The band that helped John Lydon come out of his shell: “One of my ailments in life”
It’s hard to imagine former Sex Pistol John Lydon ever being described as a shy boy.
He has, after all, spent the past five decades or so as one of the most confrontational performers from across the musical landscape, sneering his way through countless world tours and groundbreaking records. Seemingly, though, that might have never happened if the young songwriter hadn’t been guided by one legendary group.
The Sex Pistols might as well have arrived on a spaceship back in the mid-1970s; their spikey-haired, glue-sniffing, punk revolution was worlds apart from the rest of England’s rock and roll landscape at that time.
They were angrier, dirtier, and louder than anything that had come before, and Lydon’s snarling voice was always at their core. Not only did he provide a voice to the UK punk scene during those early years, but he also provided the look.
Lydon had, after all, only been given an audition for the Pistols on the strength of his spiked green hair and defaced Pink Floyd T-shirt, held together by safety pins; the band were never overly concerned with musical quality – had they been, Sid Vicious would have been out of a job. Instead, it was the group’s sheer attitude and their unending ability to shock and outrage the status quo that made Lydon a star.
Ultimately, though, the Sex Pistols were neither the only band to strike upon that endearingly abrasive sound, nor were they the first. Their punk sound was built upon the foundations of their American counterparts at the CBGB club, along with the pioneering garage rock sounds of The Stooges or The MC5. Lydon has always been quick to point out, too, the infallible influence that glam rock had on punk.
“That was the soundtrack of the time,” the Masked Singer contestant told Spin in 2015. “The glam-rock phase we called it, which I loved very much.” An explosion of flamboyant colour and incredible guitar riffs, the glam rock age blew away the cobwebs of the rock scene, with the likes of David Bowie, Ian Hunter, and The Sweet leading the charge.
For Lydon, though, there was nobody who could quite match the incredible sounds of Marc Bolan. His appreciation for the glitter-clad sounds of T Rex was so great, in fact, that he denounced the punk influence of the New York Dolls as being little more than a rip-off of Bolan’s outfit, calling them “a degenerate version.”
“When I take [T. Rex] out of my record collection and play them,” Lydon continued, revealing just how important the band were in his early development. “They just remind me of those times and getting over my shyness. It’s one of my ailments in life; through music I learned to be as open as I am. I suppose I’d be something of a quiet mouse without music.”
Without T Rex, then, it would appear as though the world might never have heard the Sex Pistols, and the entire punk landscape in the UK would be virtually unrecognisable as a result. There are many things that the musical realm has to thank Marc Bolan for, and allowing Lydon to overcome his childhood introversion should certainly be added to that list.
