The Moshville Times - Billy Idol announces new EP with first single “Bitter Taste”

Billy Idol is set to release The Roadside EP, his first new material in nearly seven years, on 17th September via Dark Horse Records. Produced by Butch Walker (Green Day, Weezer) and featuring Idol’s longtime lead guitarist and co-writer Steve Stevens, The Roadside was conceived, recorded and mixed almost entirely under the shadow of the pandemic. The lead single “Bitter Taste” and accompanying video directed by Steven Sebring (Patti Smith, Jack White) can be seen and heard below. Fans can pre-order The Roadside here.

The lead single Bitter Taste features some of Idol’s most introspective and confessional lyrics ever, as he confronts death, rebirth and his personal growth in the thirty-one years since his near-fatal 1990 motorcycle accident. Idol explains:

I think everyone has been feeling more reflective (during the pandemic). So, it seemed quite logical and natural to write something about my motorcycle accident. Certainly, the motorcycle accident was the catharsis, the wake-up moment. A little bit of me got left on that roadside. But it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing in the end; it was a wake-up call. Maybe on that roadside I left behind the irreverent youthful Billy and opened the door for a more attentive father and a more sensitive musician.

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To celebrate the forthcoming release, Idol is planning a run of US tour dates. The shows include headline performances at New York’s Capitol Theatre and Las Vegas’ Cosmopolitan, as well as an appearance at the Sea.Hear.Now Festival in Asbury Park, NJ. Just recently, Idol appeared alongside Miley Cyrus during her headlining performance at Lollapalooza. See below for the full tour schedule.

For forty-five years, Billy Idol has been one of the faces and voices of rock’n’roll, with an artistic resumé to match the brilliant light of the image. As the camera-ready frontman for Generation X, Idol emerged with three albums that made positivity, emotional depth, and high pop synonymous with punk rock. In 1982, Idol embarked on a remarkable transatlantic/trans-genre solo career that integrated clubland throb, wide-screen depth and drama, rockabilly desperation, the bold and simple lines of punk, and rock’n’roll decadence.

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The Roadside is Idol’s first release on the newly relaunched Dark Horse Records, a label initially created in 1974 by George Harrison and now led by Dhani Harrison and David Zonshine. Other artists currently on Dark Horse include George Harrison himself, Joe Strummer and Ravi Shankar. Harrison comments:

I couldn’t be more excited to welcome Billy Idol to the Dark Horse Records family. Billy is a legend and his music couldn’t fit the Dark Horse persona any better. I’ve loved his music throughout my whole life so to be able to give this new music a home on our historic label is a massive honour.

The Roadside tracklist: