Following the 1981 breakup of his punk band Generation X, singer Billy Idol left the U.K. and began a solo career in New York City. There, he hooked up with Manhattan’s best-kept guitar whiz secret, Steve Stevens, and the two got off to a fast start with the dance rock hit White Wedding, off 1982’s Billy Idol.
A year later, things broke wide open with the multi-platinum Rebel Yell, which included a trio of radio and MTV smashes: Flesh for Fantasy, Eyes Without a Face, and the blitzing title cut.
“We were in an enviable position going into our next record,” says Stevens, speaking about Whiplash Smile, the 1986 album that marked his third collaboration with Idol. “We had success behind us, and with that came a fair amount of freedom. We had powerful management and a great relationship with our record company.”
Stevens and Idol agreed they wouldn’t try to replicate past hits.
“The last thing we wanted to do was make Rebel Yell Part 2,” Stevens says. He cites the 1985 remix compilation set Vital Idol as the future-forward direction they wished to follow.
“Gary Langdon from Art of Noise did an incredible remix of Flesh for Fantasy, and we said, ‘That’s where we want to go,’ the guitarist says. “We’re going to employ more of the new gear and make a very modern record.”
There would, however, be growing pains – a particular source of frustration was the matter of drums.
Originally, the idea was to incorporate Thommy Price’s live drums with Linn Drums, but as Stevens recalls, the technology required to marry the two just wasn’t there yet.
“Our producer, Keith Forsey, was a master at drum machines, but he could only do so much with what existed at the time,” he says. “In the end, we went with the programmed drums.”
The songwriting process for Whiplash Smile was a decidedly low-tech process. “Billy and I would just sit in a room with our guitars and go, ‘What have you got?’” Stevens says. Among the album’s songs the two wrote together were World’s Forgotten Boy, Soul Standing By, and Man for All Seasons.
The guitarist singles out his solo in the latter track as a favorite. “That’s where I slipped in a little Wes Montgomery inspiration,” he says. “I always had to maintain a punk rock ethos, and punk wasn’t about shred, so I thought, ‘If I do a shred alternate picking solo but do it clean like Wes, I can get away with it.’”
At first, Stevens didn’t know what he could do with To Be a Lover, a cover of William Bell’s 1968 soul ballad that had been reinterpreted by Al Kooper, Lee “Scratch” Perry, and George Earl, whose reggae approach appealed to Idol.
“That had a slow tempo, but Billy said, ‘I hear it fast,’” Stevens says. “I was still saying, ‘I don’t get what you’re hearing, guys, but I’m here to help.’”
It was only when Forsey ditched the Linn Drum in favor of a Roland TR-808 and the song took on a swinging, soulful rockabilly feel that the guitarist had a change of heart.
“It didn’t sound like a big guitar song, so I wound up playing a lot of keyboards,” Stevens says. “Eddie Van Halen had played keyboards on Jump, so I figured I could do it, too.”
In the end, Stevens did lay down a righteous guitar solo that he came up with right on the spot.
“I think we only did a couple of takes,” he says. “I always think I can do things better, but Billy usually goes for the first take. And he’s usually right.”
- This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.
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