| Who
would you want to see in the role of Johnny Rotten in a movie about
his life? Justin Timberlake? That's the suggestion of Mr. Rotten himself.
He's joking, of course. But
John Lydon, who has been unsatisfied with portrayals of him in such
films as "Sid and Nancy," is giving the matter serious thought
these days. He has teamed with Penelope Spheeris, director of the "Decline
of Western Civilization" punk and metal documentaries as well as
"Wayne's World" and other features, to develop a movie based
on the Sex Pistols singer's 1994 memoir, "Rotten: No Irish, No
Blacks, No Dogs." "Penelope Spheeris is someone I love and
adore, and I think we're going to make a wonderful film," Lydon
says, noting that a few other people had attempted to write scripts
for the film but had not met his exacting standards. "Writers tend
to misunderstand or over-elaborate or exaggerate," he says. "It's
my life. Just tell it as it is."
The focus of the book is
on his lower-class London roots and the dismal situations that forged
the no-compromise stance he's taken throughout his career. "People
don't understand that it means you have no hope, no future -- you're
told that from the day you're born," he says. "It's still
there, that repressive idiocy. People like me come from that. We don't
back down.
"I don't want to make
a VH1 rockumentary-type film where you can generically drop in Billy
Idol or the Partridge Family and it comes out the same way," he
says. "It will be considered an unusual film by many, I suppose.
But ... conventional doesn't work for me." Lydon does not think
finding a worthy actor will be hard.
"I've got to say there's
a lot of young people out there that have the right attitude,"
he says. "They don't have to be bloody well-known actors."
The teaming with Spheeris comes at a busy time for Lydon. He's about
to take the Sex Pistols on the road for their first tour since the 1996
"Filthy Lucre" reunion trek, starting in Boston on Aug. 20,
with dates scheduled for Sept. 6 at L.A.'s Greek Theatre and Sept. 7
at San Diego's Street Scene festival.
For this tour, the band is
stripping it down to the basics: no backdrop, no big lighting rig, just
"hard and simple," he says. He's particularly excited that
in isolated shows such as their appearance last September at the Inland
Invasion show in Glen Helen, the crowds have been diverse.
"The variety makes
it worthwhile," he says. "Nothing more awful than seeing one
huge army of mohawks -- such a disgusting cliché and so against
anything I've stood up for. If you want a uniform, there are real armies
out there you can join."
He's also working on material
for a solo album, his second since breaking up Public Image Ltd. in
the mid-'90s. Among the tracks are recent collaborations with Australian
producer Nick Launay, who worked on PiL's 1981 album "The Flowers
of Romance." He's got eight songs done, although he has not approached
labels about releasing it yet. "It's serious hard dance,"
he says. "I use the word 'dance' very flippantly. It's just solid.
Not rock." |