endless physical attacks, nowhere to live, no money—but I liked it. Life’s a learning process. You’re not always gonna get it right.
Oh my God. I’ve known quite a few stupid rock deaths; none of them are tolerable. It’s not sentimental, but I really miss people living. Life is a fantastic thing, and to see that taken away from someone is really hard to come to grips with. I don’t have no vision of heaven or all of that. I think heaven is on this earth and what we do with it.
Were you doing what you could to keep him off
drugs?
No. He’s dead, so therefore I feel responsible, and
I’m like that about so many damn things. I feel
responsible for being bitter and catty about my
own band when I shouldn’t be. We really do like
each other, but don’t tell anyone. It won’t get us
anywhere. [Laughs] I think the world of them. I
couldn’t have gone on to whatever I went on to
without that. But I’m fucking too hard to live with.
Too hard to live without!
You’ve said that McLaren turned you against Glen Matlock, and Glen was turned against you. Yeah, there were management shenanigans that went on there. But when it comes down to it, me and Glen don’t like each other. [Laughs] But that doesn’t mean I don’t respect him, ’cause I do. He’s been saying that all this swearing should stop. I understand he’s a father and doesn’t want his son to have to hear “foul language.” But to me there is no such thing. I wrote in “Bodies,” “Fuck this and fuck that / Fuck it all, and fuck the fucking brat,” and I don’t think there’s a clearer song about the pain of abortion. The juxtaposition of all those different psychic things in your head and all the
Rotten with wife Nora in London, 1985
confusion, the anger, the frustration, you have to capture in those words. I don’t want to go on about Glen, because he’s so good in many other ways—I can’t remember any of them, of course. [Laughs]
That is my proudest achievement! Chrissie [Hynde], Billy [Idol]—we have different points of view on the same situations. It’s important to include that.
Oh, come on. You’re supposed to put a book
out and just overswim in your own self-praise? [Laughs] That would be very unappealing to me.
Warner Bros. doesn’t seem particularly interested in helping us in our wonderful career—and they’re still refusing to [re]release Bollocks, so fuck them. And I don’t like compilations, usually, because I don’t want to see my stuff backing up a load of turgid crap. Unless we’re involved with who picks the songs, then fuck off. Because it’s down to why we wrote these songs. They’re not to be confused in a pile of people that call themselves punk who really aren’t.
were significant?
Heaps! I’m an avid music buyer of all genres. The
Adverts. I loved X-Ray Spex. Very young.
You yourself were 20 in 1976. I’ve got this wrong on so many different occasions. I thought I was 17, but apparently, I wasn’t! That might have been the amphetamine—it played a great part, and the years just whizzed by.
another of your lyrics [from “Seventeen”].
I did like amphetamine. But [to] George Bush
and [his] government, particularly you, Dick
Cheney, who really runs the country: I learned
the lesson of drugs. I learned not to talk about
them, and never to share that information with
the general public.
“Doesn’t drink, smoke, or take drugs.”
Yes, completely. I do not. [He swigs his beer and
puffs his cigarette.] And I’ve never had sex, ever!
NEVER MIND THE BOOKS
and 52 seconds of squelching noises,” anyway?
That’s right! I got it up to three minutes, though,
once. Never finished it. It’s like “I didn’t inhale.”
I didn’t come. [Laughs]
ONCE UPON A TIME: Manager Malcolm McLaren approached the former John Lydon in 1975 after spotting him in Sex, the boutique McLaren owned with Vivienne Westwood, and had him audition for his nascent band by singing Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen.” Westwood later claimed that the “John” she recommended to McLaren was in fact Simon John Ritchie, who would later join the band anyway, as Sid Vicious.
BIG BOLLOCKS: Produced by Chris Thomas (who had worked with the similarly fashion-forward Roxy Music), Never Mind the Bollocks hit No. 1 in Britain and went gold within three weeks. In the U.S., the album peaked at No. 106 and went gold… ten years later. “Bodies” was the only song Vicious played bass on, although his part was later overdubbed.
ROYAL PAIN:
After the “God Save
the Queen” single was
banned from British
radio in June 1977, the
charts were reportedly
rigged to prevent the
song from hitting No. 1,
an honor that instead
went to Rod Stewart’s
cover of Cat Stevens’
“The First Cut Is the
Deepest,” despite that
record having sold
20,000 fewer copies.
END TIMES:
The Sex Pistols’ final
U.K. performance
was a benefit for 500
underprivileged kids
on Christmas Day,
1977. Rotten left the
band a month later,
after a concert at San
Francisco’s Winterland
Ballroom. The other
three continued without
him for a few months.
Vicious suffered a fatal
OD in early ’ 79, after
being released on bail
pending trial for allegedly
murdering girlfriend
Nancy Spungen.
S TEVE KANDELL
mentaries for television.
I just did two astounding shows in Africa, one on
gorillas and one on great white sharks. They’re not
shown here in [the U.S.], but we’ll change that,
won’t we? I love being in those environments.
My favorite, though, was the great whites—to
be learning to dive with these 17-foot things
swimming around you. ’Cause you need the diving
lessons first, in Cape Town, South Africa.
That’s where the great whites kill seals in mid-
air, out of the water.
That’s it! That’s where I was! It’s something I’ve
studied all my life. You couldn’t have made me
happier, although the fear was overwhelming at
times. But I like that. I view it the same way as I do
writing songs. It’s risky business.
DAVE HOGAN/GE T T Y IMAGES
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