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17 окт 2025
BILLY IDOL Reflects On Meeting Guitarist STEVE STEVENS: 'Once I Saw What He Could Do, I Knew Anything I Wanted To Do, I Could Do It'
On initially meeting one another:
Billy: "I'd come to New York to start a solo career after GENERATION X broke up, and I had an American manager, Bill Aucoin, who [also] managed KISS. He was based in New York, and he knew the New York scene. He'd been watching Steve's career — he didn't manage Steve, but he knew Steve, and he told me right from the start that he thought we'd be a great combination. Once I met Steve and found out what a great guy he was – we had a great first meeting and then just decided to play together, really, and see what happens."
Steve: "I went to [New York City's] High School of Performing Arts — the 'Fame' school. Dropped out, didn't graduate, started playing in bands, and I knew just about every musician in Manhattan at that time. I was crafty — I said to Billy, 'You know, if you don't choose me as a guitar player, I know all the musicians. I'll help you audition everyone else – the bass player, the drummer — and then if you would just consider me as the guitar player…' By that time, we kind of got to know each other. Although we grew up an ocean apart, we kind of grew up on the same music. I wasn't a part of the '77 punk thing in England, but [at legendary New York City nightclub] CBGB's, I saw TALKING HEADS, TELEVISION and all that. Once we kind of talked about our record collection — SWEET, SLADE, [Marc] Bolan — we kind of went, 'Oh, yeah.' And Lou Reed — that was the other one. Billy said, 'Hey, do you know 'Coney Island Baby'?' And I started to play the solo, and he went, 'You know that?' It was just a matter of finding mutual ground."
On their early musical collaborations:
Billy: "I had an EP [1981's 'Don't Stop'] that I'd put out, that I'd done in Los Angeles with [producer] Keith [Forsey], but I didn't have a band — we just used a few people Keith knew. That's what I said to Steve — 'I need to put a band together for this EP. Maybe if we put a band together, we'll just see how it goes, really.' It went really well. Once I saw what Steve could do, I knew anything I wanted to do, I could do it. Then with Keith producing, I just knew we had this sort of triumvirate that ended up really fueling the Billy Idol of the '80s."
On mixing punk with dance-pop:
Billy: "Obviously, I was part of the punk rock movement in England, but it didn't mean that you weren't listening to dance music or reggae or whatever. I was listening to all sorts of music. And that was the other thing — going solo [from GENERATION X], I knew I could expand. Now I didn't have to listen to three other guys telling me what they wanted to do. It was really all down to me. I knew I wanted to combine the synthesizer world with the rock world, the guitar world, the dance world, the disco world, the punk world, whatever. I wanted to put a number of different things together. We've grown up basically with eclectic albums. I think most of the people we've loved — even if you think about THE VELVET UNDERGROUND, you think of them as this crazy 'Sister Ray', but they did other ballads and things. It wasn't all just 'Waiting For The Man' — it's some beautiful songs Lou Reed wrote. Groups like that, they went all over the map, and when I saw what Steve could do, I knew with Keith Forsey and Steve, I could really go all over the map musically. I could go anywhere I wanted. That's what I did ever since. We were already kind of doing that already with GENERATION X, because even though we were a punk band, we still kind of pushed against the boundaries of punk and didn't just stay confined to punk. We sort of pushed against it and broke some of the punk rock rules, and then coming to America and working with Steve, I could see this sort of future opening up that was so incredible. When it actually happened, it was pretty amazing."
On the genesis of his self-titled 1982 full-length debut:
Billy: "'Dancing With Myself', a song I'd done with GENERATION X, was a massive hit on the underground new wave dance [scene]. That's what I found out when I got to New York — 'Dancing With Myself', they put it on for 20 minutes at somewhere like [Manhattan dance club] Danceteria. People would just go crazy for 20 minutes to it, and I'd go, 'This is what I've really got to follow up.' I didn't really follow it up until I wrote 'White Wedding'... Putting it together with Steve and Keith Forsey, we really had this kind of idea that we knew we could expand over the course of a few albums, and it would be really exciting."
On writing together:
Steve: "A problem I have with guitar players [is that] they don't learn the lyrics. It's the first thing I always do, because that's your blueprint. I almost look at playing guitar as being like a film scorer or something — it's tapping into the lyrics, the emotion… 'Eyes Without A Face' is a perfect example. Musically, it's kind of like '50s doo-wop, and then Billy had these lyrics, and I went, 'Oh, maybe this chord will go there.' I'm able to sense an emotion behind it. I never have [an] agenda. The guitar is a vehicle to tell the story, and I'm not one of those guitar players that waits for three minutes for my moment of glory with the solo. When Billy came up with 'Rebel Yell' and the whole concept, it was like, 'Man, it can't just be about notes.' That's how I came up with the ray gun thing — [I thought,] 'It's got to be more than just guitar. Whatever it takes.' I think the main thing is, what's the song about? What's the story? Where's it going to travel from beginning to end?"
On the power of MTV:
Billy: "At first, some of the radio stations didn't want to play my music because I had a punk rock image, and they didn't believe that punk rock music sold advertising dollars, so there was a bit of a push-back. We didn't put my picture on the 'Hot In The City' single that we put out. It got to number 18, so radio stations knew Billy Idol but didn't really know what I looked like. But 'White Wedding', we [included] my picture. I was obviously a punk rocker, and they didn't want to play it. But college radio and then MTV and the people phoning up either hearing it on college radio or watching MTV gave us this platform that broke through any kind of stranglehold. Anybody who didn't want to play the new music, they soon found out that it did sell advertising dollars, and all the barriers fell away. That was super-exciting — to go through where there is this barrier, and you don't know if it's going to go away or not, and then you watched it fall, and you watched the power of television telling radio what was going to happen."
On their recently completed tour with Joan Jett:
Billy: "It's [been] going incredibly well. We can mix and match, and the old music and the new music goes together really well. The songs power each other — they seem to reflect off each other nicely. It seems like there's not a down moment in the set. The band we've got, everybody is really a team player. There's no dead weight; there's nobody dragging it down. Everybody's on it, so every night, I feel like I'm surfing on this incredible wave or I'm riding this incredible Aston Martin that's going faster than anything. It's just this power machine, and it's an incredible feeling. It's like you get high every night, and it's a natural high. That's been fantastic. I'm almost surprised — we've done quite a few shows now, and I still feel fresh. I don't feel burnt out, so that tells you a lot, you know?"
Billy Idol's ninth studio album, "Dream Into It", was released via BMG on April 25. A two-part concept album about Idol's life, the record features Josh Freese (NINE INCH NAILS, FOO FIGHTERS) on drums and Chris Chaney (JANE'S ADDICTION, AC/DC) on bass and includes guest vocal performances by Avril Lavigne, Joan Jett and Alison Mosshart (THE KILLS, THE DEAD WEATHER).
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