by Lydon, John
Unfortunately, Glen misinterpreted ‘God Save The Queen’ as being a fascist song. He just picked up on that word, but he didn’t grasp the overall context. Where can you go with that? It got really bad with Glen, he refused to play it onstage, and that’s where it all really came to a head. Before we went on, I had some chalk and I wrote on his Ampeg stack amplifier, ‘The Boo Nazis’. I mean, it’s obviously not favourable to Nazism, is it? But Glen took it as some kind of right-wing statement. Oh Lord, lest we be misunderstood! My kind of sense of fun and Glen’s are very different. For my mind I don’t think what I was doing was nasty and evil. That was me being really childish and silly – it was supposed to be met with a smile.
At that point, me and Glen had both been in and out of the door quite a lot. ‘I’m off’ – ‘I’m gone’ – ‘You’re gone’, but I think it was finally mutually agreed between Malcolm and Glen that artistically this wasn’t going in the right direction for Glen, and that’s how that was buried.
So, bingo, he had to go, and because we had nothing better to do, we shot a bit of film walking around town, and in it I was asked about Glen. I said, ‘If you look like a duck, and walk like a duck and talk like a duck, you’re a duck.’ But I changed it from ‘duck’ to ‘arsehole’.
The real problem, with hindsight, was that we weren’t playing any gigs. We allowed the boredom to get the better of us and so we turned on each other. I should feel ashamed about being like that.
When I first got into the band, it really shocked Sid. He didn’t know I had it in me. It shocked Wobble too. He didn’t know at all. Sid was fascinated by it and drawn to it and became our biggest fan, but Wobble bitterly resented the band and was very violent in his approach to them, and they were quite frightened of him. He’d come over really, really hardcore. So when it came to replacing Glen, I instinctively said Sid, although Sid was tone deaf.
I didn’t think they’d ever take me seriously on Sid, but at that point in the band I felt like I needed an ally on the inside. I felt like it was ‘them and me’, and that was not a good position. You mustn’t be the knocking boy – you do need back-up. As friendly as Paul was – and I used to hang out with him on occasions – he’s swings and roundabouts, he bobs from one thing to another, and his commitment with Steve was ever so deep. I always got the feeling that Steve would be the one to say, ‘I just can’t work with him any more,’ and that would be the end of that. And Malcolm gave Steve that power, because it was Steve’s idea to have a band in the first place. But that wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was that Malcolm paid Steve’s bills, and therefore Steve would let Malcolm do anything he liked.
Of all people, it was Lemmy from Motörhead, amongst others, who tried to teach Sid to play bass. Lemmy was really funny about it; he said, ‘Sid has no aptitude at all, no sense of rhythm, and he’s tone deaf.’ Sid always fancied himself as a drummer. I think that was the Can Tago Mago influence, because that was Sid’s favourite record of all time. He’d always be making psssh-shut-pfft-pfft-pfft noises, and pretending he was doing a drum roll. That would be his frequent behaviour, which not many people understood. They thought he might just be a bit backwards.
We assumed that he’d just find his way with it, like we had. And there’s the danger in that word: when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me. As it turned out, Sid wasn’t actually plugged in at most of our live gigs, and he barely played on the album, if at all.
What I didn’t find out till much later was that Malcolm was not only not trying to book us any gigs, he was actually turning them down. He’d say, ‘Oh no, you’ve got to understand, John, what I’m trying to do is create a scene that you’re a man of mystery, and no one knows anything about you.’ He didn’t want me to be seen at too many public events because it would destroy the imagery he was trying to create around me.
That was how he explained a horrible evening when I couldn’t get into Andrew Logan’s annual party. I turned up with some mates, and they wouldn’t let me in. I was like, ‘I played here last year!’ Malcolm and the rest of them were already inside. I saw Vivienne, and I said, ‘What’s up? Why can’t I get in?’ and she blanked me.
I became well aware that these people would not stand up for me. Hard lessons in life. I could’ve barged my way in with no effort at all. No! I wanted to be accepted, and I never was, not within the Pistols contingent or any of those socialite scenes that were using the Pistols to thrive off.
With nothing to do, no gigs to play, me and Sid were going mental. We had to do something, anything at all. I came up with the idea of the four of us going to Jersey on holiday, because I’d been to the Channel Islands before on a school expedition from William of York, and I had fond memories of it somehow. I just imagined us getting off the plane and having a lovely time in this wacky different kind of world.
But no, the whole band got off the plane and we were met at the airport, and strip-searched. As soon as they opened Sid’s suitcase they found his smelly socks on the top, and they gave up. What they did do, however, was cancel our hotel booking, so we ended up walking around on the beach, with a cart without the donkey, with all our luggage stacked up on it. Luckily a local villain who’d befriended us found us somewhere to stay.
The next morning we buggered off to Berlin. Malcolm didn’t trust us on our own, so his associate Boogie came as some sort of mentor. Boogie was a bad bunny himself. A fun time was had by all in Berlin. Wow, what an eye opener.
We hardly saw the hotel. We didn’t want to. It was the Kempinski, and the rooms, you couldn’t even think of sleeping in them, they were so rigidly German. You’re supposed to sleep in a straight line and the quilt doesn’t come any higher up than your chest. All the wood was very dark, and everything was at right angles. No time at all in there, thank you.
You couldn’t escape the vibe: the war, and then the Wall, with the Russians staring over the top. West Berlin was all set up to annoy the East. It was glorious, but a bonkers, crazy universe. Readily available was everything and anything that would keep you up all night. Between the British and American soldiers, they had the place well sussed. They had it amped, so to speak. I fell in love with Berlin, and I’ve always loved it ever since. The word decadent, how applicable. Well done, the West, that’s what you’re tormenting the Russkies across the border with. This is freedom! What you got?
So that was what inspired the lyrics to ‘Holidays In The Sun’: ‘I don’t want a holiday in the sun/I want to go to the new Belsen’ – from Jersey to Berlin.
The first nightclub we walked into, we were astounded by what we were hearing; the music was exceptional. It was kind of early House, by any stretch of the imagination. Very deep bass drums, a stripped-down Teutonic dance code, so rhythmically structured.
Then there was Romy Haag. She was a drag queen, and our only connection was that Bowie had mentioned this person in an interview years earlier, and Sid remembered, ‘She’s got this great club where all the perverts go . . .’ To find it, me and Sid wandered for hours around the streets of Berlin with no idea of where it was, and finally it was just this horrid little door down some steps into a basement. But a really wacky place with loads of British soldiers in there.
And they weren’t there for you-know-what. They were out for a good laugh, and in them days these drag bars were very sociable places, they were great fun. It wasn’t as separatist as you would think, they were very welcoming, and it was a great place to go and get plastered, and you wouldn’t be manhandled inappropriately. And in them days, you’ve got to remember, being gay, particularly a transvestite, was a very harsh life. It was not accepted, and yet I always found them to be very accepting, open-minded people.
There have been rumours about me and Sid being that way inclined. Just, NO!!! There was a fantastic line in a song by the Slits called ‘So Tough’: ‘John don’t take it serious, Sid is only curious.’ That says it all.
Maybe it was true for Sid. I don’t know if Sid ever worked out what he was. He w
as an exceptionally strange, different person. Very open, very happy, nothing challenged him. He couldn’t give a monkey’s what anybody thought about him; he just thought he looked beautiful like Dave Bowie. But once he got in the band, all of that went and he became a very dour, serious misery, trying to act tough where before he’d never bother with any of that stuff at all.
The ‘I’m a complete virgin’ line ended when he met Nancy Spungen, a heroin-addicted groupie from New York, who I had the misfortune of passing onto him. I thought it would end in disaster, but not in the way it turned out. I thought he’d fuck her and go, ‘Ouch, what an ugly old bag!’ in the morning. But he liked the idea that she looked wasted and ruined.
It goes back to years before – how do you translate music? How do you translate Berlin, the Lou Reed album? Do you translate that as the falling-apart of a relationship, or do you translate it as an accolade to drug addiction? That’s the problem. ‘Walk On The Wild Side’, to Sid, obviously didn’t mean, ‘go gay’, it meant, ‘take a lot of drugs’. That’s how he’s seen it, and he was very overwhelmed by a person like Nancy talking: ‘Oh ye-ah, in Noo Yawk, we can get it all the time, it’s gawnna be great.’
Well, they got it all the time to the point where it killed both of them. I lived in New York later on and I know the difference, but my poor friend Sid didn’t. I can’t imagine him in heaven being any cleverer, other than he will ignore his previous existence. He was addicted to the addicted lifestyle. His mother was a registered addict, and he thought that was the road to cool runnings – and I’m not talking about the Jamaican bobsleigh team. I’m talking a real serious understanding of how things were, and how human beings perceive. Sid’s perception was very minimal, and desperate and immediate. He was not by any standards unintelligent, but the inflection his mother put on him limited his narrative as a human being.
Heroin users will steal anything. They’d steal your toenails – anything that’s got a dollar value on it, or a pound, or a penny. It goes straight into the arm. And you can’t trust them, they’ve lost their soul. It’s a very odd thing to be in the company of someone who is a long-term addict; they just feel lifeless, and there’s nothing in the eyes that shows any human kindness or empathy, or anything at all. Ultimately, they are the true vision of a zombie. They are the walking dead.
Signing for our next label, A&M, outside Buckingham Palace was a hoot and a holler. Sid was wicked when he found an angle on someone – he’d keep at it and up the ante with really humorous but negative comments. His big thing with Paul was: ‘You’re an albino gorilla,’ and in the limo on the way to the signing that morning, he finally earned himself a smack in the mouth from Paul.
Suddenly, everyone was punching everyone in that car, God knows why, but that’s how it was. And all of us took a whack at Malcolm. In fact, that was where we bonded – once we finished rubbishing each other, there’s the perfect target.
We signed on the dotted line, all grinning and goofing around, just seconds after trying to smack each other senseless. There were so many pent-up problems, thanks to Malcolm’s alleged ‘orchestration’ putting us in a world of perpetual chaos – it wasn’t pleasant. So that became a great moment of relief. Then we did a press conference blind stupid drunk. Sid threw a custard pie, the tough lad, which just about shows the jolly frolics of it.
There was nothing at all for us at A&M’s offices, they’d got no drinks in, so we insisted that they send out. That took forty-five minutes and in came a crate of crap lagers, the usual that we’d been used to every time we signed a record contract – a shortage of inebriations. I’ve never known anything like these record companies. They don’t know how to do a welcome wagon. I’m Johnny, you come knocking on my door – mate, there’s a beer in your hand. I’m loaded and ready to go. I entertain my guests.
Failing to lay on the hospitality can lead to all kinds of fury, and of course what ensued was a situation of their own making. I was sick in a plant pot – oh, yes – and they accused us of breaking a toilet. ‘Look, Sid was never potty trained, all right?’
If you’re gonna make people feel uncomfortable and unpleasant and unwanted, then they’re gonna hang around for a hell of a lot longer. At least that’s my way, and Sid’s well up for that cup. And Steve and Paul had nothing better to do, you know what I mean? We were very co-operative with each other, all of a sudden. ‘This is a Viking raiding party and we’re all in it together!’ I love that sense of camaraderie in a band.
Ah well, we didn’t even last a week at this one, did we? I’m surprised it took that long for them to chuck us off. Apparently, it was Herb Alpert – the ‘A’ in A&M – that sent a communiqué from LA to the UK label’s offices saying we had to go, he didn’t want our sort of undesirables on his label. Simply put, we were a threat to the hamster wheel that they’d become so acclimatized to putting their acts on.
These old-fart bands had found their comfort zone, and they were irritated at having to rethink the agenda. That’s terrible because in no way was I setting out to replace them, just remove the flotsam and jetsam that was blocking the drainpipes so the rest of us could have a flush. I don’t put roadblocks up for new bands, and in them early days we definitely had roadblocks, and seriously negative attitudes from quite a few alleged musicians, demanding that the record label sack us – the likes of Rick Wakeman from Yes, and Steve Harley of Cockney Rebel. Like, actually, who are you to make such demands? I didn’t care who my label-mates were, that’s irrelevant.
I found the whole thing very humorous indeed, this arsehole Wakeman who was playing ‘Ice Capades’ Wurlitzer music, telling me I’m not worthy. How am I supposed to take that, but un-seriously? The days of Yes were gone and he had nothing new to offer anybody except criticism – a spoilt fading memory. But it did create problems, and we got a bump because of it, that just fuelled the engine of negativity.
From the beginning Malcolm had been fending off overtures from Richard Branson to sign to Virgin, because they were a hippie label. My draw to Virgin was their astounding record stores. The first one was on Oxford Street: it was absolutely awe-inspiring, the things they’d pack into that tiny little one-room place. To just look around and go, ‘Oh, the possibilities! I could have it all, but I can only afford one.’ They made music seem fantastic, diverse and limitless. You flicked through all these different album covers and just – the potential of it all, the wonderful creativity that music really, truly is.
So, after A&M, the pressure was on Malcolm to get us a deal that would actually work. ‘Can we have a label? It’d be kind of interesting, don’t you think? Here we are, the ultimate primo numero uno punk band, and we ain’t got a record out?’
In the meantime we started recording our album with our previous advances and severance pay. I got my words in succinctly and correctly pronounced, so I was happy. I did one or two takes, and that would be it. There’d be no overdub work at all, so I’d have to be bang on when it came to my turn. I couldn’t bear endless guitar overdubs, but the sessions quickly turned into a jolly little joyride for Steve and Chris Thomas, the producer, to ‘experiment with guitar possibilities’. It was infuriating and indeed I left the studio for large amounts of time because of that.
Chris Thomas drove me nuts. I thought what he was leading us towards was too elaborate for us at that point. To be pushing the singer aside in any band so you can have more guitar overdubs is nonsense. The only thing that made him interesting to me, was that he went out with Mika of The Sadistic Mika Band, a group I loved. Any conversations, it was always about, ‘What’s she really like?’ I don’t suppose it endeared me to him at all, but it was a very impressive band with a Japanese woman upfront squealing away in a Japanese way. It turned out he was deaf in one ear. Nobody told me until the middle of recording when he’d be leading in with one ear. ‘What you doing?’ ‘Oh, I can’t actually hear with the other ear.’
Around the making of the album, of course, Sid went and got hepatitis. Fantastic, huh? I almost thi
nk he did it deliberately just so he wouldn’t have to ’fess up about his musical inadequacy, or step up to the plate. He was just confused; he never got it, on many levels. He never got the rally, he never got the neighbourhood connection, he never got the understanding of the bigger issues.
Sid was introducing an angle into the Pistols which, I immediately realized, fucked us royally up the wazoo. He introduced the drug angle, and I never thought he would do that. I thought he was smarter. I never realized how insecure he really was, and he used drugs to cover up his sense of inadequacy, and he introduced this warfare of heroin into us in such a calamitous, arsehole way. It was difficult, difficult times, dealing with him.
He was really lost – and I should have realized this far earlier – because of his mother, the woman that gave him heroin as a birthday present. He’d always said, ‘Hurgh hurgh, I’m not getting like my mum.’ He was always proud of the fact that he could do that – dabble, and then be all right and not require more. But when Nancy Spungen came into his life, it became different; he bought totally into his Lou Reed schtick.
Poor old Sid, he couldn’t have sex with anything. He was rubbish. But I loved him because he was rubbish! He wasn’t a big-stiffy kind of fella, he was just confused and funny and hilarious and brilliantly comedic. He could parody anything instantly. But the shame was, because of that quality, he was now trying to parody a New York lifestyle.
I didn’t even know the Queen of England was having her Silver Jubilee, until they rang me up about holding the boat party on the River Thames. Seriously, genuinely – I’d stopped reading the press or paying attention. Sid even more so. He never paid attention anyway. To us, it was, ‘Oh shit, what’s this?’ ‘It’s the Jubilee,’ says Malcolm on the phone. I’m like, ‘What does that mean? Can I have some money?’