John Lydon calls Eurovision “phoney” while expressing his desire to compete for Ireland
In fairness to John Lydon, when he snarled his way into the music scene with The Sex Pistols, he was hardly complimentary about the world he was riotously whirling into. So, perhaps it is hardly surprising that he has labelled Eurovision “disgusting” while expressing a desire to compete.
The punk icon is hoping that his band Public Image Ltd can represent Ireland in the “dreadfully phoney” competition. As it happens, Ireland holds the record for the most victories with seven wins including an unprecedented hattrick.
Speaking to Cormac Ó hEadhra on RTE’s Radio 1, Lydon explained: “It’s absolutely awful, the songs. The whole thing of it is disgusting to me. I’m a songwriter, I perform live, and these shows just come across as so dreadfully phoney to me.”
However, the singer who recently found himself in financial difficulty contrastingly continued: “But look, we’re giving it a chance to break out of that mould.” If it worked for the Finish death metal band Lordi back in 2006, who’s to say that PIL don’t stand a chance?
The band have offered up the track ‘Hawaii’ for Ireland’s consideration ahead of this year’s contest in Liverpool. It’s an atmospheric venture to the beach in a very David Bowie-esque fashion.
The grand final of the competition is scheduled for Saturday, May 13th. Whether or not Lydon will be there remains to be seen.
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