As his Sex Pistols bandmates tour without him, John Lydon vows to “never” return to the band which kickstarted punk in the UK, calling them “woke” as he prepares for a tour of his own with Public Image Limited (Pil).
Late March saw original Pistols guitarist Steve Jones, bass player Glen Matlock – who was replaced early on by the late Sid Vicious, and drummer Paul Cook replace Lydon – who was known as Johnny Rotten in the band – with singer Frank Carter to play their first gig at the 100 Club in almost 50 years.
The Sex Pistols also played to about 5,000 fans at the Royal Albert Hall in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust last month, but their legendary frontman was nowhere to be seen at either of the gigs, having initially been “insulted” by the group performing without him, before now finding the situation “hilarious”.
When asked if he would reunite with the band, Lydon tells the PA news agency: “Never, not after what I consider their dirty deeds, let them wallow in Walt Disney woke expectations.
“They’ve killed the content, or done their best to, and turned the whole thing into a rubbish, childishness, and that’s unacceptable.
“Sorry, I’m not going to give a helping hand to this any longer, as far as I am concerned, I am the Pistols, and they’re not.”
The singer previously fought a high-profile court battle against the rest of the band in a bid to stop their songs being used in a Disney+ series of their story, called Pistol.
Lydon’s frustrations echo the sentiments he expressed on Pil’s 1978 debut single Public Image, written about his feelings of being exploited by manager Malcolm McLaren and the press in the Sex Pistols.
The song opens with Lydon’s powerful wail, over the buzzsaw guitar of Keith Levene, singing: “You never listened to a word that I said, you only seen me for the clothes I wear.”
Asked whether the song’s lyrics will hit harder than ever on the latest Pil tour, which will take place while his former bandmates embark on a world tour, Lydon replies: “Listen, the opening line in Public Image, really seriously applied to the old Pistols back then, and still does.
“They had to get Billy Idol last year and now Mr Carter, to come in and listen to them (his lyrics) for them, that’s a clown’s circus at work.”
With Pil, Lydon experimented with a wide range of genres, veering into electronic dance music, reggae and world music, but he revealed he had initially wanted to explore a broader range of styles with the Pistols.
He says: “I really wanted to (experiment with the Pistols) I wrote Religion, which is a famous Pil song, while in the Pistols, but unfortunately they wouldn’t go near it.
“‘Oh you can’t say that’, it’s like. ‘have you not heard everything I’ve been saying before?’, this is lightweight.
“That was frustrating, but I mean, again I don’t mean to be digging them out, it’s not their fault that they’re talentless and can’t f****** move on, is it?
“As for me, variety is the spice of life, I love all forms of music, and I adore anyone that’s got the balls to rehearse, play live, record, and then deal with the guillotine that’s called the press, you should get medals for this.”
The 69-year-old went on to speak about his love of Lady Gaga’s recent single Abracadabra, and UK number one album Mayhem.
He explains: “I don’t listen to much music at the moment, because I won’t get on to serious radio and all of that, and internet, because it’s too complicated and I’m not paying for it.
“If it ain’t got an on/off switch and blares like a regular radio, it ain’t coming into my house.
“But I did see, and I do, I love her work, Lady Gaga, I love that new song, I love the theatrics of it.
“It’s all just high entertainment, but to me, that’s very much like when I was young, like Sunday Night At The London Palladium.
“It’s not done to harm me, and there’s good lessons to be learned in there, this great choreography.
“I like the way she plays piano frankly, and I like the structure of the songs, but they’re just not my structures.”
The singer says he has never been caught up in the narrow-mindedness of punk, after making headlines for saying he was a fan of flute-led prog rockers Jethro Tull’s Aqualung album in an interview with YouTube channel Classic Album Review.
Punk was often seen as being at war with prog during the late 1970s, with the Sex Pistols frontman himself wearing a T-shirt which read ‘I hate Pink Floyd’ during his first band’s heyday.
Lydon says: “Those that know me, and that would be a Pil audience, and some of the Pistols’ audience, know that variety is my game.
“I will delve into everything and anything done by human beings that I find fascinating and interesting.
“Otherwise, you’re not in a learning process, you’re merely imitating the genre, you’ve firmly stamped yourself into a box.
“Johnny, don’t work with boxes, no burial for me, I will be cremated with a packet of Marlboro, I’m trying to get sponsorship.”
His latest tour with Pil, is named This Is Not The Last Tour, a play on the title of one of the group’s biggest singles This Is Not A Love Song, and Lydon says he has no intention to retire, comparing himself to the Duracell Bunny.
The singer adds: “I had suicidal tendencies last year, I not only lost my best mate (John ‘Rambo’ Stevens, Pil’s head of security), but my wife (music promoter, model and actress, Nora Forster) as well, and so I went into a serious slump.
“The only thing that saved me from that was when I went out and did the talking tour (a Q&A named I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right), because that was pre-arranged and pre-booked, and I don’t like letting people down.
“That was marvellous, the connection between me and people in the crowd was stunning, and it brought me back to my senses, so I intend to continue with that as well as Pil.”
Shortly before her death, Lydon wrote the Pil song Hawaii as an ode to Forster, who was the mother of The Slits singer Ari Up, and he was invited to audition it as Ireland’s 2023 Eurovision entry, but it was eventually rejected by the country’s jury.
He says: “I took their very gracious offer very seriously to heart, and love and adore them for letting us do that, because this was before Nora died, and I wanted her to see the performance.
“So she did, and said, ‘but why are you crying? You ruined it’.
“That was my wish, that she knew I’d written a song specifically for and about her, that she would see that before she died.”
Lydon adds that Pil performing at the Eurovision final would have been “impossible” due to his wife’s battle with Alzheimer’s, and him not wanting to be “further and further away” from his wife while she was unwell.
He says: “God bless the panel for all their vile criticisms, they did me a world of good, and I can hop on the plane back to my loved one.
“Thank you, Jedward, you stole my old hair do, but you worked out good for me at the end.”
Formed after Lydon quit the Pistols in 1978, Pil went on to prove equally influential, leading the post-punk movement which followed, alongside bands such as The Fall, Siouxsie And The Banshees and Wire.
The band has released 10 studio albums, with another currently in the making, including Metal Box (1979), which saw the band explore bass-heavy dub reggae, the percussion-led The Flowers Of Romance (1981) and dabble with dance music on This Is What You Want… This Is What You Get (1984).
Pil’s This Is Not The Last Tour will begin on May 23 at Stone Valley Festival in Ware, before finishing in Wroclaw, Poland on August 23, with tickets now on sale.
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