I was around 8 years old when one day when visiting my grandma’s house over the weekend, my aunt came to me all excited. “You gotta watch this video that I recorded off MTV!” I sat there and watched as I saw a ravishing guy with spiky blonde hair, singing atop of a roof wearing a leather vest and gloves as he put his fist up in the air.

Dancing with myself (ah, oh, oh-oh) Dancing with myself (ah, oh, oh-oh)

My aunt smiled as she watched the TV, barely blinking and humming the melody to this hit song as she bobbed her head. I was mesmerized. What is this? Who is this guy? What is this smirk he has on his face? “Doesn’t he remind you of Supla?” she asked me. At the time, Supla was the closest thing Brazil had to punk rock, and now that I thought of this, this was the American version of the singer – his doppelgänger.

See, I have been a music lover as long as I can remember. My parents always had music playing but when they spent their days mostly listening to Motown, Bee Gees, and Michael Jackson, my aunt was the one that in my mind, always had the better taste in music. Thus, I sat there staring. This music wasn’t just a pretty melody. It had some spunk and attitude, and the guy in front of me on the TV embodied exactly what the music was trying to emit.

Therefore, my first connection to Idol continued to remain the same. In my teens whenever I thought of him, I always made a connection to the very first time I saw him on TV, of my aunt smiling and singing along with the TV, and the leather-clad blonde I saw that afternoon on the TV. I never really made an effort to deep dive into his persona or his albums, but to me, it was a connection and a bond that I would always have with my aunt. Whenever I think of Billy Idol, I think of her and that exact moment that will forever live in my brain. It makes sense then that because of the way he looked, it’s the way I assumed he’d have to act. Oh, Billy Idol is punk. What does an 8-year-old know about punk in the early 80s? If that’s how he looks, and that’s how he sounds, then that’s what punk is supposed to sound like.

Punks are rebels and this is as rebel we’re going to get. Billy Idol made punk look pretty. As I got older, I would always see him pop up on MTV. “Cradle of Love,” “Eyes Without a Face,” and “Rebel Yell” are all songs that I grew up listening to. One time I saw him in an interview and he just had this attitude and did not care about anything else. He was dangerous, a bad boy, and he looked at the camera with that devilish smirk, with his lip curled up – signature look.

When I saw he had written a book, I couldn’t wait to read it. I had a friend of mine in LA whose favorite singer was Billy Idol. She attended every show, watched every interview, and met him several times at various meet-and-greets. He happened to be making an appearance at Book Soup in Hollywood for the release of this very book. I was working at the Whisky A Go Go at the time, right across the street. “Why not?” I said to her accepting her invitation. It would be cool to meet him.

Again, all I could think about was my aunt, wishing she could be here with me, experiencing this bond that will forever tie us together because of him. She would have loved to meet him, I thought to myself. After waiting hours and hours on that breezy afternoon, we entered the bookstore. We were advised we could say hi or a few words but absolutely no pictures. Well that sucks, I would have loved to send this to my aunt, she would have loved it. We all made a line inside the bookstore, around every corner, every shelf and as I turned the corner, I saw the top of a spiky blonde hair peeking through. There he was sitting at a table signing books, casually looking up as he signed each one of them to say a quick hello to fans passing by.

That book, however, has been sitting on my bookshelf for years, atop a TBR pile of books I have yet to get through. This year I decided okay, let me read this one. Coincidentally, Idol just received a star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood yesterday – the same day I finished the book.

The irony.

I tried not to go in holding any assumptions. I just wanted to get to know him. What is this guy all about? Is he the person I imagined he would be all these years? Is there more to him? I frankly didn’t know much, and after reading the books don’t really think I know much more. Like every music autobiography, we go through an entire life cycle. I was born here, and my parents did this for a living, I grew up there, and I wanted to go here. Why are all the books the same? You want to go on a roller-coaster of emotions but it feels like everyone has the same story. Especially musicians: Sex, drugs, and rock n roll. They are all the same.

I did love the beginning of the book, where right off the bat, he takes you on a ride of your life, describing in detail a horrible motorcycle accident that almost took him out. Holy shit. Is this how the entire book is going to go down? This will be good. And then, as soon as he describes passing out from the accident, the fun stops.

“I was born on… “

Oh, here we go, back to the boring stuff. Don’t get me wrong. I love hearing about the upbringing of the artists that I adore. It does say a lot about a person, and it’s always fun to read about their upbringing and their antics, but with Idol, I just expected a lot more chaos. Maybe it’s my fault cuz I expected him to behave the way he looked. The one thing I really liked is that through his book, he introduced me to bands that I had heard the name of, but really never listened to. Being so young in the late 80s I never really had the opportunity to listen to a lot of this music. I certainly was too young to experience the punk movement and certainly too young to attend a show.

Billy Idol had a life that replicates exactly who we envision him to be: A rebel without a cause, a person that went against the norm, a punk, and a musician with a tender side to him. The stories about his early years as a musician are exactly what I thought they would be, and the rise of his career is as cliche as you’re going to get: Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. That was my favorite part of the book, I ate it all up. He was exactly how I envisioned him to be, and I wanted more, more, more.

A guy that is hard on the outside but soft on the inside. Don’t we all pretend to be like that once in a while? Put up this facade on the outside while inside we’re actually broken? As cliche as it is, nothing falls short of his alcohol and drug use, the strand of groupies flocking after him, the late-night recording studio recordings with groupies extending an extra hand, the marriages, the cheating, and the endless circle of his rock and roll persona that fit right into the vision of him we all have.

I know about the Sex Pistols, and I have heard about The Clash but have I actually stopped to listen to more than a few songs that everyone knows? I would like to dive deeper into their discography and listen to songs that go beyond the hits: Explore bands that made an impact but that I never heard of, such as Paradox, Slaughter, and the Dogs. Siouxsie and the Banshees, Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop, King Crimson, The Clash, the Dammed, and others.

What I learned from the book was this: Live your life and never ever compromise. You are not perfect. You will fail, you will fall and no one will ever think you are perfect. Someone will always find something to criticize you about, but you gotta believe in your gut. You were put in this world for a reason, and although you may not always fit the mold, you are truly a unique person and you have to do what you came here to do whether people like it or not.