John Lydon’s favourite Led Zeppelin album: “The sheer terror and ferocity of it”
Sometimes, revolutionists feel the need to pretend nothing came before. In the curious case of John Lydon and his provocative punk band, Sex Pistols, they would have denounced the influence of The Stooges if it could gain some publicity. A crude and acerbic answer to the previous decade’s Fab Four, Lydon and his bandmates seized the power of self-confidence throughout their transient spell of existence in the late 1970s.
The influence of bands like The Who, The Stooges and New York Dolls was palpable in Sex Pistols’ hard-hitting sound. It is also apparent that Sid Vicious and Lydon greatly admired the work of glam-era stars like Roxy Music, David Bowie and T Rex. However, after the band’s emphatic rise to stardom, interviews contained very few allusions to classic rock influences, especially ones of The Beatles’ stature.
Legend has it that Lydon and manager Malcolm McLaren fired the Sex Pistols’ original bassist, Glen Matlock, due to his outspoken endorsement of The Beatles. Although Matlock vehemently denies this, he was and remains an avid Beatlemaniac.
As the years rolled on and Sex Pistols dissolved, the members became increasingly vocal about their influences. In recent years, guitarist Steve Jones revealed that he’s increasingly disinterested in punk as he grows older, claiming that he would “rather listen to Steely Dan”. Such a statement would have landed him in serious jeopardy back in 1977.
Similarly, John Lydon seems more willing to discuss his musical tastes in recent years. While he may not have been The Beatles’ biggest fan, he understands their essential position in musical evolution. “You have to understand that when I slag them off, I’m not slagging off their historical perspective,” he said during a 2022 Q&A at The 100 Club in London. “They were vital for my development.”
When it comes to classic rock bands, Lydon is much more reverent of Led Zeppelin. The band’s prog-rock complexities starkly contrasted with Sex Pistols, but both shared visceral gravity and a do-or-die rock ‘n’ roll spirit. These days, Lydon is more than willing to highlight such similarities and regards Led Zeppelin as one of his favourite bands.
In a 2018 interview with Tom Power, Robert Plant remembered being inspired by the punk movement to return to rock’s unrefined roots. He and Jimmy Page were particularly fascinated by The Damned and recorded punk-adjacent tracks like ‘Ozone Baby’ and ‘Wearing and Tearing’ in response to this new musical wave.
At around the same time, Plant encountered Sex Pistols, whom he deemed less revolutionary than they are often credited for. “We were absolutely dumbfounded by the idea of British punk having some kind of revelatory gift that put us in the shadows because we had been raised on stuff far wilder than Never Mind the Bollocks,” Plant recalled.
The Led Zeppelin frontman also remembered Lydon’s cockiness during the Sex Pistols era. “Lydon would writhe on the floor before me, sort of faking this adoration, so it was difficult not to raise my foot and think about the Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club,” he added, laughing.
Despite Lydon’s arrogant posturing in Plant’s presence, he was a Led Zeppelin fan from the start and as Sex Pistols subsided into the more stable age of Public Image Ltd, he revealed a deep respect for the band. “It all goes round and round and he asked me for the lyrics for ‘Kashmir’ when he was in PiL… it is what it is,” Plant concluded.
In a 2015 interview with Classic Rock, Lydon revealed his appetite for certain regions of the prog-rock map and remembered PiL’s popular live cover of ‘Kashmir’. “It was a good homage to a band that we do love,” he said. “Although, yes, I’ve never mentioned Zeppelin very much, Physical Graffiti is one of my favourite albums. The sheer terror and ferocity of it … beautiful landscaping.”
Physical Graffiti arrived in 1975 as Led Zeppelin’s sixth studio album. As far as many fans are concerned, the record marked the end of the band’s reign of superiority through the first half of the 1970s. Thereafter, weaker albums like Presence and In Through the Out Door found the long, dark shadows cast by punk proponents.
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