John The Revelator

I have to say I’m rather nervous about getting on the transatlantic blower to John Lydon. Not only is the ex-Pistol a notoriously prickly interviewee, but also our chinwag is taking place during the second-half of England V France, a Euro 2012 encounter fraught with Benzema-ian danger.

“I’ve already watched the game,” the 56-year-old deadpans. “They play behind closed doors for us celebrities and then re-enact it for the great unwashed… Nah, I’m watching it here on Fox or ESPN or some other channel that insists on calling association football ‘soccer’. Football’s had the passion and romance sucked out of it badly enough in Europe, but the Americans take it to a whole new level.”
So John hasn’t been helping to pay the respective $5.5 million and $2.97m salaries that David Beckham and Robbie Keane are getting for plying their trade at the Home Depot Center?
“Home what? I wouldn’t go to see the Galaxy because it’s too showbiz. America’s only just learning the sport and their thinking is both confused and confusing. They talk about ‘wage caps’ and then pay David Beckham all that money. Following golf would be easier and I hate golf!
“What do I think of Beckham? Nice underpants and Johnny Rotten’s old hair-do! What made Arsenal such a great team when I was growing up is that the North Bank was so mixed race. Everybody knew everyone. I miss them old days. They’re taking football away from us. I still follow Arsenal – I mean, it’s a life sentence! – but the team I love most, oddly enough, is FC United of Manchester. Their fans didn’t like what was being done in their name, so they told the American owners to ‘fuck off!’ Good on ‘em!”
The reason John and I are swapping early evening pleasantries is the release of This Is PiL, their first album since 1992’s grammatically challenged That What Is Not.
“The 20-year gap was down to our former record company, not us,” he says, referring to his long-running dispute with Virgin. “Do you understand accounting?”
The School of Hard Knocks, University of Life and Kindergarten of Getting Your Teeth Kicked In taught me many things, but sadly not that.
“It’s down to something called ‘recoupment’, which you can look up later on the internet. They weren’t interested in releasing any more of our records, but they didn’t want us to go elsewhere because they’d invested ‘x’ and wanted their money back. How exactly are we supposed to make money when we’re legally barred from going into a studio? It’s a financial trap – it just goes on and on and on. So I played the waiting game and did other things ‘til the contracts elapsed.”
Which must have been frustrating.
“Immensely, I’ve had to learn the patience of a saint. I’m not going to name no names...”
Oh, please do!
“Behave! No, many people end up junkies and boozeaholics because they just get so frustrated trying to deal with what is basically accounting. You don’t come into music expecting it to always come to a dead-end.”
How, when so many of his peers have fallen into the addiction trap, has John managed to avoid becoming a cliché?
“Because I believe in what I’m saying,” he avers. “This isn’t just panto for me. It’s not, ‘Oh, look what I’m wearing now!’ This is my life and my life is related in the songs I write. Hold on one second ‘cause I desperately need a cup of tea... alright, continue...”
Forget chemistry, John’s life has been made considerably better of late by butter.
“People can sneer if they want, but not only did those Country Life commercials increase sales of a fine British product by 87%, they also provided us with all the money we needed to make and release this record,” he proffers. “We’re self-financed, self-everything. I’m my own Richard Branson! I give myself the best commands, lots of perks and I’m very dutiful! I’m 100% committed to PiL. The other stuff that’s been going on is of no consequence to me.”
Is it fair to say that PiL’s his passion in life, and the Pistols an excuse to behave like a brattish teenager again?
“You’re garbling a very old statement of mine!” he laughs. “Yeah, PiL is my heart and soul but the Pistols was my body and mind. I’m glad we did all those shows, Electric Picnic included – I wanna go back there with PiL! – but at this stage of my life I wouldn’t be able to write for the Pistols.”
Was he tempted to cut the middleman out completely by releasing This Is PiL online?
“God, no! That just strikes me as gimmicky. I’m a music lover first and foremost, which might surprise a few people. CDs are as new-fangled as I’m prepared to get! PiL has always been on the cheap. We’re a live band first and foremost, so our album is approached with that in mind. Most of the studio trickery we ignore. If you’re recording in a semi-live format, which is how we work, it’s all about where you place the mics and being as tight as fuck. Which as anyone who saw us last year in Tripod will know we are. That was an outstanding show, really great atmosphere.”
Lydon’s battle cry on This Is PiL is the, ‘I am John and I was born in London/I am no vulture, this is my culture’, line which kickstarts the dublicious ‘One Drop’. Indeed, the album has a pronounced reggae flavour all the way through.
“There’s more things going on than that!” he chides. “In particular, a homage to the ‘60s – I’ve Jack Bruce rattling around my head somewhere and some of them mod bands who kicked up a good bass end. The Who were a top group – there was a great, great concert in 1971 at The Oval with them and The Small Faces who I’ll always acknowledge as an influence too. I never, ever thought of myself as trying to be trendy. For me a record store was like being allowed into the crown jewels. I’d experiment all over the gaff.”
Captain Sensible said to us the other day that, hair length and trouser width aside, there was little difference between Hawkwind at their early ‘70s counter-culture best and the Sex Pistols.
“I don’t remember seeing him or any of The Damned at
Hawkwind shows,” he says sniffily. “I, on the other hand, was. It’s like The Clash picking up on reggae years later. They weren’t there with the whole groundswell of it. They didn’t come from the proper manors, you know? Finsbury Park in the ‘70s was just a brilliant, brilliant amalgamation of characters. Greek record stores, a Turkish one next-door. There was a brilliant reggae shop run by a very old English woman and a great progressive place for all your Van Der Graaf Generator requirements. I was also big into my Motown. I’m a sucker for a sweet set of vocals.”
Talking as we were earlier of Mr. Branson, is it true or urban rock ‘n’ roll legend that John and a big bag of Virgin money were dispatched to Jamaica in 1978 to sign acts for their new Frontline imprint?
“All true, ‘cept for the big bag of money! I went with Don Letts and (PiL artwork man) Philip Morris. It was just after the break-up of the Pistols – happy times! – and we got to meet all these wonderful people like Big Youth, Prince Far I and U Roy who was very into his breakfast spliffs! I got to understand the cultural problems they face, and which have got worse rather than better in recent years.”
Did the Rastas realise they had England’s Public Enemy #1 in their midst?
“They did. I’m respected in those circles. I’m a man who stands up and does ‘Chant Down Babylon!’ One of the songs on the album, ‘Lollipop Opera’ is a nod to Millie who was one of the first Jamaicans to have a worldwide hit in 1964 with ‘My Boy Lollipop’. Chris Blackwell, who’s a good bloke to hang out with, signed her to Island.”
The last time Hot Press chewed the cud with John was in August 2010 when the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign were kicking up a stink about PiL’s impending visit to Israel.
“John Lydon is being used as a propaganda tool by an apartheid state,” charged classical composer Raymond Deane. The retort couldn’t have been any sharper: “Music is the only thing we have that’s free and uncontaminated. And music carries a far bigger political clout to change situations than any demonstrator. I’ve had to face this ridiculous fiasco of left-wing 18-year-old students called Jeremy following us around saying, ‘Please John, don’t play Israel. I’ll burn my records if you do because you’re supporting apartheid.’ I’m fully prepared to play in any Arab territory – Gaza and the West Bank included – yet I’ve never been invited. I have been invited by a promoter to play to the Israeli people. I’m not playing to the Israeli government. They’re an object of contempt, which I shall be letting them know on their own soil. I can do far more good that way than I can by outright not going to Israel.”
What are his post-traveling to Tel Aviv thoughts on the matter?
“That as usual I was right! I found that these people, as I do with any country or state in the whole world, are nothing to do with their government. Don’t confuse the two! The old PiL song ‘Four Enclosed Walls’ off Flowers Of Romance – it’s got a glorious refrain of, ‘Allah!’ sung like ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ in Arabic. I think getting 6,000 Jews and Arabs and Yemenites to sing that in a big hall without killing each other was a bit of a result, don’t you? I’ve done more for world peace than any of those flag-wavers.
“You can’t blame everybody for the crimes of a few,” he continues. “And the whole thing is to spread goodwill and if you just cut off the population from entertainment like that, well, they’re never going to be thinking goodly or kindly about anyone ever again.”
The “is it right to play Israel?” debate reignited again in May when a concerted, some would say venomous, social media campaign persuaded folksters Dervish to pull a concert tour there.
“I’m sorry about them turning it down,” he rues. “That was very foolish of them. Another golden opportunity blown. I support no government. Never have, never will.”
Before bidding John a cheery ‘adieu’ – full-time’s approaching and the French seem to have settled for a 1-1 draw with Les Rosbifs – I want to say how saddened I was by the death last year of his step-daugher Ari Up. One of my fondest musical memories is of her band The Slits supporting The Clash in the London Lyceum on their Give ‘Em Enough Rope tour. A massive influence on everyone from Huggy Bear and Massive Attack to Björk and Warpaint, it was shocking how little kudos The Slits were given by BBC 4’s recent Punk Britannia series, which John graced.
“Oh god, I warned them… That’s why I went to the NME Awards in London because I knew they weren’t going to mention her and I thought that would have been a crime against music. I used the moment to stand up and say nice things about Ari whose three kids came to live with us about 15 years ago – the twins are 30 now and the youngest 18. People assume I was doing nothing for two decades, but I was acting as a stand-in granddad. I did all the school runs and parent-teacher association meetings.
“Punk did wonderful things for setting the agenda correctly. It was the first time women stood on the stage as the equal of men. God bless Arianna, she was a wonderful person. And may the road rise with you!”
Amen to that!

This is PiL gets a live airing on July 29 when they play the Button Factory. John talks Obama, the Queen & religion on hotpress.com