Fifty years of chaos, just one album, and as many shouting matches. Without John Lydon, the Sex Pistols enlisted Frank Carter and hit the road again. Steve Jones, Glen Matlock and Paul Cook tell WECB how British punk’s most turbulent history may have found a new lease of life.
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Until the second the Sex Pistols took to the stage at London’s Bush Hall last September, no one knew whether this new incarnation could work. In fifty years, they had never played a single show without John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten, the most iconic figure of the British punk revolution) and were now trying to move forward without him, after years of acrimony and a huge legal dispute.
His nerves evaporated the second Paul Cook hammered out the intro to “Holidays in the Sun.” In front of a packed and mostly young room, the group performed the complete Never Mind the Bollocks (1977). “It was like going back in time,” Jones said. We were looking at each other, me, Glen and Paul like, “It’s happening!” » Not even a question to ask. »
Press praise and festival offers flooded in. After Europe and Australia, the group will launch its first American trip since 2003 in September.
Lydon is not happy about anything
This is not the first time the group has attempted to continue without a founder. In February 1977, they made one of the worst decisions in rock history: ejecting Matlock, their main composer, and replacing him with Sid Vicious — addicted to heroin and incapable of playing bass. “Image-wise, it was fantastic,” Cook said. But everything imploded when Sid arrived. We all became Public Enemy Number One.” The 1978 American tour, where Malcolm McLaren booked them in Texan honky-tonk bars to provoke the public, turned into a nightmare: “We received dead rats, pig ears, bottles. » Vicious would die of an overdose a year later, while awaiting trial for the murder of his partner Nancy Spungen.
This was followed by the interested reunion of the Filthy Lucre tour in 1996. “We continue to hate each other vigorously, Lydon then said. But we found a common cause: your money. » For Jones, the challenge was also to silence the skeptics: “In the seventies, we always heard: “These guys don’t know how to play. » And this tour was: “We’re going to show you that we can play!” » The concerts were great. »
Then, in 2008, a final toxic tour. In his memoir Lonely BoyJones describes an uplifting scene aboard a private jet, after a concert, when the crew asks Lydon to put out his cigarette: “It’s like a baby throwing a fit — he bangs on the cockpit door, tries to open the portholes, basically puts our lives in danger so he can smoke his cigarette. » The epilogue, to the final Vitoria-Gasteiz concert, says it all: a spit from Lydon lands on Matlock’s pants. “That pretty much summed up the whole story.», sighs the bassist.
A coffeefrom Soho, and the ideae Carter
The new chapter started very discreetly last year in a tiny café in Soho. Cook wanted to put on a concert to save Bush Hall, playing Never Mind the Bollocks with a rotating cast of guest singers. “A few names had been put forward which did not appeal to me, Matlock said. And my son Louis heard my conversation with the manager. » Louis, who toured with Carter, felt he would be perfect: able to deliver Lydon’s words without falling into imitation.
Invited to jam with Cook and Matlock, Carter doubts. “I forgot the words. I called my mere on leaving: “I just played with two of the Pistols and did a lousy job. » She replies: “Well, it’s punk. » And I: “No, not the way I wanted it to be. » » The other two were won over and called him back to rehearse with Jones — their first collaboration since 2008.
There remains the dispute. Furious about the mini-series Pistol by Danny Boyle, Lydon sued his bandmates, arguing that they could not use the band’s music without unanimous agreement. A judge ruled: a simple majority was enough. Matlock, the deciding vote, sided with Jones and Cook. “If people don’t show you the right respect over the years, they are unlikely to return you.cupbe in their camp. »
Unlike bands that replace their frontman with an impersonator, Carter doesn’t copy Lydon. “He’s like a Ringmaster in a circus, and he ramsedon’t have a ton of energyenergy, Jones said. He goes down into the audience, makes them crowd-surf. He’s not trying to be Johnny Rotten. »
No new songs in sight on the tour, however: the repertoire remains frozen in 1977. A real reformation with Lydon for the 50th anniversary of the album, in 2027? Carter could see himself as a smuggler: “If there is the slightest opportunity for me to serve as a bridge, to reopen the dialogue, I will do it. And I immediately fade away. » Cook doesn’t believe it: “It’s dead. And anyway, I don’t want to do it with John. » Jones leaves a door ajar. “You said the magic word: “money”. How much money? We’ll see. It all depends on whether I need a new kitchen or something. »
Don’t miss Sex Pistols at the Carcassonne Festival on July 28 (with the Wampas as opening act) and at the V and B Fest’ at Chateau Gontier on August 21.
You can also check out our interview with Sex Pistols via our reader below:
