'I was very lucky ...punk opened the door for me'

FEW STARS embraced rock'n'roll’s life-threatening extremities as enthusiastically as Billy Idol. But the Middlesex-born rocker tells me he has found something to replace the hard drugs and alcohol in his life - his grandchildren.

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“I have two granddaughters and two grandsons, all under six,” Billy beams.

“Watching them so young, so excited to be alive, it makes you feel reborn.

“Love of your family, my daughter, and sons, maybe that's what it’s all about. I've given up drugs and been paid back with love.”

Billy, 69, continues: “Grandkids accept you for how you are. They've seen granddad on stage but they don't know your backstory.”

And what a story it is.

Born William Broad, Billy found a degree of fame with his punk band, Generation X, before achieving solo superstardom in the 80s by conquering America, with hits like Eyes Without A Face, Rebel Yell and White Wedding.

These MTV-friendly new wave rockers combined with Billy's striking image - spiky peroxide hair, snarling curled lip and biker leathers - made him a pin-up for a generation.

“I've been very lucky,” he says. “If punk hadn't happened, would I have become a professional musician? Possibly not. It opened a door.

“Watching the Sex Pistols, guys like us, our age, getting better every week and writing gigantic anthems for our generation - Pretty Vacant, Anarchy - it was so exciting.

“I saw the door open and I walked through.”

Billy has been making a biographical documentary since 2019, but filming was interrupted by Covid. “The delays actually helped,” he says. “It's not bad to live with something and gradually improve it.

“I'd been going to places like the Roxy in Neal Street, Covent Garden, where Generation X started, and I thought why not sing about these different aspects of your life?”

Billy told his late parents he was leaving university to form a punk band when he was 20.

“I frightened them to death, these people I loved. My dad didn't know what punk was.