Wired.com
September 3rd, 2007

Johnny Rotten Praises Battling Bands,
Trashes Internet Liars

John Lydon -- aka Johnny Rotten, the legendarily outrageous Sex Pistols singer -- is about to help judge Bodog Music Battle of the Bands, a hard-rocking older brother of American Idol that revises the talent show formula by featuring contestants who write music and play instruments.

During the show's upcoming live finale (Sept. 5 at 7 p.m. PST on Fuse TV), fans will text votes to pick a winner from three bands vying for the top prize -- a $1 million recording contract from the Bodog gambling site's music division.

Lydon recently spoke to Wired News about judging the show, the importance of live music, an apparent lack of innovation on the part of major labels, what went wrong with punk rock, and how the internet is full of liars. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity, but not profanity).

Wired News: What have you been looking for in these bands while judging the show?

John Lydon: Originality, humor and people that can actually cope with pressure. Not at all note-perfect musicality and perfection, but the ability to write a song and believe it and live it. In other words, genuine honesty, and isn't that a shock in the music business? There are three judges, and we all have very different opinions. A couple of bands were voted out very early that I felt shouldn't have been, even though they were young and possibly musically ill-equipped. That's exactly where I began, and I've never looked back.

WN: How do you think The Sex Pistols would have done in this contest?

Lydon: The Sex Pistols would never have turned up. We wouldn't have bothered with it in the first place. And ah, dude, you've got to look at the world differently then, it was a different time.... You'd get seen by playing live in pubs, clubs, bars or anywhere else you could scrounge a quick living. And guess what, we were underage. We weren't allowed to drink in these places, but we were certainly capable of having bottles thrown at us.

I grew up in a world of boo boys (soccer fans who boo games). No matter what we did, it wasn't good enough, and (we played to) generally an older crowd. We eventually brought our own crowd, and changed the world because of it. Generally, the hippie lot from the previous generation were a spiteful bunch of fuckers. They didn't want to share the world with us.

WN: These days, people seem to read only the news that applies to them, and culture is getting more fragmented. Do you think it's still possible for a band to come along and change the world the way the Sex Pistols did?

Lydon: It's a different world, but look: You have to do your part to try to introduce live music -- people who write their own songs being a bit above the rest, you know. Absolutely above the rest of it, because there ain't no Paris Hilton going on in any of this. So, if anyone sneers, or spears, at our little show here, they're doing it for all the wrong reasons. I've had to tolerate two examples this morning (of reporters) trying to compare this show with American Idol. The biggest, fucking most glaring difference is, look -- these people write their own songs. That's it, the end. Alright? It's not, like, clothes horses all trying to be Whitney Houston.

WN: An important distinction for sure. Why do you think people are so into live music these days? This contest is about live music, and last year, concert sales ...

Lydon: Look, if your culture means fuck all in this world, it has to be live!

WN: So it's a reaction to all the computer screens ...

Lydon: Which is utter nonsense. I mean, the genuine roots of culture is folk music. That means: Folk playing it, for folk, live. The so-called alleged "art" of the video -- well, the video has killed the radio star, but the video star killed the live musician, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. If all of it, one way or another, is, hopefully, anything like a youth rebellion, believe me -- I'll be one of its major supporters. But there doesn't seem to be anything like that left. There just seems to be no general consensus of energy, of, "We've had enough, and here it is."

WN: Do you think there is anything punk rock about MP3s and digital music, or is it a totally different animal?

Lydon: It's a different animal, and it's a different world, but the two can get along. There's no need to say "no" to everything, but there's many a reason to say "yes" to most things. It's how you absorb them, and not the other way around.

WN: Here's a question from one of our readers, who said, "Nowadays, to express your feelings in public is common. It is crazy to be arrested (for criticizing) the queen."

Lydon: I like the royal family. I think it could be a fun institution. The trouble was, for a few years there, we had a Union Jack stolen from us. Nazism crept into Great Britain. We managed to kick that on its head, and the royal family made some stupid decisions about people like me. They turned their back on the working class, which, frankly, is their bread and butter. We're the true supporters of their institution, and were treated as though we didn't belong. Several statements were made to that end by the royal family, and it all ended a negative way.

In fact, to give you an example, I once did some charity work -- or tried to -- for the Prince Charles trust fund thingy, and the attitude I got off his people was revolting. They just looked down their noses at me. And I was really angry at a man whose work I've really loved and respected, John Cleese. Fawlty Towers was a masterpiece. But when he looked straight at me and had the nerve to ask some (inaudible) next to him, "What's that sort of person doing here?" That's when my stomach turns, do you know what I mean? Like, I'm not good enough even for charity. I've done no harm to no one. In fact, I think I've improved the world. I've opened things up into a lively open debate, which is what they should be, but oddly enough now it's taken me some 30 solid years of work to have to prove that open debate is not negative, it's actually a positive force. I'm misunderstood. I'm not criticizing just to be a cunt -- a vacant, at that. (Lydon sings, "We're so pretty....")

WN: In that spirit of open debate, another reader writes, "Johnny, don't you feel that the type of people who would enter a talent contest in the first place don't really have any talent? All they want is to be famous for fame's sake." What do you make of that?

Lydon: There was every possibility that that's the way this show would end up, in which case I'm the man to stop it! But no, some of these bands are genuinely enjoyable. You've got to be very wary of an audience out there that's jealous as fuck of any of them, of anyone who is on the TV for any reason at all. At least they entered a competition. What do the rest of these sad sacks who sit around criticizing at home do? When you can't join them, and you can't beat them, don't complain about them.

WN: Fair enough.

Lydon: You know what I mean? Be open-minded. Open up. Make room.

WN: I noticed that the battle of the bands site calls the entrants "the best indie bands in America."

Lydon: I wouldn't say these were the best indie bands in America; they're just the ones presented in this competition. The top prize is a million-dollar contract, but that could end up being a booby prize, because, as we know, all record company advances are immediately retractable. Alright? Whoever wins this competition is looking at a million-dollar debt within two seconds.

WN: Yeah, that is a booby prize.

Lydon: Here's how we'll tell if the winners have staying power or not: It's up to the audience. The final show is an audience decision. I'm trying to be as fair and as open as I possibly can, and I hope that is clearly understood. There is no vested interest coming from me at all.

WN: It strikes me that maybe Bodog Music could be a different sort of record company. I mean, they're trying crazy stuff like this ...

Lydon: They're trying, aren't they! For fucksake, who else is? I don't see Warner Bros. or the rest of them making any effort at all. They're just signing up endless rap bands, and we have heard that game, that malarkey. How many more rap acts do we need before we go, "Hang on, I've heard this before!"?

I'm not blowing my own trumpet here, but I made a rap song 20 years ago with Afrika Bambaataa. And I feel the same way about rock clichés or white reggae bands. I want to see a bit of originality. But at least within the confines of pop music, you can have a bit of fun. Pop music I have always loved best. But the more extreme, fascist-led examples of the music business, I tend to detest the most. Punk, when it started out -- we were open for everything from anyone all the time. It very, very quickly mellowed into this tragic misrepresentation of studded leather jackets and arseholes spitting left, right and center and being rude just for the sake of it. The wonderful world of Wallydom.

And yet at the moment, in this battle of the bands, we have this very fine punk band. They aren't the best players, but by god, unlike Green Day, this band actually really enjoy what they are doing.... That doesn't mean they're going to win or lose. But it kind of means they've won already, in their hearts and souls. Do you understand?

WN: Yes. I think I know which one you're talking about, is that Fall From Grace? They struck me as the one that really seems like a band, they cohere like a band.

Lydon: They do, don't they? I like that. But I've had to tear them down from time to time, because they chucked a song in there that really, really was half-hearted, and that's not to be tolerated. Like I said, I grew up in the school of hard knocks, and I had to get my wings, and no one gets to play the spoiled brat and squeak by on me.

WN: Fair enough.

Lydon: Unless there's serious bottom kissing.

WN: I can only imagine what you've had to put up with along those lines during this show.

Lydon: Anyone who's prepared to kiss my bum is well worth a million-dollar contract. I jest.

WN: What do you make of these MP3 blogs that are posting songs, sometimes without permission?

Lydon: I have one major problem with the internet: It's full of liars. There doesn't seem to be any way to answer to people lying about you. Some are good-natured -- mostly it isn't. Mostly it's vicious rumor, gossip and innuendo. I think that's a downscaling of humanity, and we're suffering because of it. It's a terrible thing to see your whole life altered before your very eyes on this stupid, ridiculous, electronic screen.