Dancing With Myself

by Billy Idol

  You have to be fairly together to ride a bike, especially at first. All the preparations—prepping her for a ride, being safe, maintaining her—gave me something that was fun to do, but I also had to be responsible. I’d grown up on push bikes in England, so here I was at thirty-three once more with two spoke wheels beneath me just like a kid, except this Harley boasted monster horsepower and could go hundreds of miles at top speed. It was and still is one of my prized possessions. Today, my black and chrome beautiful Glide has a name—Boneshaker, as she is not rubber-mounted. “Get your motor running, head out on the highway . . .” Yes, it was Easy Rider time for the punk rocker to get out of his head on adrenaline!

  At the time, all the lads, including Keith Forsey and John Diaz, were riding, so we formed our own biking enclave called the Rude Dudes, after a name I was dubbed by the UK magazine Smash Hits. I designed a ring that was a fist, with R-U-D-E on the knuckles and D-U-D-E on the fingers, that I presented to anyone who became a regular member of our group. I met a chap named Harry Johnson, whom I proclaimed the Rude Dude leader, as he was our most experienced rider and knew the L.A. area like the back of his hand. Harry would later become my full-time assistant.

  It was fun riding with a small coterie of friends. It was safer, too. Knowing everyone’s style of riding allowed us to practically predict what each of us would do while riding on the open highway. With my crew united, we explored the highways and byways of the Golden State. One of the first places we visited was Vasquez Rocks, the formation that Star Trek’s Captain Kirk stands on after he’s beamed down to a planet surface on the TV show. I felt relaxed and liberated as we rode along the Angeles Crest, the Pacific Coast Highway, or up to central California to a bike festival in Visalia, in the San Joaquin Valley, where one day we ended up jamming on a festival stage.

  Having the freedom to go anywhere I pleased was so different from those stoned years locked away in the Barrow Street apartment, smoking that “glass dick.” I still feel best in my biking gear, as you eschew fashion for what will be most comfortable while riding a chopper. Why else would you wear leather clothes in L.A. if you weren’t on a bike? On a motorcycle, leather and denim are a necessity—your armor. It was great attending rock shows on my bike as I could scoot in and out without having to wait in long lines of traffic. I hate stretch limos and I can’t stand being driven. Now I was at the wheel, in control, and that felt good to me. Free at last!

  * * *

  IT WAS WONDERFUL LIVING WITH Perri, spending time together on Astral Drive, living a normal and nurturing life. But even as Perri was pregnant with my child, my ability to curb my womanizing tendencies was being put to the test—and I failed miserably, with consequences beyond my imagination. Naomi was part Asian and part American Indian, and had a personality that made her seem to be at least a quarter male. A friend of mine went out with her in New York when I was living there. She was on heroin then, but had cleaned up upon moving to L.A. and was riding a Harley Sportster with a girlfriend who rode Harleys, too. She was riding with several groups of people, a lot of them using the motorbike as a way to get a buzz now that they had given up substances. She, too, was finding riding the bike to be a therapeutic experience.

  Naomi and her friend gradually started to ride with us Rude Dudes, as we were always going somewhere scenic or fun. Over the course of a few months, Naomi and I started to get closer, and ended up having a full-on affair.

  How could I on the one hand be reveling in the fact that my first child was coming but at the same time be full-blown involved with someone other than Perri? The addict in me had never really stopped being in control. Out of sheer self-preservation I had attempted to clean up, but the drug addict who is somewhere deep in my center was still in need of heroin. I didn’t want to take heroin, as I was determined to put that behind me, so I started substituting other activities that were ultimately much worse for me and those around me. The multiple effects could make me unpredictable and incapable of separating William Broad from Billy Idol. Too often, the core Idol tenet drove me: Do what you want. The problem is, I didn’t stop to think what that truly was. I acted on impulse, for the ephemeral high.

  Back on Astral Drive, Perri was doing wonderfully, pregnancy giving her a natural high that I could only marvel at. From the very moment we found out we were having a boy, we began thinking about his name. Somehow, I always had the idea I would call my son William, to keep the family name going. Now was my chance. But Willem Dafoe had just done The Last Temptation of Christ, and was therefore my generation’s Jesus. And a wild one at that! After I saw the film, the name “Willem”—the Dutch spelling of William—stayed in my mind. As we pondered his middle name, we considered that we liked the film Amadeus, in which Mozart’s wife, Constanze, was always calling him “Wolfie.” And I had also always admired General James Wolfe, who was famous in England for taking Quebec from the French, though dying in the effort. In his writings, he had predicted the American empire, saying that whoever controlled America could control the world. So, with such fanciful ideas as these, my son was named Willem Wolfe Broad. I always thought when he grew up he could use Willem Wolfe as a stage name, and that is in fact what he does today when he DJs.

  Perri was happy as a clam while pregnant, and it was fantastic to see as she bloomed to the final stages of her pregnancy. On June 14, 1988, we were eating lunch at The Source, a legendary vegan restaurant on Sunset that is now a Mexican place, when her water broke. So we came back to Astral Drive to start to prepare for the birth. From Lamaze classes, we knew all about the “hee, hee, hoo” breathing exercises in preparation. We had two midwives in attendance during the day and night of Perri’s twelve-hour home-birth labor. Perri opted for a drug-free delivery, and Willem had a completely natural birth. At one point halfway through her labor, when she was standing in our bathroom and we were alone, I could see how much distress she was in, and, feeling powerless to help her, I started to cry for her. It was incredible seeing what women can go through to give birth. Any thoughts of women being in any way the weaker sex, or not tough, go right out the window once you witness what they endure during labor.

  After several more hours Willem arrived, weighing 8 pounds, 6 ounces. He seemed to come through it all right, and the next minute, after the midwives had cleaned him off, Perri was holding him in her arms. Soon it was my turn and I took a picture of his head in my hands, his body along my inside forearm.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  LA VIE ENCHANTÉ

  Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles

  AS I CELEBRATED THE BIRTH of my son, I began to refocus on writing songs and preparing to record my fourth album. It was daunting in many ways, particularly because this would be the first Billy Idol album without Steve Stevens on board. I was nervous without my partner, but Keith was still at the helm and I was determined to move forward, this time with Mark Younger-Smith on lead guitar. Once we returned to the studio, it wasn’t long before I was back to acting as if the attempts to clean up and create a more conventional family life never happened. Old habits die hard.

  A few months after Will was born, I caused the incident that would finally and irretrievably end my relationship with Perri. When Will was napping, we would place a baby monitor near him so that we could step away and have some time to ourselves but still hear him when he awakened. On this particular day we were out by the pool around lunchtime, sunning ourselves. Taking a quick break to get some drinks and towels, I went into our bedroom, where Will was also sleeping, and phoned Naomi to check in on her and to fix up our next date. Upon gathering the towels and drinks, I walked out towards the pool. As I got nearer to Perri, she started to get up, an expression of distress on her face. “Who’s your baby?” she asked me. “Who do you love?” To my great surprise and dismay, she was repeating parts of the conversation I had just had with Naomi. When she saw the look on my face, she angrily brandished the baby monitor. Horrified, I realized I’d forgotten about the monitor in sleeping Willem’s crib, which tran
smitted my entire conversation back to the receiver next to Perri. She gathered her things and left the house, taking Will with her. She went to England to be with her family and although she returned a few months later, it was never the same between us. I had crossed a line and was unable to return. In August 1989, with the words “I’ve had enough of this,” she left for good.

  I don’t blame her at all. I found a house not too far away from me for Perri and Will to move into. We were determined to do our best for Will, and though it would be some time before I fully settled down to parent earnestly, a regular routine eventually emerged, with Will spending every other week with me.

  Self-sabotage is one of the things I’m truly gifted at. I’d worked so hard to build a life with Perri, and now with Will, and I threw it all away. The rock star’s ingrained mind-set—do what you want when you want to—often thrust me into a miasma of sex and drugs, short-circuiting my most important relationships.

  The English poet Alexander Pope said, “An excuse is worse than a lie, for an excuse is a lie, guarded.” No excuses here. Once Perri was gone, I became umoored. I’d made my bed: now it was time to fully lie in it.

  * * *

  DURING THE MAKING OF CHARMED Life, Tony Dimitriades asked us if we’d like to perform at the second annual Bridge School Benefit, a charity concert that Neil Young leads in support of a special school near San Francisco. Neil and his wife, Pegi, helped found the school, which offers education and opportunity for children with severe speech and physical impairments. Tony asked me if we’d like to appear at the benefit, as Neil had asked him.

  We were deep inside “Boots and Scarves” territory, which bore no relation to the real world outside our sex-club studio. Our performance was to be acoustic, about half an hour long. With the instrumentation of Forsey on snare drum and me and Mark Younger-Smith on guitars, we planned out the set in some rehearsals in the studio at off moments. The day before the concert we flew up to a hotel near Neil’s home, just south of San Francisco, a million sheets to the wind. The following day at the performance we were incredibly hungover, so much so that we could hardly play in the sound check. David Crosby was there watching, and remarked as much to me.

  Still, we pulled ourselves together for the early evening half-hour set, which was better than the sound check, as we’d had one or two drinks prior so we could overcome our hangovers enough to physically play. We somehow performed the songs, and congratulated ourselves by dropping ecstasy and drinking to get our highs back. Then, while out of it, we met an assemblage of living legends whose records I’d listened to or I had seen in concert. Stephen Stills, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty were all there.

  Tom Petty went onstage and something (probably the ecstasy) took hold of me halfway through his set. I crashed the stage while Tom was between songs, walked up to the microphone, and said, “You wouldn’t believe, we are managed by the same person!”

  It was meant as a joke, but in those surrounds, with differently abled kids at the back of the stage and Tom’s fans out front, no one needed me bringing our studio party up north from L.A. and onto his stage. But that’s what happened. Thinking about the incident today—which I try not to do—I am horrified and embarrassed. Sorry, Tom.

  On a positive note, I’m thankful to have been invited back to the Bridge School Benefit and have played it four times altogether now; each subsequent time it’s gone very well. I play to the kids at the back of the stage and generally have a blast. Neil is a great person, and it’s an honor to know him and to be involved in such a worthy cause.

  But that evening, I left the stage not quite realizing my faux pas and ended the night being shot up with speed by some bird. When I saw Tony D. the next morning he was shocked at my appearance, as I was sheet-white. I felt awful, as I don’t like speed much, let alone the explosive effects of shooting it up.

  I was taking it all too far. Once again I was a junkie in search of a high on whatever drug was available. That’s dangerous territory. I was a loose cannon and no one, certainly not me, knew what I might or might not do next.

  Tony D. couldn’t really have known just how fucked up we’d become at that stage of the record, as he wasn’t attending the sessions every day. Junkies are quite good at disguising when they have to, but one step too far, one Bridge School incident too many, and all would be exposed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CITY OF NIGHT

  Sunset Strip, Los Angeles

  HALFWAY THROUGH RECORDING CHARMED LIFE, I was approached by Oliver Stone to be in his upcoming biographical film about the Doors and their iconic singer, Jim Morrison, who was to be played by Val Kilmer. I went for a reading of a few lines of the movie, watched by Oliver, who decided to cast me in the part of Tom Baker. A close friend of Jim Morrison’s, Tom was an actor among the superstars of Andy Warhol’s glory days at his studio, the Factory, when they met.

  I went to a dinner to meet Oliver and some other actors at Le Dome on Sunset. I expect in some form or another he was putting people together and watching them interact to see if he could use them in his movie. Somehow I managed to pull one of the girls away from one of the actors at the table. The girl said he was her boyfriend, but we made it in the toilet, which was quite obvious to all at the table when we returned.

  Oliver Stone is an incredibly gifted man who envisions exactly what he’s trying to achieve. It must be a wild process directing a movie and trying to combine all the elements needed to complete one’s vision. I considered the opportunity to play a role in one of his films a true gift. Between Salvador, Platoon, Scarface, Talk Radio, and Wall Street, Oliver was the king of memorable dialogue at that moment—he had the most colorful dialogue of any director in the ’80s. Everybody in my band had memorized nearly every line from Scarface—for which he wrote the script—from watching it so much on our tour bus.

  Oliver had a true love of the Doors, and of Jim Morrison in particular, as I think that music meant so much to the world in the haze that was Vietnam. “Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain and all the children are insane, waiting for the summer rain, yeah!”

  The music meant a lot to us, but those who served in ’Nam lived and died it. On reading the script, it was great to see someone so gifted handle the Doors’ story, which is intellectual but still somehow primitive. It was a difficult story to convey on-screen without becoming too pretentious and boring, but I thought Oliver’s script met the challenge well.

  While Oliver stressed that I should act as natural as possible in the film, I started to attend some acting lessons to rehearse my scenes and generally prepare. Much of the class focused on sense and memory work, which involves bringing some of your own experiences to fuel the emotional background of the character. It was really interesting to see the amount of work actors go through to achieve the level of performance necessary to convince an audience that they are truly that character.

  I went down to the Ambassador Hotel in L.A., a location Oliver was considering for replicating a New York hotel for a single scene. It was there I met Val Kilmer. Val was great and I watched him over the course of those weeks as he came to grips with convincingly playing Jim Morrison.

  Val and I went out one night to meet a friend of Jim’s who’d been part of Jim’s intimate circle and knew my character, Tom, as well. We ate out at the beach and later we went to a small bar down in Topanga Canyon where he and Jim had hung out. After being there a while, I drifted across the bar and chatted up a girl. When I returned to the guys, Jim’s old pal told me that he’d been unsure about me at first, but now he could clearly see me in the part of Tom. This was an incredibly gratifying endorsement.

  Meeting the Doors was great as well, although only John Densmore and Robbie Krieger were present, as Ray Manzarek had had a disagreement with Oliver and was not involved with the film. I also hung and spoke a lot with Danny Sugerman, who had managed the Doors at a very young age. He was a terrific guy and I liked his book Wonderland Avenue, about the house on the
street of the same name where Jim and Iggy Pop had lived at one time or another. I also enjoyed his biography of Jim Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive.

  Meanwhile, we were still putting the finishing touches to the Charmed Life album, mainly in perfecting “Cradle of Love,” which we made and remade four times before Keith gave it his seal of approval. So I was moving between these two roles: that of real rock star and that of playing a friend of a rock star.

  * * *

  I FELL HARD FOR LINDA. Her glistening body slowly writhes to the sonic boom of the bass. In the flashes of overhead light, her skin glows in a soft, tanned sheen. Her wild smile holds something of the exotic as the corners of her mouth curl up and she flits a glance at me as she moves, dancing in place. She revolves in time, undulating with her message to me. Through her almond-shaped eyes, she sends an unmistakable psychic thought: Be with me. I can’t resist. The attraction is mutual; the moment is framed, emblazoned forever in my memory. The smoke in the room veils her for a moment, but, like the sun, she shines forth. The blast of her light goes straight to the heart of me.

  That blissful moment would yield one of the great joys of my life: my daughter, Bonnie Blue, born a year after Willem. Before she was due, Linda Mathis chose to go home to Oklahoma to have Bonnie, and I wasn’t always understanding. The substances I took in abundance often made understanding impossible. But Linda is a lovely, forgiving person, and Bonnie is a glorious female version of me—headstrong from Day One, that little love. A risk-taker with no fear at the playground, which is where I first met her, in an L.A. park—face to tiny princess face. We played together on the swings and monkey bars. I was terrified she’d get hurt, but I helped her along as she climbed the top bars. I held on to her the whole time, to make sure she wouldn’t fall, and I told her, “You are such a clever girl.” Because not only do I see myself in her, I see my dad. Very clever indeed.