Billy Idol opens up about ‘blackmail’ against record label

40 years after the release of his Rebel Yell album, Billy Idol has opened up about a time he managed to “blackmail” his record label.

Speaking to The Guardian, the Generation X star and rock icon opened up about a time he stole the masters of his album Rebel Yell during a dispute with his label.

Admitting that rumours about the stolen masters were true, Idol revealed that the spat had come about “because of the cover”.

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A previous version of the cover that the label had planned to print was flawed, according to the White Wedding singer.

“I was saying [to the record label]: ‘There’s a flaw in this picture, and if we blow it up it will get worse’,” Idol told The Guardian.

Despite his pleas, Idol says the record label were adamant to go ahead with the “flawed” version.

“The record company started to say: ‘We’re leaving it. It’s not that bad’,” Idol recalled.

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But Idol was not easily swayed and was determined to have the cover changed one way or another.

“I just thought: ‘I’m just not going to let this happen. Its so silly. They just need to reprint the picture. I’m not listening to what the record company guys say. In fact, I’m gonna blackmail them’,” he explained.

So taking matters into his own hands Idol “went down to Electric Lady [studios in New York City] in the middle of the night and got to where [he] knew the tape boxes were”.

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Once there, Idol says he took the master tapes from storage with a plan to “blackmail” his label.

“I took them and left the studio and gave them to my heroin dealer,” he says.

“And then I phoned the record company and said: ‘This guy I’ve given them to, he’ll have them out on the street bootlegged in a couple of days in you don’t change this picture’.”

According to Idol, his midnight heist proved successful, with the record label agreeing to change the cover.

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“And they relented. Don’t let them walk over you,” Idol concluded.

Despite the dispute surrounding the album’s cover, Rebel Yell went onto be a commercial success. Proceeding his widely successful debut album Billy Idol, it received critical acclaim and peaked at number six on the Billboard 200 in the United States.

According to Idol, his second album, which is a culmination of hard rock, New Wave and pop, was inspired by Idol’s newfound life of fame in New York City.

“What else was there to talk about but your daily life at that time? We were just sort of really discovering where we could go with the music,” he tells Forbes as he celebrates the albums 40th anniversary.

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