Billy Idol Saw It Coming

In 1993, Billy Idol put his internet address on an album cover.

Right on the sleeve of Cyberpunk — a concept record about a technology most people buying it had never used — printed like any other credit. Reading contemporary reviews, you’d think he’d committed a cybercrime. Critics decided he was reaching for relevance, while fans moaned that it wasn’t a faithful Charmed Life follow-up. His own label didn’t seem to know what to do with it. Today they’d all agree: Idol saw the next generation of music coming.

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Thirty-three years later, he made another album exactly the same way.

“The last record, we made it at the producer’s house,” Idol says over Zoom, his longtime guitarist Steve Stevens smiling at him from a nearby chair. “In a little room joined to his house, which I don’t think was even particularly soundproof. He had his Pro Tools, he had his keyboards, he had some amps, he had drums up. It was exactly how we made Cyberpunk.”

Dream into It, released last April, was Idol’s first full-length in over a decade. In November, it will help land him and Stevens in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2026. The induction is the kind of honor that rewards the past that’s easy to narrate: the hair, the sneer, the leather, the MTV years. But Idol was often right about things he doesn’t get the same credit for, including where music was going and how it would get made. He’s been right about it since before he put that URL on the sleeve.

On Zoom, Idol and Stevens have the glow of a honeymoon couple. They were announced as 2026 inductees on American Idol last week, and neither of them quite believes it yet.

“It’s pretty exciting to get recognized by other musicians, our peers,” Idol says. “Just to think of all the great people we’re there alongside is fantastic.”

“In a lot of these cases, people get inducted and they have to bring the band members back together, ’cause they haven’t worked together in years,” Stevens adds. “But we’re still the same partnership we’ve had for almost 45 years.” He’s beaming at Idol now. “I’m just really proud of Billy. I think if anyone deserves to be in there, it’s Billy Idol.”

“It’s fantastic we’re being inducted together,” Idol replies.

Stevens joined Idol in 1981, when Idol was starting a solo career that nobody was sure would outrun his Generation X years. The partnership is the spine of everything after: “Rebel Yell,” “Eyes Without a Face,” “White Wedding,” and even Cyberpunk in some ways, though Stevens sat it out.