Latest / DISGRACELAND / Billy Idol: A Motorcycle Crash, a Rude Awakening in Bangkok, Sexual Deviancy, and Rock ‘n’ Roll Animals

Transcript

Billy Idol: A Motorcycle Crash, a Rude Awakening in Bangkok, Sexual Deviancy, and Rock ‘n’ Roll Animals · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a
0:17
Speaker 1: story about a rock and roll animal, about the rock
0:21
Speaker 1: and roll animal. It's about debauchery, so debaucherous that listing
0:25
Speaker 1: all of it out here at the beginning of this
0:27
Speaker 1: episode won't do the insanity of it all justice. It's
0:31
Speaker 1: about a rock star. We take for granted he's always
0:34
Speaker 1: been there on our radios, on our televisions, looking like
0:38
Speaker 1: they contrived his technicolor punk rock MTV image in central casting.
0:42
Speaker 1: But the truth is that look, that attitude, and that
0:47
Speaker 1: rock stars songs were as authentic as it gets, and
0:51
Speaker 1: his behavior, his transgressions, prove it. High speed car chases,
0:57
Speaker 1: destroyed hotel rooms, John Belushi, overdue dead, next door arrests,
1:02
Speaker 1: accusations of sexual deviancy, military extradition, under for sedation because
1:07
Speaker 1: he was just that fucking unhinged. This is a story
1:12
Speaker 1: about Billy Idl, a man who made great music. Unlike
1:17
Speaker 1: that music I played for you at the top of
1:19
Speaker 1: the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset
1:23
Speaker 1: loop from my melotron called I can't believe a fucking
1:26
Speaker 1: hot that chicken. That video is MK two. I played
1:31
Speaker 1: you that loop because I can't afford the rights to
1:34
Speaker 1: how Am I Supposed to Live Without You? By Michael Bolton?
1:38
Speaker 1: And why would I play you that specific slice of
1:41
Speaker 1: No Talent Ass Clown Cheese? Could I afford it? Because
1:45
Speaker 1: that was the number one song in America on February sixth,
1:49
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety And that was the day that Billy Idol,
1:53
Speaker 1: after returning from what would go down as one of
1:55
Speaker 1: the most out of control rock star vacations of all time,
1:58
Speaker 1: ran a stop sign and crashed as Harley Davidson, nearly
2:01
Speaker 1: dying in the process. On this episode, a motorcycle crash
2:07
Speaker 1: speedballs a Banghok bender to beat the band No Talent
2:12
Speaker 1: Ass Clown Cheese, and Billy Idle, I'm Jake Brennan and
2:17
Speaker 1: this is.
2:18
Speaker 2: Disgraceland and.
2:51
Speaker 1: Alone and confused. Billy Idol awoke in a hotel room
2:54
Speaker 1: bed and the rising sun outside shone through the Florida
2:58
Speaker 1: ceiling windows, violently piercing his eyes. His head was pounding,
3:05
Speaker 1: and the phone started to ring, and there was that
3:08
Speaker 1: voice again, a voice he thought he was just imagining,
3:12
Speaker 1: but now was convinced was somewhere in the room, a
3:16
Speaker 1: voice that was saying, out go the light Billy shot
3:21
Speaker 1: up to a sitting position so fast that his brain
3:24
Speaker 1: or what was left of it, sloshed around in his skull.
3:28
Speaker 1: He felt like he was going to vomit. He looked
3:30
Speaker 1: around the room. What a mess. Liquor bottles, pill bottles,
3:36
Speaker 1: empty vials that once contained one illicit white powder or another.
3:41
Speaker 1: Articles of clothing were strewn about. Furniture was turned upside down,
3:44
Speaker 1: glass was broken, and blood was shed. Wait was that
3:49
Speaker 1: really blood? The phone finally stopped ringing, and Billy looked
3:54
Speaker 1: around for whoever was talking, but saw no one. Where
3:58
Speaker 1: the hell was he and where the hell was.
4:00
Speaker 2: Harry Jesus Christ?
4:03
Speaker 1: He needed some a dope, something, anything. Again he heard
4:07
Speaker 1: the voice, and again it sounded like it was coming
4:10
Speaker 1: from inside the room, and this time it was saying
4:12
Speaker 1: something different, and this time it said boom boom. Suddenly
4:20
Speaker 1: there was a pounding on his door and he heard
4:22
Speaker 1: voices on the other side speaking a language he could
4:24
Speaker 1: not understand. He began to really panic. Now it wasn't
4:28
Speaker 1: unusual for Billy Idle to overdo it, to partake in
4:31
Speaker 1: some wild concoction of alcohol, heroin, cocaine, and or pills
4:35
Speaker 1: that eventually knocked him out, only to wake him up
4:38
Speaker 1: with some big breasted bombshell at his side. But this
4:41
Speaker 1: was different. Everything was foggy and nothing was making sense.
4:46
Speaker 1: Put the knocking on the door intensified, and Billy sprung
4:49
Speaker 1: to his feet and felt his knees wabble. He struggled
4:52
Speaker 1: to stay upright, and as he tried to catch his balance,
4:55
Speaker 1: his hotel room door was kicked down and into the
4:58
Speaker 1: room flooded men in mill military gear. First split second,
5:02
Speaker 1: Billy had a moment of clarity. This was the Thai Army.
5:06
Speaker 2: He was looking at. Shit was he in Bangkok?
5:11
Speaker 1: And the army men began to surround him like dogcatchers
5:14
Speaker 1: cornering a mangy old mutt, and they grabbed his arms
5:17
Speaker 1: and legs and wrestled him onto a hospital gurney. Billy
5:20
Speaker 1: knew he'd really fucked up this time. If only he
5:22
Speaker 1: could remember just how he'd wound up in this situation
5:25
Speaker 1: in the first place. He racked his adult brain, but
5:28
Speaker 1: before he could find any answers, he was being stuck
5:31
Speaker 1: with a long needle and delivered a very powerful sedative
5:34
Speaker 1: which sent his mind back not to the beginning of
5:36
Speaker 1: this three week bender, but to eight years earlier, all
5:41
Speaker 1: the way to nineteen eighty one.
5:47
Speaker 2: Eight years earlier.
5:48
Speaker 1: It was nineteen eighty one and Ronald Reagan was not dead,
5:51
Speaker 1: but punk Rock was. The fortieth President of the United
5:55
Speaker 1: States had been shot and wounded in Washington, d c.
5:58
Speaker 1: Just days after twenty five years Billy Idol moved from
6:01
Speaker 1: London to New York City. Years earlier, when Billy was
6:05
Speaker 1: just a little boy and still going by his given name,
6:07
Speaker 1: William Broad, Billy's family relocated from their native England to
6:11
Speaker 1: Long Island for his father's work, even though they only
6:14
Speaker 1: lived there for four years before returning to the UK.
6:17
Speaker 1: In some ways, this felt like a homecoming, but things
6:21
Speaker 1: were different now. New York, like London, had been forever
6:25
Speaker 1: changed by punk Rock. Punk had been Billy's salvation once too,
6:31
Speaker 1: the thing that drove his teenage rebellion, that inspired him
6:34
Speaker 1: to cut school, even to stop talking to his father
6:37
Speaker 1: for two years, and Billy remained Punk's avatar, really his
6:42
Speaker 1: gene Vincent ducks ass Hairdoo died shockingly blonde, his leather
6:47
Speaker 1: fingerless gloves, his curled upper lip, his fists clenched in
6:51
Speaker 1: youthful defiance. As the lead singer of the excellent London
6:56
Speaker 1: punk band Generation X. Billy Idol breathed the same as
7:00
Speaker 1: the Clash, the Ramones and the sex Pistols, But even
7:03
Speaker 1: Johnny Rotten had left all that behind, now fronting Public
7:07
Speaker 1: Image Limited as John Leiden. In New York City in
7:11
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, the survivors were everywhere, Patti Smith, David Johansson,
7:17
Speaker 1: Debbie Harry, and now Billy Idel looking at a new
7:21
Speaker 1: world that very much resembled the one that he knew
7:24
Speaker 1: so well. The grime, the dirt, the disgusting bathrooms that
7:29
Speaker 1: smelled like last night's puke, The walls decorated by some
7:32
Speaker 1: spray paint, Picasso, stretches of wet pavement that wreaked of
7:36
Speaker 1: garbage and piss. The little slots and tenement doors through
7:39
Speaker 1: which the man, once you were done waiting for him,
7:41
Speaker 1: of course, handed you your fix. The fury may have
7:45
Speaker 1: been old news, but the filth remained. Billy Idol was
7:49
Speaker 1: subsisting on a not so steady diet of heroin and
7:51
Speaker 1: late night pizza slices, living like an animal, because that's
7:55
Speaker 1: what he was, a rock and roll animal, obsessed with
7:59
Speaker 1: what punk music really and truly was. When he got
8:02
Speaker 1: down to it, which was just rock and roll, simple
8:06
Speaker 1: music that made you feel great, Simple music made by young,
8:11
Speaker 1: ordinary people about their young, ordinary lives. Add to that
8:17
Speaker 1: the pulsing sounds of Alan Vega and Suicide, the orgasmic
8:21
Speaker 1: moans of Donna Summer, all of it visceral, All of
8:24
Speaker 1: it is vibrant as punk once was, as essential as
8:27
Speaker 1: Oldies but good He's like Tommy James and the Chondell's
8:30
Speaker 1: is money money. The music throbbed in his head as
8:35
Speaker 1: he descended into the heart of darkness, the Lower East Side,
8:39
Speaker 1: and some dude he just met with a thirty eight
8:42
Speaker 1: stuck in his waistband as his guide, his protection, because
8:46
Speaker 1: scoring dope in New York City in the early eighties
8:48
Speaker 1: was no fucking joke. With the help of his armed companion,
8:53
Speaker 1: Billy Idol procured that weak smack and snorted it as
8:57
Speaker 1: was his preference, and the euphoria hit, helping him forget
9:01
Speaker 1: about his girlfriend. Perry Lister, a smoke show redhead, was
9:05
Speaker 1: back in the UK and also easing the guilt he
9:08
Speaker 1: felt about getting high with and fucking other women in
9:11
Speaker 1: her absence. And then those timeless oldies but Goodies melodies
9:16
Speaker 1: flooding into his brain again. Billy sought out another junkie,
9:20
Speaker 1: a fellow lover of old rock and roll and punk
9:22
Speaker 1: rock alike Lou Reid, and suggested to collaborate on some
9:26
Speaker 1: songs for Billy's debut solo album, which he was about
9:29
Speaker 1: to begin recording. Lou was into it, but he didn't
9:33
Speaker 1: come cheat. He told Billy that he charged not by
9:36
Speaker 1: the hour, but by every half hour. It was an
9:39
Speaker 1: insanely high rate, higher than that low grade a street
9:42
Speaker 1: junk made you feel so fuck that and fuck Lou
9:46
Speaker 1: Reid too true. Billy was used to a songwriting partner,
9:51
Speaker 1: which was how he came up with the material for
9:53
Speaker 1: Generation X, including their hit Dancing with Myself, which was
9:57
Speaker 1: technically recorded by his old band General Accident, only later
10:01
Speaker 1: re released under his own name Billy idol In, which
10:04
Speaker 1: also featured cameos from members of The Clash and the Pistols.
10:07
Speaker 1: But I Digress. Billy was a solo artist now with
10:13
Speaker 1: a new path to forge, which meant some things he'd
10:16
Speaker 1: have to go alone, like writing songs and so long
10:20
Speaker 1: before he became one of the biggest rock and roll
10:22
Speaker 1: stars in the world, years before he woke up in
10:26
Speaker 1: the luxury hotel room in Bangkok, with no knowledge of
10:29
Speaker 1: how he got there or what he'd done. Over the
10:31
Speaker 1: course of three very long and debaucherous weeks, with the
10:34
Speaker 1: local military literally knocking down his door, sedating him like
10:38
Speaker 1: his heroes and the Ramones once sang about, and strapping
10:40
Speaker 1: him to a gurney, Billy Idol left his new home
10:44
Speaker 1: of New York City without lou Reed, without his girl Perry,
10:47
Speaker 1: without much butter record contract, and he took off for
10:50
Speaker 1: the warmer climbs of Los Angeles, California, where the sun
10:55
Speaker 1: was shining, and the birds were singing, and the women
10:58
Speaker 1: were willing, and the drugs were plentiful. In short, it
11:03
Speaker 1: was a nice day to start again. Billy Idol had
11:31
Speaker 1: a debut album to record. Chrysalis, the British record label
11:34
Speaker 1: which had previously signed Billy's band Generation X, had it
11:38
Speaker 1: all planned out. Time was booked in early nineteen eighty
11:41
Speaker 1: two at Westlake Studios in Los Angeles, where Billy could
11:44
Speaker 1: first hammer out some demos for his signature epiphone, Casino
11:48
Speaker 1: hollowbody electric guitar and a drum machine before presenting them
11:51
Speaker 1: to the band, which was being led by the pyrotechnic
11:55
Speaker 1: guitarist Steve Stevens, who also possessed some of the biggest
11:59
Speaker 1: hair in the game, for what that's worth. But Billy
12:01
Speaker 1: still needed a few new songs for the record, and
12:04
Speaker 1: he still had doubts about his being able to write
12:06
Speaker 1: them on his own. But that was a problem for
12:09
Speaker 1: future Billy Idle to figure out because all that the writing,
12:13
Speaker 1: the recording, it was happening tomorrow, the day after Billy arrived.
12:17
Speaker 2: In Los Angeles.
12:19
Speaker 1: He was just trying to make sure that today, his
12:21
Speaker 1: first day in town, wouldn't be his last, and it
12:25
Speaker 1: wasn't looking good. Billy braced himself as the car he
12:29
Speaker 1: was riding and rocketed through a busy intersection Wincy as
12:33
Speaker 1: it barely missed getting tee bone by a car coming
12:36
Speaker 1: from the cross street. He turned to give an incredulous
12:39
Speaker 1: look at his driver, a washing machine salesman high as
12:42
Speaker 1: shit on too many berg Dans. The guy's cheeks were
12:45
Speaker 1: still puffy and swollen from that morning's wisdom teeth extraction,
12:49
Speaker 1: and his eyes were clearly communicating that yes, the drugs
12:52
Speaker 1: had taken hold, and no, he was not stopping for
12:55
Speaker 1: the police cruisers that were hot in pursuit with their
12:58
Speaker 1: sirens screaming at full blast. Billy looked back at his
13:02
Speaker 1: friend Ga sitting in the backseat, and then at the
13:05
Speaker 1: LAPD squad cars gaining on them now with every second
13:09
Speaker 1: perkad him Man cut the wheel hard and to the
13:11
Speaker 1: tune of screeching tires, motored the very fast moving vehicle
13:15
Speaker 1: down an alley again, taking another corner at the end
13:18
Speaker 1: of Seid Alley, where he suddenly had a slam on
13:21
Speaker 1: the brakes to avoid crashing into someone's fence. The cops
13:24
Speaker 1: were blocking them in now and the bright lights of
13:27
Speaker 1: their cruisers cutting through the darkness. Then came the piercing
13:31
Speaker 1: squeal of a bullhorn. Hands on the fucking dashboard where
13:35
Speaker 1: we can see them. Why was Billy Idol in a
13:39
Speaker 1: car driven by a washing machine salesman, high on prescription opioids,
13:43
Speaker 1: actively out running the police on this his first day
13:46
Speaker 1: in La Why are you even asking? You'll find no
13:50
Speaker 1: real clarity to this sort of question in the lawless
13:53
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties For a rocker such as Billy Idol, a
13:56
Speaker 1: junkie such as Billy Idol, life was one big blur
13:59
Speaker 1: of scores, fixes, verses, and choruses. And not always in
14:04
Speaker 1: that order. Furthermore, the only true clarity one had to
14:08
Speaker 1: possess was in the recording studio or on stage, where
14:12
Speaker 1: the real work was to be done. So after Billy
14:16
Speaker 1: smoothed things out with the lapd, and after the cops
14:19
Speaker 1: were satisfied that no one in the car had a
14:21
Speaker 1: criminal record, after perkadam Man agreed to pay a small
14:24
Speaker 1: fine for the damage done, and after Billy's friend Ga
14:27
Speaker 1: promised he would take the wheel, they were free to go,
14:30
Speaker 1: which for Billy meant going to Westlake Studios the very
14:34
Speaker 1: next day. With the zepophone casino in his hands and
14:38
Speaker 1: the clock on the wall ticking away, he found his
14:41
Speaker 1: favorite key of b the same key he'd written Generation
14:44
Speaker 1: x's Ready Steady Go in his favorite time signature for
14:49
Speaker 1: four in a compelling story from which to write a song,
14:52
Speaker 1: and that story was not what had just happened to
14:55
Speaker 1: him the day prior, but instead one inspired by his
14:58
Speaker 1: own sister, who had recently he got married while pregnant.
15:02
Speaker 1: The lyrics came to him quickly, as did a twist
15:05
Speaker 1: in which he pivoted away from his own life and
15:07
Speaker 1: had the song's narrator hint at some sort of incestuous relationship.
15:12
Speaker 1: It was weird, dark, incredibly compelling. In just twenty minutes,
15:17
Speaker 1: Billy Idol had written the minor key goth punk pop
15:20
Speaker 1: smash White Wedding. In the fall of nineteen eighty two,
15:24
Speaker 1: White Wedding, with its unmistakable hopscotching pick slide intro by
15:28
Speaker 1: Steve Stevens. That song was released as the second single
15:32
Speaker 1: from Billy's debut solo album. It didn't make him a
15:35
Speaker 1: star overnight, but thanks to all the play it received
15:38
Speaker 1: in urban dance clubs, as well as the heavy rotation
15:41
Speaker 1: on the then new MTV, which had a finite library
15:44
Speaker 1: of videos to choose from the time, White Wedding lifted
15:48
Speaker 1: Billy Idol up a bit, which, most importantly for Billy
15:51
Speaker 1: at the moment, meant that his inner circle of rock
15:53
Speaker 1: and roll friends got bigger, as did his drug budget
15:56
Speaker 1: and the caliber of place in which he did those
15:58
Speaker 1: drugs with those friends. I'm talking places like the Chateau
16:03
Speaker 1: MArmand on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, and that's where Billy
16:07
Speaker 1: and Steve decamped when they were kicked out of the
16:09
Speaker 1: Sunset Marquis, up the street a bit and around the corner,
16:13
Speaker 1: armed with a stash at tequila and heroin. Billy did
16:16
Speaker 1: his best to get kicked out of his Chateau Bungalow
16:18
Speaker 1: as well, and he probably would have, that is, if
16:21
Speaker 1: the cops weren't busy with John Belushi's corpse after the
16:24
Speaker 1: famous comedian, former Saturday Matt Live cast member and fellow
16:28
Speaker 1: hard party or just so happened to overdose in his
16:31
Speaker 1: own bungalow. A few doors down from Billy Les Devon
16:35
Speaker 1: were the hangout sessions with Rock Royalty like the Rolling Stones,
16:38
Speaker 1: with whom Billy found himself sharing a bottle at Ronnie
16:41
Speaker 1: Wood's birthday party. Ronnie passed the bourbon to Keith, and
16:44
Speaker 1: then Keith to Mick, and then Micked to Billy, upon
16:47
Speaker 1: which Billy took a look at the bottles label, which
16:49
Speaker 1: featured a picture of a Confederate soldier riding a horse
16:52
Speaker 1: next to the bourbon's name, and the name of that
16:54
Speaker 1: bourbon was a Rebel Yell. The name stuck with him,
17:00
Speaker 1: and just like the blast of creative inspiration he channeled
17:02
Speaker 1: to write White Wedding, he did the same with his
17:05
Speaker 1: next big hit, which would also be the title of
17:08
Speaker 1: his next album. Upon its release in November of nineteen
17:11
Speaker 1: eighty three, Billy Idol's second solo record, Rebel Yell Again,
17:15
Speaker 1: with the help of MTV, solidified the one time punk
17:18
Speaker 1: rocker as one of the most recognizable faces and voices
17:22
Speaker 1: of contemporary rock and roll in the same way that
17:25
Speaker 1: Madonna or Michael Jackson represented the pop side of the tracks.
17:30
Speaker 1: Billy set out on a massive tour, and he fucked
17:33
Speaker 1: and drugged his way across North America and then back again,
17:36
Speaker 1: an embarrassment of women in heroin and cocaine and booze.
17:39
Speaker 1: It was all so much. Billy would play, he'd party,
17:42
Speaker 1: he'd pass out, he'd wake up, he'd be strung out,
17:45
Speaker 1: he'd get pissed, he'd fly into a rage, break shit,
17:47
Speaker 1: and then repeat the whole process all over again pretty regularly.
17:52
Speaker 1: He woke up in two Sounds with a sheriff pointing
17:54
Speaker 1: a loaded gun in his face. He woke up in London,
17:56
Speaker 1: his unconscious junkie body being miraculously revived in a freezing
18:00
Speaker 1: cold ice bath. He woke up with a bloody nose,
18:03
Speaker 1: with a throat on fire, naked, the curtains drawn, porn
18:06
Speaker 1: flickering on the TV set, his broken, free base Pipe
18:09
Speaker 1: held together.
18:10
Speaker 2: With Gaffer Tape in.
18:12
Speaker 1: Rochester, New York. He was accused of sexual deviancy by
18:15
Speaker 1: a woman who claimed he kicked her out of his
18:17
Speaker 1: hotel room for not fucking another woman in front of him.
18:20
Speaker 1: His long suffering girlfriend, Perry Lister, the one who first
18:23
Speaker 1: stayed behind in England when Billy made the move abroad.
18:27
Speaker 1: She definitely had some idea about Billy Idol's sexual deviancy
18:30
Speaker 1: even after the charges were dropped, but as long as
18:33
Speaker 1: that idea wasn't flaunted in her face while she was around,
18:36
Speaker 1: which was becoming more frequent as the years went on.
18:39
Speaker 1: That whatever Billy did, it was all good with her.
18:42
Speaker 1: And that was until Billy got sloppy. First, there was
18:46
Speaker 1: the undercover staying in Washington Square in New York, which
18:49
Speaker 1: landed Billy in a female friend in police custody. NYPD
18:53
Speaker 1: only needed one crackheaded cuff, so the friend took the
18:56
Speaker 1: fall and then immediately gave a press conference at which
18:59
Speaker 1: he introduced yourself as Billy's girlfriend. Perry wasn't going to
19:04
Speaker 1: take any of that, and Perry responded by giving her
19:07
Speaker 1: own press conference to make sure the world knew that
19:10
Speaker 1: she and not the coke smoking Harlotte on Billy's arm
19:13
Speaker 1: on that faithful day in Washington Square Park. She wanted
19:16
Speaker 1: the world to know that she Perry was Billy's one
19:19
Speaker 1: and only girlfriend, and Perry further proved it by moving
19:23
Speaker 1: with Billy to Los Angeles to the Hollywood Hills, where
19:27
Speaker 1: after Billy Idol's live version of the Tommy James classic
19:30
Speaker 1: Money Money went to number one on the Billboard Hot
19:33
Speaker 1: one hundred and after Billy used the money from that
19:35
Speaker 1: huge hit by himself a Harley Davidson Wye Glad motorcycle
19:39
Speaker 1: and then joined a local motorcycle club called Rude Dude,
19:42
Speaker 1: and after the couple welcomed the Sun in the summer
19:44
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty eight, Perry's suspicions of the depths of
19:48
Speaker 1: Billy's sexual deviancy were confirmed when she heard him talking
19:52
Speaker 1: to his side piece, I shit you not over the
19:56
Speaker 1: baby monitor. Later in nineteen eighty nine. This memory, this
20:02
Speaker 1: colossal fuck up by Billy Idol and how his girlfriend
20:06
Speaker 1: Perry responded to it by moving out and taking the
20:09
Speaker 1: baby with her. All of it was flooding Billy Idol's
20:13
Speaker 1: head like an old rock and roll melody as he
20:15
Speaker 1: began to regain consciousness inside of a Bangkok airport. The
20:20
Speaker 1: Thai soldiers who'd busted into his hotel room forcibly removed
20:23
Speaker 1: him and sedated him, and had dumped him here with
20:27
Speaker 1: a one way ticket on the first plane leaving so
20:30
Speaker 1: that they could get him the hell out of their country.
20:33
Speaker 1: This pain, this emotional pain now that was occupying Billy's head,
20:39
Speaker 1: was the reason Billy came to this country in the
20:41
Speaker 1: first place, to cast out this grief by snorting and
20:45
Speaker 1: smoking and fucking the pain away. But the pain was
20:49
Speaker 1: back now, and so was his memory. And now Billy
20:54
Speaker 1: Idol could remember everything. We'll be right back after this.
21:02
Speaker 2: We're We're. We're.
21:11
Speaker 1: Three weeks earlier, Billy Idol and the leader of his
21:14
Speaker 1: Rude Dude motorcycle gang, his friend Harry Johnson. No, that
21:18
Speaker 1: is not a joke. That's actually his name. Look it up.
21:21
Speaker 1: Billy and Harry flew from Los Angeles to Bangkok in
21:24
Speaker 1: search of escape. In the short time between when Perry
21:27
Speaker 1: left him and when he left. On this trip, Billy
21:30
Speaker 1: had managed to father another child, a daughter with another woman,
21:34
Speaker 1: But his failure to hang out of Perry it still
21:37
Speaker 1: hung over him like a dark cloud and so drowning
21:40
Speaker 1: his sorrows and untold amounts of hedonism halfway across the
21:43
Speaker 1: world sounded like just what the good doctor feel good
21:46
Speaker 1: that is ordered. Billy was also in need of a
21:49
Speaker 1: break from recording his fourth solo album, Charmed Life. He
21:53
Speaker 1: wasn't sure if that title was wishful thinking or whether
21:56
Speaker 1: it was the truth. But seeing as though he could
21:59
Speaker 1: pick up stakes at the drop of a hat and
22:00
Speaker 1: fly eight thousand miles to Thailand for a boondoggle, he
22:04
Speaker 1: was doing all right all things considered. The making of
22:08
Speaker 1: Charmed Life was, even by Billy Idols standards, a degenerate
22:12
Speaker 1: affair in which recording sessions were regularly punctuated by doses
22:16
Speaker 1: of ecstasy in GHB, lines of cocaine, and scores of
22:20
Speaker 1: naked women, at whose arrival Billy and the crew would
22:24
Speaker 1: just strip down to their biker boots and scarves. So
22:28
Speaker 1: I guess. In a rare show of abstinence, Billy and
22:30
Speaker 1: Harry agreed that once they got the Bangkok it would
22:32
Speaker 1: be alcohol only. Furthermore, they planned to spend as much
22:36
Speaker 1: time in the brothels as they could handle, and they did.
22:40
Speaker 1: The women were beautiful and the sex was mind bending.
22:45
Speaker 1: They had to drag themselves away to retire to their
22:47
Speaker 1: presidential suite on the top floor of the Oriental Hotel
22:50
Speaker 1: with incredible views that competed with Bangkok's sex workers when
22:54
Speaker 1: it came to taking Billy's breath away. But this self
22:58
Speaker 1: imposed alcohol only ruled got old real quick. All that
23:02
Speaker 1: drinking just made them pass out earlier, and they wanted
23:05
Speaker 1: to go all night, so they hailed the cab and
23:07
Speaker 1: asked the driver if he could score them some blow.
23:10
Speaker 1: He was more than happy to oblige, but he did
23:12
Speaker 1: them one better. He procured for Billy and Harry not cocaine,
23:16
Speaker 1: but China white heroin. This defeated the whole purpose in
23:21
Speaker 1: a way, which was to get some drugs that would
23:22
Speaker 1: keep them awake and alert. But once a junkie has
23:25
Speaker 1: that little vial in his hands, there's no way he's
23:27
Speaker 1: giving it back. And a little of this stuff went
23:30
Speaker 1: a long way. Within minutes, the two friends were stratospherically
23:34
Speaker 1: high and when I say hi, Billy wrote in his memoir,
23:38
Speaker 1: I mean zombie high. And pretty soon the hotel staff
23:42
Speaker 1: was asking questions, why are these two American gentlemen buying
23:46
Speaker 1: so many chocolate bars from their mini bar. Why. Well,
23:50
Speaker 1: because they couldn't find any tinfoil at the local stores
23:53
Speaker 1: to cook their heroin in. Another question, why are there
23:57
Speaker 1: so many scantily clad women from the brothels running through
24:00
Speaker 1: the lobby and hallways of our respectable establishment at all
24:02
Speaker 1: hours of the night. Well, obviously because those two American
24:06
Speaker 1: gentlemen are screwing their brains out six ways to Sunday.
24:09
Speaker 1: And oh, excuse me, sirs, would you mind moving to
24:12
Speaker 1: a different room so that a very special guess, the
24:14
Speaker 1: President of Cambodia can use the presidential suite. It is,
24:18
Speaker 1: after all, called presidential for a reason. Well, the answer
24:23
Speaker 1: to that question was fuck No, fuck the President of Cambodia,
24:27
Speaker 1: and fuck this really good heroin which Billy and Harry
24:29
Speaker 1: had finally run out of. They replaced the smack with
24:32
Speaker 1: bottles of cocaine and such purchased at a nearby pharmacy
24:36
Speaker 1: so that their withdrawal from the China White wouldn't be
24:38
Speaker 1: too much of a bitch to conquer, and they chased
24:41
Speaker 1: the pills with more liquor, and once again, Billy Idle
24:45
Speaker 1: collapsed and everything went black. He woke up on the
24:54
Speaker 1: floor the hotel's elevator, half of his body inside the
24:57
Speaker 1: elevator car and half of it in the hallway. The
25:00
Speaker 1: elevator doors were trying to close, but they kept hitting
25:03
Speaker 1: his motionless body and then reopening. Billy, come on, man,
25:06
Speaker 1: get up. Harry was standing there trying to rouse him,
25:10
Speaker 1: and Billy opened his eyes to see multiple pairs of
25:12
Speaker 1: feet navigating their way around what appeared to be is
25:15
Speaker 1: pretty corpse. It was a family, and Billy looked up
25:18
Speaker 1: at the father and thought, wait, is that Mel Gibson
25:22
Speaker 1: was ushering his children past the very fucked up Billy
25:25
Speaker 1: idol and towards another elevator bank, all while giving Billy
25:29
Speaker 1: a look that was part sympathy and part pity. Clearly
25:33
Speaker 1: this was a sign that it was time for a change,
25:36
Speaker 1: and I don't mean as in time to go home.
25:38
Speaker 1: Billy and Harry checked out of the Oriental and made
25:41
Speaker 1: their way to the seaside resort town of Patiah, Thailand,
25:44
Speaker 1: some ninety miles away, where they moved into the Royal
25:46
Speaker 1: Cliff Hotel. There they took more pills tranquilizers this time,
25:52
Speaker 1: and the result was more of the same. Billy passed
25:56
Speaker 1: out and Billy woke up hours later in the middle
25:59
Speaker 1: of then to find Harry gone and two new sex
26:02
Speaker 1: workers by his side, and Billy pulled that old Chateau
26:06
Speaker 1: Marman bulshit again. He picked up the hotel room's table
26:09
Speaker 1: and launched it through a sliding glass door, and that
26:12
Speaker 1: little outburst cost him twenty thousand dollars to ensure that
26:15
Speaker 1: the hotel management didn't call the cops. This on top
26:18
Speaker 1: of the twenty five grand that he'd already paid for
26:20
Speaker 1: a jet ski he'd rented and crashed while high as fuck.
26:24
Speaker 1: And so once again it was time to move on
26:28
Speaker 1: back to the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, and it was
26:32
Speaker 1: there where all the transgressions of the last three weeks
26:35
Speaker 1: were beginning to pile up and inflict real damage on
26:38
Speaker 1: Billy's body and mind. And that mind of his was
26:41
Speaker 1: cramped with smells, tastes, and sounds, the music of ecstasy
26:47
Speaker 1: and indulgence, some cut up tapestry of orgasmic shrieks and
26:51
Speaker 1: butane lighters and crumpled up chocolate barfoil and jet ski motors.
26:56
Speaker 1: And that Vietnamese woman Harry had picked up and was
26:58
Speaker 1: dragging around the one only knew two phrases in English
27:01
Speaker 1: outgo the light and boom boom, And now on top
27:06
Speaker 1: of it all, the phone was ringing, America was calling,
27:10
Speaker 1: his record label was pissed. He of the rebel yell
27:14
Speaker 1: was rebelling a little too much, and the only way
27:17
Speaker 1: to curb such rebellion, to get the rebel back on track,
27:21
Speaker 1: to get him back to yelling in the recording studio
27:23
Speaker 1: and on stage, back on schedule, was to tap the
27:27
Speaker 1: big guns, literally as in Thailand's very capable and very
27:31
Speaker 1: efficient military who quickly overpowered Billy Idel and despite urban legend,
27:37
Speaker 1: did not shoot him with some huge tranquilizer gun, but
27:40
Speaker 1: instead injected him with a sedative and then drove him
27:43
Speaker 1: to the airport where he woke up puking his brains out,
27:46
Speaker 1: and put him on a plane back to Los Angeles,
27:48
Speaker 1: where he returned to the recording studio to put the
27:51
Speaker 1: finishing touches on his Charmed Life album while continuing to
27:55
Speaker 1: do more drugs, not just cocaine and heroin, but now
27:59
Speaker 1: extas in g HB as well, all while more naked
28:03
Speaker 1: women paraded into the studio's control room to get Billy
28:07
Speaker 1: off again and again, right there on the floor on
28:09
Speaker 1: the couch on the chair as a rough mix of
28:12
Speaker 1: Billy's cover of the doors l A woman thundered to
28:15
Speaker 1: the studio speakers, the music, the sex, the drugs, the friends, strangers, vacation, work, home, away.
28:24
Speaker 1: There was no differentiating one thing from the next. It
28:28
Speaker 1: was all decadent, all depraved, all encompassing and never ending.
28:59
Speaker 1: February sixth, nineteen ninety, Los Angeles. The morning sun reflected
29:04
Speaker 1: off the black and chrome of the Harley Davidson Wyeglide
29:07
Speaker 1: as Billy Idol, his belly lined with boos and pills,
29:11
Speaker 1: steered his bike away from his house in the Hollywood
29:13
Speaker 1: Hills down a steep canyon road toward what was certainly
29:17
Speaker 1: main drag gridlock on sunset below. The wind whipped through
29:21
Speaker 1: his spiky, bleached blonde hair, just the way he liked.
29:24
Speaker 1: No helmet, no safety net. Not back in London in
29:28
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, not in the Lower East Side in
29:31
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, and not in Bangkok the year prior,
29:34
Speaker 1: certainly not now. On the streets of his second adopted
29:37
Speaker 1: American home. Clutch throttle, the white Glide lurched forward, giving
29:43
Speaker 1: Billy that thrill in the process, the same thrill that
29:46
Speaker 1: sex drugs and rock and roll gave to him pure euphoria.
29:51
Speaker 1: But this euphoria, like all the others, had a tendency
29:54
Speaker 1: to be too much, too distracting. The Harley kept up
29:58
Speaker 1: its fast cliff, gaining sp even, and Billy was oblivious
30:02
Speaker 1: to the world and to his troubles and to the
30:04
Speaker 1: stop sign he'd just blown through. The UK press broke
30:13
Speaker 1: the news that Billy Idol was dead, but unlike the
30:16
Speaker 1: rumor that he was subdued with a tranquilizer gun in Bangkok,
30:19
Speaker 1: the rumor about Billy Idol's death took only hours to
30:22
Speaker 1: debunk because although he was not wearing a helmet and
30:25
Speaker 1: was also admittedly intoxicated and thus very easily could have died,
30:30
Speaker 1: Billy Idol was in fact very much alive, and the
30:32
Speaker 1: truth was much earlier than fiction. Billy had indeed been
30:38
Speaker 1: hit by a car, and upon impact he was thrown
30:40
Speaker 1: from his bike and his right leg took a beating.
30:44
Speaker 1: Pieces of bone had shattered inside his shin, leaving a
30:47
Speaker 1: gaping hole in his flesh the size of a baseball.
30:50
Speaker 1: His forearm was broken, as were as clavical in some ribs,
30:54
Speaker 1: but it was his leg that was the real issue,
30:56
Speaker 1: he nearly lost it. It took seven surgeries over the
31:00
Speaker 1: next month to put him on the men. A brand
31:02
Speaker 1: new walking cane now helped him get around.
31:05
Speaker 2: And this is why.
31:06
Speaker 1: If you remember nineteen ninety the music video for his
31:09
Speaker 1: number two Billboard Hot one hundred single at the time,
31:11
Speaker 1: Cradle of Love, you know, the one with that check
31:13
Speaker 1: who strips down and seduces an uptype businessman in his apartment.
31:16
Speaker 1: That video features Billy only in occasional shots and only
31:20
Speaker 1: from the waist up, working his ass off to sell
31:23
Speaker 1: the song. In the video, even though he was no
31:25
Speaker 1: longer on hospital morphine into Della's pain and keep him high,
31:28
Speaker 1: but once again relying on the copious other recreational drugs
31:31
Speaker 1: he continued to take on the regular Hold up, I
31:35
Speaker 1: know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Wait a minute, Jake.
31:38
Speaker 1: Shouldn't this be the part of the story where our
31:40
Speaker 1: hero Billy Idol has a near death experience after years
31:43
Speaker 1: of destructive behavior, which immediately serves as this monumental wake
31:47
Speaker 1: up call to get clean and sober. Well, You're not wrong.
31:51
Speaker 1: Read any recent interview with Billy Idol and he'll point
31:53
Speaker 1: to this very incident as the moment when he realized
31:56
Speaker 1: he had to do something about his reckless, devilmakecare behavior
31:58
Speaker 1: if you wanted to be around on which as two
32:00
Speaker 1: small children grow up. The thing is, it didn't happen overnight.
32:06
Speaker 1: Asking Billy Idol to immediately stop being Billy Idol is
32:09
Speaker 1: like asking mister Rogers to stop wearing that red cardigan.
32:12
Speaker 1: Billy is the manifestation of what we talk about when
32:15
Speaker 1: we talk about the rock and roll animal today in
32:19
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, he may seem like an overblown caricature
32:22
Speaker 1: of this ideal, but that's only because hot topic became
32:25
Speaker 1: a thing and anyone with a few bucks could suddenly
32:27
Speaker 1: buy a bunch of quote unquote edgy punk swag and
32:30
Speaker 1: pretend they were a fraction of the badass that Billy
32:33
Speaker 1: Idol is. Billy Idol is and was authentic to his core,
32:39
Speaker 1: and so in nineteen ninety learning how to alter the
32:42
Speaker 1: way that an authentic rock and roll animal lived while
32:45
Speaker 1: also maintaining that authentic image was gonna take a minute,
32:50
Speaker 1: But for the moment, he remained a version of the
32:53
Speaker 1: animal he'd always been. In nineteen ninety two, that animal
32:57
Speaker 1: went feral when Billy Idol pleaded no contest for punching
33:01
Speaker 1: a woman in the face while in the back of
33:03
Speaker 1: a car. It was fined two thousand dollars for the offense.
33:07
Speaker 1: A less deplorable and more mischievous example of the continuing
33:11
Speaker 1: rock and roll animalism came on the final show of
33:14
Speaker 1: the US leg of the Charmed Life tour in Seattle
33:18
Speaker 1: on Halloween Night nineteen ninety. As the opening band, The
33:22
Speaker 1: Incredible Faith Note More played their alternative rock hit Epic,
33:26
Speaker 1: They were pelted with six hundred dead fish by the
33:29
Speaker 1: road crew upon Billy's instruction, and then during Billy's headlining set,
33:35
Speaker 1: five men naked from the waist down there, swinging dis
33:38
Speaker 1: just swinging away, danced a conga line across the stage
33:42
Speaker 1: as Billy sang his nineteen eighty six song to Be
33:45
Speaker 1: a Lover. That little stunt summoned Seattle pde who showed
33:49
Speaker 1: up to the Seattle Coliseum ready to make some arrests
33:51
Speaker 1: for a decent exposure and perhaps even put this curled
33:55
Speaker 1: lip rebel in his place once and for all. But
33:58
Speaker 1: by the time they arrived, the idol and his crew
34:00
Speaker 1: had already hit the road. And besides, since those five
34:04
Speaker 1: mostly naked dudes have been wearing paper bags over their heads.
34:06
Speaker 1: No one can say for sure just who had gone
34:09
Speaker 1: streaking on stage. For the Seattle Police Department, that was that,
34:14
Speaker 1: But for Billy Idl it was the start of a
34:16
Speaker 1: new era, a new day to start again. I'm Jake
34:23
Speaker 1: Brennan and this is Disgraceland, all right, thanks for hanging
34:39
Speaker 1: out with me and Billy Idol in this episode. I
34:41
Speaker 1: hope you guys dug it. Apple podcast listeners, make sure
34:44
Speaker 1: you have automatic downloads turned on so you don't miss
34:46
Speaker 1: any episodes. All right. This week's question of the week
34:50
Speaker 1: is who is the most debaucherous rock star you've heard
34:52
Speaker 1: about here in Disgraceland and why Is it Billy Idol
34:56
Speaker 1: or is it someone else? Six one seven, nine oh six.
35:00
Speaker 1: Let me know via voicemail or text at disgrace lampod
35:02
Speaker 1: let me know via Instagram, Facebook, or x and you'll
35:05
Speaker 1: be able to hear your answers on the afterparty bonus
35:07
Speaker 1: episode coming up right after this one. If you want
35:10
Speaker 1: more stories from me like this one, but about actors
35:13
Speaker 1: and actresses and not about physicians, then check out hollywood Land,
35:17
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35:21
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35:24
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35:27
Speaker 1: and more. Leave a review for Disgraceland or Hollywood Land
35:30
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and Winson Free merch. Okay,
35:33
Speaker 1: here come some credits. Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly
35:39
Speaker 1: and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for
35:43
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35:45
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35:49
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36:28
Speaker 1: Rolla
36:31
Speaker 2: Hee, the bed Down Man,