from his early days with the band generation x to his present solo career my first guest has been
one of the most original and controversial figures in rock music this is his latest
album right here i have a copy of it it's called rebel yell please welcome billy idols
oh
thanks for being here nice to see you you know people at home looking
at us right now are saying to themselves those two guys don't hang around together
uh that's not really what i heard david uh tell us about a little bit of the video we saw is there
any way you can explain that to us in a short time or what were we looking at well uh well one of the
things that the reasons it's like that is because we had toby hooper directing it and he did uh
texas chainsaw that's why i'm credited with so much violence is it now do you consider
that to be violent though that particular video i think it's sort of a cartoon really i don't
understand all these people who think things are violent like that i mean they're crazy
well what in that do you think people would consider violence
well probably the love in it or something yeah well that's too bad i don't know because i don't
know all these people who complain about me being violent are usually you know you're not a violent
person right in your own life you're not violent well not really yeah uh where were you born you
you were born in uh great britain is that right uh yeah north stanmore north london and you spent
some time in the united states i was a young person right yeah about five years my sister was
born here uh-huh and your folks so uh why did they come to the united states uh well i think they
were trying to find the american dream you know yeah did it work out for them well they went back
uh and do you have any uh how old were you when they moved back
i was about uh eight or nine or so yeah i was only here for a few years did you did you enjoy those
early years here yeah as well yeah where where did you live all i could remember is massive cars
aeroplanes cartoons tv in the morning uh-huh and you know yeah and whereabouts did you live
um i lived on long island for a long time yeah yeah and now you're you're rockville
rockville so i came to america and immediately learned about rock and roll yeah that's when i
went back to england that's what everybody was into it was like gene vincent was huge
he's a massive rock and roll stars like one of the biggest people ever in england so it was
great when i when i got back to england it was all rock and roll just like in the states yeah
so how old were you when when you moved back now i don't know i was only about nine but i was already
buying records and had a guitar and things like that no but i mean when you came back the the
for now oh uh i was tonight 25 yeah is there is there anything about the uh uh london that you
miss great britain that you miss at all well you know i guess it's a bit like school days right
you know um but sometimes you've got to leave school i don't want to stay there
it's a nice place it's really great it's just as exciting as new york
but i did live there for 23 years of my life i don't think you have to stay in one place
all your life okay boring to do that no sure but it's a great place london yeah it's just london
new yorker one of a kind i think similar two of a kind billy we have to do uh station identification
uh uh you can stick with us for a few minutes we'll be right back folks with uh billy idol and
all kinds of other wonderful things billy idol is with us now and rick overton will be joining us
you just you just had a vacation yeah first one in about four years you know what did you do
i sort of went swimming and had sex and yeah yeah interesting things uh where did
you go for the uh vacation well they well they got rid of me to the virgin islands you know
which one was exactly where i belong which one were you on i can't remember really
yeah uh how long were you there uh not long enough listen you had a good time yeah but i
miss new york that's the problem i like new york yeah yeah cause it's wild no do people
when you're uh out in public and in the streets and so forth the people come up to you are you
bothered are you a security problem well the drug dealers in westforth call their
drugs by my names are my songs like there's white wedding cocaine and rebel yell quaaludes
and dancing with myself smoke and stuff so yeah people recognize me everywhere really
you you must be a very proud young man
uh but you know definitely very much a part of new york yeah yeah but do people come up
to you and bother you and stuff oh yeah well you know but i think um most people
who actually live in new york and places like that they're really cool it's usually people who
are just like tourists and stuff yeah they think you're a disneyland cartoon character instead of
something for real you know do they ask you uh for things uh autographs unusual requests any of that
well they'll ask for a lot of unusual requests but um in the street you can't always really
now what would be uh
to your way of thinking what would be an unusual request
well
well i i always thought it was unusual and people really just want to have some sort of wild time
immediately without even talking to you very much they do that they they want to do that right or
they just well yeah it just seems a real big disease in the united states in particular
so i thought that's what was kind of good about yeah and stuff and
it's a shame that that miss america girl got discriminated against just for being natural
billy i don't know if you've seen these photos but there's
there's no way in hell you can call this natural um
what do you do when you have sex
just turn that question over to bill windell our announcer bill
you're out to the place one night why don't you uh now what happened uh in chicago recently was
this recently a concert at the is it the aragon ballroom yeah that was a couple of months ago well
it's it was really quite on the spur at the moment but i sort of uh the whole audience and myself
well i was the only person in the nude but wait a minute right there you see the the audience and uh
uh you were on stage at this place no it was it was really just the balcony of the dressing room
looking onto the street really and it's just the audience came out singing rebel yell so i was
kind of just changing and became necessary to get out there on the balcony and spur them on a bit
uh-huh but i kind of forgot i didn't have anything on you went up you went out there in front of the
crowd naked nude yeah but that's far enough away from no one to really be able to know
figure out one thing or another uh you also when i hung my eye over the balcony
of this thing that's when i that's when i got an uncle we got the encore then i got the anchor um
it would be interesting to watch this tonight at home see just how much they leave him and that
was true this wasn't some weird place in england this was chicago chicago the heartland of this
fine country of ours yeah uh now you're interested in films i know you uh would like to be in a star
trek movie i'd i'd really like to do something tacky like that yeah you know have you seen uh
the first two movies yeah i really like the film i like wrath of khan a lot so that was great yeah
this new one's a bit is this the third one out now star trek the movie the wrath of khan and this is
search for spock right yeah it's just like well i think leonard nimoy let us down personally and i
don't know everyone in the cinema was like really upset what what you didn't care for the um film no
i left um i've never done that i like i like those dopey things like star trek yeah well what about
it uh bothered you billy it's just boring yeah would you have done it differently somehow oh yeah
yeah i'll ask another question you want to go on to another question i wouldn't mind being
in something like that i mean toby hooper he asked me to be in this film he's done called
space vampires that would have been great to have been in something like that yeah yeah well i'm
sure i i would say you have a uh a really a nice uh career ahead of you if you do want to do films
that's great that'll be terrific for you yeah well you know the real thing is that i'm not really an
actor i'm i don't want to do something that really takes away from consummate actors you know and
you know it's just ridiculous for me to try and do anything that would be above above what i know
about myself you know so i'm really cool with being silly cartoon things it's good fun well at
the same time yeah well i think that's good that you're finished and i am playing at the moment
and i do mean it and you can't take that away from me my god you can't billy billy either to see you
thank you very much for being here you're going to promise with the mercy we'll be back with uh