Billy Idol Signs With Dark Horse, Announces New EP, Drops First Single

Billy Idol will release a new EP titled,The Roadside, on September 17th — and has already dropped the first single “Bitter Taste” via George Harrison's resurrected Dark Horse Records imprint now headed up by George's son, Dhani Harrison. The Roadside was produced by Butch Walker — best known for his work with Green Day and Weezer — with the album featuring Idol’s longtime lead guitarist and co-writer Steve Stevens.

Dhani Harrison tweeted: “I couldn't be more excited to welcome Billy Idol to the Dark Horse family. Billy is a legend and his music couldn’t fit the Dark Horse persona any better, so to be able to give this new music a home is a massive honor.”

According to the announcement via BillyIdol.com:

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.

Billy explained: “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.”

Billy Idol has come to terms with the fact that the commerce-based aspects of his job are just as important as the creative ones: “We wanted to dream, we wanted to have fun, we wanted something more. More glamorous than my dad’s power tool business that he wanted me to join him in. And he was a great salesman — fantastic, actually — but I always thought to myself, the only weakness he’s got is, he’s selling a product that’s not himself. I’m still a bit of the salesman he is, really.”