Today's Guest: Billy Idol, rock star, "White Wedding," "Rebel Yell" (I was first introduced to the music of Billy Idol by my then-roommate, photographer Dennis Osborne, in the early 1980s. Dennis would bounce around the house to "Dancin' with Myself" and it was hard to resist the song's infectious beat and lyrics. I recently located the audio to my 1984 Music magazine interview with Billy and present it here in all its amateur glory. -- Bob Andelman) Billy Idol on the cover of Music magazine (Photograph by Dennis Osborne, (c) 1984 All Rights Reserved.) With his startling blonde spiked hair and bona-fide punk stance, Billy Idol would be about as acceptable in the Deep South today as the long-haired hero of Charlie Daniels "Uneasy Rider" was a decade ago. But when Idol titled his 
latest album Rebel Yell, he
caused a lot of second looks.
What does a British
renegade noisemaker know
about confederate flags,
'shine or the Mason/Dixon Line?
Not much. The 28-year-old native of Bromley, England was considering a holler of a different kind. Coming off his first big hit, “White Wedding,” Idol was harassed by complaints that he was an anti-woman sexist pig. Rebel Yell started as a response to that stinging allegation and wound up with a lyric touching many themes, including the Statue of Liberty. "I wrote the song to address the people who thought I was anti-women. (But) instead, I wrote it about how strong one-to-one relationships should be angled more towards women. After a while I started to think 'she doesn't like slavery, she won't sit and beg' is sort of about America, because when I was tired and lonely, she pulled me in,” Idol explained in a recent telephone interview. BILLY IDOL interview excerpt: "The first punk bands, Generation X, The Damned, The Sex Pistols, had really positive attitudes... We went out of our way to play. People never talk about that. They always talk about the violence of the gigs." "I was really down after Generation X ended," he continued, referring to the early punk band he sang for. "I came over here and people 
were jumping around the 
bars like myself. I didn't
 know (about that), because we'd never been over here. It
 was fantastic. When people
 were into my music, it was
 what I needed to hear. I needed a bit of back-up.” For Idol, finding a successful career in a strange
country has been an unexpected pleasure. Generation
X, whiIe widely acknowledged as one of the more significant of the second generation English punk bands to spring to renown in the late ‘70s, never cracked the American marketplace. Generation X produced three albums during its four-year existence. Idol was lead singer in a group that also included Gene October and Tony James. "We really wanted it to work, be a group forever, but it didn't end up like that. It was a bit of a blow," Idol admitted. "I wrote all the music in
 Generation X and Tony 
James wrote all the words. I
 write a lot more of the words 
now. I'm singing my own
 words a lot more comfortably... I think I put a lot more 
rhythm into my music which
 we didn't always have in
 Generation X. It was a wham! 
bam! but it wasn't always rhythmy." Billy Idol Greatest Hits. Order your copy today by clicking on the album cover above! Three years ago, Idol hooked up with collaborator and friend Steve Stevens, a 25·year·old New York native. "I didn't meet him with the intention of wow, maybe I'll get in his band," Stevens recalled. "I just thought he'd be an interesting character...and he turned out to be one. We hung out for a long time, played guitars together. When he went to record the Don't Stop EP, I stayed around and bummed cigarettes." Don't Stop, which included Idol's new version of Generation X's only hit "Dancin' - With Myself," was followed by a self-titled solo album, the first musical work Idol and Stevens did together. This was the record to feature “White Wedding,” the song and video which established Idol’s reputation as more than a curious punk. He...