Watch Billy Idol talking murder, fried hair, and Miley Cyrus in Vevo Footnotes
- by Adam Bailey
- in Latest
Punk rock legend Billy Idol provides an exclusive look behind the scenes of his iconic music video for "Eyes Without A Face" in a new latest episode of Vevo Footnotes.
In the video, Billy explains his desire to create an anti-love song, aiming to counter the abundance of sentimental love tracks saturating the 80s music scene. Describing "Eyes Without A Face" as almost a murder ballad, he shares how silent films influenced its haunting atmosphere, admiring their ability to create impact with minimal resources.
Billy also recounts a mishap involving bleach, which left his hair fried the night before filming, yet somehow managed to pull it off. He discusses the challenge of finding a bassist who could capture the reggae-inspired bassline until he met Sal Cuevas, a member of the Dreamgirls Broadway band at the time. Finally, he shares a surprising anecdote about Miley Cyrus considering his videos among her favorite sexiest music videos, graciously acknowledging her compliment with a simple, "Thank you, Miley."
FULL FOOTNOTES BELOW:
00:12 - I think I was deliberately trying to write not a love song because the 80’s was full of love songs, all drippy, soppy love songs. So I thought maybe I just write an anti-love song. It’s almost a murder song; it’s what I was thinking about, something like a serial killer
01:02 - One of the things we were having trouble with was the bassline because I like reggae, you know, so I wanted it to be like a really prominent bassline and we were having a hell of a time trying to find someone who could play my idea until we met Sal Cuevas, who was playing in the Dreamgirls Broadway band, and he nailed it.
02:02 - I liked a lot of silent movies because you knew they were doing things with paint, wood and glue; you know, it's very sort of cheap in a way, but with maximum effect. It was an old book I had that had a lot of old stills, you know, Boris Karloff movies like ‘The Black Cat’ in front of an altar with a lot of crosses behind him. A lot of these things were influencing me with the ‘White Wedding’ video or ‘Eyes Without A Face.’ That’s what I was sort of bringing into my videos: this kind of old influence of movies one hundred years before.
02:48 - It’s more something like ‘The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari,’; it was sort of painted, so there was a psychotic element because he was supposed to be some sort of serial killer.
03:30 - Things that we were sort of having a bit of fun the night before, bleaching my hair. Perry bleached my hair, we fell asleep, and when we woke up, it was like, ‘Oh, my hair is really fried. I just had a little bit at the front, and somehow we made it look like I had hair. And that’s the kind of fun we had in the 1980s.
04:33 - The thing is, we were really trying to do a lot with nothing. And I think they still hold up and look pretty good. In fact, Miley Cyrus says they’re the sexiest videos she likes to watch. So, thank you, Miley.
