| John
Lydon lives in the upper marionette of the end terrace of a row of sturdily
built Victorian houses on the Fulham / Chelsea border. He picked it
up very cheaply indeed shortly before the beginning of the current property
boom. It was, he says, one of the sharpest things he ever did and was
all he came out of The Sex Pistols with.
This Saturday
afternoon I call round, the pre- Christmas cold snap has turned the
open plan (ie. doorless) living room into a rheumatic's vision of hell.
Though Satan the cat doesn't appear to object too much, JL pronounces
the room to be 'as a cold as the grave'; he huddles down on the couch
close to one of the two night storage heaters and watches 'Bruce's Big
Night' with the sound turned down as Bob Marley's 'Natty Dread' booms
out of the stereo speakers. Photographer Dennis Morris and Grace, his
lady, and Jo, John's girlfriend get as close as possible to the other
heater but it's still so cold that were all shaking.
Meanwhile Lydon
- obviously a conceptualist - has thematically linked the various rooms
of his household by cleverly placed empty and near-empty pints cans
of lager. The living room is full of cans (very handy for cigarette
ends - 'I bought a load of ashtrays but they all got nicked'), the kitchen
is full of cans, the bathroom is full of cans, and, on the previous
visit to Lydon's home during the summer, the writer recalls having stepped
out upon the flat roof and noticed that even the roof of the house next
door was covered with cans. . .
For the present,
though, it seems unlikely that John was going to be investing in any
more expensive objects d'art than these. The Public Image Ltd singer
(John insists that the group is a group and that he is only one fourth
of it - hence the egalitarian songwriting credits on the eight tracks
on the LP) has after all just been served with tax bill for £58,000
from his days with The Sex Pistols. Tough the niceties of the British
legal system prevent his in commenting in much detail on the current
state his wranglings with former manager Malcolm McLaren, John Lydon
does at least say that
'The man owes
me money which he won't give me. In fact, he denies there is any money.
So how come I've just been given a tax bill like that for money which
I am supposed to have earnt and, in fact, have never seen. However',
he shrugs, shifting the onus of guilt around to what becomes one of
the central themes of our conversation, 'you can't put the blame too
much on Malcolm because the music business permits and encourages him
to behave like that.'
Of his attempts
through British judiciary to prevent McLaren from utilizing the Sex
Pistols name, and thereby abort anymore atrocities like the Ronnie Biggs
epic, John Lydon comments simply that 'what I want is that the Sex Pistols
name not to be bastardised. Half the people who bought that Biggs thing
didn't even realize the group was any different.'
One notes that
pinned to one wall, in addition to an 'Anarchy' tour poster, is another
reading 'Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they won't get you'
. . .
As Saturday
evening gets under way, John and I, along with Dennis and Grace, disappear
up to his slightly warmer bedroom in the quest for an Interview Situation.
There, conceding defeat to the elements, John climbs fully clothed back
into bed in an attempt to keep warm - 'I'm going to stay here for the
rest of the night. What luxury.'
Adjustments
to the ceiling spot lights to better facilitate photographer Dennis,
who - along with Grace - only stay for that the first quarter of an
hour or so of the interview, seem to come close to blinding John. He
asks Dennis to angle them away from his eyes.
'What's the
matter, man?' laughs the lensman, 'make you feel like you being set
up?'
John offers
a half-grunt by way of reply.
'Ah, I wouldn't
set you up,' chuckles Dennis.
'Oh, I dunno,'
smiles John ruefully, 'I've done it often enough to myself.'
And as far as
John Lydon goes, everyone has a theory.
John Lydon -
the total innocent, bashed and buffeted by Babylon's shortcomings yet,
aided only by his inner purity and light, skipping merrily on through
these anachronistic horrors;
John Lydon -
as Mephistopheles, a persona possibility suggested largely by the 'I
am an anti-Christ' line in 'Anarchy In The UK' and JL's
penchant for blessing photographers with near-camp diabolic poses straight
out of 'The Omen' or 'The Exorcist';
John Lydon -
the closet queen, a viewpoint largely leapt upon when, at the peak of
the Pistolian paranoia, the apparently rockhard iconoclast was seen
to occasionally display a vulnerability and sensitivity that was, in
fact, obviously the yin to his determination's yang;
John Lydon -
the total manipulator, an image fostered largely by writers who've falling
prey to his treating shits as shits and also - a trait common to many
New Wavers (sic) - his near-spontaneous inclination to wind up and test
any new professional acquaintances. ('It's their own insecurities and
fears operating if people think that', he comments, incidentally).
In the end,
however, it appears to be almost antithetical to the very nature of
Lydon (why did his stop calling himself Rotten? 'I didn't. That was
the press's idea.') to even attempt to compartmentalize him so crassly.
Peel away all
the assorted personae - and the manner, which can only be defined as
charisma, in which he can become all things to all men - and they can
be seen as mere shields. Shed the shields and you'll see why all this
discussion is just so much flatulence. Amend that line - as far as John
Lydon goes, everyone who relies on their intellects has a theory.
Lydon's determined
anti-intellectualism is no mere pose. Whether he's thought it out or
not - on the odds that he hasn't, too much reason would, after all,
be relying on the intellect, would it not? - he's certainly aware that
a hyper-belief in the intellect, and a consequent divorcing of the conscious
reasoning faculties from the unconscious, is certainly one of the main
causes - if not the main cause - for the atrophied spirits
within Western society.
After all, yer
average English Pistols fan - the kind of punk mutant of whom Lydon
himself despairs for their never having sussed just how much they themselves
were media products - was never too concerned with Johnny Rotten theories.
All they knew was that when they saw John Rotten onstage there was as
much a release within themselves as when the elder brothers or sisters
- or even maybe their parents, come to that - had first experienced
Elvis Presley or The Beatles. Something had been liberated within themselves
and, as long as they concentrated all their primal responses - be these
knicker-wetting or screaming or pogoing - on this magnetic icon, they
felt like whole human beings.
So in the Sex
Pistols, John Rotten was capable of erecting a causeway from the nation's
- we're not dealing with simple fandom here, of course; the Pistols
did cause rather a rumpus - conscious to its unconscious, wasn't he?
Well, who am
I to answer that? All that I and you know is that for whatever reasons
The Sex Pistols, who were Johnny Rotten who was The Sex Pistols, managed
not only to make a lot of people feel very good indeed but also managed
to make a much larger number of people feel far more uncomfortable than
they'd perhaps ever felt in their lives. For whatever reasons the Pistols
managed to shake up an awful lot of guilt, to stab hard into a lot of
open nerves. John Lydon's only too aware of the effect that a simple
rock band created.
'Funny that,'
he says, grinning a grin that suggests that perhaps all the ramifications
of being the national scapegoat have yet to come clear, 'Nobody's ever
come that close to what we did. . . being either really liked or really
hated - but nobody ignored it.'
'What a joke.
And the other members - Steve and Paul - were not even aware
of it. Not even vaguely. Didn't want to know. Always struck me as funny,
that.'
One of the things
John Lydon certainly believes in is the ability of human beings to drag
themselves up out of the mire and transcend their limitations. And,
of course, it's a belief in which you constantly let down.
'I sense,' I
say, 'that you believe in certain qualities of excellence and elevation.'
'Yeah,' he replies,
after a very lengthy pause with more than a touch of sadness in his
voice, 'It's a shame I never seem able to find it.'
'Does that piss
you off?' I ask .
'No-o-o-o-o,'
a shrug of the shoulders, 'I should be used to by now. Good God,' he
sighs.
Ask John Lydon
if he ever considered himself a punk and he becomes almost even more
depressed.
'No! I refute
that term. It was ridiculous. I hate that name. I think it's loathsome.
And I particularly hated the people who took upon themselves to go around
calling themselves punks. They didn't have the mentality to suss out
that that was pure media walking all over them. People always get it
wrong.'
Although he
will concede to having once been fond of the Pink Fairies - 'They were
berserk. A laugh,' - Lydon is equally contemptuous of the claims made
by his former colleagues Steve Jones and Paul Cook that he used to deal
acid at Sunday afternoon Roundhouse gigs.
'How would they
know?' he demands almost querulously, 'You see, on one hand you have
Vivien Goldman writing in Sounds about how I was a totally innocent
child whilst on the other you got them saying I was selling acid.
Let them all carry on - I don't care. Apparently I was also meant
to have been a roadie for Hawkwind and a public school chappie and various
other bits and pieces. It all makes no sense and good sense.'
Lydon further
denies allegations that he was once a great-coated hippie by suggesting.
. .'it's just that when you're in your own area, you just have the style
as everyone else in that area has. And that was the style - long hair.
With skinhead gear. Used to look ridiculous.'
Did he ever
actually become a skinhead?
'No,' almost
hurt, 'I'd never have shaved off my hair. Think of it in winter.'
Until the Pistols
and John came together he was, then, just A N Other punter at London's
rock venues, 'doing nothing that anyone else wouldn't do. Except that
my hair was red and hacked all over the place and my clothes were torn
to shit . . but that was the only difference. And I didn't see that
as any fantastic beginnings of an anarchist movement. In fact,' he laughs,
'I was only doing it to be spiteful. It was almost like,' he bears his
teeth and tosses his head from side to side, 'GRRRRHHHH. I'M SICK
OF BEING BORING!!!' He splutters with laughter.
'But,' the smile
is replaced with a look of almost sorrowful frustration at the misguided
misinterpretations of others who should, but just couldn't have known
better, 'Malcolm and the chappies thought it was pretty outrageous.'
It seems pretty
obvious that, though previously the basic emotions had bubbled up in
their primal, unformed state, it wasn't until The Pistols Experience
that the majority of John's beliefs were counterpoised against sufficient
frictions and tensions for them to click into place with any illuminating
clarity. Indeed, the anarchic (sic) mass-marketing of the group - 'They
wanted me as some kind of cardboard cut-out they could wheel out and
put on display' - must have appeared so antithetical to the true feelings
that The Experience itself was drawing out of him that it's surprising
he didn't actually flip right out. Although it's possible that John
did come closer to cracking up than he'll admit. Both in Jamaica immediately
following the Pistols' split and once when I saw him last summer at
the height of the acrimonious wrangling with McLaren, there were moments
when the strong facade would almost imperceptibly crack.
'I'm only 22,'
I recall him telling me, 'and I feel I've seen everything. It makes
it very difficult sometimes.'
In fact, though
I believe he's now emerged from it far stronger, I'm sure the first
six months of the year were for obvious reasons, not a nice time to
be J Lydon.
As with most
of us really, John Lydon's life has frequently had a rather souring
edge put on it by other people trying to lay their false realities on
him. That's certainly true of the college John went to in Hackney in
an attempt to pick up 'O' levels. Obviously there was a heavy bass-playing
vibe about the place for it was there where he met with Sid Vicious
and Public Image bassist Jah Wobble:
'What a fuckin'
combination that was. Look at the three of us; that's what further education
did for us.'
'Did you get
any 'O' levels?' asks Dennis.
'No-o-o-o!'
laughs John, 'None has got anything. Just blind drunk . . on bored beyond
belief. Those places are so nauseating . But,' he becomes more serious.
'Don't you think it's bad? All that further education we had and none
of us have been able to use it anyway at all. Completely pointless it
is.
Had he ever
expected to get anything?
'UHH, let's
face it - everybody when they do exams thinks "Yes. I'll pass all
my exams and go on to be the managing director of ICI or something."
(long pause) - doesn't work like that, though. You end up sweeping floors.'
For whatever
reasons, the all-nighters put on at the Kings Cross cinema in '71/'72
hold vivid memories for John Lydon.
'I saw Iggy
Pop at Kings Cross - so there. Before he was trendy. . . and he was
awful. Embarrassing. Then that sort of thing became acceptable. . .
Outrageous. God, all those people who were on and no one ever bothered
to look at them twice. And now you can't get near them. Lou Reed. Yeah,
I remember that. Complete lack of interest from the audience,' - affects
Harper's art critic voice - 'of course, he was only a minor figure then.
Most people had vague ideas of what the Velvet Underground were, but
had never heard of them. Except for a few trendies. It was Bowie who
made him acceptable, wasn't it?'
Were you into
Bowie?
'No. . . 'Hunk
Dory' I didn't mind. Actually, I think he's the best thing he's done
is 'Diamond Dogs'. I really liked it.'
Did you get
off the whole glam-rock thing?
'Roxy, I liked
Roxy Music. They were good. Loony. Ferry singing his songs in the dinner
jacket was completely berserk. And then he took his
image seriously. Funny that. They all crack up over that. End up believing
in their publicity themselves. Completely out of it. The same with Bowie
doing his Ziggy bit and then changing and thinking "Oh, I am like
that. A person of many roles".'
Somewhere in
the back of my brain are some unclear memories of a most drunken evening
in which John Lydon, among others, was present. Vague recollections
of discussions about Russian writers, including Dostoevsky, linger on.
For whatever reasons, I'd assumed John had taken part in that conversation,
too. He denies this and claims that he's never read anything whatsoever
by Dostoevsky.
'I don't think
I could. Like I couldn't go and see Jaws. Too popular. Anything that
popular has to be a crock of shit. Funny, but true. I mean, what is
that James Joyce book? Ulysses? The one that goes on and on and on about
nothing. Everyone says that's brilliant.
He adopts a
cloistered, academic accent. 'Oh genius! The man's a genius! It's the
worst thing I've ever read in my life. What a shit he must have been.
Alcoholic idiot.'
And from a fellow
Irishman, too. Does John recall having any sense of traditional Irish
rebellion instilled into him?
'Not that I'm
aware of,' he shakes his head, 'I'm just Me being Me. And I'm not sure
I like of all the time, either.' he grins.
As The Doors'
'Waiting For The Sun' album wafted up from the stairs from the living-room,
John Lydon details how it wasn't Malcolm McLaren but Bernie Rhodes,
McLaren's assistant and subsequently (though no more) the manager of
the Clash, who spotted this sharp kid from Finsbury Park down in the
'Sex' shop miming to Alice Cooper on the jukebox. McLaren, he says,
'was alright then. But later he went completely up the wall. Tried to
cut out my social life out.'
He describes
how, on the Pistol's' Swedish tour, he and Dennis Morris had incurred
managerial wrath for staying up in his hotel room and listening to reggae
when 'Malcolm thought we should be down smashing things up and living
up to our image.' Equally, after John had chosen, amongst others, the
likes of Captain Beefheart, Dr Alimantado and Tim Buckley to play on
the hour-long Capital Radio show he put together in the summer of '77
with DJ Tommy Vance, McLaren was equally furious.
'That was
pathetic,' groans John, 'it seemed to mean that if I liked records
that I couldn't be half as ignorant, moronic, violent, destructive,
etcetera, etcetera as as they wanted to promote me as. . . .but Malcolm's
like that. He sees something in someone who thinks 'Oh, if only, if
only. . .' believes his own fuckin' lies.'
The antagonism
between Lydon and his manager began, says the singer, 'after leaving
EMI. Because Malcolm was just bullshitting from there on in. All that
nonsense about not being able to get gigs was to some weird managerial
scheme. He thought he'd bury us in some kind of mystique and that it
would help will record sales. He'd seen too many films,' John laughs,
'it was all his ridiculous, romantic image of himself. God, what a fiasco.'
There are those,
of course, with this image of McLaren as some sort of diabolic voyeur,
setting up all these bizarre situation so that he can get off on them
by viewing them from a safe distance.
'Oh no,' John
disagrees, 'I think he did all those things to the to the best of his
abilities. He didn't start out for that wrong reasons. It's just that
money interfered. He gets things wrong and tries to manipulate people's
lives like a game of chess. It was quite absurd because my whole attitude
towards the Pistols was 'This is going to be an honest band'.
But he was working against it. It started out as a laugh, right? Being
asked to sing in a band!?! I just thought 'Whoopee. Ha Ha. What fun.
A bumpkin like me who can hardly be bothered to talk'. And then I took
myself a little serious. And I found I wasn't scared shitless of yelling
in a microphone and it was really good fun. And 'cos they couldn't write
words I did all that - all the literature. It suited me fine. All the
things I've wanted to moan about all my measly life and I got into songs.
Whoopeeee. . . . '
But after a
while you didn't enjoy playing live any more, did you?
'No,' hesitantly,
'it got to be a joke, didn't it? It just got stagnant. That year when
we didn't do anything. . We never did any new songs. . . nothing. No-one
could be bothered. There was no point. That's what messed it up. I've
got nothing against playing live. I just don't want to do it night after
night.'
In fact, the
Pistols probably never played to more than about 20,000 people altogether.
. .
'Probably a
lot less than that.'
How many actual
dates did you? Do you know?
'Oh, about 50.
Certainly no more than that. Couldn't be. And that Brunel gig - that
last London date - that was the worst ever gig ever. The PA didn't work.
There was no bar. And they lost the key to the front door so the audience
couldn't get in.'
What about the
last English date - the Christmas Day Huddersfield gig?
'That was brilliant.'
It was a benefit
for the striking fireman, wasn't it?
'And orphans
and things like that . Malcolm hated it. Malcolm didn't want to know.
Because we lost a lot of money. Dear me. How tragic. Funny that. That
gig was never mentioned in the press, was it? Yet at the time they were
following us around the country 'Pistols banned here. Cause trouble
there'.'
Was that the
gig where you dived into the Christmas cake?
'I was pushed
into it. By a load of horrible six year old girls. Savage beasts. That
was great, that was. So good. Sid was pinching sweets from everyone;
he couldn't cope at all with having kids as an audience. Just couldn't
handle it. He couldn't do all that nonsense with his face and with his
shirt off. It didn't wash at all. They just though he was a buffoon.
And he knew they knew. And he was.'
When the you
stop being friendly with Sid?
'His attitude
changed completely when he met Nancy. One hundred per cent. He was banging
up all day and night. He became a total bore and just didn't recognize
any more anyone any more. It was pathetic. He can't play bass. He never
really could. It was horrible the noise he used to get out of it,' he
laughs, 'about the most offensive racket ever. The reputation he got
for himself as a bass player. . Johnny Thunders - now we know what he's
like. He's out of his box - refused to let Sid jam with him
because he thinks Sid's so appalling and it's not worth talking about.
I thought that was so funny - one junkie been discerning about another.'
But it's true
that you got him into the Pistols?
'Yeah.'
But you knew
he couldn't play then, presumably?
'Uhuh (pause)
No, but he was alright then. He was learning and learning fast. And
then he just got really fucked up. You've seen him go from
bad to worse. I've seen him go from good too bad to worse.'
Presumably that
must have been quite depressing . . .
'Just morbid.
It fitted in with everything else. Everything else was falling apart
so I didn't see why that shouldn't.'
In a way, though,
it seems as though Sid Vicious as he is right now, is the ultimate creation
which McLaren was aiming for?
'Yes, but I
don't think he likes it now that he's seen the reality.'
I think it might
have got a little bit out of hand.
'I wonder what
all the repercussions of that are going to be. Heavy, no doubt. I mean,
how will it infiltrate into others. Know what I mean? The way the papers
did it was really like 'Filthy, foul-mouthed Sex Pistol Sid Vicious
guilty of murder. The trial will be next March.' I thought that was
sick.'
I get the impression
that you were very upset by the whole business . . .
'Who? Me? (long
pause) There's nothing I can do about it. Malcolm has got his hooks
well in there.'
Anyway, I always
got the impression that Sid was just like that because he's nervous,
and that the whole thing was a ludicrous over-compensation that went
horrifically wrong . . . 'It definitely is. Yeah, he's always been a
born worrier.'
Was there a
time before the Pistols' split when you thought the end was nigh?
'Yeah. But I
didn't want to give up. I hate giving up. I can't stand it. If you're
going to do something carry it through to the end. But it was just ridiculous.
What irritating situation that was.' |