genre rock

Dream Into It is Billy Idol‘s first new album in 11 years — but hardly his first new music during that period. Since 2014’s Kings & Queens of the Underground, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominee has released a pair of EPs (The Roadside in 2021 and the following year’s The Cage). So why did Idol take the plunge this time?
“I realized I have to do the same amount of press for the EPs as an album, so I thought, ‘F-ck this. Come on, let’s make an album!’” he tells Billboard via Zoom from his Los Angeles home, with the same smirk that was as much a trademark in his ‘80s videos as his leather vest and fingerless gloves.

Dream Into It, which comes out April 25, is not just an album but a concept album — about Idol. Its nine tracks, divided into two halves (“Dying to Love” and “I’m Reborn”), rock hard while also documenting his life and times, from the youthful aspirations expressed in the title track to remembrances of his early days in England’s nascent punk rock scene (“77” with Avril Lavigne), his misadventures with substances and other self-destructive behaviors (“Wildside” with Joan Jett and “Too Much Fun”) and his shortcomings as a mate and father (“People I Love”). It all leads up to self-awareness and corrections (he’s been sober since 2010) that leave Idol defiantly, joyfully “Still Dancing” by the end of the album.

Trending on Billboard

“We’ve been making a documentary since ’19,” Idol says of a new film project, Billy Idol Should Be Dead. “It kept getting interrupted by the coronavirus and everything. Writing (songs), I was bouncing off the documentary. I was running into a lot of thoughts about the past — and today and the future, one part of me in the past, one in today and one part me looking forward. That’s very much what the album’s about.

“A song like ’77,’ it’s about everything that was going on then in England during that punk rock era with the politics and the division and people turning to violence…and I just wonder if it’s not so different today in America, you know? (The album) covers a lot of ground.”

Steve Stevens, Idol’s guitarist and main collaborator since 1981 and co-writer of all but one track on Dream Into It, wasn’t entirely surprised to see his partner take that narrative approach. “I’d seen Billy spending a lot more time with his grandkids and stuff, so he was in a bit more reflective headspace, I think, and wanted to reflect that on the album,” Stevens says. “There’s a lot of shared experiences for both of us. Our parents are no longer there, and we’d reminisce about a lot of that crazy stuff we had experienced and seen and felt. There was a lot of good juice to work with.”

Dream Into It does present Idol as he is today — particularly as a dedicated family man in songs such as “Gimme the Weight” and “I’m Your Hero” — but he acknowledges that the deep immersion into his life gave him valuable perspective. And regrets.

“My drug addiction and stuff affected the sort of relationships I had with people, and even sort of the job I did,” says Idol, a Billboard Hot 100-topping artist and three-time Grammy nominee. “You wish you hadn’t got caught up in all that, ’cause it took a long time to overcome them — 15 to 20 years to really get control of yourself to where today I don’t really even drink. And you’re gonna let down the people you love. You’re gonna hurt them — even my parents couldn’t understand me…and I know they were worried.”

But 48 years after the first Generation X single, Idol makes no apologies for making music his life’s pursuit.

“I didn’t want to follow in my father’s footsteps,” the man born William Broad explains. “That’s what we were looking for in music. That’s what rock n’ roll was giving us at the time, a sense of freedom. That’s what music did for me in a lot of ways, and that’s what I’m singing about on the album. And then you have the life now, with grandchildren…It makes you feel like you’re reborn in a way. You’re seeing life anew, through them.”

Dream Into Life was produced by The Cage collaborator Tommy English, who, along with Nick Long, also co-wrote the songs. (“John Wayne,” featuring Alison Mosshart of the Kills and the Dead Weather, was previously released on a 2008 compilation.) It’s a rocking set, to be sure, recorded in Los Angeles primarily with Stevens, current AC/DC bassist Chris Chaney and Josh Freese on drums. “We’ve got a band-sounding album, that’s what it sounds like to me — which is something I’ve always gone for with my music,” Idol says. “With me and Steve, the idea’s always, ‘Yeah, it’s a solo artist, but really we’re looking for a band feel,’ like me with a three-piece, just old school. I don’t think I’ve really been with just a three-piece since Generation X. We very much got that on this record.”

Idol says having duets on Dream Into It was “kind of fantastic. I’ve never really done that before. It gave an extra dimension to the songs because the (singers) could sort of answer what I’m singing about. Joan and Alison and Avril are really dealing with a similar thing to me, a lifestyle, the rock n’ roll lifestyle, that’s not completely normal ’cause we’re not completely normal people to be doing it in the first place.” Jett — who will be supporting him on tour this year — goes back a long way with Idol and, he notes, shared the “Wildside” that they sing about on the album.

“I’ve known Joan since, what…1978 maybe,” Idol recalls. “We used to hang out at the Whisky (a Go Go) and all those places. She could sing (as) the female that felt the same way — they have a wild side, too. We all do.”

Idol plans to make Dream Into It a significant part of his sets for the It’s A Nice Day To…Tour Again! outing, which begins on April 30 in Phoenix, wraps up Sept. 25 in Los Angeles and includes Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. “The great thing about it is I think we’ve done an uptempo, youthful sounding album; even the ballads aren’t necessarily slow, so (the songs) are gonna be fun to do,” he says. “We’ll intersperse the new stuff with the old stuff, I think, so at first maybe five songs and then we’ll see what the reaction to the album is and as time goes by maybe we’ll put more songs in. And I’m touring with Joan, so it’s likely we’ll do ‘Wildside’ on the tour.”

As for Billy Idol Should Be Dead, which premieres at Tribeca Festival in Manhattan on June 10, the rocker says he “didn’t want it to be just a glorified Behind the Music. I wanted it to be a little better than that, so we’ve worked really hard on it. I’m hoping the album and documentary will bounce off each other. You should get the full picture of my life with all that.”

And, Idol acknowledges, he won’t at all mind if a Rock Hall induction becomes a capstone for the story later in the year.

“That’d be an incredible thing,” says Idol, who participated in last October’s induction for Ozzy Osbourne and has ranked consistently in top five of the fan voting, which closed on April 21. “Ozzy’s induction was really good fun. It was a great night. I ran into so many people I knew, and then I met a load of people, too. It’d be fantastic to be inducted, yeah.”