Heroes in Business - Billy Morrison Guitarist for Billy Idol, The Cult, and Renowned Artist

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

On the Road with Billy Idol and exorcising demons through art. Billy Morrison Guitarist for another Billy and The Cult, and Coveted Artist of works owned by Sharon Osborne, Mark McGrath, and many other celebrities. He is interviewed by David Cogan Founder of Eliances and Famous Host of the Eliances Heroes show broadcast of am and fm network channels, syndicated online and on over 100 TV channels.  

Up in the sky, look, it's captivating, it's energizing, it's Eliance's Heroes. Eliance's is the destination for entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs, inventors, leaders, celebrities, and startups, where our heroes in business align. Now, here's your host flying in,id kogan founder of alliances that's right again super excited because again thank you to all your followers for making this possible now going on almost a thousand interviews from people from all walks of life and i really appreciate the feedback we continue to have when i when I interviewed the founder of e-entertainment so make sure that you go to alliances.com that's e-l-i-a-n-c-e-s.com I'm so excited about our next

guest amazing things he's doing and a new career too that he's also added on to his portfolio which will blow you away welcome to the show are you ready for this billy morrison the guitarist for billy idol and we're going to talk a little bit later about what he's doing now first of all billy welcome to the show super excited to have you here thank you for having me uh it's an honor i the hero tag that's scary so uh you know i've got a not good idea i know you know your background and stuff but there may be some listeners and viewers there that don't know but let's take let's go back even even before music and stuff when you when you were on the street talk to us

about that it's it's a very common and simple story i I fell into drugs when I was 15, and I didn't come out until I was 29. And I was homeless on the street, not Hollywood homeless, you know, like sleeping on the sidewalk. One of those guys that you cross the street to get away from. And that was me. And now, 26 years later, I don't do that anymore. That's the short version. But what happened at 29 that you decided to not? I mean, you made the choice.

I had what they call a moment of clarity and basically where my fantasy was, which was a guy in a Ferrari. was, which was some guy in a Ferrari, you know, downtown six and Alvarado, but someone's going to pull up and go, you, I am going to give you money and a great car and a career that I realized just for a second, that wasn't going to happen. And I was going to die in an alleyway and no one would care. And that after all those years of using drugs, that was very clear to me, and I reached out for some help. What a phenomenal story. So now, after you've done that, I mean, you've had a phenomenal career. Yeah, luck plays a part, for sure. Tenacity, humility, I believe, is a component of success that most people don't understand. And I strive to keep humility no matter what's going on. Yeah, I mean, again, the work that you've done, and we're going to talk about real soon about what you're now doing next, or in addition also and all that.

So, okay, so after living on the street for so long, you end up, you know, how did you find that you have such a superior talent as a guitarist? Well, so, David, I don't think I'm a superior talent. I think I can play OK. I think that being successful involves more than just talent in any genre, in any in any medium. And like I say, I I concentrated on getting sober and clean first. So you get your priorities straight. And then I wasn't shy of hard work. You know, the first couple of years I was selling T-shirts to tourists in Camden Market, 365 days of the year and rehearsing at night and writing songs. I'd always loved music. And like I say, it's a combination of hard work. People don't understand how much work is involved tenacity humility and luck and uh at some point in that trajectory I got asked to join the cult

and from there I moved to America and uh you know when Billy Idol called me it was a no-brainer for me It's the greatest band in the world. All right. Talk to us about that call. Did you believe it was him, first of all? Like, what? So so what you have to understand is when I was 10 and 11 years old, I was skipping school and riding the mail train up to London to go and see his punk rock band Generation X, who I was a huge fan of as a kid. And so, you know, all these years later, when when Billy Idol calls you and goes, do you want to be in my band? It's very hard to comprehend. But I knew Steve Stevens already and he had been the guy

that put me forward. They wanted to for the first time they wanted to do two guitars. put me forward. They wanted to, for the first time, they wanted to do two guitars. And that's my jam. I love being the Malcolm Young to someone else's Angus Young. I'm not after the glory. I want to be the bedrock. I grew up with Steve Jones and rhythm guitar. So it was a no brainer question. I joined, it's been 12, 13 years, something like that now wrote wrote a great record with them the last album I wrote and there's no signs of it slowing down Billy is a is an icon that's amazing do you ever now just look back of where you are now and just think you know I'm here you ever forget your history of just like just you ever sit back and just go you know I'm doing this and again we're going to talk real soon about what you're also in addition to doing but just go wow how

i go i go wow and how a lot but i never forget that the trick for me is i don't hide my past uh i'm not shy of the fact that i was a different person for all those years and probably not a very nice person. But I think that that's the trick is don't forget that every single thing in my life that I have and that I do. guy and being respected by my peers is a direct result of remembering the second chance that I've been given in life. Which is absolutely phenomenal. And again, we're going to hear real soon next now about what you're doing because you're watching, listening to me, David Kogan, host of the Alliances Hero Show. Make sure that you go to alliances.com. That's e-l-i-a-n-c-s.com why because it's the only place where entrepreneurs align and we have with us billy morrison guitarist for billy idol and he's going to steal the thunder of what he's doing next in fact billy

well in addition to what you're doing billy what also this incredible skill you additionally have well yeah again i don't know about skill i i i truly believe in the creative arts that it's it's it's as much about just doing it and not caring what other people think as actually having talent if if you do anything every day for 10 years, you're going to get good at it. And what happened with me is I've always been a huge contemporary and modern art fan. My house is littered with Warhol and Herring and Basquiat and all, and Banks's and all of that kind of world. And about 10 years ago, I was encouraged by a couple of very close friends to try and put paint to canvas and I laughed and I said I never went to art class I can't draw a stick figure

and the short version is 10 years later it's my primary career I'm a known fine artist on canvas doing gallery shows. And, you know, I have a painting in the Capitol in Washington, D.C. And, you know, the earth has a painting of you, right? Jane Fonda has one. The list goes on. Again, luck, David. I mean, luck. I just I don't paint for that. I paint because it exercises whatever demons were there when I was a kid with all the drugs and all of that. They're still there. Those demons don't leave us. We've all got a dark side. What you have to do is find outlets that are healthy and music and acting. I've acted in the past and definitely painting exercises those demons.

And I'm lucky that Fred and Sharon and Ozzy and Jane and all the rest of them like what I paint. It's, I mean, it's phenomenal. Cause what I want to know is talk to me about shades of blue. Shades of blue shades of blue well picasso had his blue period i believe um shades of blue i i think that are you talking existentially i'm talking about the painting that you did shades of blue i don have to so the shade the yeah shades of blue is where it has star wars and it's got the in the background all the the blue you know uh it's it's right on your website it's a phenomenal piece yeah

what you have to understand is uh i paint every single day even when i'm touring the world with billy idol i have painted hundreds of paintings and the titles sometimes are very integral and sometimes are i need a title because i'm going to post this picture that's so, that's okay. So Shades of Blue is, I've used the Stormtroopers as an imagery to articulate various things. Racism, homophobic. The Stormtroopers, such an iconic image that you can for starters in the original star wars all the bad guys were white i don't know whether that was just by chance but i pick up on that so at the very first stormtrooper painting was all white stormtroopers with a pink one in the center you know the beauty of art is you can make of it what you will. What I was trying to say is we are

all the same, no matter what color we are. And I didn't realize that painting was called Shades of Blue. And it certainly matches it. But what, so where does it come from, though, for you to be able to create this? I mean, do you already have it pre-planned i'm going to go ahead i'm going to paint this or is it coming to you as you're doing it so it comes from a variety of sources primarily my life experience and obviously even though i've had crazy life experiences in the past my life still is running around the world and playing gigs and meeting lots of different people. So I have an expansive life experience to draw from. And then I will sit, something will tickle me in my brain. And then I will sit with a pencil and just start to see if I can formulate that. And once the idea is formulated, it's always subject matter first, imagery second. So I will see something that I

feel is wrong or right or beautiful or makes me angry. And I will start to think what image speaks that emotion to me. Awesome. Truly incredible. How did you even discover you had the skill? Well, I did. You should see some of my early paintings. I probably didn't have any skill then. But like I say, I I've been painting for nearly 10 years now and I was encouraged by various friends. And I just loved the cathartic experience of putting paint on canvas. It didn't matter whether it looked any good to start with. And I encourage anyone out there, like I say, if you do something every day and don't worry about if someone's going to like it, you will become good at it.

And I guess I've become pretty good at it now. Phenomenal. All right. I want to, again, we've got Billy Morrison with us, guitarist for Billy Idol, artist of Beyond the Beach. You can reach him at billymorrisonart.com. Billy, I want to do some snooping right now.

I think we're in your office. You've got a number of really cool things and you're like the, you are definitely the cool guy. I got to figure out how to like, you know, dress like you. Can you help me with that?

Yeah. Just spend loads of money on diamonds all right uh let's do some snooping in your office area talk to us about some things that are unique and what you treasure most okay so there's a couple of things right behind me so let me see if i can do the weatherman thing here this you can't really see but it's it's a Black Sabbath poster from the last tour that they did. And it's signed personally to me by all the members of Black Sabbath. Ozzy is well known as being one of my closest friends. So that's very personal. And this piece here is a photograph. I don't like having me on my own walls, but that's a photograph of me and Dave Navarro from a mental health charity show that we did. And then right there is the Billy Idol Shepard fairy piece that Shepard did

for the album that I wrote with, with Billy. Don't start walking me around my house. Cause there's so much. Your whole museum. It's crazy. It's crazy. That's awesome. What kind of secrets can you share with, you know, children out there that aspire, right? You know, the dream of, you know, being in a rock band the dream of being able to uh create art and art that that that sells art that you can make a living from both two extremely rare careers to be able to have so i i would say first of all don't think about the selling aspect if you do anything with a view to selling it

primarily it's probably not going to work. You have to come from your heart and from a place of creativity. But what I will say is there are many guitar players right down my street, probably, that can run rings around me that can't find whatever part of self it involves to step out of their bedroom, to get on a stage and to put their talents in front of eyeballs. So with the art, for instance, I'm not the world's greatest painter, but I do have the tenacity to hang 25 of them in a gallery and invite 500 of my closest friends to come and judge me because ultimately I didn't do it for them. I did it for me.

So the greatest piece of advice I could give anyone is just do it no matter what. Don't worry about what people think. But when you think you are at the point where you want to show other people, don't second guess yourself. Write that song and send it paint that picture and hang it on a wall uh it's the other side of the success coin in the

entertainment business that many people forget phenomenal words of advice just do it do it now do it do it do it billy you entertain and you inspire people through your music, through your art. That's a hero. Billy Morrison, guitarist, Billy Idol, artist, beyond the beat. You can reach him at BillyMorrisonArt.com. Thank you, guys.