Nobody's figured out how to stop Billy Idol

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In the space of six days last week, Billy Idol sang his classic “Rebel Yell” with Carrie Underwood on TV’s “American Idol,” popped out for a surprise performance of “Eyes Without a Face” with Sombr at the Coachella festival and was named a member of the Class of 2026 set to be inducted later this year into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.“Keeping busy,” the singer said — blond hair still spiky, upper lip temporarily unsnarled — at his home in the Hollywood Hills during a break from all the action.Idol, 70, emerged as part of London’s seething mid-’70s punk scene; after his stint fronting Generation X, he went solo and became one of the biggest rock acts of the MTV era with hits like “White Wedding” and “Dancing With Myself.” Somehow, he’s never quite gone out of style since then: He played the Kia Forum and Madison Square Garden just last year, while “Eyes Without a Face,” the dreamy-sinister ballad that became Idol’s first Top 10 pop hit in 1984, has taken up a seemingly permanent place on TikTok and Instagram.“Billy is such a legend,” says 20-year-old Sombr, who calls “Eyes” one of his all-time favorite songs.“He’s managed to blur the lines between rock and pop in such a timeless way.

His songs are a huge inspiration to me.”Idol tells his story — including the details of a debilitating drug addiction — in a new documentary, “Billy Idol Should Be Dead”; this summer he’ll take his songs back on the road for a tour scheduled to stop for a week at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas.With some questions to ask about his endurance, I sat down with the singer and his longtime guitarist and co-songwriter, Steve Stevens, in Idol’s dimly lighted living room, where books and VHS tapes lined one wall and a humidifier hummed quietly in the background.We ended up talking about shirtlessness, Geese and Idol’s complicated relat...