BILLY IDOL / CAMP FREDDY Guitarist Billy Morrison ...

BILLY IDOL / CAMP FREDDY Guitarist Billy Morrison Checks In From The Road - "15 Years Without Drink Or Drugs; Most People Thought I Would Have Been Dead Long Ago"



CAMP FREDDY / BILLY IDOL guitarist Billy Morrison has issued the following update:

"It’s time for me to drop another personal update here – those of you who are following the Billy Idol tour through my Tour Diary on the www.billyidol.net site will be aware of where we are and what we are doing, but as always, life is in session for me personally and I always love to come back here and write a little more personably about how I feel and what’s going on. And I guess the biggest thing for me during this last week or so has been reaching 15 years without drink or drugs. I am pretty sure that those who came across me while I was ‘out there and at it’ will attest to just how huge this is for me. Most people thought I would have been dead long ago, never mind celebrating such a milestone by playing with Billy Idol and Steve Stevens on the main stage at Donnington in the UK, and then doing a SECOND show with Ginger Wildheart later that night on the acoustic stage. But that is exactly how I celebrated. Operating on two hours sleep and with a disgusting cold in full effect, my close friends from London travelled up to my hotel in Birmingham, drove me to the show, hung out with me all day and did what real friends do…. let me enjoy my day! Massive respec’ goes out to Terry, Ray and Steve (and Giles – it was a pleasure to finally meet you, mate!).

The day was cold and wet, and I felt pretty rough and spacey, but it didn’t matter. Paying a brief visit to my old homeland, hanging with the boys and killing it in the torrential rain at the festival felt fucking amazing. I missed my wife a lot that day – I would have loved her to share my special day with me as she is a huge part of everything that’s happened in the last 10 years. But never mind – she was in my heart, and it was a killer day. Thank you to all who were part of it – including the 80,000 people in the audience….. you made it perfect!! So far, we have hit Russia, Finland, Sweden, England, Germany and now Greece. And as I write this, I am by the pool at the hotel in Athens. I have been out in the blazing Greek sunshine for a few hours now, and I think it may be time to grab a salad and get into the shade. After all, I don’t want to overdo it, and although tonight is show time, tomorrow is a whole day off here in Athens. And of course, I have sorted out a spot of scuba diving for the morning!

This three day sunshine break is just what the doctor ordered – there has been a lot of traveling/airports/vans etc over the last couple of weeks. And I am really looking forward to getting underwater tomorrow and hanging out with the fish. As usual, life ticks by and Camp Freddy will be playing at The Palms in Las Vegas while I am out here in Europe. Bizarre feeling, that one – I will never get used to NOT being there when the guys play…. But it’s kinda cool to have a band that can always play, no matter what. I guess that’s the idea – a loose knit collective of friends that love music and know each other well enough to do shows no matter when or where – this time, I believe that Mr Steve Jones and Mr Billy Duffy will be performing the guitar duties. The show is July 10th and I would imagine if you google it, or call the venue, there will be more details available.

While I was in the UK, I paid a visit to Gibson London, and I will also be dropping by the offices in Berlin when we get there – and the reality of my Les Paul coming out continues to sink in further as each week passes! It’s really exciting and now we are starting to dream up fun ways to give guitars away as prizes, and working out what I can do to promote it. The London office was extremely nice (thanks Jeremy!) and we discussed a few fun ideas that hopefully we will be able to put into motion. I also got an email yesterday asking me if I would be interested in designing a signature Gibson guitar strap as well!! My response was a succinct and very positive……. “um….YES!!!!!!” May I suggest that you follow @gibsonlifestyle and @gibsonlondon on Twitter as soon as you can, for more news on all things Morrison/Gibson.

I’m gonna call it a day – there’s way too much R+R here today for me to keep typing. I just wanted to check in, acknowledge my 15 year mark, and say hi to people. A new tour diary will be up on the Idol site soon, and I will continue to update, Tweet, Facebook and generally cyber my way around Europe as much as I can. I love this shit and I am one lucky ex-junkie today.

Peace."