(SOUNDBITE OF BILLY IDOL SONG, "WHITE WEDDING")
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Billy Idol was one of the most high-profile pop stars of the 1980s thanks to his embrace of music videos just in time for the birth of MTV. He was famous for something else, too - rock 'n' roll excess, so much so that a new documentary about him is called "Billy Idol Should Be Dead." Now 70 years old, he sat down with me at our Culver City studios to go over some of those close calls. So, Billy, considering the name of the film, how many times did you wind up cheating death?
BILLY IDOL: Yeah, a few times. I mean, the motorcycle accident and a couple of overdoses. So yeah, a few times, really.
MARTÍNEZ: A few times.
IDOL: (Laughter).
MARTÍNEZ: I mean, after one or two of them, did you think I have to change things or...
IDOL: Well, eventually, yeah. The motorcycle accident. I nearly lost my leg and things like that, my life and my leg, you know? So (laughter) yeah, so gradually through the '90s, early 2000s, I was gradually trying to get off drugs, really. That's what I was doing, you know? I'm glad I'm like this today because I wouldn't be here talking to you. I would be probably either dead, in prison or gone crazy. Also, I was starting to have children, you know? I had to start - I had two children I knew about.
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
IDOL: And, you know, what are you saying to them?
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
IDOL: And then now I've got grandchildren. So what would I be saying? I'm in a great place to be a granddad, because...
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah.
IDOL: ...I have got control of myself so that I can be - I'm just me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHITE WEDDING")
IDOL: (Singing) It's a nice day to start again. Wow.
MARTÍNEZ: Before Billy Idol's fame in the 1980s, he was present at the creation of the 1970s London punk scene. His friendship with the Sex Pistols led him to form his own band, Generation X. And one of their songs launched his solo career in America.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DANCING WITH MYSELF")
IDOL: (Singing) On the floors of Tokyo or down in London town go-go, with the record selection and the mirror's reflection, I'm dancing with myself.
We did come up with this song, "Dancing With Myself," which when I got to New York, people were dancing to it for 20 minutes to half an hour. The DJs kept putting it on. It was incredible. I mean, like, it really answered a lot of questions for me 'cause I was going, punk had gone mega in England, but it hadn't done that in the States.
MARTÍNEZ: No.
IDOL: The Pistols had come to America and broken up. I mean, like, you know, you saw America can destroy groups.
MARTÍNEZ: How did that change things for you? Because I'll never forget. I was a kid, you know. I was watching you - right? - and listening to you. But you were on everywhere. You were on the radio all the time. You were on TV all the time. It seemed like you were the most famous human being on the planet. And there is a part in this film where Perri Lister says - asks you a question, why do you have to be Mr. Rock 'n' Roll 24 hours a day? And you said, that's the job. Did you feel like you had to just do this and just be Mr. Rock 'n' Roll all the time?
IDOL: Well, the thing was, you know, we really were trying to get somewhere. You know, as I said, there's - nothing said you're going to make it. So you kind of had to live it 24/7. And that's - that was something that was going to be difficult for people around you because, yeah, we were going to sacrifice everything if it had to be sacrificed. I'd come to America with a mission, basically. You know what I mean? I'd come here to sort of come up with something that I could - that eventually I could take back to England and say, now what you think?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "REBEL YELL")
IDOL: (Singing) Because in the midnight hour, she cried, more, more, more. With a rebel yell, she cried, more, more, more. Wow.
MARTÍNEZ: At different points in the documentary, you make a distinction between your real name, William Broad, and Billy Idol, your stage name. You and your dad had a bit of a complicated relationship. I want to play a clip in the film of you reading a letter that your dad wrote after you'd gotten famous. Let's hear a little bit of that.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "BILLY IDOL SHOULD BE DEAD")
IDOL: Billy is entitled to run his own life exactly as he chooses. His money is his own. He can spend it, save it, squander it, give it away, make silly deals, be overgenerous. Joan and I think we have to hang in, have to try to protect his finances and hope he will allow that.
MARTÍNEZ: How did your family figure into your life once you became famous, once you became what you became in America?
IDOL: So my dad came to America to kind of, sort of sort me out in 1986 kind of thing, which was great really because at that point, I really did need someone to kind of, like, you know, sort of shake a bit of sense into me. And so it was kind of fantastic that someone came who wasn't connected, necessarily, with the music world and who could sort of talk to me - you know, I suppose, to the William Broad in me, if you know what I mean, rather than the Billy Idol side.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. It seemed like it was - you needed it, right?
IDOL: It was great that he really cared. And, yeah, it just really helped me at that moment to sort of, I don't know, get on a bit more of an even keel, you know, 'cause I was kind of overdoing things a bit, you know?
MARTÍNEZ: Because that letter, what he wrote, it sounds like there's a lot of hope there in that you'll figure it out, that maybe you won't need him to, I don't know, be there and help you get through what you were going through.
IDOL: I think they know the real me. So they kind of know probably that I'm not really going to destroy myself, you know? I'm just - I would think I've just enlarged my appetite sort of.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EYES WITHOUT A FACE")
IDOL: (Singing) I'm all out of hope. One more bad dream could bring a fall.
MARTÍNEZ: Considering, Billy, the name of the film, "Billy Idol Should Be Dead"...
IDOL: Yeah.
MARTÍNEZ: ...If you had to write your own epitaph, how would you write it? What would you say?
IDOL: (Laughter) Yeah, well, he died of too much of all the right things.
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
IDOL: That's what I think Tom Conway has on his grave, is that. He's an actor, Tom Conway. I don't know. I don't know what I'd really want people to think about me in the end, really. But, you know, I did live my dream. I am living sort of a dream I had, which was to have an artistic life, really, not to be doing something that you hate in the week and you're just living for the weekend, you know? I wanted a life where I loved what I did. I got paid back by everybody 'cause I did the thing I loved. And everybody kind of, like, helped me to do it, really, by buying the records or coming to the shows. And I still feel it's like that (laughter).
MARTÍNEZ: That is Billy Idol. The new documentary is called "Billy Idol Should Be Dead." It'll be streaming on Hulu later this week. Billy, thank you very much for coming in.
IDOL: Thank you. And thank you, everybody.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EYES WITHOUT A FACE")
IDOL: (Singing) Such a human waste, your eyes without a face. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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