The band John Lydon thought should “never have existed”
If culture had unfurled the way Frank Zappa wanted it to, then he would’ve never become a musician following the release of Bob Dylan’s classic ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, a record which would’ve achieved all of his artistic goals for him. But life didn’t work out that way, and John Lydon has a similar gripe when it comes to a band so underserving of their platform that he feels that they should never have existed in the first place.
When we recently spoke to the former Sex Pistols frontman, he put his finger on exactly what he feels has beleaguered modern music since the punk revolution. “Corporate thinking,” he instantly explains. “Record labels are very much a death by committee.” Bands like the Sex Pistols were radicals who proved to be unreliable engines of income, breaking up after a singular release, so the response as been to streamline consistent income and eschew the shake-ups leds by roving vagabonds.
As Lydon continues: “They have their little committee meetings or rather BIG committee meetings, and they decide what blah-blah-band should be doing for the next ‘hit’ single, right? This is a dangerous world to be trying to navigate through. I’ve always been accused of being ‘difficult to work with’. Yes, of course, I am!” he proudly exclaimed, almost headbutting the camera with a particularly aggressive leer.
“I will not be dictated to, or my fellow cohorts in PiL now,” Lydon adds. “This is our life’s experience. And we’re not going to have somebody misinterpret that on our behalf without our say. It’s a stupid trap. The promise, of course, is instantaneous wealth, fame and fortune. Well, I preferred infamy right from the start. And I found it the easier road to travel. Because I wake up in the morning knowing I haven’t lied to anyone. It’s fantastic.”
And there is one band that he feels has achieved huge success without any life experience at all: U2. The grovelling punk stated quite simply to the Daily Star: “U2—that’s a band that never should have existed. There’s no life experience in any of their songs.” In his opinion, the outfit are a band that fits right into the corporate mould without even having to be cajoled into place.
And he hasn’t stopped laying into the Irish band since. He added to his diatribe against the messianic group in a scathing Creem interview, explaining: “I don’t understand U2 either, I mean, that’s absolutely preposterous. Particularly songs like ‘Bullet The Blue Sky’, which is almost a complete rip-off of a PIL song! Very annoying.”
Beyond their penchant for what he deemed platitudinal, he also seemed peeved for more personal reasons, continuing: “In fact they use several Public Image ideas in the rhythm guitars. The thievery is amazing, because they don’t even give a nod or wink to their sources. They’re too self-righteous for that. These God worshippers stealing off the devil’s incarnate – that’s decadence! And there’s no real guts to them. That’s the tragedy, they’re all such milksops.”
Lydon has never once budged from this barrage of abuse, feeling that U2’s blend of genre’s is less of an immersive eclectic mix, and more of a corporate act of co-opting bits and pieces of success from other. Nevertheless, Bono certainly still respects his aggressor. “Dear John, Steve, Paul, Sid and Glen, I don’t think there has ever been a better rock’ n’ roll band on record. The production of all your songs… peerless,” he once wrote.
Comically, you half suspect that despite the praise, the use of “dear” might’ve rubbed Lydon up the wrong way regardless. Needless to say, you’d struggle to find two fellows more different if you had unlimited air miles and a behavioural psychology degree, unless, of course, you take into account their mutual penchant for talking bollocks.
