due to the notoriety, the “Rebel Yell” video was a huge success on MTV and the record was a hit on rock radio, where it would often get played after Van Halen’s “You Really Got Me.” I suppose that was one way radio could rationalize it for their playlists, playing it back to back with the song nearest to punk, a cover of an old Kinks tune. Radio programmers tended to play it safe by opting for an image and a sound that was pretty consistent and within a formula. It was the job of the record company promotion staff to persuade them that they had everything to gain and nothing to lose by playing a song by an artist that might stretch the limits of their format without alienating their audience. It might even expand their audience, or allow them to beat their competitors to the punch by discovering a hit before other stations did.

  MTV wasn’t constrained by those rules. They were the only game in town when it came to playing videos, and at the time, their audience was growing by the millions every month. If they liked the music and the video, they played it. And so it was for me with “Rebel Yell.” MTV led the way, and radio, spurred on by an enthusiastic promotion department at Chrysalis, quickly followed.

  All I cared about was getting people to know about the album, and it seemed that all my dreams and hopes for success were coming to fruition. The video images of “Rebel Yell” were jumping out of TVs in millions of living rooms across America, and the signal from radio station towers zoomed and thundered the song through the speakers of a million boom boxes—the listening device of the day. Also not to be forgotten was the song silently filling the ears of joggers on their morning runs and workers on their way to and from the office, wearing the newly invented Sony Walkman.

  It was so great to see the joy our music was giving our fans on the road and to hear from many of those we met that the music meant so much to them. As the record took off, we graduated from clubs to small theaters. Everywhere we played we could feel the excitement in the air from the punters who just wanted to have some fun on their night out. It sure was an exhilarating time to be alive. I was living the dream, and that was a great feeling. But despite all this success, or perhaps because of it, I had done nothing to solve my own addiction to the lifestyle that was continuing to take its toll on me. Could I dispel the nightmare I was inevitably conjuring? Could I live beyond the hubris that rock journalist Robert Hilburn had predicted would eventually doom me? We would soon find out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  THE ROAR OF THE LION AND A NONSTOP GLOBAL ORGY

  All across the USA

  I WALKED INTO THE GARDEN of time and saw the Lioness standing beside a tree. I had no fear but couldn’t wait until I was entangled, ready to be torn apart. I could see the powerful sinews of her long, sleek muscles and caressed her powerful fangs, begging her to sink them into me, but when she did, with a low growl, I was set loose, and a paradise of passion carried my senses, sending them silently into a wilderness lost in sunshine and shadow. I burst forth from her jaws deep inside the forgotten land, dying a thousand times before the Lioness let go of her love, for her love was death and I was so near the edge.

  The Lioness said not a word, her huge tongue licking me as waves of orgasm hunted my soul and would not, could not, let go. I was a prisoner, caught in the Lioness’s smile. Gone was time; gone was ambition. Dance with me, for I have lost the Lioness’s embrace. Die w
ith me, the thousand deaths that flesh can die. But I was reborn, and the cycle remains unbroken. Writhing naked bodies dance among the white-hot burning flames as the Lioness purrs, for she holds sway here, and I am but a slave to my mistress.

  If you want to know what I’m talking about, enter a world where white is black and black is white, for that’s where the Lioness lives, feeding on human souls. Take heroin, add cocaine, pot, alcohol, and ecstasy, then get together with like-minded people and orgy as in Roman times. The sexual act and the drugs go hand-in-hand. Pleasure seekers of the world, unite, for we set sail and we are not coming back the same. The wedding feast is here, and I must tell of the forbidden journey where sanity is best lost. Abandon all reserve, for we orgy in the ’80s, as that is all we have.

  Many people were using the moment to discover their sexualities and private fantasies, and what better way to do so than to join in with rock ’n’ roll, where there were no rules, the party was 24/7, and we could stretch, suspend, and fold time like it was elastic.

  The Rebel Yell tour certainly took on dimensions in the sex-and-drug department that felt like the descriptions above. My manager, Bill Aucoin, did nothing to stop it, preferring to egg on our wild behavior, condoning it as he practiced his own edgy sexuality that most managers of the time knew nothing about. Bill’s jaw would grind back and forth some days, the result of the previous night’s cocaine binge. When he’d visit us at one of the promotional in-stores we’d do around the country, we would stand in a line behind the counter and place our fingers above our top lips to replicate his mustache, moving our jaws back and forth, imitating that sawing motion as a kind of salute.

  All along the way, there were usually scenes of crazy fans hurling themselves at our car, sprawling on the hood or lying down in front to prevent us from moving. They screamed, they moaned, they grabbed us or one another, crying, “Oh my God,” jumping up and down, pressing forward and overwhelming security, their red faces wet with tears, their screaming mouths begging for release. They ripped off what few clothes I had on and held their trophies aloft, then fought each other to keep the prize. It felt like Beatlemania all over again, except this time darker and more troubling.

  The gigs had the same wild abandon as our audience found its voice, which usually entailed a scream. Edvard Munch’s famous painting was on almost every face; a strange twisted skull with hands on either side, groping for God knows what. We moved around the U.S., virtual prisoners on our bus or in hotel rooms as the record boomed away on a thousand, nay, a million speakers. Many found their way to our rooms, and we obliged our lusts and theirs, the same young lust that knows no boundaries, with no end and no beginning, as it is insatiable. The few hours we traveled or played the shows gave us just the respite we needed to do it all over again the next day.

  The “Rebel Yell” video and radio airplay had done their work well, but now it was time for a follow-up. When we’d finished recording the album, Aucoin had played it for a top New York DJ, who thought “Eyes Without a Face” was the obvious successor. During a two-day break from the shows, we met up with David Mallet in L.A. and concocted the blueprint for a new video. I recalled my affinity for the German Expressionist silent horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and the strange, twisted nightmare sets suggested the psychotic world of the somnambulist killer.

  Using that influence to create the concept, we shot a video a few weeks later in L.A., beginning with a shot of my disembodied head, coming in close on my eyes, filmed through flames to distort the picture. Then I descended a twisted staircase to enter a pit surrounded by fire. Silent, hooded monks dressed in black loomed on a raised circular plinth behind and around me. The video ended outside with Perri and me being blasted by a pressure hose you couldn’t see. Finally, there was a shot of me standing with my fists in the air in triumph, kind of like Charlie Watts on the cover of the Rolling Stones album Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!

  During the two-day shoot, I listened to Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Green River” and “Keep on Chooglin’ ” over and over, which proved handy when Dennis Hunt, the L.A. Times critic, came to interview me during a break from filming and was disarmed, impressed to see my trailer rocking back and forth as I danced around to classic rock ’n’ roll.

  Wrote Hunt: “Idol, 28, is arrogant, abrasive and often snarlingly sarcastic. But he’s still very likable. His intelligence and, believe it or not, sensitivity temper those other qualities, but his most distinguishing characteristic is his smoldering intensity. When talking about something he feels strongly about, he gets so wound up that he seems ready to explode.”

  I had held it together during the interview and was thrilled with the results.

  IN THOSE DAYS, I WORE hard contact lenses to correct my shortsightedness. As the video for “Eyes Without a Face” was shot over a marathon forty-eight-hour span, by the time I’d flown to the next gig in Tucson, Arizona, I’d been wearing them for thirty-six hours. I hadn’t slept that much—if at all. While waiting for the sound check, I went outside, lay down, and passed out on the cool grass verge outside the college venue. I was dressed in a Vivienne Westwood outfit with a Dickensian touch, and with my crumpled top hat, I must’ve looked like the Artful Dodger, which was the desired effect. However, after my eyes closed and I entered dreamland, I was blissfully unaware that I hadn’t removed my contacts, until without warning I was awakened rather rudely by a sheriff pointing his gun directly at me.

  “We don’t allow no bums to sleep on the grass,” he growled.

  I heard his voice distant and hollow in my head. I opened my eyes but could only make out the outline of his weapon, while tears came pouring from my eyes. Something was wrong! I realized I had fallen asleep without taking the contacts out. You can scrape the cornea of your eye, exposing your nerve endings, making you ultrasensitive to the light. The pain was intense and my eyes were gushing. All the while, the cop kept saying something about bums not being allowed on the lawn.

  “I’m with the band playing tonight,” I offered.

  “Well, let’s take a look, buddy, but you better not be wasting my time,” he said pointing out the way with the gun barrel.

  We went into the building and found my road manager, George. “He’s with us, all right,” he told the officer with a glint in his eye, betraying a worried expression.

  “I don’t believe you,” the cop insisted. “Get everybody working here to line up on this stage and identify who this is.”

  I went to remove the lenses from my eyes that were literally streaming tears. “You! Don’t move,” he ordered, gun still drawn.

  So the crew lined up in front of me, my eyes still dripping, as the cop asks, “Who is this bum?”

  “The boss!” they answered in unison to the police officer’s surprise, to which I added, “Right! Now, I’m taking these things out of my eyes because I think I’m going to need to go to a hospital. They’re killing me.”

  So they rushed me to a hospital, where drops were put in to relieve the pain. Unfortunately, we had to postpone that night’s gig. My eyes remained bandaged for two days, and only after that had my corneas healed enough for me to recommence playing.

  When the “Eyes Without a Face” video debuted in June of 1984, it went to number one on MTV for six weeks. Add to that the over-the-top radio play for this twisted ballad, which was always paired with the Cars’ “Drive” on the NY drive-time station, and we climbed into the Top Ten singles chart at Billboard. At one point that spring, we were at number 4 on the album chart and number 6 on the singles tally. After that, we began to play arenas. For ten months, we crisscrossed the States and Canada several times. Somewhere in the darkness, the Lioness roared her approval. I had become a massive star in the States, with a punk pedigree to boot. Everything was falling into place.

  We rolled through the American heartland on a bus to nowhere, stealing through the night, caught up in a dream, inhaling it in and then blowing it out. City after city, town after town, and then continent after
continent, on a never-ending ride at a worldwide rock ’n’ roll fun fair, dazzled by the lights, buried in the sound, and caught in a crossfire hurricane. For all that, it was the songs that would sustain and soothe you, the magic moments written on the heart and soul. Every show was packed with frenzied fans, creating a charged atmosphere that is difficult to describe. Keith Forsey showed up at the Pine Knob show outside Detroit on June 2, and was knocked out by the scenes of mayhem in the crowd. He loved hearing the songs from our new album, expertly played by a well-oiled, road-tested band.

  Steve Stevens was ablaze on this tour, firing bolts of lightning from his guitar rig like a musical god. Even my fans were really only just starting to realize what a great and subtle guitar player he is. My drummer, Thommy Price, thundered like a man possessed on “Rebel Yell.”

  All the band members had a great sense of humor. Steve was a marvelous mimic who imitated many colorful characters along the way, including our bus driver, Earl, whose CB handle was “Lonesome Hobo.” Steve would get on the CB radio when Earl wasn’t driving and call the other truckers making believe he was Earl, with a high-pitched southern accent, calling himself “the Lonesome Homo,” which would have the homophobic truckers crying out in disgust. It sounds silly now, but on a long day’s journey into night, humor got you through to the next tour stop with at least part of your sanity intact.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  JUST A PERFECT DAY

  London

  IN JULY 1984, I TRAVELED back to England in triumph as a solo sensation, unlike the has-been who had left three years before for a new chance. Perri was with me as we touched down at Heathrow in London. We were in the UK for an appearance on Top of the Pops, performing “Eyes Without a Face” together with Steve Stevens, with Perri dancing and hitting the background vocals behind me. The song was my breakthrough solo hit in the UK. To celebrate, some of Perri’s dancer friends met us at the airport. We went to a flat and a friend got out what he said was “very strong Persian brown heroin.” All of us did a line and everyone nodded out except our host and me, so we did another line. I remember five more lines before I touched the face of God.