Never Trust a Laptop Hippie

"It looks like a rubber wax work!" Rolling Stone © Jill Greenberg 2006

We were surprised to see you in ‘Rolling Stone’ last month. Not only because it was 18 months too late, but there wasn’t even a mention on the cover! You wouldn’t have known it was in there. Very strange.

I frankly find it pathetic that it took them so long to print an article that’s already out of date. That’s a long time to spend on a hatchet job, they must have really been struggling to find flaws. And secondly the article was about us not going to the Hall of Fame – yet it isn’t!

They had promised us the front cover at the time, that’s why we did it. I wouldn’t have bothered with them otherwise. I had talked with Anita Camarata – Steve and Paul’s management – beforehand, and she assured me it was not going to be another poison pen piece. I presume that’s what they told her. Which is why ‘Rolling Stone’ hired a writer, but the end result was more of the same. Thank you. Never trust a Hippie. We said it a long time ago and it’s not really changed. And these are hippies with laptops. They even misunderstood that part!

‘Rolling Stone’ is the complete dogs bollocks of establishment but it likes to pretend it’s very lefty and trendy. Which it isn’t. It’s as bourgeois as ever. It really is pompous. It’s Clinton’s Saxophone! (laughs) It’s written for a smug kind of in-crowd. It’s for like Hippies I suppose from that generation; that have grown up into corporate lawyers. And this is the kind of way they like to read about their music. I think though, they especially picked us out for a slamming. Which to my mind shows an undercurrent of affection for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; rather than the band. It’s more celebrating the museum than the actual artifact.

They practically ignored the Hall of Fame and tried to turn it into a piece about the 30th anniversary of ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’.

Why going to the bother of doing that? Why not just bury it, you know?

There’s a weird underlying tone to the whole article that they don’t believe a word you say.

You don’t have to. You do not have to believe anything I say, but what you do have to do in this world is have a serious look at how things are; and then come back to me. All I’ve ever done, my whole life, is try to get a thing right, to explain why I do what I do, and if that makes me a liar, well, I do not understand. I can not comprehend what your motivation would be. It’s like this, me on my own life is only my opinion. According to them. Right? They are talking to the experts on me, and you can’t get round that kind of stupidity.

It’s ironic that a publication like that can call you a “font of misinformation” but in the same issue proclaim Marilyn Manson to be the Antichrist! It literally mentions Antichrist and Anarchist next to each other. No shame!

You have to take with a pinch of salt whatever these people put up, because if they put him up as that, you know, (laughs), how can they possibly be finding flaws in us!

They had a LONG time to edit this, and if I’m a minefield, or whatever it is, of misinformation, well prove that. Don’t just say it, and then misquote natural born liars shall we say, as better references. I state there quite clearly, “If you want to know about the Sex Pistols then ask the Sex Pistols!” Anything else is irrelevant. Malcolm was not a Sex Pistol. And as for me wishing him dead on some British TV; I’d like to know where that comes from?

If you’re going to be quoting Malcolm from other articles and misplacing them in rather undignified places – for some kind of assumption of truth – well, you’re off on the wrong track. I think the writer has juxtapositioned us in places. He never grasps exactly what the bottom line of the thing is at all; and seems to ignore the music.

If you think our songs are average and whatever. That's fine. You’re welcome to your opinion. But entire governments thought different! And we were in very dangerous positions because of these songs. They don’t understand the hardship, and frankly, the terror we’ve had to go through over the years in order to back up what we initially started. And to make light of that – like it doesn’t count for nothing – is just stupid. Because it’s a brave man indeed that stands up against such forces. And if that be self praise then – Yeah! Here comes the self-praise. I did it. You didn’t. Fuck off. Right? Plain and simple. It’s very easy to bitch after the trumpet player has blown his horn, but you didn’t blow first so fuck off! (laughs)

Again, the powers that be, they’d rather take the Malcolm line than any other line because that way easily explains us away. All these kind of people have their situation well and truly pocketed. Anything that rocks their boat has to be taken down a peg or two. It’s pathetic and it’s spiteful. But it’s nothing to scream about. We’ve had worse done. So no sweat, but you know, what a load of Bollocks! (laughs)

Bunch of Cowboys? Jimmy Kimmel Live, March 10th 2006 © Courtesy ABC

He even accuses you of lying that the Sex Pistols came from Music Hall.

How’s that a lie? How is that a lie? It’s a resentment of our culture it really is. We bridged many, many gaps between working class and middle class and made the world a slightly better place; and definitely opened the doors for many, many new bands. And he seems to resent that.

The article, really, was put together with an attitude that was negative right from the start. And it’s deliberately trying to make, or substantiate, some kind of rift between me and Steve. Of which there is none.

One of my biggest enemies is other people perceiving how we are with each other. Now, if I approach Malcolm and go “Get me a beer cunt”, and he says “Fuck off” that’s just the way we are with each other! That is not a bitter thing. That is light-hearted. That’s people being people, as everyone in the British Isles should know, and do hear. It’s an open friendly chirpy way of communicating. This writer has no understanding of British humour, or European humour, or how the world actually works, and what class distinctions create.

Some of it is absolutely ridiculous, saying things like the Ramones were ‘conceptually more perfect’ than the Pistols. What sort of angle is that?

Oh well, that’s kind of missing the point isn’t it! Hello, we’re not manufactured pop units. Many, many bands are – and America definitely likes to create these manufactured pop units – Marilyn Manson comes to mind, and definitely Green Day. They are manufactured and manoeuvred into market places to sell. It’s all about the Dollar. The bottom line is the Dollar bill. Well, that’s all well and fine and I have no qualms about those kind of people in the world, but I do when they try to juxtaposition us up against them, and claim somehow that we’re less for not being as corrupt as that.

It’s a niggley arse way of trying to deny just how fucking good we are! And this is from the so-called intelligentsia. Yet again missing the point because they are over elaborating on their own presumptions. You can not presume what the truth is. The truth is there for all to see. I wrote the songs, I sang them, and I did my job well. There it is. Beyond that I haven’t asked for much and I certainly haven’t been asking for awards. And in fact, I quite happily turn many down.

It struck me that they wouldn’t have used the same dismissive tone in an article about anyone other than the Sex Pistols. Like it’s fair game just because it is the Sex Pistols.

Yeah, I know. In a way it’s a compliment that they spend so much time dismissing a few things; right? Now, I talked to this man for a good two hours, shall we say, and if that’s all you can come up with; you know? I approached it in a very friendly, open minded way – as I usually do – and I’m sneered at for that. Well, that’s really unfortunate, that you can’t meet someone on a man-to-man basis and be yourself without being suspected of something.

And this consistent suspicion, well, in a weird way, they probably have a right to be suspicious, because I’m far smarter than them (laughs). And that does frighten them. Just speaking of myself personally, I’m one person who they can not manipulate or co-opt into this industry. The industry is wrong. Not me. It is utterly and completely corrupt. And magazines like this absolutely toe that line. And really, if you want to remain ignorant then ‘Rolling Stone’ is the magazine of choice. Because you will be ignorant.

It completely lacks passion and love of music. You just don’t detect anything in it that makes you think anything other than “Oh that’s a nice aftershave advert”. I think in a weird way ‘Rolling Stone’ are right, we’re not as an accoutrement to your Land Rover and your aftershave; alright! So we’re not the band for you boys of ‘Rolling Stone’! They’re just another institution that sooner or later is gonna topple. You can’t live on hot-air and farty wind like that for very long.

They seem to have made a career out of it so far. It’s virtually impossible to read anyway…

I don’t know who reads it. I know it’s presumed to be some kind of an institution, but hello, like we know with all institutions, they have to be – have to be – torn down and started all over again! It’s part of the shitsdem and it’s where everything is going wrong. The smugness of the magazine is killing everything that’s fun in music. Keep up the good work ‘Rolling Stone’ it proves you are the enemy; you are the en-em-ee.

And apart from anything else, what was the weird bloody wedding photo nonsense! What is the high-art going on in that! (laughs) My brother blew it up, and I’m gonna put it in a frame! (laughs) It looks so, so weird! It’s so strange! It looks like they’ve gone into some old computer program to try buff it up. I mean, I’m always saying as a laugh to photographers, “Can you airbrush out my wrinkles!” This lot took it serious! And added a few of their own!

I think it was a hose-pipe they used rather than an airbrush!

It looks like a rubber wax work!

The Revolution Will Be Televised!

"The revolution will be televised" Battle of the Bands © courtesy Bodog / Fuse TV

You’re one of the judges in the ‘Bodog Battle of the Bands’ which is about to start on Fuse TV in the States. How did you manage to get involved in that!

I had nothing to do in January and it came up. What grabbed my attention was the fact it was a hell of a lot of bands that we had to listen through. Most of them playing three songs, but their own songs. So it was a songwriters approach from live music; and how can I fail but find that interesting. So I did it.

I’m in full support of it. Anyone who writes their own songs I’m in full support of. I can’t really, genuinely say that any of the bands are so god damn surprising that the world will stop turning. It really isn’t on that level, but that’s not my fault. It’s about variety, and unfortunately a show like this can only be as varied as the bands that apply. Some of them are quite interesting. Some of them are very, very British in their approach to pop music – which is no bad thing at all – I know years ago everyone used to sneer at ‘Top of The Pops’, but you fucking miss it.

If a couple of credible bands come out of it, rather than the usual karaoke pop trash then great.

I’d rather a terrible band, than anything manufactured by the bigger labels. People must remember that Jimi Hendrix once played on ‘Opportunity Knocks’!

I didn’t know that!

Yes! Yeaah! (laughs) I didn’t see it myself but as rumours go that’s a fucking good one!

It’s changed days, TV seems a very important part of a bands career now.

It’s the modern world and you can’t avoid it. And frankly, if you’re a new band, you need it. And to give that opportunity to a whole bunch of acts is wonderful. More than happy for them. I don’t expect them all to be instant genius’, because who is? But if you give people the opportunity, that’s when you see if the star will shine in them. Sitting back on your rear and just going “Oh, it’ll be awful…” that English attitude has got to stop!

The winner gets a recording contract with Bodog?

Yeah. Which is a good thing in many ways, but you can see where the cracks and chinks in the armour could be! But it’s a lot better than doing nothing. And out of nothing comes something. In America right now it’s very difficult for any new band to get signed at all.

Initially I was under the impression it was only rock bands, but that’s not the case is it?

Oh, it’s not just one kind of music. Many, many different kinds. For me, I immediately voted off any of the shouting acts! You know, people who just grab the mic and yell at you. It’s just uninteresting! (laughs) There’s a big difference between that and procuring a message that means something. There was very many different kinds of music, but it’s very difficult when you share a panel with other judges that don’t quite perceive the world the way I do! (laughs) Which is no bad thing!

When they got you on the panel they probably thought you’d be the villain, tell people to sod off etc etc.

No. I’m fully into making them grasp the fun they can have out of life if they get this right. I’m not up there as a judgemental prat, that isn’t my way. I’ll judge them later when it comes to what record will I go out and buy. But at the moment it’s an amazing thing to see young kids – and some not so young (laughs) there’s many age groups in there – have to perform this in front of TV cameras. The pressure on them was unbelievable, unbelievable. And so you never be spiteful to people in that position. I base it on exactly what I like when I hear it. And what I immediately feel. My heart is quite open. I don’t go in with any preconceptions at all, and I do not judge them on my terms pacifically, or by my own experiences.

To me all music is knowledge. People giving you an insight into how they perceive the world. When they get their insight correct and clear, and I’m learning something from it, I love it. And that doesn’t matter what format that comes from. The concept of listening to nothing but punk music is not punk. Not at all. You couldn’t be further from a punk if that’s your modus operandi. You have to be open to everything. We were looking for the right answers not the convenient ones; and hence we are not Parker Posies.

How did the series work? Did the bands play full sets or just do one song?

No! My god, the first night when we opened in Cleveland – in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame I might add!

The Hall of Fame! Did you put some urine in the wine!

Ha! They loved it they’ve got a copy up on the wall! The curator was very proud to show me it. (laughs) I have no qualms about the people who work there; right? It was the anonymity of the judgement that worried me. If you’re gonna stand by the Sex Pistols – be loud and proud like what we are!

On that first night, there was so many bands I lost count. Some of them did three numbers, some two, but it was a good 15, 20 minute set coming at you. And after the first 21 bands things merged! (laughs) It was, my god, I hope I can remember what’s what here! But very many of the bands were in the same kind of genre, and some were kind of parody. But very many different styles. There was some ragamuffin in there. Some actually played kind of good country rock, but lost it towards the end, when it became too clichéd.

It’s a shame that girls got whittled out very, very early on. There doesn’t seem to be girls wanting to be in bands. I suppose the girl thing has all gone Britney Speary; you know? “Oh, I want to be a star and I want to go to that night-club. Oh, and have a hit record of course” You know? There’s no effort in it. (laughs)

"I don’t like decaffeinated teabags" Battle of the Bands © courtesy Bodog / Fuse TV

Was it different bands in each city, local bands?

No, it was the same bands in different locations. Bodog had been scouting these bands for a year before I ever walked into it. Which is kind of good because apparently there was something like 7000 bands; which is a little much for most people! But not for me oddly enough because I listen with intent; and I’m captivated by say a bass hook and things. I can distinguish what works for me; and it’s not “Well, I don’t think that will be a hit” that isn’t my approach. I’m not really thinking in terms of “Oh yes, this will be a magnificent Number 1” it isn’t like that. If any band that does win this is looking for chart positions; they’re not gonna get it on my say so!

It’s a ten part series but the competition is still on-going, you’ve still got more shows to do?

Yeah, a grand finale. It’s just odd the way things are shot so far in advance. And so haphazard. A lot of time I ending up shouting because microphones weren’t working (laughs), you know, bad PA systems!

It’s the Pistols all over again!

Yeah, very much so. So I liked that cheap and cheerful approach. There was a lot of travel, lot of bus travel; which I liked. America is a wonderful place. Any opportunity for me to get out and see different locales I’m up for it.

I’m interested in people. People make things entertaining. And I’m sorry, the wonderful world of the internet is very short on human beings. (laughs) You know. Whole generations are losing the plot here. Being manipulated by other people’s ideas and ideologies; and they’re becoming a slave to a system they don’t fully understand.

The problem with the internet – as we have found out only too well – is that it’s very anonymous and people don’t have the patience to check FACTS for themselves; or even to read things PROPERLY!

I think people have forgotten how to communicate on a one-to-one basis with each other. Humour and things are getting lost. Terms like irony are being misconstrued into people thinking you’re being spiteful, but you’re not it’s irony! The problem is when it’s written people don’t know how to read anymore, let alone write! People don’t understand commas and full stops in sentence structure anymore (laughs). I’m a living creature and my voice inflects what I mean, for meaning, for emphasis, and when that’s missing, well, you’re missing a lot. You’re missing about 7/8 of the information.

While you were filming ‘Battle of the Bands’ a story surfaced in a Florida paper [The Baker County Standard] that you were also doing your own six part series?

Oh yeah, that was when I went to the Civil War re-enactment. Well, yes. I have been working with the producers of ‘Battle of the Bands’, I have been working on trying to get another project going. So we have been running two things at once. I’m trying to work on a six part series and we’ll see if that comes off or not. Certainly, if it doesn’t, it won’t be because of a lack of ideas on our behalf.

We were expecting to see you on the new series of ‘Bronx Bunny’ but it has been and gone, what happened there?

Yeah. I know. Very odd. We filmed a very funny show with them and it seems to have been canned without any word to us; we haven’t heard nothing from them. It’s very strange ‘cos we did a thing for ‘The Tudors’ too, that went the same way.

That was the US TV series about Henry the Eighth?

I did one of the adverts for it. Which a good time was had by all, but apparently “It went away from the seriousness of the project” (laughs). I don’t know what Bronx Bunny’s excuse was. I can only say that somebody is doing some editing here. And again, remaining anonymous; alright? There seems to be this permanent looming storm cloud of Malcontent! (laughs) They’re not happy to hear anything I have to say on anything; and would rather just either cancel it or smugly edit it to their own point or purpose.

I don’t fit neatly into their little pigeon hole. And there it is. I’m sorry if there’s no room in this world for people outside the norm. Well, I don’t want much to do with that. I’m quite happy for them to edit me out. Pretend I don’t exist. Because I bloody well do. And it’s their loss not mine.

John Lydon.
The Horses Mouth.
July 2nd 2007.


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