(PR) Billy Idol has recorded two brand new songs for The Very Best Of Billy Idol: Idolize Yourself, a new career-spanning CD, Deluxe Edition CD/DVD and digital collection to be released June 24 by Capitol/EMI. The two songs, "John Wayne" and "New Future Weapon," will be exclusively available on the new release, which features all seven of Idol's Top 10 hits among its 18 tracks, including two #1s. The Deluxe Edition adds 13 music videos making their DVD release debuts, including two alternate video edits that have never before been released in any format. The CD and CD/DVD packages are both designed by Shepard Fairey and include liner notes by David Wild.
The Very Best Of Billy Idol: Idolize Yourself gathers together the music that Billy Idol has taken to stages all around the world, as well as two brand new songs. The new tracks find the man still at the peak of his powers, working with longtime partner and guitar great Steve Stevens and his other current band members, drummer and songwriting collaborator Brian Tichy and keyboardist Derek Sherinian. On June 24, Idol will perform songs from the new release on the outdoor stage of ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live."
Of his new song "John Wayne," Idol says, "When I'm singing it, I'm thinking about the characters John Wayne played. They were usually men with a flaw in their character or something dark in their past they're trying to rise above before the end of the movie. So it's not about the kick-in-the-door John Wayne or the barroom fight John Wayne -- it's more the man who overcomes."
Of the collection's other new track, "New Future Weapon," Idol says, "I was reading about the new stealth fighter plane the Raptor, and I was struck by the ambivalence of the pilot talking about the enemy. Musically, it's got a bit of the Spaghetti Western about it. It's a sick song, as you might expect."
The two new songs are produced by Josh Abraham, whose production discography includes Velvet Revolver's double platinum, Grammy Award-winning Contraband, 30 Seconds To Mars' platinum A Beautiful Lie, Staind's eight-times platinum Break The Cycle and double platinum 14 Shades of Grey, Limp Bizkit's seven-times platinum Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water, and Courtney Love's America's Sweetheart, among many others.
The Deluxe Edition CD/DVD adds 13 music videos that helped forever define Idol as a rock icon, including previously unreleased edits of "Cradle Of Love" and "Hot In The City." "We worked hard so there would be some consistency to the videos and so we wouldn't have to be embarrassed one day," Idol says. "We sweated over them - video hell, we would call it." As with his vital music, Idol liked to use his videos to shake things up as much as possible. "That was a pretty bland time of corporate rock and afternoon television music, and we wanted to bring in a little more danger and after hours fun into it," he explains. "Maybe that's why we looked like vampires."
