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> Login to your account > RegisterQ&A Idol Gossip. Billy gets playful.
From page 81 of Classic Rock Magazine April 2005
Cover of April 2005 issue.
Why did you retire from recording? I had hit records and played all over the world, but I also got crazy and fucked-up trying to deal with everything. Taking time off had nothing to do with the music though, it had all to do with the old record company and the fact that there was no one who believed in me inside it. Corporate America thought of me as simply someone who made a lot of money, not someone who could mean something after 20 years.
It sounds like you got a great rush from making Devil’s Playground?
One thing I did do to free myself up was to take a couple of summers and ride my motorcycle and forget about music. The thing that saved me, in a way, was finding out that I do love music; I love riding motorcycles. The two go together. Merck [Mercuriadis, at Sanctuary] didn’t ask me to make a record that will sell 10 million units, he just said: “Will you make a great Billy Idol record?” I said: “Yes”.
What’s Billy Idol telling the world with this album? This shit’s on the march, it’s coming to you, and it’s coming into you.
