Billy Idol: The Roadside Tour 2022

The man who would become Idol, William Michael Albert Broad, was born in Middlesex, England on November 30, 1955, exactly 8 days after RCA Records bought Elvis Presley’s contract from Sun Records.

When he was just two years old, William and his family moved to Long Island, New York. For four formative years (during which time Elvis joined the army, John Glenn jumped into space, and the call for equality rumbled from America’s south), William Broad lived the picture-perfect life of a young American, clutching his coonskin cap and gazing at pictures of a handsome young President. When he was almost 7, William and his family returned to England. Although he was back in the land of his birth, his classmates called him “the Yank,” and teased him for his “Yankee” accent; the die was cast for a life lived empathizing with the outsiders and the underdogs. That thread remains alive half a century later in the words and power of Idol’s music.

As William came of age, England was emerging as the global epicenter for fashion, music, and youth. Through the 1960s and early ‘70s, William Broad embraced it all, from the tight trousers of the Mods to the snarling lips of the Rockers, from the aural inventions of the Beatles to the pop-art of the Who; later he graduated to the bold statements of Bowie and became an eclectic, investigative fan of everything from Captain Beefheart to Can. He filed it all away for future reference. Throughout high school, William taught himself how to play guitar and started singing in low-key local bands; it was beginning to dawn on him that music might not just be his passion, but the pathway to a career.