The night Glen Matlock “nicked” an award from The Rolling Stones
The Sex Pistols were never ones to play by the rules—no surprises there. As the poster children for youthful rebellion and anti-establishment defiance, the band not only wrote Anarchy in the UK but famously performed it on a boat opposite Parliament, making a bold statement against authority. True to form, they bent—and often outright broke—more than a few laws along the way, solidifying their place as icons of anarchy and rebellion.
In fact, it’s arguably what their whole legacy was built on, and it didn’t stop after they became one of the most famous and talked about bands in the world. Anyone who saw Danny Boyle’s admittedly iffy biopic series on the band Pistol will know this story, but one of the reasons the band could happen at all was Steve Jones’ storied history as a petty thief.
He’d kitted out his band, The Strand, with top-of-the-range instruments, amps and equipment he’d swiped straight off the stage of the Hammersmith Odeon. From no less an artist than David Bowie, who was performing a set of shows than the final Ziggy Stardust concerts. After a few years tooling around the London pub circuit, Jones asked Malcolm McLaren, impresario and the manager of SEX, a fashion boutique he frequented, to manage them.
The first curdles of what would later wither into the Sex Pistols began there. Part of McLaren’s vision for the band (never, ever forget the Pistols were as manufactured as McFly) was that they’d add SEX’s shop assistant, an art student called Glen Matlock, on bass. As time went on, Matlock gained a reputation as the sensible Pistol. The one who would eventually get kicked out of the band for, in the words of McLaren, “liking The Beatles”.
Clearly, this was Malcolmese for “Glen kept asking where their money was going and Sid Vicious wouldn’t” because it certainly wasn’t that he didn’t fit the group. Every musical note of Never Mind The Bollocks came from Glen Matlock, along with the entirety of ‘Pretty Vacant’, lyrics and all. Then, after the band had split up, reunited, split up again, reunited again and then split up again, he told the Notes From An Artist podcast about a time that would probably make a teenage Steve Jones nod with approval.
In 2019, Matlock and his band were playing at a charity benefit in memory of Brian Jones. Everyone on the bill, including The Stranglers, Steve Harley and Bill Wyman, would be awarded an award at the night’s end for participating. As Matlock puts it, “It was dark on the side of the stage, so they said, ‘Go get your award, then afterwards, we’ll go back to the green room and then sort out whose is whose.’”
When they all went back to the green room, Matlock realised something. The award he was holding didn’t have his name on it. In fact, his one was nowhere to be found. He said: “I asked where was mine, they said, ‘we’ve went through all of them, and we think Steve Harley’s got it, and he’s gone home!’
He checked the one he was holding and found that it was actually Bill Wyman’s, so presumably, he thought, “That man’s had enough awards already”, and went home with it anyway. For a band whose legacy was built on stealing from an icon of rock, I’m sure they wouldn’t have it any other way.
