Creative Loafing
September 2nd, 1995 (?)
Thunder Punk
John Lydon Spits All
By Tony Paris
Tony Paris: Why did you decide to write the book?
John Lydon: Uh, 17 years of bullshit and lies. Well, it took an awful lot. There's no one straw that broke the camel's back. Just an awful lot of them. And it became a very, very heavy load, having to live in the shadow of other people's mythologizing -- meant how your own worth and place in the scheme of things is diminished according to other people's egos. It's a very tough thing to have to put up with. It got as absurd as this: that people would look at me and go, "Oh you're Sid Vicious, aren't you the one that died?"
I mean it gets that bad. But I've discovered that unless you actually deal with these things outright, hit people over the head with them, they're not going to pay attention. They just constantly believe the first thing they're fed and that's it.
You wanted to set the record straight.
I think that in my past life I had a very valid point of view and one that hasn't been taken seriously up until now. One, because I kept out of it, but two, I think I pretty much stood for what I said I stood for, I never changed my opinions. I've stuck to my guns, I don't do this for the money. I mean what I say.
And what is it that you do this for?
I do it because I love doing it. And if you want to call it art, then do, but I'd put an 'f' in front of that. And it is farting around. I mean, anyone who makes music is irresponsible. We have to be honest about these things, and selfish, too. I mean we do it for ourselves. And if you change that game plan really, then you're just in it for the money, and then you're just like most of the rest...
Taking themselves too seriously...
Absolutely. Anyone who willingly accepts their place, for instance, in a category of music is just a power-hungry pig, a waste of space. Because you've limited yourself to something that you really shouldn't be. You follow that separation theory, us or them, and that's what leads to wars, ultimately -- that kind of attitude.
Music should be used more as a unifying force.
Absolutely. It's just music. It's not rap, it's not heavy music, it's just music. It's all noise, it's just different kinds. And if you look at what I've been doing over the years you won't find even two albums that sound even vaguely similar. The only unifying thing there is my caterwauling.
When you were in town with PiL in 1980, you told me you liked disco music. At the time I was shocked. I asked why and you were saying the same thing back then. So your views haven't changed: A person should be able to like whatever they want.
Yeah, and you don't have to accept the clothes-horse mentality. And that's what's so shockingly awful about the grunge thing to me. To expensively dress down. (laughs) Awful. They pay a lot of money for that look, those kids, and it's daft. I'm underwhelmed. And I think a lot of music, some of it's quite nice. But it definitely relates more to Deep Purple or Black Sabbath than it does the Sex Pistols.
Even though they claim a direct linkage...
It certainly isn't. What they've done is they've skipped out the last 15-17 years and gone back to the previous dinosaurs.
I'm glad to hear somebody else saying that.
They've completely ignored (the Sex Pistols). One, because I think we were too volatile for their tastes. So they've taken the easy road out. None of these bands sing anything that really means anything. They don't address any issues that directly affect people's lives. It's either self-pity or trite, banal love songs. And rap is so self-indulgent that it's now -- it pisses me off -- quite frankly I think it's hideous.
A lost chance there.
Well it started out bloody well and fine, didn't it? It was very varied, it was very multicultural and had no limitations. And it soon narrowed itself into a very ridiculous, black-only attitude. And even as an all-black music formula, they still disrespect each other, in the most appalling ways.
Do you think it was the musicians themselves or was it the record companies and marketing?
I think it's record company manipulation, and the (rappers) are too dumb to realize they're being narrowed into. They don't have a bigger picture of the scheme of things. A few people do -- I mean, Ice T's certainly a smart one.
Like Ice-T, you had a brief movie career, the one you made with Harvey Keitel. What was it called?
(In dramatic tone) Copkiller in America. The Order of Death in Europe.
It's worth checking out. It's one of the few Harvey Keitel films that people who like him don't know about.
Well, they should watch it. It is a good film. And it was the right bugger to do, too. I've been offered nothin' but shit since and I won't do shit. Just rubbish, you know? Be a punk, be a gunslinger, be a this, be a that. Critters came my way once. I turned it down and it was a huge box-office success. (Really cackles)
I missed that one altogether.
Oh it was some stupid furballs from space. And they wanted me to dress up as a punk and run around the planet ray-gunning people to death and nonsense.
Johnny Rotten the Punk. Seems to follow you everywhere, doesn't it?
Cause it's too easy.
Easy marketing.
Well, I've given people very little image-wise over the last few years.
Low-profile?
Hardly a low-profile. Very outspoken. But I don't give you clothes to copy. So I'm not packaged correctly and that mystifies people.
I did not see the Conan O'Brien show on which you were interviewed after Kurt Cobain died. What went on there? It seems to have upset a lot of people.
I just spoke my mind.
And what did you say?
I can't remember, but it was along the lines of, what an idiot, and how irresponsible. This is all you know about, right now, is life. And I intend to live for as long as I possibly can and have as much of it as I possibly can. And to try and limit yourself from that is really, really stupid. Don't tell me he was a sensitive soul. If he was sensitive, he would have been aware that he has responsibilities to other human beings. Really, what he did was he took the easy way out, and became, to my mind, a very selfish person. Very self-centered, to do that. He could have received a lot more help from those around him. I feel sorry for him in that respect. But, you know, I actually wanted to work with him. And it pisses me off. (Laughs)
I don't know. Did he buy into the Sid and Nancy mythology? Is that what that's all part of? When I read stuff like from his girlfriend, that she auditioned for Nancy in the Sid and Nancy film, I mean, that kind of ages her a bit, but why would she want to be that?
That's what I want to know. I don't know if it's so much that, or more as adopting this whole '70s dinosaur/heroin persona. That's what I think they bought into. The same way they bought into Led Zeppelin, to Black Sabbath.
They're fashion victims.
I think it's very wrong to associate that culture with the Sex Pistols. We were the exact opposite of it.
Which is what I was going to say: They learned nothing from that period because the Sex Pistols were not about drug culture.
Which is why they skipped over that bit.
What would you say you were trying to do or wanted to do with the Sex Pistols?
Just be honest. Say it as you see it. And not how you can manipulate it to making vast amounts of money. It's been said that the Sex Pistols' success was what destroyed them. It don't think that's true at all. I don't think we were very successful, in terms of Sid contradicted what we originally set up.
Which was?
To be absolutely against all that rock 'n' roll mythology that didn't work. Where it was great to be a loser or strung out on drugs. It certainly is not.
I was shocked when I went to Seattle for this book. The people that turned up. There was a very, very large amount of heroin addicts in that crowd. And they really, really could not understand why I was upset with them. "But everybody does it, man, it's cool." Ouch. The fact that everybody does something makes it uncool.
Heroin use has been on the rise in Atlanta, too. A musician told me that I was wrong in condemning heroin, that it is a musician's drug and it really gives you a groove.
No, no. What heroin does, I mean, initially, it compliments you. But then it destroys any creativity at all. It takes back what it gives you in the first place. Just like cocaine. You get your 30-second high, then your three hours of down. You pay back -- oof -- in spadefuls and I use the word spade most appropriately because you will end up underground. Shoveled over with dirt. I can wait for that. I mean I'm not into cryogenics, where they deep freeze your body, and expect to come back in the future. I want to stay alive right now, as long as this body will sustain me. And when that ends, then that's fine and I accept it. But I'm certainly not going to do anything to hurry that process.
Did you always have that feeling?
Yes, always. And it's funny that songs like what Pete Townshend, that lyric "hope I die before I get old," is that in "My Generation"? That always impressed upon me that that is not the attitude to have. When I heard it, I said, "That's really naive."
Yeah. If we're lucky, we get old.
Very lucky.
One time you told me, I think we were having breakfast, and you said something about writing "Swan Luck" ("Death Disco") after you're mother's death.
Yes.
Since I last saw you in New York, I've lost both my mother and my father, and I could not believe what a blow it was and how hard it was.
Oh, it fucks you up big-time. There's a huge emptiness inside you that takes an awful long time to get over. And it's things like that, that really matter in your life when you think about it.
How do you deal with it?
Well it just makes you realize how lonely we all are. And to look out for the people you respect, because they won't be here forever.
Most of us tend to take it for granted that they will be.
Absolutely, and it just wrenches large amounts of you that you can never make up for and you just have to get on with it and then pay respect to the surviving members. I've never given up my trust in people, I constantly get abused for that, but it's worth it.
Nice guys finish last?
Well, I don't think they do. You take more knocks than usual. But you don't end up disrespecting yourself.
And you gain a lot more from the experiences.
I would think so.
To get back to the book for a second, I thought you approached it in an interesting way, with outside contributors' comments on situations and then your own comments bouncing off of them.
I wanted the book to read like conversation. Not as, oh God, a long-winded me, me, me self-written piece of stuff. You've got to have contradictions in there because you look at any one topic, and no two people will see it the same way. And that is part and parcel of being a human being, you've got to accept that.
Do you think that people who have a superficial view of John Lydon or punks or whatever, question how you can think about being a human being and how you can think about things that have a certain passion or emotion when you're supposed to be this guy who wants to destroy all that -- do you think they're missing what life is all about?
The things I'm trying to destroy are the limitations that people do generally impose upon themselves. Fashion victims are incredibly limited by other people's whims. Why would you want that on yourself? Why would you bring that upon yourself? How can you accept that?
Or Catholic upbringing, like yourself.
Or Catholic upbringing, or any religious process really. Or any political grouping. You must be able to always view yourself as a free spirit in any situation. You must never go with the flow really because everybody else does. You might upset a lot of people. But what you're really doing is putting the thought in their heads, "Hold on, he's right."
That free spirit almost sounds like a hippieism.
I doubt that. The hippies were the most tied-down of the lot. From tie-dyed T-shirts onwards, the whole thing was complete fashion and complete posture.
Have you listened to any of the alternative commercial radio stations?
A few.
You turn on the station, and they're playing Pearl Jam.
What's alternative about it?
Exactly.
Only a fool thinks that those bands don't have publicity machines behind them.
Pearl Jam's the Journey of the '90s.
Absolutely, and to pretend otherwise is really, really phony. They are calculated businesses, which is all fine, I don't see anything wrong with that, just be honest about it, don't pretend you're doing this for the kids, because, really, they're not.
When these stations play oldies, they play Talking Heads and Squeeze -- I still haven't heard the Sex Pistols or the Damned or ...
Well, they could never tolerate that, 'cause it's a little too much content, isn't it?
Right. And today people don't know what it was like back in 1976, 1977, and 1978, because with MTV and "Entertainment Tonight," and everything so cult of personality and celebrity-oriented, if the Pistols were to play an American debut today, it would be a pay-per-view on MTV, if you'd allow it, and it wouldn't be a threat, it would be a marketing technique.
And that's exactly why I won't re-form.
People don't realize that everything was threatening back then. I mean, I remember being in the audience at that Pistols show and having the Atlanta Police there, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation there, the FBI there, the Memphis police department there, everyone there, scared to death, not knowing what was going on, electricity in the air and ...
And the threat of jail was a consistent factor.
Today, they don't take risks, they merely make fashion statements, and that's different. It's a cop-out all round. Maybe that's the voice of this generation: We're scared and we want you all to know it.
I think you hit it on the head with MTV, etc., etc., because they're all browbeaten down, now, by media imagery. And that never really existed in the past, at all. Things would be judged by live performance, rather than a trashy, over-indulgent, very expensive video production.
Did you end up making any money from the Sex Pistols? I know you had a problem with Malcolm (McLaren) and royalties ...
No, all of that was settled in court, but by the time the lawyers and the accountants had taken their whack: minimal, I mean, really minimal. I mean something like five figures between the lot and that's it. You know. Nothing, really. And then the tax comes in, and -- you couldn't live on it.
It was basically just setting the record straight and proving a point?
Well, you have to, otherwise people can walk all over you. You have to stand up for things.
Where is the 404 code, again?
Atlanta, Georgia.
Oh right, you, yeah.
Atlanta, where the Pistols played their triumphant American debut.
(Laughs) I love Atlanta. It's a crazy place. But I'm sorry to hear that heroin's creeping in now. It's everywhere now.
Well, it's their life, not mine. As long as they don't point fingers at me and tell me I'm wrong or old-fashioned ...
Or a dinosaur.
Well, whatever. I mean it's dinosaur lifestyle that they're following. I mean, the whole lot of them should be in Jurassic Park.
Like you said, they skipped over a certain period in time...
Yeah, because it doesn't quite jell with the whole philosophy that they've bought into lock stock and barrel.
How's married life?
Same as it ever was. It's absolutely fine. No problem. Again, it's a commitment, one I didn't jump into lightly. (Singing, jokingly:) "I've looked at life from both sides now" -- what's that dreadful old song?
It's life's illusions you recall, huh?
I really don't know life at all ... (laughing) I made a commitment and I stick with it, because I didn't make it lightly, and it was the right move.
How do you know when it's the right move?
Oh, you know. You know. If it isn't, you'll have doubts. And I've never had doubts, so there you go. This is the person I fully intend to argue with for the rest of my life. And believe me, arguments are fantastic. I mean they're really savage, but they're such great fun. If they're used as such, you can learn from them. If you're just gonna get spiteful and petty with each other, then you know, it's time to move on. That hasn't been the case yet, and I don't think it will be.
It's the perfect match then.
A quality mismatch. If we both had the same opinions, it would be extremely dull.
My parents used to tell me they never went to bed mad at each other. Do you do that?
I don't think that's true.
I wondered myself, but it sounded good, had that good fairy-tale quality to it.
Well I think that came with a nod and a wink. Nobody's gonna stay up all night.