Billy Idol is the star of uDiscoverMusic’s latest episode of Beyond the Bus. In the episode, he shares of how his perfectionism led to stealing tapes of his recently-reissued album Rebel Yell.
Shop the best of Billy Idol’s discography on vinyl and more.
He begins: “We had this really great album, Rebel Yell. We spent six months writing the songs and recording. And then we came to do the cover. I was looking at this picture going, ‘There’s this flaw in this photography. It was just the way they printed it or something. When they blow that up, it’s gonna get worse.”
After someone from the photography team told him that it would get better once blown up, Idol said steam came out of his ears. After being unable to halt the release, he came up with his own idea.
He continues: “I thought, ‘I’ve got to do something,’ so I went out in the middle of the night, went down to Electric Lady Studios, and pressed the buzzer on the door. I said, ‘I left something in the studio’ and the guy ‘bzzzzz’ let me in…I got to the room where I knew the tapes were and I gathered up the master boxes…I got in my car and took them to the East Side and gave them to my heroin dealer, James. I said, ‘James, here’s my album. Bootleg this album.”
Idol shared the moral of the story, saying: “I was serious about what I was doing, and I cared about it.” His record label eventually relented. Idol concludes: “And the rest is history.”
The 40th Anniversary Deluxe Expanded Edition of Rebel Yell is out now via Capitol/UMe. The reissue includes a selection of previously unreleased songs and demos, the Poolside remix of Idol’s smash hit “Eyes Without A Face,” and the never-before-heard Billy Idol/Steve Stevens original “Best Way Out of Here” from the original sessions.
Buy or stream Rebel Yell (40th Anniversary Edition).