“Nothing to offer”: The punk icons John Lydon thought were phonies
With the Sex Pistols, John Lydon made his name as a disruptor whose main aim was to shake up the musical establishment and leave everyone else quaking in their boots.
Lydon didn’t care about who he upset along the way with his razor-sharp tongue, which was his weapon of choice both on and off stage. For some, it is even a badge of honour to have faced his vicious wrath, and is interpreted as a sign they are doing something right.
The punk movement, spearheaded by the Sex Pistols, had its desired effect by reshaping the musical landscape. It also inspired a bunch of others to follow in their footsteps, including Joe Strummer, who got a taste of punk after seeing Sex Pistols live in all of their glory.
At the time, Strummer was content with performing on the pub-rock circuit with The 101’ers. However, shortly after witnessing Lydon in action, The Clash was born, and Strummer was a paid-up member of the punk revolution.
Strummer once recalled to The Independent that he first saw them live when they supported his own band and utterly blew the headliners out of the water, admitting, “The 101’ers had been playing for two years or so when the Pistols burst onto the scene, and when I saw them, I realised you couldn’t compare the Pistols to any other group on the island, they were so far ahead. I mean, it can’t be stressed enough, it was a quantum leap.”
He added: “Anyway, they played, there was hardly any audience, it was a Tuesday or something. And I knew we were finished, five seconds into their first song I knew we were like yesterday’s papers, I mean, we were over.”
As much as the Sex Pistols were responsible for him ending the 101’ers, and forming The Clash, Strummer never earned the respect of Lydon. In his mind, Strummer was a privately-educated pretender who didn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as his band.
On various occasions, the former Sex Pistols frontman has taken time out to lay into his punk peers. As part of his memoir, Energy: My Life Uncensored, Lydon claimed The Clash’s songs “didn’t have any content, and they really didn’t seem to stand for very much at all other than this abstract socialism.”
Detailing further, the musician wrote that “they had nothing to offer, character-development-wise”. He added that Strummer “began to lack a sense of humour about himself. He was definitely out to grab himself a crown.”
Additionally, as part of a webchat held by The Guardian in 2014, Lydon threw another punch at The Clash and boldly said that “nobody gives a toss” about them.
His stance did appear to soften during an interview with Crack when Lydon stated that it was entirely down to Strummer’s privileged background rather than him as a person or musician. He explained, “It’s nothing personal, I liked Joe. But you can’t be a champagne socialist, you’ve got to be more honest with us than that.”
Although Strummer sadly departed the world more than two decades ago, Lydon is still throwing shots in the direction of The Clash frontman’s legacy.
In 2025, he told Louder Than War, “It was Joe Strummer’s voice that would irritate the hell out of me and his fake angst and ‘last war’ nonsense.”
He also claimed that The Clash were “creating division” and said they should have focused on exploring their “middle-class experiences rather than imitating my lot”.
While there is a grain of validity to Lydon’s point, Strummer had no say in his background, and most importantly, the late singer used his voice to make the world fairer. Just because Strummer was born into a specific, comfortable background doesn’t mean that he didn’t care for those who weren’t given the same luxury. Most astonishingly, accusing The Clash, who brought cultures together and promoted racial harmony with their music, of “creating division” couldn’t be further from the truth.
