by Billy Idol
Fourteen seconds, only fourteen. I hear in my mind the Chinese voice of Benny Gleek, the base guru, the one who uttered the immortal teaching on the correct amount of time to hold in a hit. Like a kung fu master, Benny had made a fortune in some business or other, and now spent his days and nights freebasing. Now, in his stead, I sit alone in my own reverie, enjoying the solitude where time is mine and I am beholden to no one but the white rocks that twinkle their message to “smoke me” in the low light of the white-hot flame. “Top of the world, Ma,” I echo James Cagney in White Heat as I exhale.
Finally, after a couple more hits, I rise from my position and muse to myself that taking this shit is like diving from a board into empty space, guessing whether you’ll land or not. What fucking time is it? Is it day or night? I’ve no idea. I stagger to the window to open the deep royal red velvet drapes, standing on the black carpet. I steady myself as my head spins for a second, and when it clears, I pull the curtains back to see that it is night and there are ten thousand men marching down Christopher Street to the West Side Highway. They walk in unison in a silent candlelit march to mourn the dead and spread the fight against AIDS, all of it right beneath my window. An entire way of life seems as if it is on the verge of extinction as a deadly disease strikes down members of the gay community. No one can anticipate how bad it might get. The world shakes. Who would be next? For the moment, WE MARCH AND SHOW OUR SOLIDARITY, according to the placards on display. After a while, the vigil continues and I shut the curtains, thinking about the living and the dead. I hear a voice inside my head—I’m waiting—and I forget the march, forget time, pathos, and empathy, and return to where I was sitting. I take another hit, as I know the pipe will have cooled.
I BEGAN TO ENJOY THE strange solitude that came with shutting out the world. If I stepped outside my door, I would expose myself to coming down and being inexorably confronted with the pressures of an overpowering celebrity life that was turning into an out-of-control circus.
Before the success of Rebel Yell, I could move about pretty much as I pleased. Now I was a prisoner of that fame. The level of celebrity was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. And so I took some shortcuts to maintain for myself at least an illusion of choice while locking myself out, with the rest of the world clamoring to get in. With my drugs, I could still roam far and wide in my mind without having to worry about anyone disturbing my reverie. I was dancing with myself.
I should have been in a rehab facility, but I had convinced myself that I enjoyed being a drug addict and the weird, lonely world I created. It compounded my feelings of alienation from the world that welcomed the fantasy of me on their living-room TVs but wouldn’t particularly care for the real me in my current state.
When I did venture out to some function, I would require bodyguards to accompany me. I could never be quite sure what was going to happen as I went in and out of places. The MTV audience was so large that I could be accosted at any moment, and scuffles and disturbances would break out if I hung around one spot too long.
Whether or not the bodyguards were protecting me or protecting the people from me is a hard one to figure out, but the old informality I had enjoyed when I first came to New York was a thing of the past. If I went to a club like Limelight, I would have to be ushered to the upstairs VIP section behind a red velvet rope that cut off access to where I was sitting. I would have to invite people to step over the rope just to occupy the same space as me. This sort of power may sound like fun, but I loved the freedom of being a punk rocker, and this stardom trip was a whole different ball game.
I ventured out one New Year’s Eve, toasted from making the album and still reeling from the film that didn’t happen. I went to a party at Limelight and found myself upstairs in the VIP section. A couple of English birds I knew came up, motioning that they wanted to join me. I had been having a bit of a fling with one of them, but nothing serious or regular. In truth, I had grown tired of her and had been hoping to meet someone else on that night, so I shook my head no. I could see she was hurt by my rebuff, and it made me feel vile. I soon realized I was burnt out and drug-sick, and not in any mood to hang, or perhaps I was embarrassed by the “daggers” I was now getting from both of them, so I slipped out the back way, went home, and decided to have a quiet night by myself. Who gave a damn if it was New Year’s Eve anyway?
When I arrived at my apartment, I wasn’t going to take or smoke anything, since I felt pretty knackered. But then I heard a knock on the door. I looked through the security lens and saw it was one of my bodyguards, who had only worked for me previously on a couple of occasions, outside in the corridor with the English girl I’d just left behind at the Limelight. “What did you bring her here for?” I said without opening the door, asking them both to please leave, as I didn’t feel like having any company. Well, the girl didn’t split—seems she had taken some ecstasy. I was getting increasingly annoyed that someone I had been paying to protect me would bring this girl to my home. I tried ignoring them, but the two just wouldn’t leave. After an hour, I threatened to call the police, and while this succeeded in chasing away my bodyguard, he didn’t take her with him. She started pounding on my door—she wouldn’t let up. I called the police, but they didn’t want to get involved. After much cajoling and explaining who I was, they finally showed up and restrained her so that I could open the door and talk to them. I tried to explain, and after a while the cops finally began to believe my story. I told them I didn’t want her arrested, but she was obviously a bit nuts and was not about to leave voluntarily. All the while she was hysterically crying and moaning.
While figuring out what to do, one of the cops engaged me in conversation. “Is this a crazy night, or what?” I offered. “This is nothing,” responded the officer. “We just came from a place where a nude couple stopped the elevator in between floors to have sex. Another resident rang for the elevator, and for some reason, the doors opened despite the elevator being stuck between floors. The resident wasn’t paying attention, and when the doors opened, he plunged to his death. The girl he was with just managed not to follow him.”
“Shit,” I said. “This is nothing compared to that.”
The girl still wouldn’t leave, and it took three cops to haul her away, struggling to shove her into the elevator at the end of the corridor. I started to relax, but five minutes later, the buzzer went off in my apartment. It was the cops calling from the ground-floor intercom, and judging from the background noise, they were still trying to subdue her.
“Just tell her you love her!” the policeman shouted into the intercom.
“But I don’t,” I answered.
“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “Just do it!”
So I did, and that seemed to finally get her away from my apartment. So much for my desire for a quiet New Year’s Eve alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY
RETURN TO SPLENDOUR
West Village, New York City
AS THE WHIPLASH SMILE SESSIONS progressed, I became even more volatile. Zool continued to rear his ugly head. One day, disagreeing with something Brendan Bourke had said, I threw an unopened Coca-Cola can at him, which just missed, violently exploding against the wall. My mood could shift rapidly and people never knew exactly which Billy Idol they were talking to. It was all taking a heavy toll on the creative process. Earlier on, when recording “To Be a Lover,” I was having a rough day standing at the mic in the studio. We used to grind up coke with a Deering mill, using the large size that holds three grams. I had the top of the grinder off and was holding the bottom that was filled to the brim in my left hand, in the process of trying to record a take. Keith was trying to encourage me, but my mood was foul. I eventually threw a wobbler, kicking both the mic stand and the lyrics stand all over the studio, my arms waving as I shouted obscenities while maintaining a firm grip on the grinder.
“That’s my boy,” said Keith Forsey to the engineer behind the glass. “He didn’t spill a drop of blow during that whole tantrum!�
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I guess you can sense how unhinged all of this was getting. I was spending hours in my dark apartment with masturbatory fantasies bleeding into real life, a kid from Bromley in Kent alone and out of his mind in New York, gradually going more and more insane, out of control on a mind-numbing cocktail of drugs without anyone who had any power to make me see sense.
Everyone around me knew that I was in trouble, and they asked Keith Forsey to come to my Barrow Street apartment to try to reason with me and convince me that I needed help. Keith agonized over coming to see me, because he knew how volatile I could become at any moment.
When Keith arrived I let him into the apartment and into the living room, where instead of sitting down he stood right in front of me. I could see he was about to give me a massive heart-to-heart talk. I suppose I knew instinctively what he was going to say, so I spoke first, conceding that I needed to go to a hospital to sort myself out. He looked at me with astonishment and his mouth dropped open in disbelief at how reasonable I was being. “I can’t believe you’ve said exactly what I was coming here to say to you. It took me hours to build up the courage to try to say what you just said to me, you asshole.”
“Let’s just do some hits today and I’ll go tomorrow,” I laughed. Keith went off to get Brendan, and in that time I split and managed to do a runner, leaving Keith’s intervention attempt in shambles as well as everyone around me very concerned about my well-being.
At the same time, I still hadn’t heard from Bill Aucoin. It’s no wonder he couldn’t bring himself to come back and manage me. He was in this same state of mind, but to the power of ten.
When Aucoin finally did return to New York after his L.A. bender, it was to carry on partying. I was having trouble accepting that Bill had stepped up his partying to such a degree that managing me was no longer possible. I guess I thought that we were true partners and that our relationship would continue. But now, without Bill and without Perri, I was left to my own devices, which meant basically doing what Bill was doing: surrendering to the void.
Bill’s associates Brigid and Brendan might have given up on him, but thankfully they didn’t abandon me when I needed them more than ever, after I experienced another psychotic event. This one frightened me. Because of the supposed demons I could see and hear, I locked myself into a closet and wouldn’t emerge until Brigid and Brendan coaxed me out. That’s when I finally agreed to be hospitalized and enter Beth Israel. For the moment, I’d had enough.
I lasted only ten days, and then I checked myself out, slipping past Brigid and Brendan in the lobby. I was back, off to new adventures. Why did I check out so soon? The monsters had receded, and I convinced myself there was nothing wrong with me. I’d just taken a little bit too much, that’s all. At least that was my rationalization. I couldn’t pin myself down. I was stuck in a revolving door, going from one drug to another.
Brendan and Brigid stepping in to help me was due in part to their kindly, sympathetic natures, but also due to the fact that my dad was breathing down their necks in the form of letters and phone calls from the UK. It was only a matter of time before word of my condition got back to my parents in England. My dad came to New York in an attempt to save me from myself.
He arrived carrying a big walking stick to symbolize the purpose of his mission. He didn’t need the crutch, he was here with conviction, like Christ come to cleanse the temple! I was glad to see him, as I needed a break from my shenanigans. We were finalizing the album, the cover art, etc., so I didn’t mind straightening out a bit. My dad’s arrival was great because it was our first time alone in years. I was in the throes of serious addiction, so I made a big effort before he arrived to rewire my brain and turn myself into a slightly different person—at least for the time being. After going from extreme to extreme, how can you stop when you’ve made yourself believe that what you’re doing is fine or even normal? But I had to come down to earth and get a hold of myself for his arrival.
He tried to reason with me and to become involved in my financial affairs. He had worked as an accountant and had built his own business, and so I knew he understood the language of financial matters.
I was lucky that Brigid, who had worked at Chrysalis before working for Bill’s company, decided to continue working with me as my business manager. This allowed my business affairs to continue without interruption, and there was no lack of guidance there, since Brigid and my dad got on well. She is an excellent organizer and took on much of the tour management with first-rate business acumen.
I realize now that my dad’s focus on my business matters when he came to see me as I struggled with my health in the throes of drug addiction was his way of relating to me and trying to connect with me. He was looking out for my overall welfare in the best way he could. I appreciated that I had a great soul on my side. His visit truly meant the world at that time: he may well have saved my life.
Dad was great, staying with me for three weeks, although I probably drove him just about nuts, listening to the collected solo works of Alan Vega all day and every night. At one point, my dad asked for a sandwich to eat while we were at the Hit Factory, and they ordered out from the Carnegie Deli, which sent over one of their huge chicken sandwiches. Dad made a smaller sandwich from the giant one they delivered and put the remains in my fridge, still dining on it weeks later. He even took some of it on the plane with him for a snack when he went back to England.
My parents had been worried about me for a long time. My mum had visited me earlier in the year, when we attended a wedding together. At the time, I was snorting coke and heroin, but not in front of her. So I was stoned and trying to maintain. A few days after the wedding, we went to see Les Paul play at his club Fat Tuesday’s. That’s where I got him to autograph the Les Paul Jr. guitar I used to play onstage. It’s now so valuable I no longer play it for fear someone will steal it. On the way back from the club, I came very close to trying to get out of our car while it was moving, at about twenty miles an hour. There was other traffic around so I didn’t attempt it, but the fact that I would even consider it makes me realize how little regard I had for myself and for others during that period. I could have easily been injured or killed myself—in front of my mother, no less.
The album and remixes were almost done and the cover art was starting to come together. I drew a planet with rings around it, placing the needle and arm of a record player as if the sound was in the groove of those rings. I also drew the RETURN TO SPLENDOUR circle with the yin and yang and the cross with PILGRIM written beneath it for the inside sleeve. Following my DIY punk ethos, I had designed most of it myself, however well or shitty it turned out. I was assured by the record company’s art department that the vinyl disc would look gold, but wouldn’t you know it, par for the course, it came out looking like diarrhea. Foiled again, another “oh bollocks” moment, but there wasn’t enough time to play around or change it.
Whiplash Smile was ready to be shipped to stores. I was ragged but functioning as another tour loomed in the near future. I was determined to slow down.
* * *
I WAS EXCITED ABOUT THE prospect of making videos to support the new album and having the band play live, but I needed a manager. Through my lawyer, Stu Silfen, I met and secured the services of Freddy DeMann, Madonna’s manager, to replace Bill Aucoin, who remained missing in action. Signing with Freddy was seen, within the business, as a bit of a coup since it looked to the outside world that, despite managerial changes and the inevitable rumors and questions, everything was fine and the new album was about to come out. Freddy’s first order of business was to arrange a tour for the spring and summer of ’87.
Freddy was about forty at the time, shorter than me, graying at the temples, sometimes quiet, but sharp as a tack. His wide, searching eyes would see all and know all, but he didn’t always let on that he knew what I was thinking. Diminutive in height, but a giant in business know-how, Freddy could pull off whatever he promised, and I had confidence in him being able to
help sell Whiplash Smile. For a brief moment, I considered calling the album Fatal Charm, but Freddy said I had the right title and not to second-guess myself. I agreed, and it felt good to have a sounding board again.
The promotion for Whiplash Smile began in earnest in September. I did a video for the first single, “To Be a Lover,” with David Mallet directing once again. The clip was set in a boxing ring, using the idea from Elvis Presley’s comeback special, where he played on a square stage, as its rock ’n’ roll reference point. We shot the video in England, and after we finished the shoot, my mum and dad whisked me off to a vacation in Majorca, a Mediterranean island off the coast of Spain. This took me away from my immediate surroundings of New York, where I was open to temptation and the possibilities of succumbing to that drug world.
Freddy had introduced me to a young Australian chap named Neil Bradbury to work with me on a daily basis and he, also, came out to Majorca. Neil and I had to acquaint ourselves with each other very quickly, because “To Be a Lover” had just been released, and there was plenty of promotional work to do. We were immediately in the fray, and time was of the essence. The luxury of getting to know each other had to be put on the back burner for the moment.
During the second week in Majorca, I had a young lady visitor named Anita. She was a singer in a band and was one of the backing vocalists in the “To Be a Lover” video. She was a gorgeous Indian/English girl who could outdrink me and we had become quite friendly. We enjoyed swimming, and the first night she was there, we both ended up walking fully clothed into the sea, me in my leather trousers. Each day, we would swim across the bay to another inlet with a large, prominent rock on which we would lie in the sun before swimming back. We generally relaxed and enjoyed each other’s company. We sometimes visited the nude beaches and had fun in the sand and surf. The pressures of making the album and dealing with my change in management began to slowly fade away.