When The Rolling Stones threatened The Sex Pistols: “He’ll get his rotten teeth kicked in one day”
Rolling Stone ran the headline ‘Rock is Sick and Living in London’ and NME went with ‘Don’t look over your shoulder, but the Sex Pistols are coming’; yes, the angle was clear from the culture press, something seismic was shifting in the music world, and a bunch of louts who could barely pass a Grade 2 music test were propagating it. they might have lacked traditional skills, but their energy was unmistakable. They were shaking up a decade where rock ‘n’ roll had become stilted. This was a threat to the status quo.
“No matter what Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious do, they can’t be more disgusting than The Rolling Stones are in an orgy of biting,” a 34-year-old Mick Jagger told Interview like a kid in a playground caught up in a daft ‘my dad is harder than your dad’ contest. He was riled. In fact, he was so riled that he would actually catch the wrong end of the incendiary stick that was beating the mainstream and say things that he would later regret like his unfortunate NBC News comment: “The next [album] is going to be more racist and more sexist and a whole bunch better.”
Punk wasn’t merely about vitriol and violence, but that is where Jagger was willing to meet them. Regarding their run-ins, the gyrating frontman scolded: “They’ve stopped short at violence. I think even Sid Vicious is basically a nice guy, but Johnny Rotten keeps talking bad about me.” And then came the threat: “He’ll get his rotten teeth kicked in one day.”
The source of this acrimony stemmed from Vicious’ decree that the mainstream rockers had lost their way. He told Rolling Stone: “I despise those turds. The Stones should have quit in 1965.” Later, the band’s manager, Malcolm McLaren took that same turd out of the punchbowl and hurled it at the wall when he commented on the death of Elvis Presley and opined, “It’s just too bad it couldn’t have been Mick Jagger.”
Naturally, this caused a rift. However, it would seem that this was not a typical publicity spat between the two bands. The pissing war was far more pointed than usual. The Rolling Stones, for the most part, wanted to retain their crown as the grittiest rock band around and proclaim the narrative that punk was little more than an outfit change and a few music lessons away from what they did at their pomp. While the Sex Pistols were in the red corner trying onto a new vitalised bandwagon driving towards new pointed heights that the 1960s failed to reach.
Interestingly, Keith Richards sort of paraphrased this debate when he said: “They look great. That’s all that matters.” Ostensibly a compliment, there is also a hint that he’s saying they’re rock ‘n’ roll in rags and not much more. And the final conclusion of all this clashing defied both sides of the argument because if anything, the fight dragged each other on.
The tragically bittersweet denouement is a testimony to that. When Sid Vicious passed away, it was Jagger who stepped in as the elder statesman of rock to cover the funeral costs and legal fees. As Lydon [Rotten] later told the Daily Record: “I heard Mick Jagger got in there and brought lawyers into it on Sid’s behalf because I don’t think Malcolm [McLaren] lifted a finger. He just didn’t know what to do. For that, I have a good liking of Mick Jagger. There was activity behind the scenes from Mick Jagger, so I applaud him. He never used it to advance himself publicity-wise.”
