The Sex Pistols’ first spewed out their anarchic lyrics to a delighted gathering of a few dozen people at London’s St Martin’s School of Art in 1975. Fast forward 50 years and frontman John Lydon reveals why he won’t be reuniting with his fellow Pistols
In the true spirit of punk, John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten reputedly rounded off the night In November 1975 by fighting with the headline act.
Three members of the original line-up – Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock – reunited for a charity gig for the Teenage Cancer Trust at London’s Royal Albert Hall earlier this year.
Missing was Sex Pistols front man Lydon, who has been conducting a UK speaking tour – Untamed, Unscripted & Uncensored. Vowing never to reunite with his fellow Pistols, he says: “I don’t feel no pity for them, rage or hatred. I don’t feel anything for them.”
Now frontman of PiL, there has been no love lost between Lydon and his former bandmates, since he famously lost a High Court battle to stop the Sex Pistols music from being used in a six-part drama, Pistol, directed by Danny Boyle and based on Jones’ 2016 memoir.
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Excluded from the documentary, he says: “It should be a very important part of our history and they threw that away and turned us into the David Cassidy show. “I hope those Disney dollars are rammed firmly up their b*ttocks.”
At 69, Lydon’s customary irreverence is still as present now as it was in 1977, when Pistols’ hit God Save the Queen was banned from the airwaves. To this day, he remains nonplussed by the single’s success.
“When we made God Save The Queen we did not know we were going to be massive, We were just having a laugh,” he says. “I was like ‘nobody is going to listen, who cares? There is no hope.’ The Royal Family at that time was sacrosanct. You weren’t even allowed to have an opinion on them!”
He is more reflective on the subject of Sid Vicious. The bassist brought in by Pistols’ manager Malcolm McLaren in 1977 to replace Glen Matlock, despite not knowing how to play an instrument, died of a drug overdose. Just 21 he was at a friend’s apartment in New York, while released from prison on bail for the second degree murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungin in 1978 in the city’s Chelsea hotel.
He says of Vicious’ heroin addiction: “I tried to get him off it. I tried to get several people off heroin. But it is a thankless job. They will go back into it. Watching Sid, he got very interested in the needle itself. “ Describing the process of injecting heroin as a “Japanese-tea ceremony kind-of situation” he continues: “It’s just rigmarole but they (heroin addicts) love it. They see that as their purpose. “
He also sees some heroin addicts as beyond help, adding: “It’s a form of enslavement that people walk into quite willingly. They’ve made that decision and you’re wrong to try and get in the way and stop it. I’ve learned that. The hatred they have for you afterwards is incredible and they never forgive you for trying to help them get out of a drug that they see as doing good for them. I have tried heroin once. I hated it.”
Lydon speaks with some authority about addiction, having successfully kicked a methamphetamine habit himself. He says: “I got myself a problem there with methamphetamine, 20 or 30 years ago. I had to come out of that all alone. But I did. I didn’t like what the lifestyle was turning into. I lost weight so rapidly and had teeth falling out and all of that business. That’s a notch on the belt of ‘been there, done that. No thank you.’”
Lydon has little respect for his late manager Malcolm MacLaren, who plummeted in his estimation after the celebrated obscenity trial in November 1977. Chris Searle, the 28-year-old manager of Nottingham’s Virgin record shop was charged with contravening the Indecent Advertisement Act 1889 for not covering up the word boll*cks on the band’s Never Mind the Boll*cks album, displayed in the shop window.
Lydon says: “Malcolm did not turn up and that angered me, because he claimed he was inventing everything. He claimed he invented me. And he did not have the boll*cks to turn up in court. When I came out of the court room a reporter asked what I would like to have played and I said Devil Woman by Cliff Richard. I think that summed up Malcolm McLaren perfectly.” But he felt very differently about McLaren’s then partner, the late Viviene Westwood. He says: “Viv was a mate and a friend. Obviously a control freak. That is probably why she was so successful. It does help.”
The notoriety of being a Sex Pistol could make travelling a nightmare, according to Lydon, who recalls being subjected to a number of intrusive anal searches going through customs. He says: “They used to be like ‘oh it’s Johnny Rotten. Yeah, let’s give him an anal search.’ That used to happen a lot.” He laughs: “How many Brussels sprouts and baked beans can you eat before a flight? It would make the trip less delicious for them!”
Lydon, whose wife Nora died after battling dementia in April 2023, says he manages his weight by deep sea diving with an aqualung and he quit drinking six months ago. He says: “I was using alcohol after the death of Nora to put the pain away. I am utterly fearless about death. Wherever she has gone I want to be.”
With no desire to ever marry again, Lydon says he is happy alone. And he is cheered to see his fans growing old alongside him. He recalls: “A highlight of the last solo talking tour was in Leicester last year. It ended up with two women in wheelchairs fighting. Their husbands had their walking sticks and they were waving them about. It was bizarre.
“I thought ‘How do you handle this one?’ They all realised how silly it was. It was like a bingo riot. Talking to them after, I found out it was all over their wheelchair space. It was like a car park situation. I thought ‘life is full of surprises?’” Proudly original, Lydon is dismissive of bands who want to emulate The Pistols. He says: “It should be their own voice, not an imitation. I left the Pistols as I did not want to turn into The Rolling Stones – churning out the same kind of stuff. We did not want to sound like anybody else or fit in. If you follow the doctrines of the music industry, you are f*cked man.”
With strong opinions on just about everything, Lydon says of the royal family: “That lot are born in a bird cage. I have nothing against them as human beings, but I think I have overspent on them.” And he is vociferous about politicians. Of the Reform leader, he says: “Nigel Farage is like someone you would meet at a fairground who says ‘do you want to buy one of these watches?’” While, of Donald Trump, he says “I met him once and I did not like him. I met him at the VH1 music awards. I had a show called Rotten Radio and I was invited. My lovely wife came with me. Trump was going in with Jennifer Lopez and Nora trod on her dress and tore the train and they went nuts on us. It was a gorgeous fiasco. Trump is the Sex Pistols of politics.”
Source: Mirror
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