Dare to Be Different (2017)
Billy Idol: Self - Singer, Songwriter
Photos
Quotes
-
Self - Singer : The sort of mainstream American music was very much caught up in what was now the end of a decade: the 70s. And kind of it turned into - almost muzak to us. It was all very light weight rock, you know, R-O-K, as well, it wasn't rock-n-roll, it wasn't sexy, it wasn't - it wasn't breaking new bounds, it wasn't saying anything dangerous, it wasn't - it had no new fashion sense. In fact, it was all caught up in very much, sort of, the early days of the 70s and you were watching that burn out, really, and it was boring us to death. And there was someone like WLIR willing to sort of put us on their radio playlist and open our music up to a load of young kids - who would then come to New York and say to the DJs, "I want to hear 'Dancing With Myself' by Billy Idol." Or, "I want to hear 'Homo Superior' for Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks." "I want to hear this new music." "I want to hear Joy Division." "I want to hear Human League." It was all very much being fueled in sort of English dance clubs and from their its being reflected in the American dance clubs or radio playlist at the few radio stations in America that were playing post-punk music like WLIR. I think it fueled the beginning of the 80s and set the pace.
-
Self - Singer : We were saying why does everything have to be separate? Why can't we put things - lets just take the rock-n-roll world, the dance world, the funk world, the gospel world - lets just stick it all together.
-
Self - Singer : We wanted to make the bands of the 70s look out-moded. We wanted it to be an instant change. That it was very obvious this was a new decade.
-
Self - Singer : We're still excited. We're still dancing and going out of our minds to great music somewhere. And if we're not, we're thinking about how to make that happen.
-
Self - Singer : Rock-n-Roll has differently fallen out of favor somewhere. But, who knows, man, it could make its evil comeback and that's what we're always waiting for. Something loud, smelly, and nasty. Yeah!
