Billy Idol – "I was a proper 80s rock star"

With pin-up good looks and a refusal to toe the Year Zero party line, Billy Idol was dismissed by the music press as a major-label plastic punk. Yet 45 years on from his recording debut with Generation X, his music has survived to tell a very different story, one of masterful songwriting and unashamed showmanship. Here, the ace face of the late 70s charts his transition to leather-clad staple of 80s MTV on the back of hits such as White Wedding, Eyes Without A Face and Rebel Yell, and confirms his aversion to stasis. "You can't always stay in your comfort zone, it's boring," he tells Lois Wilson.

- By Lois Wilson

Born in Stanmore, Middlesex in 1956, William Broad spent his years from age two to six in Long Island before his family returned to the UK and eventually settled in Bromley. Music provided a lifeline: first, The Beatles and the Brit Invasion bands, then the Stooges, New York Dolls and the CBGB scene.

On the edge of the Bromley contingent - he was friends with Steve Bailey aka Severin and almost joined Siouxsie and the Banshees - he started an English degree at Sussex University (to help with my lyrics, he tells RC) but dropped out after receiving a postcard from Bailey telling him about the Sex Pistols. He said, 'Get back to London, Idol says, reliving the moment as if it were only yesterday. You've got to see this band.

It's what we've been waiting for. 9.99 B he met Inspired to form his own group, bassist Tony James through a Melody Maker ad, and the pair joined Chelsea with Gene October but left soon after. They took Chelsea drummer John Towe with them to found Generation X, who during the period 1976-'81 issued three albums - Generation X, Valley Of The Dolls and Kiss Me Deadly [as Gen X] - and a handful of singles including King Rocker, which hit No 11.