Mojo Magazine
March 2006

The Mojo Interview

How do you go from being a Sex Pistol and punk public enemy to wildlife TV presenter and royal defender? With "No love lost and no hate wasted," explains renaissance man John Lydon.

IT'S THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS AND MOJO IS sitting in the sumptuous foyer of the Savoy Hotel, just off The Strand, watching some of the wealthiest folk in the world wrestle their Selfridges shopping bags through the reassuringly old-fashioned revolving doors. John Lydon- - alias Johnny Rotten, former Sex Pistol and star of 2004's jungle reality TV show, I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! - is upstairs in a spacious suite overlooking the Thames. We've been told everything's running smoothly - though an hour late. Any thought, however, that Lydon's famously bristly temperament has undergone rehabilitation-by-TV stardom is suddenly dashed by news that a journalist from a daily paper has just been unceremoniously ejected from his room. Somewhat ill-advisedly, he'd stormed in looking for a fight, and allegedly called Lydon "a fucking cunt". John, we're told, would rather not talk about it.

With MOJO the last interview of the day, we're expecting to meet a tired and tetchy Mr Rotten but, perhaps sensing we come in peace, Lydon quickly softens into the warm, gnarled and lovable Finsbury Park misfit who stole the nation's hearts (and votes) in the Australian jungle. He's very likeable and endearingly theatrical, scrunching his face into that comical, Old Man Steptoe grimace, cackling good-naturedly and, when making a serious point, tilting his head and staring at you like a giant, myopic cockatoo.

Up close, the physical frailties he turned into a virtue 30 years ago as Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten are striking: he complains to ever-present sidekick and life-long friend John 'Rambo' Stevens about a reaction to some pain-killers he's been prescribed for a dislocated shoulder; also his extremely sensitive eyes (a legacy, like his bent spine, of childhood meningitis). But, though clearly knackered and in discomfort, he seems commend-ably intent on pushing himself to give us the full, in-depth interview we've requested.
But beware: though happy to let us unravel the fascinating dimensions of Johnny Rotten at (nearly) 50, it's also clear that he'll still have your finger off if you rattle his cage too hard...

There are rumours that you're planning a documentary on the Royal Family - obviously completely intriguing.

Yeah, well, Janet Street-Porter did a programme on them and she's anti-Royal and I never knew that, and I've known her a long, long time. So they were asking us to give them the rights to use God Save The Queen for it, and we're saying, "Hang on, who's the bloke who started all this discussion in the first place? Don't you think I should have a say-so?" It came to pass in my mind that, yes, I'd like to take over that thing and present it from my point of view. I'm not anti [the Royal Family] as human beings, I'm anti the institution until I can understand how it can properly function. I don't understand what it's doing. They don't understand what they're doing.

Is there anyone you particularly admire from that bunch?

Charlie, for hooking up with Camilla. I mean, he's married a car blanket! (Laughs) Super. But he obviously clearly loves her. So at last in his daft existence he's found something he values. He's put love above duty. How punishing it must have been marrying a gorgeous fairy tale bird... but was Diana a good person? No, she was a muck-raking, fucking jealous little bitch, who married into a family knowing damn well that faith and love and truth are things that don't exist in that society.

And [I also admire] little Harry, because he can go to Sandhurst and officer's school and all this stuff - but, no, he wants to be in the trenches. First place I'd put him, ha ha! No, but I appreciated that he wants to be "of the people" and that's important. The Royal Family, if you're gonna have one, it's somehow got to represent a Britishness, and there isn't much Britishness
left here any more and we need it.

You've lived in the States for years now - how does America view Britain?

As a piss-pot little country. As a place of insignificance run by a gormless idiot. Blair is a back-door Charlie to them. Rear-entry, mate! Ha ha. The nonsense that he's whispering some common sense in Bush's ear? Oh yeah, is that how you ended up in Iraq then? Who's whose poodle?

I assume you were against the war in Iraq.

Before you kill anybody you'd better have a bloody good reason. And that nonsense [about WMD] wasn't good enough. And so they're War Criminals. These are dangerous words I speak, [but] I'm not ashamed to say what's right. People have died because of these two cunts.

We were talking about Britishness - what do you think we've we lost as a nation?

People understood in the past. People stuck by each other. There were communities. When they started replacing pubs with wine bars, community went out the window. Football -teams, fans - it was community based. Now it's how much dosh you've got. Like the 'Highbury Library' full of accountants, "Oh, come on you Gooners!" It's ridiculous. I'm a season ticket holder, always will be, but I don't like what I have to put up with sitting around me. Years ago, you'd know everybody around you. You'd be somehow connected. And if you stepped out of line you'd get a smack on the back of the head and your dad would be told. But when the other lot came down your manor... hmm, they'd have to meet your lot. And that's important stuff. Those are not rules - those are common sense values that keep things proper.

Margaret Thatcher had a big following among the working classes. Were you a fan?

Margaret Thatcher" urgh, no U-turn for this woman! I liked that aspect of her. I despised her politics, all right... but then she did U-turn. And that U-turn has trickled down through society, where people seem to think they can say one thing and do another later. You ought to stick to what you value, right. And then you can't be steered wrongly. And so that's gone.

OK. As a child you had meningitis, which affected your spine and put you back a year at school. It also caused you to lose a lot of your early memories...

Yeah. Bits and pieces have come back over the years but it's very odd, I can wake up one morning and remember something new. But even to this day, I've still got bits ofthe jigsaw missing. And so I have that feeling of not belonging anywhere consistently. (Points at his head) I'd love to have the old sponge back, ha ha, I really would.

I get the impression that your parents, working-class Irish immigrants, were actually very supportive and loving.

Well they had to be; they had a loony for a son! Ha ha! I had no idea who they were. That's a terrible thing, innit? You bring a kid into the world and they go, "Who are you?" (laughs). What a burden that was. They were just basic Irish folks living in England. And that was bad. I ain't no romantic looking back at that time, there was fuck all for them. Fuck all. But bollocks to it.

When your mum passed away in '79, did that change your perspective on a lot of stuff?

I was numb. Numb for a long time. She asked me to write a song for her when it looked like she was dying, for Christ's sake - Death Disco. That song's me screaming in pain and I don't even like to think about it and it's a very strange feeling to do it live, because I enjoy being that sad. It's a release, but my God you go through such agony in your head just re-living it.

You and your dad seem to get on well, I remember you took him to the Q Awards in 2001. Have you ever wanted to be a father?

No, me and [wife] Nora... there was a mishap a few yonks back [Lydon's autobiography, Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, refers to a miscarriage early in their relationship], all right, and yes it broke both our hearts. But there're always children around wherever I am, my brother's kids. One ofthe best jobs I ever had, before the Pistols, was looking after problem children. I used to run classes for that. But they sacked me 'cos I had green hair.

The I'm A Celebrity... experience seemed to have opened up people's perception of...

(Cuts in with mock disgust) Fuck off, mate! I'd been around a long time before then and I damn well know that [the producers at] Granada manipulate the press by rubbishing your previous… that is what sells that show, the idea that you never really had a life beforehand. So be wary of that. I didn’t just become invented by Granada TV! Mr Rotten cannot be invented. Malcolm tried that cheeky shit and Granada TV are part two. It’s nonsense.

What I'm saying is that your, well, public image has been turned on its head. From being Public Enemy Number 1 to being one ofthe nation's Great Englishmen.

But I see it as, "By God, he's right!" That's all. So what? I am right. Bingo. If I was wrong about stuff, nobody would be saying a word here. And I'm more British now and I don't even live here! Maybe that's what being British is. I just like people- the good ones. I don't Ii ke institutions that create monsters.

Your series on VH-1, Rotten TV, was taken off the air. What happened?

VH-1 are owned by MTV, and there were several attempts to grab the name Rotten and use it for other people – like I don't count. It's been like that all my life, people taking control over my work and sticking my name on it and trying to rubbish me out, I'm the boy who lost his brain and they're jealous of me. My life's not fun and games but I go through it with a smile. I'm not professionally miserable. I know comedians are manic depressives by nature and are struggling not to be.

You admire that strand of '60s British comedy: Hancock, Spike Milligan, Steptoe. That out-of-season melancholy, tempered with a bullish pride...

It's all there was on TVI That or Panorama. Oh God, not another documentary about Belfast (puffs face). I'm an avid book reader but that doesn't mean I'm a book. Steptoe & Son is the script. That was dialogue I could understand instinctively at an early age.

Do you think that the Sex Pistols' humour was overlooked?

Like totally. Yeah, people think it's some dour, dark thing with spiteful intent. Well it isn't. But spiteful arseholes out there might think it's that way because that's how they are. Don't reshape my history to accommodate your vision.

What about Monty Python? Graham Chapman was in the frame for directing The Great Rock'N'Roll Swindle.

Well, we met and it was unbearable. He was just a twat. Goofy jibes, it all became too indulgent really. Didn't work out and I'm glad it didn't. We quickly realised we weren't fun people. His people were very old school tie, but it doesn't matter. I love Fawlty Towers with John Cleese but the man's a snob. Years ago I was asked to do a Prince Charles charity thing and one ofthe comments from John Cleese was, "What's that sort of person doing here?" That sticks in my mind. It doesn't poison my enjoyment of his show but as a person he hasn't got the right to say that about me. He Does Not Know Me. All right, he's judging me by what he views as an ugly image. I shall come back to his Hush Puppies with a vengeance.

PiL's lyrics do read a bit like poetry, more so than the Pistols stuff.

Was there anything wrong with that (laughs)?! "A bit like poetry", that's a crime in places, quite absurd! Those were my emotions. And, oddly enough, that's what poetry is supposed to do. It's supposed to score and hit bang on the head what you genuinely feel.

Were you an avid poetry reader as a teenager?

Yeah, bloody hell, I'm A-level literature me. What do you think?

T.S. Eliot? That clipped tone, death, machinery.. .

Yeah, most definitely. But there's no genius to me. Wordsworth was great fun. Ted Hughes, I loved his stuff. I thought the way Oscar Wilde wrote was ~ just great. Just like, You bloody git! You're really having a go at this lot in such a wonderful way. The Importance Of Being Earnest is absurd but that's what happens when society and mannerisms dominate common sense. You get yourself in a mess and everybody's lying and those lies trapped all of them. They were all trying to hide the fact that he was found in a bag at a railway station. God, just tell it like it is and all of this wouldn't be going on.

Would you ever re-form PiL?

Which semblance of it? There are 20-odd different albums, different structures...

What about Jah Wobble and Keith Levene? Do you keep in contact?

Oh, I don't like Keith, so he can go to hell. He's just nasty minded. When he stops that, then I'll talk to him. Wobble's a mate and always will be. The last time I was here we went for a great curry. He's always working, keeps himself busy, 'cos if you don't then your nasty little mind will start working.

Is the TV work hard? You've done Rotten TV, Megabugs, John Lydon Goes Ape...

Oh yeah - well this Megabugs thingy, I mean that's six weeks solid; there's not two minutes to spare - gruelling. And I will not be scripted and I will not have anyone bring a script in. So it's freeform but it means your brain has to be so fucking in tune, right. Which is why when I gig, it's intense touring. I love it because I'm fully loaded inside.

So this image of you as a lazy sod watching loads of telly in Venice Beach isn't true.

I'd love it to be. That would be my vision. I've tried hard to be lazy, really worked at it. I have to take huge breaks because my brain cannot handle it. At a certain point, I will start having seizures if I overwork myself. Big time. And that makes me very hard to work with. [To Rambo] Doesn't it John?

That idea of being in control seems quite central to you as a person.

HelIo? What's your name? Of course I want to be in control. I know what it's like not to be. That's the good side of an illness like [meningitis]. I lived the bad side of life.

Coming from your background - washing in a tin bath, being scrubbed with Dettol - do you now like the finer things in life?

Yes I bloody do. I love this hotel -I'm at the Saveloy! I like having my back scrubbed, too, but in a much more genteel way. Ha ha. These are realities. It wasn't just me and my family. Everybody we knew had it like that and we didn't think it was bad at the time. Joe Strummer, God bless him, he's gone and he shall be missed. But how dare he preach class war with an organisation like that [the late '80s Rock AgainstThe Rich movement]. Living in a huge house in Holland Park. Every photo opportunity to be seen on a bus in his 1eather jacket, and then he went back to a palace. You're not getting it quite right there! That's where his image mattered more to him than the reality. He was trying to con us. In a nice way and for the right reasons but once you start lying it carries on and on and on.

What's your perspective on what you've done - your body of work - as it appears on The Best Of British Pound Notes compilation?

It's not binding; and I'm far from finished. That's compilation number one. These songs are all single orientated. I love the simplicity of a pop song 'cos you can captivate an entire emotion in a couple of minutes, which is a great thing. MOJO journalists waffle stuff like, "Oh, the best PiL stuff was the early years" - who the fuck are they to tell me that? Shut your mouth. That might be what you like, right. But they're missing the point. The Pistols had a pop sensibility - we weren't Emerson, Lake And Palmer. And we weren't Chas & Dave either.

When the Pistols re-formed in '96, before it happened was there any sitting around saying, "You called me a cunt..."

No, no, we all know it's all true, so there's no discussion. We like the fact that we dislike each other. In a weird way that makes us like each other all the more. It's so brazenly in-your-face honest between us. There's no problem at all with it. I love being on-stage with those chaps -and I wouldn't be seen dead with them off. And they'd tell you the same about me.

Have you laid those ghosts to rest now?

Yes, yes... no. It'li always be like that. The day that I can be smugly self-satisfied, that'll be the day of rest-in-peace forever.

There's a comment in Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, by a Warners executive, which posits the idea that there was an old-fashioned gay manager-artist thing happening with McLaren and the Pistols. That he had a crush on you.

(Laughs and screws up face) Urrrrgh! Thank God it wasn't me what said that! l don't want to think about that. Urgh, that's made the hairs on the back of my head stand on end (laughs). That's just creepy. (Pause) I think Malcolm spent an awful long time being jealous of me and he made it very difficult for me. He grabbed the credit and ran. No love lost there, but no hate wasted there either. It was the fuel that lit the fire, straight to the engine.

Do you miss people who you've lost along the way, like Sid?

I miss anyone who's dead, I really do. Sid was a great bloke, a barrel-load of laughs. But the cottage industry of punk has turned him into a humourless drug monster, which wasn't right. He didn't get the opportunity to get out of that drug problem. And taking him into the band at that point was a horrible pressure; I didn't notice it, I thought it was all right but I was lumbering him. It was my fault. That's how I feel about that. Why is it that the things we do have 20,000 reasons behind them? You have to be honest with yourself. I ain't no saint.
Your trip to Jamaica in 1978, to sign acts to Virgin, was obviously important to you, being a big reggae fan.

Do you still listen to contemporary black music?

I don't go out of my way to listen to 'black' music. I grew up in Finsbury Park - the melting pot of the universe. I see no clear distinction between a reggae record or anything else. It was The Clash who came in and put structures on these things. White Man In Hammersmith Palais? What the fuck's [Strummer] noticing that he's the white man there for? He's already spotting a difference. Well that's your fault mate for feeling out of place.

You're approaching 50 - are you happy?

I like living. Every minute that I live is fine by me, even the bad stuff. Surely our main motivation each day should be to have a good day and not bugger it up? I really love being at home. Me and Nora, just us and our stinky old bedsheets!

What's next, more solo stuff?

I'm dying to get back and do that. I built my studio with [younger brother] Martin, we work really well, and I can't be expected to know how every button works and Martin's very technical. I don't want to know how every machine works, I want to know what every machine does. So we've found each other in that and that's great.

One last question: will the Pistols ever play again?

No, we've done it now. There's been an offer in Japan... we might do it 'cos the money's great, but secondly it can be filmed and that can be an end-piece. We've done England. The hardcore were there [at Crystal Palace] and that's all that counts. And all those that weren't, like the other punk bands, can go fuck themselves.

We’re not Worthy! Liam Howlett:
"One of the things I love about John Lydon is that he refuses to stop fighting and go quietly. . Any opportunity he gets to say 'Fuck you' in a new way, he will. Even if it is from Richard And Judy's couch! America should deport him immediately, England needs him."

Liam Howlett