By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
August 11, 1996
“Wot do you want?!”
Johnny Rotten has spoken. Phoning from Los Angeles, the Sex Pistols vocalist was his usual surly self. We’d expect nothing less, and he knew that.
God save the queen – the Sex Pistols are back. And if they’re not as lean and mean as they were 20 years ago, they don’t care. The British press gleefully speared the quartet whose name has become synonymous with punk rock, accusing the 40ish musicians of being too old and fat to be punk. And America’s cynicism about the tour could be heard in those who quickly pointed out that this country’s crop of nouveau punk bands (Green Day, Presidents of the United States of America, Offspring, Rancid, et al) are more valid today than the 1996 version of the Pistols.
“We never called ourselves a punk band,” said Rotten (a.k.a. Johnny Lydon), 40. “That’s a name given to us by journalists. Journalists don’t want to print the truth – just the mythology. And it’s very difficult to contradict the mythology once it has been printed in a magazine. So now, I’m not too concerned with what the press writes about us.”
Perhaps not. But the band is concerned that the press writes something about them. That’s why they hired a high-powered public relations firm (whose clients include David Bowie, Alanis Morissette and Tom Petty) to tout their reunion, which has been dubbed the Filthy Lucre tour (lucre, of course, being French for money).
The Sex Pistols, who skipped Chicago in their one and only U.S. tour in 1978, will play a sold out show Saturday at the Aragon. They’re touring with their original lineup – Rotten, drummer Paul Cook, 40, guitarist Steve Jones, 41, and bassist Glen Matlock, 39 – but not with its most infamous member. Sid Vicious joined the Pistols after Rotten fired Matlock, purportedly for liking the Beatles too much. The least musically talented and the most mercurial tempered, Vicious carved out a niche for himself in rock history when he died of a heroin overdose in 1979. He was awaiting trial for fatally stabbing his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen.
Purists argue that without Vicious, the reunion tour is a sham – kind of like the Beatles touring with Julian Lennon filling in for his father, or with original drummer Pete Best instead of Ringo Starr.
To that charge, Rotten uttered a uniquely British epithet.
“Sid contributed not one bit to the Sex Pistols,” Rotten continued, irritated at being asked about his former bandmate. “He could not play, didn’t write one song – he was a coat hanger. We were not addicts. Drugs all revolved around one Sid Vicious. The mythology was built through (former Svengali manager) Malcom (McLaren), and people bought it. At the time, I thought, `Well, sure, the public would realize this was a fiasco and turn their noses,’ but I suppose I should never underestimate the public’s stupidity.”
The Pistols’ soft-spoken drummer is more diplomatic.
“It can be the Pistols again without Sid,” Cook said in a separate interview. “He didn’t start the band. He joined after we had already made our name. But because he’s dead, he’s become this punk icon. We were never into that in the first place. He used the band as a vehicle to go crazy.”
Crazy is a word many parents used when the Sex Pistols exploded onto the music scene in 1976. The press gave more space to covering their antics (splashing around in toilets, spitting at fans, vomiting in airports, slandering the queen) than their belligerent lyrics (“I am an anarchist/I am the antichrist!”).
But will the lyrics shock today’s audiences, which have been inundated with images of sex and profanity not only in songs, but also in the accompanying videos?
Nope.
Aside from a belch or two, courtesy of Rotten, the Pistols appear positively polite compared to the foul-mouthed little stinkers in Green Day.
“I think people are unshockable today,” Cook said. “I don’t think kids are going to find us outrageous. But we do seem to be shocking people just by getting back together again.”
Ah, yes. The reunion tour. From the onset, the Pistols have made no illusion as to why they’re they’re back together: for the filthy lucre.
“We never made any money from the Sex Pistols,” said Rotten. “I don’t see any harm in us finally making some money off of the Pistols now.”
Cook jokingly added, “Maybe all the bands who say they’ve been influenced by us should send us some money.”
Contrary to the punk credo of do it yourself, the Sex Pistols actually were a creation of their savvy manager, McLaren. In that respect, they share more with the likes of the New Kids on the Block, the Monkees and Menudo than with the Clash, the Ramones and the New York Dolls. McLaren actually got the idea for creating his own version of a punk band during his short-lived career as the manager for the glam-punk Dolls.
“Malcolm saw what was happening with the Dolls and the potential there was in the market for bands like that,” said James Stark, author of Punk ’77 (Stark Grafix). “He was a very astute, very aware person. That’s where he got all his ideas from – the New York Dolls. But they weren’t about to let him mold them. So he got together a group of young boys who would listen to him.”
For McLaren and his girlfriend, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, the band’s look was as important as their sound. Hence, the tattered jeans, ripped T-shirts, safety-pinned piercings, spiked hair and, of course, the perpetual sneers. McLaren chose Rotten to front the band when the then 19-year-old Johnny Lydon walked into his boutique wearing a shredded Pink Floyd T-shirt with the words “I hate” scratched over it. He had the right attitude.
After the Pistols released their one and only studio album “Never Mind the Bollocks – Here’s the Sex Pistols” (1977), McLaren booked the Pistols on a 12-day tour of the United States. They made it through eight dates. Then internal friction after a San Francisco show on Jan. 14, 1978, ended the most controversial group of its time’s 2 1/2-year career.
Stark, who attended that concert, said he still remembered that night.
“They were the first punk band to play in a big venue, and it was very chaotic,” he said. “Musically it was mediocre, but as a spectacle it was spectacular. Steve Jones and Paul Cook could play, but Sid Vicious just thumped through the whole thing. Ironically, he became the symbol for punk, and he really had the least to do with it. But he represented alienated youth. The Nuns and the Avengers opened the show, and fans were throwing all kinds of stuff onstage.”
Like undies, hats and love notes?
“No, like batteries. And one of the bands got hit by a piece of liver.”
The Sex Pistols are unlikely to induce liver throwing on their current six-week U.S. tour. But the musicians say they’ll take whatever comes at them – literally and figuratively – with a grain of salt. They are worried, though, about the mayhem that’s ensued at some shows. Not their shows, but at other rock concerts.
“Nobody ever died at the Sex Pistols’ concerts,” Rotten said. “There was never a riot at a Pistols gig. They just pogoed at our shows. All that mosh pit stuff (that goes on today) where the bully boys go is self-destructive. It’s old and jaded and ridiculous. The fans who don’t want to get beaten up shouldn’t go near that fiasco.”
Never mind the bollocks, indeed.
