Billy Idol cried his Rebel Yell 40 years ago this year, and an expanded anniversary edition of the album of the same name is out now. To mark the release, Billy is joining us to answer your questions.
Born William Broad and raised in unassuming London suburbs, come the mid-1970s he had morphed into Billy Idol. With blond hair aflame, he fronted Generation X and made punk rock palatable to pop fans with perky hits including Your Generation, King Rocker and Dancing With Myself – with Idol using the latter as a springboard for a solo career.
Taking the curled-lip insouciance of punk into the glossy worlds of pop and mainstream hard rock, Idol became an iconic figure in the mid-1980s. A fixture on MTV and in both the UK and US Top 10 with hits such as Rebel Yell and White Wedding, he also showed a knack for tender ballads with Eyes Without a Face, and had three platinum-selling albums back to back in the US.
Addiction and a serious motorbike accident set his career back in the 1990s – though he was an early adopter of internet culture with 1993’s fascinating curio Cyberpunk – before he bounced back into public consciousness with a turn in Adam Sandler film The Wedding Singer. He returned to recording and has continued touring since, including with Generation Sex, a supergroup made up of members of Generation X and Sex Pistols.
The 40th anniversary edition of Rebel Yell – featuring a previously unreleased cover of Rose Royce’s Love Don’t Live Here Anymore – comes shortly after the release of Billy Idol: State Line, a concert film recorded at Hoover Dam in 2023, so at 68, Idol is as active as ever and has plenty to discuss. Post your questions about anything in his life and career below by 6pm BST on Tuesday 30 April.
