The band John Lydon said should have never existed: “There’s no life experience”
As a music journalist, I have a terrible habit. Every time I’m on my way to an interview, whether I’m walking to the location or getting ready to log onto Zoom, I find myself secretly wishing for one thing: that they’ll start a fight. In this age of media training and polished PR, I can’t help but hope the artist brings a little chaos, the way John Lydon used to.
In the press, Lydon was dishing out the insults regularly, never being one to mince his words or hide his true feelings. He famously started a feud with The Rolling Stones, with Mick Jagger telling Interview Magazine, “Johnny Rotten keeps talking bad about me. He’ll get his rotten teeth kicked in one day,” after the band suggested that the rock and roll legends should retire.
Then, the entire band got involved as Sid Vicious said, “I absolutely despise those turds. The Stones should have quit in 1965.”
The Stones were just one of the bands in Lydon’s firing line, though. Green Day, Pet Shop Boys, The Clash – they’re only a few of the names the punk famously, and openly, hates. He can’t seem to help himself, as even during an interview about something unrelated, insults and digs seem to come to him so effortlessly.
Take this, for example: Lydon was simply being asked about festival booking when he tripped, fell and slagged off U2.
“We haven’t had any offers. They have been quite negative, which has astounded us because PIL is the perfect festival band,” he said when asked about whether his new act, Public Image Ltd, would be playing any festivals.
Saying that would be enough. He could have gone in on festival bookers or the music industry at large. But no – instead, he singled his aim, blaming it all on one other act as he said, “You don’t want U2 – that’s a band that should never have existed, there’s no life experience in any of their songs.”
Going off on a complete tangent, Lydon was so desperate to attack the Irish rockers that the topic of live performance fell away to instead get at their songwriting. That wasn’t even the first or only time, either, as during another interview, their name was in his mouth again, stating, “I don’t understand U2.”
In this case, though, he was now claiming that Bono and his band were ripping off Public Image Ltd, claiming about the group’s success, “That’s absolutely preposterous. Particularly songs like ‘Bullet The Blue Sky’, which is almost a complete rip-off of a PIL song! Very annoying.”
If only modern bands were brave enough to insult one another so liberally.
