British-American singer Billy Idol was born in London, England as William Michael Albert Broad on 30th November 1955. He is single and has two children and is also a songwriter and musician.
His stage name derived from school – since he hated chemistry and achieved poor marks, his teacher put ‘idle’ on his report card and Billy decided to use this word, although written differently, as part of his stage name.
At the age of 21, Billy became the guitarist of the retro-rock band ‘Chelsea’ and changed his look. But after just a few weeks, Billy and another member of the band left the group and went on to create the punk rock band ‘Generation X’, with Billy as lead singer. Idol once stated that the band was influenced by pop groups from the 60s like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, although their music genre was punk rock.
In 1980, ‘Generation X’ split and in 1981, Billy moved to New York and pursued a solo career. That same year, he released his first EP, followed by his debut album a year later. During the 80s, Idol became very popular and had a string of hits: ‘Dancing with Myself’, ‘White Wedding’, ‘Eyes without a Face’, ‘Rebel Yell’, ‘Sweet Sixteen’ and ‘Mony Mony’, amongst others.
In the last 3 decades, Billy released 17 more albums, 2 EPs, 17 singles and 20 music videos. He also received 3 awards.