Grammy-winning guitar god Steve Stevens is a big horror buff who grew up listening to early shock-rockers like Arthur Brown, Alice Cooper, and Black Sabbath and watching the macabre cleaning soap opera Darkish Shadows and “golden period” monster films. So, when he joined forces along with his most well-known longtime collaborator, Billy Idol, within the early ‘80s, it was nearly eerie how completely their passions for laborious rock and horror aligned. Idol had in actual fact simply recruited probably the most influential horror filmmakers of all time to direct his debut solo music video.

Billy Idol and Steve Stevens in 1984. (Picture: Fryderyk Gabowicz/image alliance through Getty Photographs)

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Talking as a part of ShudderFest’s “Musicians Who Love Horror” Halloween afternoon panel alongside digital musician Vibrant Gentle Vibrant Gentle, Starcrawler frontwoman Arrow De Wilde, and GWAR’S Berserker Blothar, Pustulus Maximus, and Sawborg Destructo, Stevens revealed: “Really, Billy’s very first video, which was achieved proper as I met him, was directed by Tobe Hooper, which is the ‘Dancing With Myself’ video. And [Idol] was truly the primary, I imagine, to truly use a movie director, versus ‘MTV rock music administrators.’”

Hooper is finest often known as the mastermind behind the 1974 traditional The Texas Chainsaw Bloodbath (which, by the way, De Wilde cited as her favourite film of all time, of any style), and “Dancing With Myself” was the one music video that Hooper ever directed. The dystopian MTV staple was particularly impressed by the 1971 post-apocalyptic movie The Omega Man, portraying Idol because the survivor of a worldwide pandemic (which may be why it nonetheless “stands up as among the finest Billy Idol movies,” in keeping with Stevens, in 2020). However the clip did embrace some Chainsaw artifacts that eagle-eyed horror followers would possibly acknowledge.

“There is a man who’s swinging a hammer, and that is one of many props from Texas Chainsaw,” famous Stevens. “And I believe there’s different little issues that they stored placing within the video which can be truly from Texas Chainsaw. There is a dummy in it, a ventriloquist dummy. … There’s a few little issues that I do know had been props from the precise film.”

Stevens stated “a number of Billy’s lyrics had been all the time impressed by movies,” like his No. four hit “Eyes With no Face,” which took its title from a 1960 French body-horror/psychological thriller a few mad-scientist plastic surgeon who performs an experimental face-transplant on his disfigured daughter. Nonetheless, it was one other post-apocalyptic movie that impressed Idol and Stevens’s ‘80s signature fashion. “I imply, I am relationship myself right here, however after we did the primary Billy Idol file, Max Max had an enormous impact on us,” Stevens recalled. “For all of the gear we wore, we stored saying, “Rip it up!’ — simply rip up your gear, so it appeared like Mad Max.”

The look grew to become iconic, with many followers quickly virtually cosplaying, Halloween-style, at Idol’s concert events… which admittedly spooked Stevens. “On the peak of the ‘80s, actually when ‘Insurgent Yell’ got here out, you’d look out within the viewers and also you’d see a minimum of 50 Billy idols and Madonnas, and it all the time sort of freaked me out a bit bit,” the guitarist chuckled. “Folks all the time needed to fantasize that [Madonna and Billy Idol] had been a pair, the place in actuality they weren’t. I might have a look at Billy, considering, ‘Effectively, that is man’s acquired a whip. That’s gotta be a bit bit bizarre for him. It is bizarre for me!’”

Whereas Idol and Stevens’s Gothic imagery captured the imaginations of hundreds of followers, it was a sure nuptials-themed music video — one very completely different from the aforementioned Madonna’s bridal video “Like a Virgin,” and one starring Idol’s precise girlfriend on the time, dancer Perri Lister — that drew the ire of conservatives. “Lots of people learn into it, particularly the Christian proper,” Stevens stated of the seemingly Satanic, David Mallet-directed “White Wedding ceremony,” including with fun: “They had been so anti-rock, or like, ‘MTV goes to pollute the minds of the youth!’ However yeah, precisely, that was our level!”

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Stevens stated the “White Wedding ceremony” scene that generated essentially the most controversy on the time (and for some time was even censored by MTV) was the creepy marriage ceremony ceremony, when Idol compelled a barbed-wire ring onto Lister’s left hand, slicing open her finger and drawing precise blood within the course of. (This was Lister’s concept, as she insisted that the grisly shot look reasonable.) “She’s bleeding from it, however was simply cool imagery. And [conservatives] are like, ‘Oh, it is anti-marriage!’ and all this sort of stuff that none of no person actually thought of,” Stevens shrugged.

Billy Idol, Perri Lister within the “White Wedding ceremony” video. (Picture: Arista/YouTube)

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For all of Stevens’s love of old-school, conventional horror, when requested which movie has frightened him essentially the most, he surprisingly cited a extra trendy film — one which undoubtedly displays this nation’s present dystopia of kinds. “The newest factor that I’ve seen that is actually genuinely scary was Get Out, which, you recognize, mixed racism and horror,” he answered. “I do not know anybody who would mix these two components in a means. That movie actually screwed me up for some time. It was fairly, fairly scary.”

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Produced by Jen Kucsak, Edited by Jimmie Rhee

Watch Yahoo Leisure editors interview legendary style royalty, fan-favorite musicians and acclaimed filmmakers who love horror at ShudderFest. (Picture: Courtesy of Shudder)

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