PiL’s ‘Metal Box’ ranked Number Two in NME’s Albums of the Year in 1979. Who beat you to the top spot?
“Fuck off! Number ones? That’s like having a piss, innit? Better with Number Twos – we were the shit! [Laughs] Was it Queen?”
WRONG. Talking Heads’ ‘Fear of Music’ topped the poll.
“All accolades to the American import. Homegrown talent gets second best. I’m not bitter! [Laughs] I liked Talking Heads. On my last tour, I wore an extra-wide baggy suit in homage to David Byrne.”
Talking of pissing, Joey Ramone claimed the Ramones pranked you when you met them backstage in 1977 by secretly urinating in your beer…
“That’s nonsense! I’m an Irishman, do you think I’d let my pint go missing? So many lies have come out of the Ramones camp over the years. The biggest and most contentious was they were the precursors to punk. Look at the difference between what we were doing and what America was up to. Ours was a cultural war based in working class principles versus the Margaret Thatcher regime of the time, and all the songs are about that experience.”
Which French DJ covered PiL’s ‘This Is Not a Love Song’ in 2007?
“No idea!”
WRONG. David Guetta on his ‘Pop Life’ album.
“Never heard of him! Was that anything to do with Daft Punk? ‘Cause Daft Punk wanted to work with me a while back, but I didn’t feel the vibe. I felt it was too much of a ‘studio’ thing and gimmicky – nothing at all like the fun you could get up to with Leftfield, who I recorded ‘Open Up’ with, which I adore. They [Daft Punk] were just deadpan serious people trying to be techno. I’m not one for fellers that wear helmets as their live performance achievement! [Laughs]”
“They came at me with many ideas, but it was all ‘just turn up, there’s the studio, we expect you to do this. Go!’. But I can’t work like that. I have to be able to get good and fucking drunk with you before! [Laughs] I have to see your drawers drop!”
In 2017, which Manchester frontman said he would loved to have been lead singer of the Sex Pistols, joking “I’d have kicked out Johnny Rotten – he’d have gone. Get out, Gooner… I’m sorry, I can do Johnny Rotten in my sleep”?
“That’s great! [Laughs] Peter Hook from New Order? Is it the Simply Red bloke – old Carrot Top?”
WRONG. Sadly, it isn’t Carrot Top (aka Mick Hucknall). It’s avowed Sex Pistols fan Liam Gallagher.
“You could call him a Johnny-come-lately! When I heard Oasis’ first album [‘Definitely Maybe’] and ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’, it’s Johnny-isms all the way through. I just laughed. I loved it. It was so wrong, it was right.”
Any chance of a full Sex Pistols reunion or is there too much bad blood?
“No. When they took me to court [over the use of Sex Pistols music in the Danny Boyle’s 2022 biopic mini-series Pistol] using the Disney company’s money, knowing I could never raise enough to fight that properly – and doing it while my lovely [wife] Nora was dying, there’s no return from that. And they’re ever so proud of saying they don’t like me and want nothing to do with me. That’s good – then leave my words out of your current karaoke presentation.”
By which you’re referring to original Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones, bassist Glen Matlock and drummer Paul Cook touring with Gallows’ Frank Carter on vocals…
“The poor sausage! Does he know what he’s walked into? Good on him, what a great fucking opportunity, but there’s something darker going on behind it. It’s almost malicious in its intent. And its karaoke – that’s all it will ever be. Bloody hell, The Three Stooges in that band have had how many years to write some new songs? That’s what I’d like to hear.”
Have you checked out any footage of their performances?
“No, but Mr Carter has to follow in Billy Idol’s footsteps*, doesn’t he? [Laughs] Poor Billy! I saw some clips on YouTube and he’s gasping for air – he can’t sing my songs! [Laughs] ‘No Feelings’ is the great separator.”
*Former Generation X members Billy Idol and Tony James formed the punk supergroup Generation Sex with Jones and Cook.
What is the (unreleased) track you wrote for Kate Bush called?
“’Bird In Hand’.”
CORRECT. Do you still have the demo you gave her?
“Yes, and she made me promise to never release it – and I won’t. She was horrified! [Laughs] It was about rescuing parrots from the illegal import/export trade between Brazil and Florida. Every second Jack and Fanny had a bloody parrot in their living room! And they’re not homegrown! I was describing the video to her – I could see us both in a canoe, with parrots in cages, cooing ‘Don’t worry, budgies, we’re taking you back to Brazil!’ – and she got angry. And then she went off and did a duet with Peter Gabriel [‘Don’t Give Up’] so… sorry music lovers!”
Various actors have played you in different films and TV series. Name one of them.
“Well, Heath Ledger said he based the Joker on me [in The Dark Knight]. I watched it thinking, ‘What on earth is that to do with me?’, but then I could absolutely see myself in his Joker! [Laughs] I knew what he was getting at.”
WRONG. Heath Ledger did indeed base his posthumous Oscar-winning turn as the Joker in 2008’s The Dark Knight on you, but we were looking for actors who portrayed you directly.
Among others, you could have had: Anson Boon in Pistol; Andrew Schofield in the 1986 film Sid and Nancy (charting the destructive relationship between Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen), or Mark Windows in the 2002 Tony Wilson comedy biopic 24 Hour Party People.
Also, Bart Simpson (voiced by Nancy Cartwright) played you in the 2008 The Simpsons episode ‘Love, Springfieldian Style’.
“The Simpsons did me fine – the other three I thought were two-dimensional. Sid and Nancy wasn’t very good. I’m angry with that, because they filmed it and then had the audacity to ask for my permission when it was all done. That’s not a pleasant vibe, and I don’t think Gary Oldman did a good job as Sid at all. If he’d bothered to ask, I’d have given him great insight and you would have understood Sidney far better. They clowned him a bit and I was very upset. I couldn’t give a toss about the bloke playing me [Andrew Schofield]. When I met him, he was trying to be an ‘angry young man’ as Morrissey would say. See, Morrissey, I remembered you! [Laughs].”
When you finally saw Pistol, what did you think?
“I felt very upset, because I thought ‘Damn, this should be humiliatingly accurate and good’. And it wasn’t. It was as nasty a production as Grange Hill. It seemed very stupid and totally untrue. You look at those chaps in it – can you imagine me strutting about and chatting [adopts posh accent] ‘I think we need to have a bit of anarchy!’ [Laughs]. Those other Pistols, I tell you, they did not know what I was writing. Steve couldn’t read, so the lyrics were safe there! [Laughs] Glen, who could, threatened to quit the band so many times ‘cause of ‘God Save the Queen’, protesting ‘It’s fascist!’. You clown – it’s the exact opposite. So that’s where me and Glen fell out. And Paul was…just [affects a clueless London accent] ‘Ooh, interesting‘. May it rot in hell!”
What nefarious mutant chef did you play in the Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series in 2019?
“[Laughs] Is it Chef Boyardee? I love a can of good Boyardee – an American can of beef stew that makes you sick by the time you hit the last spoon. I didn’t know I played a chef in the Turtles, but I know I played something bloody saucy, and it was great fun to do.”
WRONG. Your character was called Meat Sweats – aka celebrity chef, Rupert Swaggart, who transforms into a pig.
“Are you sure?!”
Which drum ‘n’ bass artist claimed he collected £97 in coins that had been tossed at him by angry Sex Pistols fans when he supported the band at Brixton Academy in 2008?
“That’s my mate – he’s such a fucking liar! [Laughs] Shame on him! You give someone a gig and he’s complaining about earning a bit on the side! I WILL NEVER MENTION HIS NAME AGAIN, THE FUCKING INGRATE! [Laughs]. Goldie’s a scream!”
CORRECT. Many bands, including Goldie and The Cribs, speak of the baptism-of-fire experience of facing the Sex Pistols’ hostile crowds. Who held their ground the best?
“Probably the ones who hate us the most! [Laughs] That’ll be The Clash*. They were angry young fellers, but ooh, I don’t know what about really. How can you base a career on pretending to come from the council flats when you clearly don’t. They should have been sharing their middle-class experiences with us!”
*The Clash made their live debut in 1976 supporting Sex Pistols in Sheffield.
Name any two of the aliases the Sex Pistols used during their 1977 ‘The S.P.O.T.S.’ tour.
“It could be anything and everything! That’s where I got the vibe of not booking into hotels under my own name and used monikers like Mr Hugh Jarse and Cutie Linguist The Third.”
WRONG. Your fake guises included Tax Exiles, Special Guest, Acne Rabble, The Hamsters or A Mystery Band of International Repute.
“A Mystery Band of International Repute was mine! And Tax Exiles was because we had a little company to collect money in that we called Tax Avoidance Scheme, but we obviously got clobbered on that. By the authorities!”
Name any three bands you reviewed alongside Joan Collins and Elaine Paige on BBC music panel show Juke Box Jury in 1979.
“Well, there’s ‘C’est Sheep’ with all those sheep bleating. All I remember was watching Joan Collins who I had quite a fancy about when I was younger, but she had so much make-up on, whenever she tried to smile, there were particles flying off!”
WRONG. Apart from Adrian Munsey’s novelty disco track ‘C’est Sheep’, you could have had: Showaddywaddy’s ‘Sweet Little Rock ‘n’ Roller’ (which you denounced as “rubbish”), Donna Summer’s ‘Bad Girls’ (“mediocre”) and ABBA’s ‘Angeleyes’ (“horrible…and weedy”) among others. Any bands exciting you at the moment?
“None come to mind! I’m bored of that lot where the singer’s act is a beer belly: Viagra Boys! That’s wearing thin for me now. It was very cleverly manufactured and put together, but I liked it and thought it was audacious – but now it doesn’t work for me.”
Fair enough! Belfast rappers Kneecap have been called “the most controversial band since the Sex Pistols”. Have you checked them out?
“Nope! Never heard of ‘em! Oh begorrah! Again! There’s enough influences in Celtic music and culture – you’re not out of New York, stop it! Kneecap is a poignant name though, because that’s an important thing in Ireland north of the border – young kids carjacking, they get themselves kneecapped.”
Do you keep up with any newer punk bands like IDLES, Fontaines D.C., or Bob Vylan?
“No! There’s not much point. People trundle off into their own universes and that’s fine, but I’m not responsible for having to check them all out.”
You used to champion Lady Gaga. Any big current pop acts like Taylor Swift caught your eye?
“Lady Gaga was a massively layered and textured presentation – very Bowie era and pop music at its finest. But what she’s turned into is Bizarro World. She’s acting in films, and I don’t like her as a human being. I don’t think she projects anything healthy. I don’t feel any soul. I don’t feel her heart in it. It seems a shame. She should have another side to her.”
“As for Taylor Swift, she’s incredibly dull. There’s a whole history of that kind of singer in America: the pop teenage trivia thing. What she’s grown into is too elaborate and she’s trapped by not meaning to annoy her fanbase – oh fuck off! No really, it’s just daft. She’s got no place to go, so it’s gone into swishy ballroom-gown vibe. She’s going to be another one of those that ends up in Vegas, because that’s the only place left and that’s no future at all, is it?”
Not tempted to do a Johnny Rotten Vegas residency?
“Only for cleaning the toilets! [Laughs]”
According to Glen Matlock’s autobiography I Was A Teenage Sex Pistol, which two Royals allegedly had Sex Pistols posters on their walls?
“One: I wouldn’t give a tuppence what Glen Matlock had to say about anything. And two, what is he up to? Please! He’s a public schoolboy who’s angry at me because of my support for Trump. It doesn’t matter what Royals had Sex Pistols posters covering up a mould spot, I want to know what brand of toilet paper they’re using, in case it’s better than mine! As a taxpayer, I have the right to know! It’s probably Meghan and Harry.”
CORRECT-ISH. HALF A POINT. Apparently, it was Princes Harry and William.
“[Laughs] Well, who lent them that, then? I’ve never liked the monarchy, but they’re just people that unfortunately have found themselves in a gilded cage, not of their own making, and they’re confused how to deal with it.”
Who’s been the most unexpected fan of yours?
“Dame Edna Everage. I had the displeasure of seeing her live and the bastard [Edna creator] Barry Humphries pointed me out in the crowd! I couldn’t get any lower under the seat if I tried! [Laughs] I was the butt of the humour for a good five minutes.”
“I’m inherently shy when you catch me out like that. Paul McCartney was another one. When he once came running across the road to my cab screaming “John!”, I put the lock on and buried my head under the door! I couldn’t cope with it. The cab driver remarked: ‘Bleedin’ hell! I’ve seen it all now, a Beatle and Johnny Rotten!”
Bonus question! For an extra half-point, what does the Sex Pistols’ unisex perfume smell of?
“DREADFUUUUULLLL! [Laughs]”
WRONG. Fresh lemon, black pepper, prune and ambrette seed, and patchouli.
“That perfume doesn’t smell ANYTHING LIKE THAT, no matter what label they put on it! When it comes to scents, I don’t like them. That’s why I’ve got a Japanese toilet – it washes my bum, and all sense of smell goes away with it.”
The verdict: 3.5/10
“[Laughs] Take those three back! I want zero! I’m not very happy! What a miserable state! To quote Bowie, we could be zeroes…just for one day!”
PiL begin their ‘This Is Not The Last Tour’ UK tour in May. For the full line up of dates, see here