Hello Culture (Channel 4 TV)
July 29th, 2001

The John Lydon Interview

Matthew Collings: Do you think now is more a false time than any other? Is it human nature to want a lot of delusions and falsity and fakeness, or do you think now is particularly fake?

John Lydon: Yes, people do like to be romantic about everything and they do delude themselves. It’s so easy to give them the clues to put them down false trails. It’s almost not worth helping them out to stop that. The masses will always be easily led and there will always be a few manipulators of. And I think that that’s just human nature and who am I to try and change that? I tried. It’s not worth it. You get dissed for it, you get disrespected, you get seen as being arrogant when you point out mistakes. When, in actual fact, I don’t think you’re arrogant at all.

MC: You’re just being realistic.

JL: Yeah.

MC: But people don’t really want realism.

JL: No, not at all. They want the fantasy, they want the nonsense. They want to be mollycoddled and led into a cozy belief that everything’s fine when it isn’t.

MC: People have lots of views of you and what you stand for and what you do. They range from being incredibly realist, where that might lead to wanting to destroy the Top 10 rather than be in it, or an incredible sort of hater.

JL: Yeah, you’ve got to be honest. I’m a bit of all of that. I mean, we all are. But I’m not completely destructive just for the sake of it. There’s a little bit more going on with me than that. I don’t despise the Top 10. I just don’t like or see the need for myself to be in it or contributing to it. Actually, you can make far more money if you’re away from that kind of thing because you keep the tax man off you. You’re not quite so noticeable and you can play a much, much more accurate and purposeful game.

MC: Is that with the benefit of hindsight, or do you think that was an intuition that you already had in 1976? That it wasn’t necessarily that you despised the Top 10, but you didn’t think it was necessary that you needed to be in it.

JL: Well, the Sex Pistols didn’t begin as a money-making machine. We began really more as a laugh and never took it seriously and didn’t think anyone would take us seriously. Then lo and behold, we proved ourselves wrong. And it was the most serious learning ground, that first year. I don’t think anybody’s gone through that kind of hell. Most of it self-inflicted, I do admit. But if you survive that, you can survive anything.

MC: But the benefit of it for everybody else was that it made philosophically transparent what that system was. So you’re going through all this puking and spitting and chaos and then everyone could suddenly see what that system was and make choices about it. Whereas, before, it was something that was unsaid, really. They might have suspected it was like that or professionals might have known it was like that, but the beauty of that moment for everybody else …

JL: For you, maybe.

MC: Yeah, for everyone else.

JL: And still is to this day. Shoot the messenger.

MC: Yeah, yeah.

JL: Not the message. And if you carry on like that, then you’re accused of imitating yourself.

MC: Right, if you carry on trying to be realistic, then you’re accused of being fake.

JL: If you’re trying to be realistic, then you’re not, are you? You’ve just got to get on with what you believe in and just do it to best of your ability and let the intellectuals work out whatever they want to work out about you.

MC: But you are a bit of an intellectual yourself.

JL: No.

MC: You’re not without a bit of intellectualizing. You like to philosophies and say this is this and this is that.

JL: I like to know how things are, yeah. And I can be very, very wrong from time to time. But open debate to me is a thrill, not something to despise or run away from. And that’s why I like to attack so many institutions, because if they can’t stand up to the argument, then they cannot stand up and have no valid place in life or history. It’s as simple as that, Royal Family.

MC: Well, that is very clear. You say, 'OK, I don’t despise the Top 10. If people want the Top 10, they can have it. I don’t necessarily …'

JL: There’s a great need for young kids to go through that pop thing, to grow out of that. So it serves a purpose. And quite frankly, without the Backstreet Boys, there wouldn’t really be a music industry as we know it today. They financially support all the other little offshoots. And they allow us art-farty types to indulge on the lower levels.

MC: Right, so see the bigger picture.

JL: Yeah.

MC: You see why there must be this and there must be that, and they really meet.

JL: It’s a seesaw effect, and you can’t have the yin without the yang.

MC: Do you think that you’re somebody who believes in things and disbelieves in other things? This is what one sees very clearly about you.

JL: Cor, you see that as different?

MC: Well, what is different about you is that you articulate those beliefs very clearly, in a very vivid way, so that one has to think about them. Everyone might go around groaning on about this and that, but they’re not necessarily that good at making a clear phrase or having a meaning …

JL: Maybe that’s the Irish in me, that we do like to be a bit picturesque and we do tell a good story.

MC: Well, maybe you’re a particularly good Irish guy at coming out with those sentences and slogans and things that stick in the mind.

JL: Well, you’re not going to get any out of me now then, are you?

MC: Well, who knows? Maybe some will come naturally. I suppose what I was leading up to was …

JL: You tell me what you mean by the Romantic period.

MC: I mean the rise of the Romantic poets and the period — late 18th century, early 19th century. There’s a tendency for people now to think, 'Oh, that was a sincere time, when people were poets and they really meant what they said.' And there was a quivering Romantic belief in 'What is life for and what’s everything about?' And increasingly since then, things have become more plastic and more fake, until we get to this moment when everything is fake and everything is plastic. Nothing can be believed in.

JL: Well, those were the intellectual philosophications of poets from that time. But those were all, like, the upwardly mobile.

MC: Yeah.

JL: Either all lords and ladies and sons of dukes and duchesses. They were in the money, right, and this was a time before people hadthe right to vote. These last 100 years, people now vote. We all now — and it’s not a romantic delusion to say — are capable of being in control of our destinies for the first time in human history. It’s not romantic — this is fact. And it’s a shame to see people running away from that and going back to this hopeless need for leadership. Leadership is what will destroy us every single time. A leaderless society is an excellent society. I know this is a concept that anarchists waffle on about, but what they don’t seem to understand is that they just have the nice philosophy and packaging but they ignore human nature. And human nature has a tendency to look for leadership, to look for guidance. Because we are all basically lazy, and we’d rather have someone else work it out for us and follow that, than work it out ourselves. So I'm anti-anarchy because I find it just too easy a ride.

MC: So you’re talking about the pose there rather than the reality …?

JL: If you haven’t done it for yourself, it is worthless. Being able to stand up and say, ‘Hello, I’d like to thank absolutely no one for nothing’ — that is an achievement.

MC: Right. But I think that’s a good point, that now is an age when everyone has much greater power than they ever had in the past, and yet now all are afraid of that power and they want to have Walt Disney, childish illusions to cuddle up inside.

JL: It's a bit like letting an animal free that’s been in a zoo all of its life. It’s going to find it difficult to find its way. But, hello, it’s a lot better than the past. Embrace the future. It’ll be absolutely chaotic, but believe me, there’s nothing wrong with chaos. And to be flippant, there’s cash in chaos. I know, you know.

MC: But you mean there’s cash in chaos entertainment?

JL: In everything. Art, literature, the lot. Have no rules. Rules are for fools. Know the rules and then know how to ignore them. It’s very difficult to go forward unless you know what the structures are and how to change those structures. Call me Rick O’Shea, the mad Irishman, because I know what the four walls of confinement are, but I ricochet around inside them.

MC: That’s very good. People think that it’s possible to occupy a lot of different positions now, to have all sorts of beliefs or different identities temporarily. You don’t really believe in any of them, you can jump from one to another.

JL: I understand what you mean. You mean …

MC: Especially post-modernism.

JL: Yeah, the adaptation of fake and false images.

MC: Yes.

JL: Well, that’s all well and fine and fun, and that’s the wonderful world of fashion we’re talking about there. Which can be great and a brilliant illusion. In the punk period, I'd quite happily, when I felt punk was becoming a uniform, zip into a teddy boy outfit. I knew that that would cause a lot of aggravation, but at the same time, I knew I was only playing with an image.

MC: I think that’s the difference now. People are never quite sure if they’re playing or not.

JL: I know you think that’s just now, but believe me, it was then too. It’s an ongoing thing. There will always be an awful lot of people who are not very smart and will always feel the need to imitate work done by others, and want to fit into what they then see as a safe category, a safe genre. Art suffers terribly from that. And art really has become a corporate control. Paintings just sell to corporations. That’s how modern art is now seen. As business assets.

MC: I think you’re right that modern art wouldn’t exist were it not for the auction houses and for selling and …

JL: They took over from royalty and the church. So I’m very suspicious of art.

MC: But you’re not saying …

JL: And music, too, because that used to be run by the same institutions and still is. Music is definitely a corporate function.

MC: You’re saying that there’s a necessity for these institutions, but one should be suspicious of them and not believe wholesale what they’re saying.

JL: Yes, and you can function differently inside of those restrictions and rules. You have to learn for yourself, because the second we put out a manual saying this is how you break the rules, you’re following the rules, and that’s self-defeatist.

MC: Do you think that you’re more political now or you were always political? You said you’re doing some political stuff recently. You’ve always been a bit political.

JL: I see even less need for political groups as they are right now in the future than ever before. I think they’re all kind of merging into one big blancmange. They’re all basically saying the same thing. You really can’t tell extreme left from extreme right any more. They are all about dictating to you a set of formats and dogmas. So eliminate the lot of them, eliminate the need for them. The danger is, of course, that it might come down to eliminating the right to vote. And I bet a lot of people would vote against voting, because it’s an intrusion on their free time. That’s the foolishness we face. How to get out of that? Well, you tell me. I stand up and scream every chance I can, but I can’t be the only one. Otherwise I’m just a voice in the wilderness, and howling out there.

MC: Why do …?

JL: Always raining in that kind of environment.

MC: In what environment? In the prophets-against-everybody environment, right. The romantic environment.

JL: Yes.

MC: Why do you think pop is dominating everything? Pop culture and pop beliefs have increasingly come to invade everything.

JL: Money. It’s magazine culture.

MC: So it’s economic.

JL: People believe so totally and so glibly what they read in those glossy magazines, it is insane. Like, it’s 'Oh, look at this act. They’re the new rebellion in music.' Rebellion, how come? If you’ve got a video and you’re on MTV, you are not rebelling against anything. You are supporting.

MC: Yeah.

JL: So be free about that, but don’t be dishonest. Don’t pretend to be rebellious. Use it properly. Don’t pretend to be outside of the class structure you were born into. Don’t fake your background, don’t fake your lifestyle. It’s just logic.

MC: Do you think that class is not …

JL: Class has not gone away.

MC: When will it?

JL: I don’t know if it ever will. There’s always this need for leadership, see.

MC: Right.

JL: That’s where that comes in. To believe that something’s better than you makes you somehow feel that that gives you something to aspire towards. Well, I find that's kind of mediocre. I aspire to what I think I’m not quite good at yet. I’m not in direct competition with any human being. I don’t see the need for competition in the arts.

MC: Right, but you are looking for something. It’s not like you are nihilistic. You don’t want to lie around not doing anything and being fed up and saying 'Fuck you' to everybody.

JL: No, hardly. I work like a slave. When you think about it, we did something like 18 albums in 20 years. That’s an awful lot of work.

MC: Do you think you have fundamentally changed, or you’ve only changed in the sense that you’ve got older?

JL: I would hope so, because without change, this is all rather pointless.

MC: But do you think there have been any real reversals or turnarounds in your own world view?

JL: No, it’s all progress, mate.

MC: So you are what you are and you’ve got to be more what you are.

JL: I’m even better. And less prone to being distraught and moody and miserable, depressed by things not working out. Now it’s just 'Oh well, that didn’t happen — next. Move on. Don’t wallow in it.' Self-pity is such a defeating nonsense. It’s a luxury really. Like boredom. People should realize that. That we now live in a society where we can have those luxuries and this was not possible 100 years back. Only the very idle wealthy and titled had that luxury. Now we’ve all got it.

MC: Yeah.

JL: Right, let’s get all the rest of it too.

MC: So you’re saying it’s human nature to have distraction and illusions and to protect yourself from the harsh reality and the grimness of what life can be. But it’s also human nature to go too far with that distraction stuff and to surround yourself with utter bullshit.

JL: If left to your own devices without any feedback from others. You have to give and share and take, give and take and share. This is the whole point. You can’t isolate yourself from the rest of the world. You know, knock out that sense of superiority. Or inferiority.

MC: But you have a very good sense of superiority …?

JL: Only to deeds, not people.

MC: So, in fact, you have a basically humane type of art that you do, or a humane type of message that you do. You’re not anti-people.

JL: Absolutely not. I’ve never done anything to destroy people. I’ve never done anything to create a bad situation for another human being. Quite the contrary. Amazing, isn’t it? Because it’s the very thing I’m accused of.

MC: Yeah, you’re the destroyer, the antichrist.

JL: That’s almost a luxurious position to be in.

MC: Why?

JL: Because I can be the devil and Jesus Christ both at the same time. Now, not many can afford that luxurious seat.

MC: You mean, others have to do a bit more sucking up than you. That you’ve managed to get yourself out of that sucking-up position.

JL: You’re only accused because you’re doing something interesting. It’s when you’re accepted that you find problems. I’m not easily understood because I’m doing something of value, I think. I might not be. I might be deluding myself. But it isn’t going to stop me, and debating is my constant thing. I’m open to discussion, always. Love it to death. That’s why I love watching the Houses of Parliament. See, that isn’t an open discussion or debate is it? It’s …

MC: No, it’s very ritualistic.

JL: … and set angered. That I find feudalistic and futile.

MC: Right, because it’s stuck in the past. A false notion of the past.

JL: Yeah.

MC: You might not have noticed this actually, but in England over the last 10 years, the biggest new semi-pop craze has been modern art. And no one really knows why. There’s this thing called Tate Modern, this huge extension of the Tate Gallery which has hordes of people going in and out. They go around, they don’t really know what anything is there and they recognize a Salvador Dali or something and they go home, having had an art experience. Art’s on TV all the time. It’s in the newspapers.

JL: Well, that’s because that’s all part of the magazine culture — that’s where all that stuff’s promoted. People go and they don’t know why. You’re right, it’s kind of mindless. They’re expecting some great insight into where culture really is. But culture is non-existent, really. It’s a delusion. It’s a theme. And it goes on and on and on, and it’s constantly changing, and just when you think you’ve grasped what your culture is or the culture you aspire to, it’s changed.

MC: So you think it’s arbitrary that the choice should be art at the moment? It’s not that art has the special higher values that people crave and need and aren’t getting anywhere else.

JL: That’s right.

MC: It could have been anything. Could have been racing cars.

JL: Yeah. I think there’s an awful lot integrity in the design of cars and boats and planes. Just as much as an oil painting. Skewered metal.

MC: Maybe it’s because people feel they know racing cars and they don’t know art, so it’s something that’s unknown that has become popular, and there’s an excitement there.

JL: In modern times, people seem to think that art just for art’s sake is unnecessary. (Which I disagree with.) And art’s only valid if it’s related to function — e.g. the shape of a car. A car moves, it has a point and purpose, it takes you from A to B, therefore the design of it is art. And pleasing. I don’t know if that’s quite right. Because you have to feed your head as well as your body. You have to be able to expand mentally.

MC: Right, so there’s got to be some idea ...

JL: For no particular point or purpose, because you’re denying dream and illusion. And those things are essential. You can’t have one without the other. A healthy mind is an expanding, uncontrollable mind. And if we’re limited it to just functionary items — well, that’s the Nazis for you, isn’t it? And it’s Romanesque thinking, isn’t it?

MC: The type of art that’s popular now, that people want, is a kind of 'conceptual' art. They don’t really know what it is, and no one does really, but actually the public assumes that some people do, like me, or there’s a little coterie of other people who know.

JL: You know you don’t.

MC: No, no, I’m as baffled as them. I know a bit more about the machinery that makes it tick, but I don’t really know why installations should be popular, why video art should be popular. And it seems to be an art which is slightly different to what you just said, where there is no real skill but there is something mystifying about it. And that mystifying thing — which ought to be bad, because one shouldn’t want something to be mystifying — is the thing that’s seen as good. It seems that if people think there’s something mysterious, that maybe that’s spiritual, maybe that’s the thing that’s missing.

JL: Maybe it’s spiritual, maybe it’s just breaking all the rules and boundaries and going on to the next step. That’s where we should all really be mentally. Make those changes, make those choices that are not safe. And what’s the fear? Being wrong. Being laughed at because you’ve pursued a fool’s errand. That’s perfectly fine. There’s less damage in that than being bogged down into structure. It’s far more damaging to you.

MC: What do you mean by structure?

JL: Rules.

MC: Like doing what you’re supposed to do.

JL: Yes. Time, schedules, form.

MC: Right, but you’re saying that the answer isn’t necessarily anarchism, because anarchism is a sort of defined thing itself. It’s kind of conformism, a sort of gestural thing rather than a real thing.

JL: Yeah. It’s a nice fantasy for the middle classes, but that’s all it is. You can get things out of it, but then you move on. You get things out of everything, but you should not be structuring yourself into one particular pile, because that’s just not healthy. I want it all, mate. All of it.

MC: You’re the least nostalgic person, and yet people are very nostalgic about your past.
JL: People like to rewrite my past according to their own whims and delusions and find it oppressive of me to just point out what is and isn’t true. Well, tough titties. Go and make your own past. Go delve in that. Go rewrite your own history, but you will still be false, will still be fantasising. Fantasy’s okey-dokey and well and fine. It’s not the be-all and end-all. You can’t be rewriting historical facts just to suit the mood of the time.

MC: So you get cross about that kind of thing because of the lack of accuracy?

JL: Yes.

MC: And you want to correct the inaccuracy.

JL: If you’re delusionary in historical fact and you can’t delude yourself in fantasy.

MC: So when people are trying to say what the Sex Pistols are, you want to say, 'Well, actually, in my experience, they weren’t that.'

JL: Not only that, what PIL is, what John Lydon is, what anything is. Just listen to me and you will learn. Don’t tell me what I am — ask me.

MC: Well, do you feel confident and in charge of your own history? One meets people who’ve done things, and often one senses that they don’t really know exactly or feel confidently in charge of the thing that they’ve done. And that can give rise to anger or insecurity. One feels must one must lay down the law about what happened.

JL: Yeah, and then you can be accused of arrogance. But arrogance to me is a delicious weapon. Only to be used by the incredibly skilful.

MC: Why? What do you think that first album was, the Sex Pistols record? How would you sum it up, what it did?

JL: It was a record put together by young people who weren’t really aware of the bigger scheme of things, but didn’t give a tuppence flying fuck and just went on with it. And were as accurate as we possibly could be, in our own small little-scale way. And as the years go by, you get bigger and louder and larger. You might become more unpopular, but hello, that’s never been a problem for me.

MC: If you became unpopular, is that because of people’s schizophrenic relationship to you? They want you to be a thing which you are, because you did that record, but you can’t always only be that thing, because you’ve become more, then you’ve gone on.

JL: You cannot allow yourself to be boxed. Cannot. There’s this need again for leadership and understanding for society, shall we say, to just box and pigeon hole and categorise.

MC: So we know where everything is.

JL: Yeah. And that’s destructive. You don’t need to know. It’s like wisdom. Well, the wiser you get, the more you know that there is no answer. And that’s a wonderful place to be. So you stop wasting your time looking for imponderables. What is life? Where is God? Well, who cares? Just enjoy what you’ve got and go with it, and go with it to the max.

MC: You were a young guy when you were doing the Sex Pistols, slightly older when you were doing PIL, and now you’re, like, my age. I don’t know, you’re 45 or something, which is what I am. In that time, you said, 'Well, of course, there must be some change because that’s life.' But do you think that it’s possible to say that you had beliefs when you were making that record and they were this and that and they have changed over the years, or have they fundamentally stayed more or less the same?

JL: They’ve progressed. I have never turned around and denied anything that I felt from then, because they’re still there. There is suppression, there is class dominance, there are all kinds of controls put on people that should be unnecessary, and there are all kinds of shenanigans going on in the political world that create war, and this cannot be tolerated. Those things don’t go away. I come from very clear perspectives, and that hasn’t changed. I see them better, but I still can’t focus it differently. Most people just don’t want to go with that. Don’t want to be aware that their life is controlled.

MC: So you might be able to see those things in terms of social structures now, whereas before you might see them in a limited …

JL: I took it a little personal. He hates me, she hates me. Now it’s not quite that. It’s no one person, it’s a group. It’s a group effort, a force. And that’s the trouble with bureaucracy. It’s leaderless in a way, but they’re all aspiring to leadership of the dictates of the group.

MC: I think there’s something political in having a radar for what is fake and what has some truth about it and being able to accurately point it out.

JL: Fine, we know the jargon of bullshit so well. And that would be assumption. Assumption is the greatest enemy. People assume things are this way.

MC: Yeah.

JL: You should never assume anything, because when you do, you make an ass out of you and me.

MC: Do you still believe that anger is an energy?

JL: Oh anger is always the best energy. Always. Use your anger very, very well. It is an excellent, excellent tool. It opens your mind. Hate is not an energy, hate is a closed door and self-defeating and very, very self-destructive.

MC: So anger creates?

JL: Oh yeah. Oh, give me anger.

 
John Lydon was talking to Matthew Collings