ShockHound

Interview by Tom Lanham

When it comes to career moves, you can never predict what John Lydon will be up to next. A few years ago, he appeared on the British edition of I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here, raising money for charity. He’s had his own radio show, Rotten Day; a VH1 TV series, Rotten TV; and several overseas programs like John Lydon Goes Ape, wherein he went on safari to film gorillas in Central Africa. In 2007, he reunited his long-dormant punk outfit the Sex Pistols to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their historic debut, Never Mind The Bollocks. Currently, he’s writing a companion volume to his autobiography, Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, while also juggling several upcoming film commitments.
          Now, the former Johnny Rotten’s whims have led him in yet another direction. Just in time for California’s annual Coachella Festival, he’s reformed his second band, Public Image Limited, and will be unearthing dusty classics like “Poptones” and “Albatross” from the groundbreaking post-punk band’s Metal Box (aka Second Edition) set, recently reissued in a CD-size replica of its original embossed tin container. To underwrite the expensive endeavor, Lydon agreed to tape a television commercial for Britain’s Country Life Butter, which became a sales boosting hit for the company. The campy clip, viewable on YouTube, features the plaid-jacketed singer prancing across the English countryside while praising the product. The ad campaign’s success, he reckons, comes down to one thing: “It’s not what I say. It’s how I say it!”
     Indeed — and Lydon certainly had a few choice words for ShockHound on the eve of his umpteenth comeback.

SHOCKHOUND: You’ve been busy over the past few years, taping all these TV documentaries like John Lydon’s Megabugs and John Lydon’s Shark Attack. Wasn’t there one where the show’s editing really angered you?

JOHN LYDON: It was a Belgian show with various Europeans, and they asked me to show my side of England, and I did. But they wanted to edit into it some kind of silliness. They didn’t really want the true side of the culture, so then you get problems because the person I was escorting around Britain was a kind of historian, and he was more interested in art galleries when I was much more interested in how the British holiday, from all class points of view. I mean, I didn’t really wanna discuss the battle of Trafalgar.

SHOCKHOUND: You’re a really bright guy. But people often don’t seem to pick up on that.

LYDON: Well, I don’t handle compliments very well — I’ll tell you that for nothing. I’m not used to them. But you know, you’re supposed to be an idiot if you’re in the music industry; that’s all there is to it. Unless, of course, you’re a pontificating twat like, say, Sting — he seems to get away with his nonsense. He joins that clique with an elitist way of viewing the world, and it’s very smug and very self-centered. And I just don’t operate on those terms.

SHOCKHOUND: How do you see the world?

LYDON: As a human being inside of it. My songs are about me and other human beings, and how we really interact with each other. I don’t separate the two — I don’t see myself as an artiste parlaying across the masses. It isn’t like that. I’m not judgmental, except on myself. I can’t live without other people — I love the human race, I love what we do, all aspects of it.

SHOCKHOUND: Really? Because it seems like the human race has selfishly doomed itself to extinction.

LYDON: Oh, rubbish! No, no, no! I’ve been accused of being a romantic in my time. But I think that view is much more romantic, because with romance the end result is always doom. So I completely disagree. You know, you can view life negatively. But the situation that the world finds itself in at the moment is because we foolishly allow people who are seriously not qualified to lead us. We vote for these fools. We allow them to separate us into left and right, Democrat and Republican, and it’s all foolishness, all completely against the art of the individual. And it’s the individuals that make the world spin, all of us. We’re all individuals, there are no two people alike, and we’re completely free to do what we want. So I don’t see humanity as being in chains.

SHOCKHOUND: You’re still control of the Sex Pistols name and logo, right? Because Vans just came out with this great line of Pistols merch, including skate shoes designed by Geoff Rowley.

LYDON: I do my best to keep the name untarnished. And Geoff’s a good friend. I’ve done work with the skateboard community — I like them. I like surfers. I like skiers. I just like groupings of people. But I genuinely do go out and find the best in whatever’s available. And we did a thing years ago with a skateboard company called Flip, and, well, one thing leads to another. And there are other merchandise companies out there, but I’m in constant wars with them because they’d like to reduce the bands to nothing but trashy key rings and cheap t-shirts, available at the beachfront. And that’s not really what I’ve done all this for. I don’t like things to be reduced to the lowest common denominator — I like to maintain the quality that I think the songwriting warrants. Quality control? I think it’s worth it.

SHOCKHOUND: Speaking of quality, I wonder how many people appreciate the songwriting quantum leap you took from the Pistols to PiL’s Second Edition? It’s still just stunning.

LYDON: A few bands do, because they’ve tried to mimic that. I’ve heard it happen. And I’m very disappointed in what I call the “copycat system” by artists — the music industry is full of them. If you come up with a good idea on your own, there’ll soon be 200 copying it. And I tend not to view that as a compliment. Because the people who I appreciate in music are the ones who absolutely astound me, who completely do things on their own. That’s what intrigues me, and that’s what I learn from.

SHOCKHOUND: So who astounds you right now?

LYDON: I’m not giving a list. The last time I did that, half those bands put me in their bloody bios. Just a couple of years ago, there was this Van Der Graaf Generator book being put together, and they wanted to use my name and say that I was really influenced by them. And I thought, “Well, that reads a bit stupid. Just ‘cause I like a couple of their records doesn’t mean I sat down and knocked stuff about trying to copy them. Quite the opposite, really.” So I’m very wary of using other people’s names. I dunno — I see myself as kind of outside this industry. But I’m a constant record buyer; I just love it. I love music, and I love what other people do. It just absolutely thrills me. And it’s a great reward to hear a great piece of work. But the machinery involved with everybody is just a real piece of negativity. I don’t like it. So I don’t wanna be reading that kind of nonsense — it’s leading people astray. I mean, the Ramones situation was very, very unfortunate. The Ramones were quite nice people, but the machinery they had wrapped around them wanted to jut spin punk into an imitation of them. And my God, will you just open your ears and listen to what the Ramones sound like? How could you possibly compare that to me? It’s not right, and it leads people astray. History was one of my favorite subjects at school, and I like it to be accurate.

SHOCKHOUND: You’ve left us with some great PiL video images — like that American Bandstand appearance, where you stuck the microphone in your back pocket instead of lip-synching, and Dick Clark just stood there, dumbfounded.

LYDON: And years later, when he did his compilation of great American Bandstand moments, he put us in the top eight. So I think he got it. ‘Cause if he wanted the whole spirit of rock n’ roll, he definitely got that. And the one major passion killer for that is format. If you have to end up miming, why bother doing it at all? I mean, I make records so that I can perform live — that’s how I do it and always have done. To go onstage and do it exactly the same [as on the record], I think that’s stifling. You’re in a hall with different people each night and you’re sharing different experiences. So you’d have to be a fool to not pick up on those different energies, because they are palpable. I mean, you can tell if you’re liked or hated in a crowded room, can’t you? Well, it’s more or less like that at concerts, but with more detail.

SHOCKHOUND: The other memorable video image is you on Tom Snyder’s Tomorrow show, borrowing cigarettes from him and needling him until he barked, “Well, forgive me for talking while you were interrupting!”

LYDON: Heh heh. Well, it was more or less the other way ‘round — he was very pompous. But that’s all right, because I eat that kind of nonsense for lunch. But I met him years later, and we got on really, really well. When the cameras were off, it was a different world. The problem being — and Charlie Rose did the same — if they resume you’re an idiot, and they’re shocked when you’re not. And it’s like, “Who told you this? Where did you get that idea from? And couldn’t you make your own mind up? Just let me talk and maybe you’ll learn something. And if I am an idiot, well…But don’t assume.” It’s a corny expression, but a fantastic one: “When you assume, you make an ass of U and Me.” I would’ve loved to have come up with that one, because I completely understand it. That’s my way of viewing the world.

SHOCKHOUND: Is it great getting PiL back together again for a whole new generation to appreciate?

LYDON: Yes. But I’ve been working so damn hard at it. Just to get the first seven gigs in England together was really seriously complicated, just the logistics and trying to keep a crew on wages with the butter advert money — it all just ate it up. So I’m desperately trying to fill the coffers somewhat, so I can get Public Image back into recording mode. But the PiL gigs are going down wonderfully; it was fantastic to play seven show in nine days, for two-and-a-half hours each night. I mean, that’s physically draining stuff. And the freedom to be able to experiment onstage is incredible. Things like “Death Disco,” which is an incredibly sad song for me to perform — it’s about the death of my mother, and my father died last year. And when I play that song live, I break down, really seriously, because it’s a genuine emotion. So it can go a billion ways onstage, but it always somehow resolves itself. In kind of a “shout therapy” way. But it’s quite wonderful, really. I think anyone who ever wanted to be in a band will look at PiL and go “My God! That’s exactly what I wanted!”

Related Artists Public Image Ltd. Sex Pistols Public Image Ltd