{"id":64863,"date":"2016-01-06T09:49:02","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T17:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/?p=64863"},"modified":"2025-02-05T17:33:57","modified_gmt":"2025-02-06T01:33:57","slug":"sex-pistols-steve-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juicemagazine.com\/home\/sex-pistols-steve-jones\/","title":{"rendered":"Sex Pistols Steve Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEX PISTOLS – STEVE JONES<\/strong>
\n Interview by STEVE OLSON<\/strong>
\n Photo by CURTIS Y SMITH<\/strong><\/p>\n

From a wee lad, to a Guitar Hero, the way the story goes is this… You play in a band. No other band that anyone has ever heard play the kind of music that your band plays. One record changes the way music and the music industry approaches music from that day on.\u00a0 There is only one Steve Jones… and it’s about the person and what makes them, them….<\/em><\/p>\n

Here we go. What\u2019s your name? [Laughs] I already know this.<\/strong>
\nSteven Phillip Jones. See you didn\u2019t know that I had a middle name.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know that your middle name was Phillip. SPJ. Where were you born?<\/strong>
\nI was born in London in Queen Charlotte\u2019s Hospital in September 1955.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re a Virgo.<\/strong>
\nYeah. I was born Sept 3, 1955. You\u2019re a Virgo too, aren\u2019t you?<\/p>\n

Yeah. That\u2019s why we are good. In 1955, \u201cRock Around the Clock\u201d was starting to break.<\/strong>
\nI was in my mom\u2019s tummy when she was down at the local palais jiving to all the rock n\u2019 roll. That\u2019s what was going on and I love \u201850s music. I\u2019ve always got Sirius radio on the \u201850s channel and I never get bored of it.<\/p>\n

What \u201850s dudes?<\/strong>
\nGene Vincent, Jerry Lee\u2026 not Elvis, I wasn\u2019t a fan. He looked great, but I liked his later stuff better when he had the white suits on and he was doing \u201cIn the Ghetto\u201d and \u201cSuspicious Minds\u201d and stuff like that. The really good stuff is Little Richard, and Gene Vincent is at the top of the list with Jerry Lee and Eddie Cochran.<\/p>\n

What about Billy Fury and all those cats?<\/strong>
\nBilly Fury was okay. He was England\u2019s version of rock n\u2019 roll. Cliff Richards was another English version. The real deal was Eddie Cochran.<\/p>\n

The \u201850s music is what it was all based on, right?<\/strong>
\nFor me, it was.<\/p>\n

It was a basic chord change.<\/strong>
\nPretty much. In the mid \u201960s, I remember when I was about ten, a bird lived next door to me and there was this guy that would go around and shag her and she had a little record player and he had a 45 of Jimi Hendrix\u2019s \u201cPurple Haze\u201d and I used to go next door and he\u2019d play it. I\u2019d say, \u201cPlay it! Play it again!\u201d I was obsessed with hearing that song. I thought it was the coolest song ever. I didn\u2019t know it at the time, but I had a certain kind of music that I liked and that was one. I was always into music. It was a big thing for me. I liked the Dave Clark Five when I was really young. Ready Steady Go! was the show that I\u2019d watch on a black & white TV. I remember seeing that when Sandie Shaw was the host and they had a bird that looked like Twiggy as a commentator. They had various bands on there, all that English swinging \u201860s music.<\/p>\n

You were a little kid then.<\/strong>
\nYeah, I didn\u2019t really get it. I remember seeing the Beatles movie with them running down the street and all the girls were chasing them. I was like, \u201cWhat is that? That looks exciting. I\u2019d like some of that.\u201d Obviously, I don\u2019t really remember anything about the \u201850s because I was in the womb. In \u201955, I was dropped out, mid rock n\u2019 roll, and then it started to deteriorate at the end of the \u201850s. It had already been going for a few years, right?<\/p>\n

It had already been going for about three solid hard years, but those three years had some great music.<\/strong>
\nOh yeah, for sure. Before the \u201850s, it was big bands. There was no rock n\u2019 roll.<\/p>\n

You had Gene Krupa and all that stuff.<\/strong>
\nYeah. You had Muddy Waters and all that crap. I couldn\u2019t care less about all that Lead Belly stuff. I hate the Blues, to be honest with you. I can\u2019t stand it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too slow?<\/strong>
\nI just don\u2019t like it. I like melody. I like songs with melody in them. Guitar riffs are good too. Now you have all these young hipster kids playing the Blues and it\u2019s massive. Some of them sing and play guitar and play the Blues, and it just does nothing for me. Prior to that, there was no rock n\u2019 roll. Rock n\u2019 roll, for me, was the real revolution, as far as young people getting involved with music. Prior to that, it was Big Band and Frank Sinatra. There was no rebellion. It was accepted by all.<\/p>\n

When rock n\u2019 roll played, they would tear up the theater. It moved you.<\/strong>
\nIt was for young people. That\u2019s what it should be. I should be upset now with young people and what they\u2019re listening to, but I\u2019m not. I don\u2019t care, which is not a good sign for the youth these days.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re not sparking any emotion.<\/strong>
\nYeah. They have them raves and that big bass stuff in there. If it\u2019s not that, it\u2019s retro music.<\/p>\n

When is the new stuff going to happen?<\/strong>
\nI have no idea and I don\u2019t care. If I want to analyze it, I feel that a lot of youngsters are resorting to looking at old stuff to get some sort of sense of music and what it used to be like, but times change and technology changes. You don\u2019t have to be good at anything these days. It\u2019s more about image and there are quick fads that come and go. It\u2019s tough being young and wanting to be in a band nowadays. You have to come from a place where it\u2019s not about making money anymore. That really narrowed down before the music business crashed. Now there basically is no music business. It\u2019s like actors. There are ten million actors in this town and probably a handful that work all the time. That\u2019s what it\u2019s like in the music business now. There are a few big shots.<\/p>\n

How does a band even make dough now, not the big shots?<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t know. It\u2019s got to be live shows. If you write a song and someone big covers it, you can make a bit of dough there. If it\u2019s in a TV commercial, you can make a bit of dough there. If a song you recorded gets used in a movie, you can make a bit of dough, but it\u2019s hard. Even for us, the Pistols, it\u2019s hard. I know we only had really one album, or a couple, from the old school, The Great Rock N Roll Swindle and Never Mind the Bollocks. We don\u2019t have a big catalog. Even with that, as far as residuals go, we don\u2019t make near as much as we used to when the music business existed.<\/p>\n

All of that stopped in 2008 with the Internet and all of that?<\/strong>
\nYeah. Everything is free now. Why would you pay for it, if you can get it for free? Kids don\u2019t even get the concept of going to a record store and buying a CD. I never use CDs. They are lame. I have songs on my phone. I had a few CDs that some people signed for me when I was on Indie 103 and I took them all to Amoeba and sold them before they were worthless. I have a Dodge pick-up truck and it doesn\u2019t even have a CD player in it. It\u2019s just got a cord to plug the phone in for Bluetooth and I\u2019m fine with that. It\u2019s so much easier. If I hear a song I like, I press on Shazam and two minutes later I\u2019ve got the song on me playlist. What\u2019s wrong with that? Nothing. It\u2019s great. You\u2019ve got these silly old people my age that say, \u201cWhen I was a kid, I stared at the album cover.\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cGood for you. Go ahead\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I\u2019m listening to a couple of other new songs that I just discovered. [Laughs]<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s convenience. The analog versus digital thing is just crap too. At the end of the day, it all sounds the same. There\u2019s no difference. Now you\u2019ve got Pro Tools where you can put a thousand trillion tracks on a little thing. It\u2019s great if you know what you\u2019re doing and you\u2019re a good musician. It\u2019s great having a million tracks and you can just edit it all, boom, boom, boom, but it\u2019s given people that basically can\u2019t even play music the capability of making music and then you go to see them live and they just suck.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s disappointing.<\/strong>
\nYeah. That\u2019s not a good thing. There are still talented kids. There are always going to be people being born with natural talent. That\u2019s always going to happen in all kinds of art, whether it\u2019s skateboarding or music or painting.<\/p>\n

Right. There\u2019s that kid from England, I forget his name. He\u2019s a singer\/guitar player.<\/strong>
\nJake Bugg. He\u2019s good and he writes good songs.<\/p>\n

Yes! He can play. I heard one of his songs and then I searched him on the Internet because I was like, \u201cLet me check out this kid.\u201d I saw him on a guitar show with some cat in Ireland and this kid was just strumming. The dude that was the guitar guy really couldn\u2019t strum the same way as this kid that had just picked it up. It was cool. I have a whole new respect for Jake Bugg.<\/strong>
\nYeah. He\u2019s a young kid, and he was like 18 when he first started playing. You\u2019re always going to get talented kids that are just born. It\u2019s got nothing to do with what era he or she is born in. There\u2019s always going to be people that have been blessed with talent. I like the singer for Arctic Monkeys, Alex Turner. I think he\u2019s very talented. I think he has a natural talent for writing words and lyrics. There are a million musicians out there. If you want to analyze it, yeah, the Pistols\u2019 idea is that anyone can do it.<\/p>\n

You still took time to figure out how to do it.<\/strong>
\nYou have to figure out how to do it on the guitar.<\/p>\n

Then when you would play live, you could play. I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m asking.<\/strong>
\nWell, people didn\u2019t want to give us any credit for how good we were. Before we broke, which was not long after we started playing, people would say that we couldn\u2019t play.<\/p>\n

Was there any truth to that?<\/strong>
\nThere was a little truth to it because, literally, I had only been playing for a few months. Cookie had only been playing for a little bit. Glen was the only real musician at the time because he had been playing for a few years, but we learned pretty quickly. We picked it up and we had a good blueprint. My thing was the glam Roxy music with David Bowie and the Spiders From Mars, the Faces, Mott the Hoople and Queen\u2026 When I was 14 and 15, those were the bands that I would go all over the country to see.<\/p>\n

Did you see Sweet play?<\/strong>
\nI did see them play, but they were more of a joke though. People didn\u2019t take them seriously because they had a bunch of hits and they were on Top of the Pops and it was pop. It wasn\u2019t in the same category as the Faces. Gary Glitter was number one and he wasn\u2019t taken seriously.<\/p>\n

What about Mott the Hoople?<\/strong>
\nThey were a great band. I liked a lot of those bands from the \u201960s like the Kinks and the Who. They were great bands. They were great lyricists with great songs. That was the foundation.<\/p>\n

When did you start getting into music and starting to identify hard with it?<\/strong>
\nWell, I was very poor and I had a miserable upbringing. My stepfather was horribly abusive and my mother was weak in all ways when it came to him, so I got pushed into the background. I didn\u2019t feel wanted, I guess, so I was an angry kid. I didn\u2019t want to be. On the other foot, if I didn\u2019t have a horrible abusive stepfather and I wasn\u2019t neglected, I probably wouldn\u2019t have gone down the path I went down to start the Pistols.<\/p>\n

In your heart, it probably hurt though.<\/strong>
\nOf course.<\/p>\n

As far as how a human takes it in, one can only accept it and move with where it is. Did it push you into rebelling as a kid?<\/strong>
\nYeah. I started stealing and smashing things up when I was 12. I was a skinhead when skinheads first started and that was great. I used to love that.<\/p>\n

Did that give you a group to identify with?<\/strong>
\nYeah. It\u2019s like what they talk about in Compton. When you join a gang, those are your real bros. It is the same concept.<\/p>\n

You latch on because there is some camaraderie there.<\/strong>
\nYour instincts take over and you don\u2019t know why. Looking back you know why but, at the time, you don\u2019t. I used to like hanging out with these kids in Shepherd\u2019s Bush. We\u2019d go to football matches and just cause trouble. We looked a certain way, the skins. It was a whole peacock thing, and I was a good thief. I used to nick the best. I had 13 Ben Sherman\u2019s, back in the day, and five pairs of Dr. Martens. I loved detail. I was very into detail.<\/p>\n

Where do you think that comes from?<\/strong>
\nI think that\u2019s just one of the basic instinctual things that you\u2019re born with.<\/p>\n

What made you a good thief?<\/strong>
\nI don\u2019t know. I thought I was invisible. In my mind, they couldn\u2019t see me. They don\u2019t know I\u2019m in the room and they can\u2019t see me. I\u2019d get away with so much. I got caught and I had 14 convictions as a juvenile, so I wasn\u2019t really that good as a thief. [Laughs]<\/p>\n

I got caught stealing cigarettes when I was in fourth grade. John Crooks went in and came out and he had a pack of Marlboro Reds and I was like, \u201cHe\u2019s not so genius. If he can do it, I can do it.\u201d As I was walking out, that hand came down on my back and I got taken into the back room.\u201d I was like, \u201cOh, this is not cool.\u201d<\/strong>
\nGetting taken to the police station was not a good feeling. It was not a good feeling at all.<\/p>\n

Yeah. I\u2019d say you got away with it some though.<\/strong>
\nI got away with it a lot of times. For the amount of times I got caught, it was not that much, for the amount of stuff that I used to steal. I was a kleptomaniac. Every day I went out, I was like, \u201cWhat am I going to steal today?\u201d [Laughs]<\/p>\n

There was the adrenalin kick too.<\/strong>
\nI didn\u2019t realize it at the time, but I was addicted to it. I have an addictive personality, and I didn\u2019t start drinking and using until I was about 14. I got that feeling when I first drunk a pint, like, \u201cAh, everything is okay. Everything feels okay.\u201d Prior to the drinking, stealing was the fix, and being a peeping Tom. I was looking through windows and watching birds. I was a dirty Tom\u2026<\/p>\n

[Laughs] You were just a dirty little kid.<\/strong>
\n[Laughs] Yeah!<\/p>\n

When did you discover that you wanted to play music?<\/strong>
\nIt was when I was 15 or 16 and I started to hang out with Malcolm McLaren down on Kings Road.<\/p>\n

How did it happen that you started hanging out there? Was that near your neighborhood?<\/strong>
\nNo. That was where all the clothing shops were on Kings Road. It was all the fashion shops. This was prior to punk wear. It was all flares and kipper ties and suits with waistcoats. All these shops had the same crap in it. There was one shop that wasn\u2019t like that, which was Malcolm\u2019s shop, at the time.<\/p>\n

Did you like fashion and that whole world, at the time?<\/strong>
\nYeah. I was dressed like that too.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an adrenalin rush to dressing up and looking good. I like it too.<\/strong>
\nOh yeah. I\u2019ve been everything. I\u2019ve been a skinhead. I\u2019ve been a hippie. I\u2019ve been a Teddy Boy. I\u2019ve been a greaser. I\u2019ve worn a suit holding a briefcase convincing myself that I\u2019m a businessman. I did everything in the space of like three or four years, you know what I mean? [Laughs]<\/p>\n

Yeah. Wait a minute. You were a Ted as well, after being a skinhead?<\/strong>
\nI was a Ted for like ten minutes. I would never claim that then. I would just see these revival Teds and I\u2019d say, \u201cI\u2019d like something like that.\u201d Malcolm McLaren used to sell all the Ted stuff, so I would go in there and steal it and then I became friends with him.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Did he ever catch you stealing out of there?<\/strong>
\nYeah. He didn\u2019t care. [Laughs] That\u2019s where the relationship started, around 1971.<\/p>\n

Okay, so you meet and you started hanging out at Malcolm\u2019s shop?<\/strong>
\nYeah. I liked it because you could go in there and hang out. They had a jukebox and a couch and he didn\u2019t mind me going in there. I think he got a kick out of me and he knew I was a little tearaway kind of guy, you know? I think Malcolm liked that. Plus, he couldn\u2019t drive, so I would drive him around.<\/p>\n

You had your license?<\/strong>
\nNo. [Laughs] I\u2019ve never had a license, but I could drive. I learned to drive at an early age. That was another big addiction, stealing cars and joy riding. Malcolm\u2019s girlfriend, Vivienne Westwood, at the time, had a little mini, and I would drive him to all the tailor shops out on the East End where he could get materials. Then I would hang out with him at night and he would take me to these bars and clubs, which was great. The immersion into that world opened me up to a whole other world where the elite used to hang out. It was all the hipsters of the early \u201870s, so that was good.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re 15 or 16, at that time, and now you\u2019re opened up to this new scene?<\/strong>
\nYeah. I don\u2019t know how I decided to want to start a band. There was one kid, Wally Nightingale, we befriended that went to school with us. He didn\u2019t look cool, but he could actually play a bit of guitar. We started going round to his house in his bedroom to rehearse, and then I met Glen Matlock because he used to work at Malcolm\u2019s shop on Saturdays. When I met him, he could play a bit of bass, so we\u2019d go over to Wally\u2019s. Cookie was always my buddy. Then we just started rehearsing at this kid\u2019s house. I stole him a guitar, a Les Paul. I was singing at the time, and I didn\u2019t like singing. Then Malcolm got involved and that\u2019s when he said, \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t sing. You should play guitar. Get rid of that idiot on guitar because he looks stupid.\u201d Then we auditioned for a singer and that\u2019s when we started the band.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re singing and Wally is on guitar and Cookie is on drums and Glen is on bass? Then you kick Wally out, and you jump over to guitar.<\/strong>
\nYeah.<\/p>\n

It was easy to nick instruments back then as well?<\/strong>
\nBack then, for me, it was. I nicked so much stuff.<\/p>\n

We nicked some stuff too. It was easy.<\/strong>
\nIt was easy. There were no cameras. I used to break into musical shops and the alarm never even went off, you know?<\/p>\n

Yeah. I\u2019m not condoning it, but it wasn\u2019t that difficult.<\/strong>
\nNo. You know what? I do condone it. Do it. [Laughs] See how long you last these days. You\u2019re on video somewhere. You\u2019re not getting away with it. Nicking cars back then was so easy. You could literally start cars with a comb. You just file down the edge of a comb and they\u2019d just start. It was great. Now you\u2019ve got cameras everywhere and alarms and all kinds of deterrent.<\/p>\n

Okay, so you switch over to guitar, but had you been playing at all?<\/strong>
\nNo. I didn\u2019t know the first thing about a guitar.<\/p>\n

How did you figure it out?<\/strong>
\nOnce I got slung over, we were doing auditions for singers. Once we got John as the singer, we got put up the West End behind a bookshop that Malcolm McLaren got dirt-cheap. I moved in there and I lived upstairs and there were rats and stuff, but it was great. It was the first time I had me own place. I was 17 or 18 now, and downstairs we used to rehearse. Prior to that, we used to rehearse and we had to rent a van and haul the equipment to a place and set up and rehearse and then take it down and then put it back in the van and take it back and it was a nightmare. So we got this place and we had it set up the whole time and it was great and I lived upstairs and it was brilliant.<\/p>\n

So you guys could go downstairs and jam whenever, day and night?<\/strong>
\nYeah. Pretty much. No one could hear you.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s genius. And you had gear and amps?<\/strong>
\nOh yeah. We had tons of gear that I stole. How else could three urchins afford to buy equipment? I never had a job in me life. Save money? Are you kidding me? The real key for me to learn to play guitar was that I got into this program with this doctor down on Harley Street, which was the famous street where all the doctors used to be. There was a quack down there called Dr. Cale and he would give out a diet program to lose weight, which was 60 black beauties and 60 mandrax to help you sleep at night, and that\u2019s how I learned to play guitar. I\u2019d take a black beauty, which was speed, and I\u2019d sit there for hours trying to teach myself.<\/p>\n

When you were teaching yourself, how were you figuring it out?<\/strong>
\nI was playing to a record. I basically knew the one bar chord, so I was just up and down the neck and trying to figure out leads and notes. When I was doing speed, I could literally do it for hours. Without the speed, I don\u2019t think I would have ever learned, because of the attention thing. I think I had that A.D.D. thing. At school, I\u2019d sit in the back of the room in class and I couldn\u2019t learn anything because I had no attention to learn. The speed got me focused.<\/p>\n

So you were just taking black beauties and playing?<\/strong>
\nThat was it and that got me decent in a few months.<\/p>\n

Yeah, but you also set your own tempo. When I listen to what you\u2019re telling me now, I think, \u201cOkay, the \u201850s is the \u201850s and then you have that glam world, which was beyond the players of the \u201850s and that took it beyond the basic form\u2026\u201d \u201cThe Girl Can\u2019t Help It\u201d and all those songs are basic, but there is power behind them.<\/strong>
\nSure. There are little bits of great stuff. There was a lot of music in the \u201850s too, just like in any era. You\u2019ve got your real dudes and then you\u2019ve got the knock-offs. That\u2019s always been since the beginning.<\/p>\n

This has nothing to do with this interview but it just reminded me that I saw this great movie called The Wrecking Crew.<\/strong>
\nOh, is that the one about the players for Motown?<\/p>\n

No, it\u2019s the dudes that were in L.A. They were the players for Phil Spector, the Beach Boys, Glen Campbell and a whole bunch of musicians. It was Tommy Tedesco, Carol Kaye and all these other cats. You have to see this flick. It\u2019s on iTunes or something. It\u2019s good. I just saw it. You will appreciate it.<\/strong>
\nI heard about that. I love all that stuff.<\/p>\n

Those guys are really excellent too. They\u2019re funny. The amount of songs that they played on is absurd.<\/strong>
\nThat sounds great.<\/p>\n

Well, you guys developed your own sound, which isn\u2019t so easy to do.<\/strong>
\nAgain, I think that wasn\u2019t a plan either. We didn\u2019t sit around and say, \u201cWe\u2019re going to be different.\u201d We just started playing the way we knew how. I thought I was playing like Ronnie Wood from the Faces, but I wasn\u2019t. In my mind, I was kind of close, you know? [Laughs] From that, and, obviously, with Johnny singing the way he sang, it just came out that way. Before you know it, it was like, \u201cThere is this new sound.\u201d We didn\u2019t know it at the time.<\/p>\n

How old were you then?<\/strong>
\nI was 18 or 19.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re full of crazy energy too.<\/strong>
\nYeah. It was one of them things. It was the best times. When you talk to any successful band, the best times were before you\u2019re famous and all that other stuff kicks in. You\u2019re just four dudes that no one knows, so you don\u2019t have all that other crap, and people saying, \u201cYou\u2019re better than they are. You don\u2019t need them.\u201d You\u2019re just four dudes trying to make something up and that was the best time. It was terrifying too because when we used to play up North, they hated us! It was all these idiots that used to go to working men\u2019s clubs wearing their flares and stuff. It was ignorant Northern English people. Maybe one out of the crowd would be like, \u201cOh, this is cool.\u201d The rest of them hated us and they were slinging bottles and pint glasses at us. It was awful. I used to puke before the gigs. It was horrible. Looking back on it, it was brilliant, because it was the beginning. No one knew what was coming around the corner. We didn\u2019t have any idea.<\/p>\n

So you had these dudes in their flares and you guys were not dressing in flares.<\/strong>
\nNo, and we were not sounding like the Glitter band or whatever.<\/p>\n

The lack of familiarity pissed them off?<\/strong>
\nYeah. Like most people, if they don\u2019t understand something, they react negatively. They\u2019re not bringing it in with open arms. They don\u2019t like anything that they don\u2019t understand and they turn against it. You know what makes me laugh? There are people now that are like, \u201cI remember seeing you guys back in the day.\u201d I\u2019m thinking, \u201cYeah. You probably hated us too.\u201d Now they\u2019re like, \u201cI was there!\u201d You can smell them out a mile away.<\/p>\n

Was it hard to get gigs for you guys?<\/strong>
\nWe didn\u2019t do that many gigs and it happened so quickly.<\/p>\n

In the span of how long?<\/strong>
\nIt was like a year.<\/p>\n

So you form and you play out a little bit\u2026<\/strong>
\nWe played a couple of little places. We couldn\u2019t get gigs. We opened up for people. There was a thing called the pub circuit, at the time, where Joe Strummer was playing.<\/p>\n

He was with the 101ers then, right?<\/strong>
\nRight. We opened for them. That\u2019s when that fight broke out and we got on the front of the music paper. That kind of pushed us into the limelight. Then Joe Strummer saw us and, the next thing you know, he\u2019s like, \u201cRight. Right.\u201d It was great because he saw the light. He was like, \u201cI\u2019m gonna do that.\u201d We excited him. He got it. I used to love the Damned and the Clash. I used to like the Stranglers, although they never really quite got accepted because they were older.<\/p>\n

They could play a little bit. Jean-Jacques was a good player.<\/strong>
\nThey were all good players, but they were older. Whenever you think of punk bands, you never think of the Stranglers, but they were around early on. The Buzzcocks were around from the beginning.<\/p>\n

What about the Vibrators?<\/strong>
\nThey were Johnny-come-lately\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Did Spedding have something to do with that?<\/strong>
\nHe produced them and played on a couple of their things, but they were nothing. They were Johnny-come-lately\u2019s. Generation X was there pretty early, but didn\u2019t get accepted because he was such a pretty boy.<\/p>\n

Was that his fault?<\/strong>
\nNo. No.<\/p>\n

I liked Gen X.<\/strong>
\nI do too. Billy Idol was around at the beginning. Billy was around before anyone, with the Bromley Contingent. He used to come and see us play. He was way ahead of the game. I have respect for Billy. Generation X had a couple of good songs, but they didn\u2019t have the depth. Rotten had a gift for the words. He was a great lyricist. The things he was singing about was unheard of back then. I didn\u2019t get it. I was just playing guitar.<\/p>\n

[Laughs] Yes.<\/strong>
\nIt didn\u2019t matter. I didn\u2019t have to understand what he was doing.<\/p>\n

You guys were the nucleus for writing the songs and then John would come in and sing and write the words?<\/strong>
\nYeah. It all worked. There were a couple of years where it all worked. Listening back to punk bands, one of my favorite albums is the first Damned album, Damned Damned Damned. I loved it.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah. One of the first songs I learned was \u201cNeat, Neat, Neat.\u201d I was like, \u201cThat is really cool. That\u2019s some hopped up \u201850s music.\u201d<\/strong>
\nYeah. They were tight and they played with great rock n\u2019 roll spirit. That\u2019s a great album.<\/p>\n

As a kid, I remember liking the way that Ray Scabies attacked his drum set. It was like he wanted to hurt his drum set.<\/strong>
\nIt was out of control sounding.<\/p>\n

So, within a year, the Pistols became what it became.<\/strong>
\nYeah. It was a combination of scenarios and the Bill Grundy show\u2026<\/p>\n

At the Bill Grundy show, you were taking the piss out of the old guy. Everyone was, but you were.<\/strong>
\nYes, of course. He was being an ass and we stood up for ourselves and most people wouldn\u2019t. Most people would have accepted it like, \u201cOh, I\u2019m on the Bill Grundy show. Treat me bad. I don\u2019t mind. I\u2019m on the show.\u201d We just didn\u2019t get the concept of that. You know what\u2019s funny? Whenever you see any interviews of the Beatles being interviewed in the \u201860s, all these interviewers would interview you like you were an idiot. That was the way they used to interview you. They\u2019d try to catch you out on stuff. That was the same mentality as this Bill Grundy guy. They were not pulling for you. They were trying to make fun of you. That\u2019s how the interviewers on TV used to interview you.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s disrespectful, and it\u2019s also this whole adult thing against the kids.<\/strong>
\nYeah. It was acceptable then and these guys were bigots and pedophiles and they had the power. Most working class people would just accept what they were given. For some reason, our instinct was that we weren\u2019t having it with this guy. We weren\u2019t going to let this guy treat us the way he was treating us and that catapulted us into a whole other place. The next day it was insane. The Sex Pistols were a household name overnight.<\/p>\n

How did the Grundy show happen?<\/strong>
\nWe had just got a record deal with EMI and we were going to go on the road with the Heartbreakers, the Clash and the Damned. We were rehearsing and someone says, \u201cWe have to go to the Today show now.\u201d I was like, \u201cOkay.\u201d I guess, Queen was meant to do it, and we were on the same label, EMI. Queen had to pull out and they had to fill the spot with someone else, so we went down there. I don\u2019t know the ins and outs or what the truth was, but that\u2019s how I perceived it, so we went down there to talk about our new single, \u201cAnarchy in the U.K.\u201d and the tour we was going to do, not that we spoke about any of that because he wasn\u2019t interested.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t care.<\/strong>
\nNo. He was drunk. He was just an obnoxious ass and he was the status quo and he just did his thing. It was just one of those flukes that backfired. It was great. Prior to that, we were doing good. On the other foot, it was also the beginning of the end because that took it to a whole other level. Then it wasn\u2019t about the songs anymore. It was about the circus after the Grundy thing. It wasn\u2019t about anything else that was happening with the band. That\u2019s what I didn\u2019t get. In hindsight, we should have milked it. I just didn\u2019t understand what was happening at the time. You couldn\u2019t get the publicity that we were getting. Everyone was writing about us. Then there was this whole movement and then kids started spiking their hair and wearing leather jackets and it went crazy. We did have one little period after that where we did some Sex Pistols shows as SPOTS, Sex Pistols On Tour Secretly. We did about six shows up north in these little tiny clubs and no one really knew, but they were great. They were some great shows full of punks that wanted to see us and we were getting a little bit better.<\/p>\n

You\u2019d been playing, so the unit was tight.<\/strong>
\nYeah, and it wasn\u2019t people throwing beer bottles. It was people that wanted to see us play. The whole movement was brilliant, and the booze was working and the suction was working\u2026<\/p>\n

[Laughs] It all seemed to be working.<\/strong>
\nYes. It was great, and then it just went \u201cWhoosh!\u201d The last two shows we did in England were in Huddersfield. We did a matinee for these firemen that were on strike to raise money for their kids for Christmas presents, and then we did a show that night. Then we went to America and we had no idea that was going to be the end after that.<\/p>\n

FOR THE REST OF THE STORY, ORDER ISSUE #74 AT THE JUICE SHOP\u2026<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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