

I had a bottle of vodka before going on and they pulled the plugs on us.

We liked the Faces because they seemed like they just didn't care.ĭo you remember much of the first Pistols gig at Saint Martins College? (4) But none of us could relate to that stuff anyway. Glam rock had been and gone, the big gigs at Wembley with Yes and Genesis and Jethro Tull cost a lot of money to get into, unless you were like Steve and Paul and had ways of bunking in. When I started work in his shop I was still at school. Possibly nobody would have heard of us if it wasn't for him, but nobody would have heard of him if it wasn't for us! He was an exciting person. We'd all gravitated to Malcolm McLaren's shop (3) and it became the epicentre of all that was weird and wonderful in London. Steve downed a bottle of Blue Nun and it all went off. People forget that you were very young and yet public enemy No 1, at the centre of incidents such as going on Bill Grundy's show and the police arriving with truncheons. Your previous book was called I Was a Teenage Sex Pistol (2). When you're busy it's fine, but suddenly you're not doing it anymore and you end up in the pub. I think it might have happened anyway, but it was exacerbated by being in the Pistols. Was that brought on by the fallout of having been in such a high-profile, controversial band? There are a few revelations in the book, for example the admission that in the 80s you had a drink problem. Someone threw a flat beer can like a frisbee and nearly took Paul's eye out. We never got to finish the show because the promoter said it was too dangerous. But they threw bottles at us in Roskilde. I saw it as a chance to play our music, which had been overshadowed. Was it nice to play gigs and not have people spitting and throwing bottles at you? All these people coming together to see a band that hadn't made a record in 20 years. Then we had to come back and play in front of 30,000 people at Finsbury Park, and it all came together. It was all right … then we did one in Helsinki at some place next to an ostrich farm. The first gig it was pissing down in Germany. Flying first-class around the world was a bit different to being stuck in the back of a Transit getting on each other's nerves.

I liked John's quote that we might not be the best of friends but we certainly aren't the best of enemies. Was it a different dynamic between you as people? I think we collectively thought, "Well, that's what people want, let's give it to them." The biggest gig I did with the Pistols first time around was to 600 people. No matter what we've all done individually, nothing is ever going to equate to the Sex Pistols. As soon as I saw him he said, "Let's go and see Rotten …"ĭid it feel very different the second time around? You were a married man with kids. I was hanging out in LA with time on my hands and I looked up Steve Jones. You were one of the first big bands to reform. We're the Sex Pistols and that's something to be celebrated I think. John, Steve, Paul and myself have got something in common that no other four people in the world have. It's been well documented that there was a lot of shit between me and John over the years but it was a good way of building some bridges, making some money and seeing the world. They're surprisingly feel good photos, like Sex Pistols holiday snaps. The Sex Pistols at Osaka aquarium is a first, anyway. I got them out of my attic recently and one of my mates had a butchers and said, "Wow, these would make a great book." If I'd been wiser I'd have waited another two years for the 20th anniversary, but there's stuff that no one's ever seen before.
Glen matlock young series#
I took loads of photos on a series of disposable cameras and threw them all in a box, where they've been sitting there ever since. Well, that tour was in the days before iPhones and camera phones. you've just put out a book documenting the Sex Pistols' 1996 reunion tour, Filthy Lucre. Is this still the Manchester Guardian? Are you a cohort of Bill Grundy's (1)?Įr. Bright and early, in my local coffee shop in London.
