All language subtitles for I.Was.a.Teenage.Sex.Pistol.2025

(ROCK BAND REHEARSING)

Blaine, can I get your guitar?

(CREW MEMBER) Check, yeah.
One, two, one, two, AD.

(SINGS) # Well, blue jean baby... #

In life,
one thing leads to another thing.

You know, it's all part of
an exploration of gathering ideas.
Hello.

Hello, (BLEEP) listen.

I see my art
as being a songwriter, really.

It's Glen Matlock,
formally with the Sex Pistols.

Glen, you've already got
a very good catalogue of songs,

having written
which of the Sex Pistols hits?

We have an old English folk song
we're going to play for you
that I think you might know.

# 'God Save The Queen'

People like to paint me
as the guy from the Sex Pistols

that nobody knows.
But that ain't quite true.

# God save the Queen

# The fascist regime... #

They put on a brash,
crude display of music.

(JANET STREET-PORTER)
When the Sex Pistols,
with lead singer Johnny Rotten,

suddenly made Punk music
front page news,
they outraged pretty well everyone.

Come play apathetic old (BLEEP)

People couldn't believe
what they were seeing,

because no-one
had seen anything like this.
One of the most reviewed,

and most reviled rock phenomena....
(U.S. NEWSCASTER) Their records
are among the most popular

in England.
The Pistols
were something completely different.

The classic rejection
of the status quo,

into a new, more aggressive,

more heartfelt,
more passionate expression.

It was fresh. It was naughty.

Dirty fucker.

(BILL GRUNDY) What a -
What a fucking rotter.

Well, that's it for tonight.
We didn't realise

how much
we were going to shake things up.

People would say,
"They can't play'" you know.

And the Pistol songs
are largely three-chord songs,

but it's three chords and the truth.

They made one goddamn album!

It's one of the most
classic records of all time.

I could tell he understood

the power of the instrument
he was playing.

I think he is
the unsung hero of the band.

A lot of people didn't quite realise
what he brought to the group.

We were kind of fed
a Sid Vicious story,

that Sid Vicious was Punk Rock
and Sid Vicious is the Sex Pistols.

When we found out that Sid Vicious
could not play bass,

did not play bass, and there's
some other guy named Glen Matlock.
we're like, who's he?

There were so many people involved

that they've all got
their own take on things.

So this is my side of the story.

You are jogging my memory,
I must say.

Amazing how much you do remember.

Everyone knows the story.

I mean, we're fucking sick
of talking about it.

It's the same old shit. We've told
the story a million times.

OK, quiet on the set.
Action, OK.

('GOD SAVE THE QUEEN' ENDS)

We gotta kind of set the scene
a little bit.

(ROCK MUSIC)

(HUMS)

Here we are walking
up Ravensworth Road,

northwest London. It was where
I was brought up

till I was about 16.
I used to live up there
with my mom and dad.

I wouldn't mind having a look round,
if the new inhabitants let us in.

Wow!
Lead the way around.

So this was my mum and dad's room.

This was my bedroom.

From about here to there

And we didn't have a bathroom then.
Really? And that was it.

Oh, hang on, hang on.
(LAUGHTER)

The Pistols
were my favourite ever band.

It was a bit short of the plumbing.

We had like a tin bath
we had to get out once a week.

We used to run a hose
out from the scullery,

which is a tiny little kitchen,
into the tin bath

in front of the telly. My dad
was a sort of semi-skilled worker,

had a few different jobs.

He worked for Rolls-Royce
as a coachbuilder.

My mum worked part-time
at the powder puff factory

with my nan, making powder puffs
for compacts and things.

Then the next street,
all my mates I went to school with,

you know,
we was always out playing football.

It's got very high-tech,
there's a goalmouth painted,

but we just used to
put our jackets down.

And then there was one of the guys,
who was a latter member
of the Skatellites.

He was older than us
and he used to come
and play football in the street.

# Skinheads a mashup London Town
Skinhead to me #

There was a lot of
second-generation West Indian kids

around here, and it was
my introduction to bluebeat and ska.

And their moms and dads were all hip
to King Tubby and the Skatellites

and things like that.
In the summer, all the windows open,

and you'd hear 'Madness'
blasting out by Laurel Aitken.

But that was cool. And all the kids
had a little transistor radio

underneath your pillow at night.
We didn't have
a proper radio station

that played pop music, but there was
all these pirate radio stations
sprung up.

It was just really an exciting time.

And then this TV show come out,
'Ready, Steady, Go.'
# 'Wipeout'

Bands like the Kinks
and the Yardbirds and Stones

and the Beatles, Smokey Robinson,

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas,
the Supremes,

and the Small Faces.

The Small Faces
were these kind of little herberts

from the East End of London,
but they were the height of cool.
# I just sit here every day #

Some kids like me
picked up on that,

all in this kind of mixture of stuff
that was going on.

And that sowed the seeds
of my musical awakening.

You know, I didn't have
any brothers or sisters,

and getting a guitar
for Christmas when I was 10 or 11,

you know, when everybody goes home
after playing football in the street

at eight, nine o'clock at night,
you've got your guitar,

and you got your transistor radio,

and you start hearing songs
that you can relate to.

When I was getting 15, 16,
we all got jobs

in this department store
called Whiteleys.

A crowd of us worked there,
and one Friday night

we went out to the Lyceum.

There was a band called Ace.
# How long

# Has this been going on? #

And we watched them
and stayed up all night.

That's when I started thinking,

ooh, there must be
a little bit more in life

than working in a department store.
Around about the same time,

my uncle, who was a bit of
a ducker and diver with things,

appeared round my nan's once
with this big, long flat case.

I said, "What's that?"
And he opened it up.
It was this Fender Precision bass,

and it was beautiful.
Sunburst with all the chrome bits.

I said, "Where'd you get it?"
And he said, "Don't ask."

When you get a bass
and you get it home,

right, it sounds like that.
(STRINGS VIBRATING)

And you can't
hear the fucking thing.

And then what you do,

you can kind of jam it
against the wardrobe.

(STRINGS VIBRATE LOUDER)

You can hear it a bit more,
so you do that.

The thing is,
is playing bass by yourself

is a bit like having a wank.

Boom, boom, boom, boom,
and it's a bit boring really.

You need someone to play with.

# Yes, it's alright,
all or nothing #

So I started to be on the lookout.

I'd left school by then.
I was waiting to start art college,

and I wanted a job. And I'd heard
about the shop down at King's Road,

Let It Rock.
And it had big sign outside,

it said too fast 'Too Fast To Live,
Too Young To Die.'

And I walked in and it was like
my gran's front room from the '50s.

They had a radiogram,
all these drape jackets hanging up,

and some Brothel Creeper shoes.
Brothel Creeper is generally

a suede shoe
with a thick crepe sole,

which supposedly makes no noise
when you're creeping
around a brothel.

What Teddy Boys wore.

Well, a Teddy Boy
is from the name Edward.

In the '20s and '30s,
the upper-class people of England

sort of dressed
in this Edwardian look,

because we had King Edward
at the time, you know,

with longer coats
and velvet collars.

All the rock and rollers,
when Bill Haley came over,

they kind of adopted
this kind of look,

and they were Teddy Boys.

We're Teddy Boys.
We like rock and roll

because we think there's never
been a better music.

We like our style of dress,
because we think it's the best.
Let It Rock, it was basically

a sort of a Teddy Boy shop,
and there was a guy in there
and he said, "Can I help you?"

I said, "You don't need anybody
to work here, do you?"

And he said, "Well, as it happens,
I'm leaving this week."

And he wrote a number down.
He said, "Why don't you
call this guy up?" Malcolm.

I then started
working for Malcolm McLaren

and Vivienne Westwood.

It was like a clubhouse.
You know, we just rolled in.

Vivienne and Malcolm
would lark around

and Glen was the Saturday boy.

So we all got on
like a house on fire.

We'd look after the customers.
They all came in just to talk to us.

Every now and again
we'd sell something.

I still don't remember
putting money in the till.

I used to say to Vivienne,
I think more stuff got stolen

than actually got paid for.
But because it was so expensive

anyway, she always made money.

Friday there'd be a delivery.
Word would get out.

Saturday morning there was a queue
of Teddy Boys

down the street, waiting to get
their Brothel Creepers
when they'd come in.

And some of them
would order a drape jacket suit,

and I'd measure them up for it.

Early '75,
they were getting a bit fed up

with all these Teddy Boys coming in.

Malcolm and Vivienne
decided to change the shop,

and he come up with this idea, SEX.

A similar kind of effrontery
that Teddy Boy clothes had,

except it would be new.

So he wanted
to get rid of the Teddy Boys,

move on, do this kind of
more kind of bondage-looking gear.

And I helped
make the big sign outside.

and they started to get
a younger crowd coming in.

I never went there
when it was Let It Rock,

but I went when it was SEX.
In fact, Malcolm even measured me up

for a pair of peg pants.

The whole idea of SEX
was to put off the ordinary person.

It was like to frighten you
into not going into it.

And they even
had a bit of an attitude,

the people who worked there.
We did get a lot of sort of people
who, obviously,

mistook the establishment
for another kind of place.

In fairness for them,
it did say SEX outside, right?

So you would get a few oddballs
and weirdos come in,

and there was one guy came in
head to toe in rubber

and he'd just come
and ask the prices of things,

never bought anything.

He's obviously playing with himself,
right?

Then he'd say, "How much is that?"
And I'd say. "Oh, how much is that?

Well, that's... oh." Then he'd go,
"Ten pounds, ten pounds, whoa."

And then he'd rush out and then
you'd have to get the mop out.
We'd always roll our eyes

and say, "Oh well,
clean up in dressing room three."

It pissed off the Teddy Boys,
which was kind of the idea.

When the Teddy Boys
suddenly realised

that Malcolm had changed the shop
of being new age sex clothes,

they got really upset
and throw things through the window.

The windows were smashed
every Saturday. We wore
Brothel Creepers. They didn't like

that we were taking their look
and destroying it.

I don't like them.
They probably don't like me.

The Teddy Boys would come along,
we'd have to lock the door,

but they'd smash the window.
We were always terrified of Saturday

cos of getting beaten up.

But that's when things
really started beginning to change.

It became the hippest place
in London on a Saturday afternoon.

And that's where Steve and Paul
started coming in
with a couple of their mates.

Yeah, well Steve and myself
were really close.

We grew up together.
Like brothers, if you like.

I met him
when I was about 10 years old,

and we were just unseparatable
for many years.

We went to the same schools.
Hung out at the same places,

getting into trouble.

And he stayed around my house a lot,
because his home life

wasn't a happy place for him.

At school, there was a gang of us.
There was me, Steve

and a couple of other guys
and Wally Nightingale.

And we used to skive off school
and go round to Wally's house.

Sit in his bedroom
and listen to songs and play Faces.

# Baby used to stay out #

I was crazy about the Faces
and Rod Stewart.

I was kind of a bit obsessed.

We were definitely keen
on getting a band together.

It became everything, for me anyway.

# Oh no love, you're not alone #

Glam Rock
was really massive in the UK.

Bowie, Roxy Music, Queen,

T Rex, Mott the Hoople,
and we would go down Kings Road

all doled up like we were in a band,
platform boots,

flares, all stuff I had to nick,
cos no-one could afford it.

We used to go into the shop a lot
and hang out there.

We just felt comfortable.
Vivienne was great.

Her and Malcolm were a great team.
They were interested in us as well.

Malcolm was always asking,
where do you come from?

What'd you get up to?
Hey! I've been nicked.

I've gotta go outside.
He's nicked me.

I always had to watch 'em
when they came in,

I thought they'd nick something,
and Malcolm would humour them

a little bit.
"How's 'the band' going?"

Like that, looking at me like that.
And Paul said, "Well, I don't know.

We're trying to take it seriously.

But our bass player,"
he said, "he never turns up."

I went, "Well, I got a bass."

And the next thing
we were sort of chatting away.

Like, "What music do you like?
Who's your favourite band?"

I said, The Faces. He said,
"That's our favourite band and all."

I thought he was a cool guy.

I was impressed
that he worked at the shop.

So a few days later
I'm going around Wally's house,

and they're like, "What you got?"

And I went, "Uh, I've got this one,"
which is a Faces song, actually,

off their first album.

So I played it, and they're like,
"Whoa, you're in."

Well, I was impressed.
He could actually play, you know.
I basically just knew power chords

at that point,

and I always thought
I was a better musician,

which I let him think. But I was
only about a week ahead of Steve,

you know. But don't tell him that.

Initially,
Steve was gonna be the singer.

I went onto the drums and Wally
was playing guitar at the time.

Wally confided in me, "Steve..."
He'd go and nick fur coats

and ladies' handbags
and things like that.

He said, "It was my idea,

if he'd nick guitars,
we could start a band."

Wally's dad had the keys
to a BBC studio.

We used
to have the run of this place,

and we had a big load of equipment
there

procured from various places,
mainly by Steve.

We started rehearsing
a bit more seriously

and people would come down
and be a bit of a party night

on a Saturday night
after the shop had shut.

Somebody who was in there
a lot of the time

and who was friends
with Malcolm and Vivienne

was this guy, Bernard Rhodes.
He'd done some screen printing

with Malcolm, and they had sort of
an odd couple relationship.

Mates one minute and then
they'd have a ruck about something.
He was a prick. (CHUCKLES)

That said, you know,

I was a sort of working-class lad

from the sticks, whereas Bernie
was much more art-based.

He would always talk to you
and he'd make you kind of qualify

what you're thinking and why.
"Who do you like?"

'Well, I really like Faces."
"But why do you like 'em?"
# In the mornin'

# Don't say you love me #

"Well, I like them
cos they're alright."

"No, that's not good enough. Why?
What are they doing?"

That specific, and it really
made you narrow down

the way you go about things.

Steve had come in and he thought
a cool thing to say was,

"Where's the action?"
It kind of annoyed Bernie,

he'd say something like,
"Would I be sitting here
if I knew where the action was?"

And it transpired,
the action was actually

where we were sitting,
because that was the beginning.
(PROG ROCK)

Rock was in a terrible state
in the '70s.

It was grandiose,
and 25-minute guitar solos,

and 30-minute drum solos.

It all became prog rock,
progressive rock,

and I think mainly they progressed
by growing their hair a bit longer

and their trousers
got a bit more flared.

People that would potentially
be in bands

were really put off by the fact
that you had to have

this 20 years' experience of playing
and you had to be really good

as a technical guitarist
before anybody'd take you serious.

This kind of became a bit indulgent.

(Dr FEELGOOD)

There was this other music scene
called pub rock,

where bands were playing local pubs.
Pub rock at the time was a reaction,

I think,
against the big stadium rock bands

and kind of slightly hippie music
that was going on at the time.

Every pub had a stage
and bands were playing all the time.

You know,
you'd get bands like Ducks Deluxe

and Brinsley Schwarz
and Dr Feelgood.

We used to go, and never paid
to get in anywhere,

just went around the back
and bunked in.

They really were the return
to the roots of rock and roll,

you know, the Feelgoods
covering a lot of R&B.

And they all
had kinda strange names.

Like the drummer
was called The Big Figure.

You didn't know if they were
real-life criminals or not.

They were kind of dodgy.
We all loved the Feelgoods.

They were very influential
to all of us

on the New York music scene.
They had short hair and suits,

and they looked mean,
and they were menacing.
This jangly rockabilly sound.

Kind of rough around the edges,
but not too heavy.

# The people cry for more #

Pub rock was sort of
quite a vital part of change,

really.
Collectively,
we'd all kind of go out to check out

some of these
things that were going on.

# 'Delilah'

By that time, the Alex Harvey Band
had a big hit

with a cover of a Tom Jones song
called 'Delilah.'

# I saw the light on the night
that I passed by her window #

Going from playing little pubs
on the pub rock scene,
they were playing Hammersmith Odeon.

So I went and took Malcolm,
and while we're sitting there,

he said, "Um, how much does it cost
to get in?"

Back then it was like 75 pence,
which is not even a pound.

He went, "Oh." He said,
"How many people does this hold?"

I said, "I don't know,
two and a half, 3,000?"

He went, "Let's have a meeting
about the band tomorrow."

Cos he could smell
that there was a money involved.

When I started a playing
with Wally and Steve and Paul,

they weren't the Sex Pistols,
and they'd thrown around
a couple of names.

One was the Swankers,

and also they were
toying with the name the Strand,

which was named
after a Roxy Music song.

* Do the strand, love #

Malcolm came up with some ideas.
Creme De La Creme. Kid Gladlove.

Oof, don't know
where he got that one from.

The Damned.
And QT Jones And His Sex Pistols.

But me and Wally
didn't wanna be in a band

that was something and something.
So we sort of conspired in the pub

and said, "Let's just
drop the QT Jones thing,

just be the Sex Pistols."
Which made sense,

cos we were the pistols
from a shop called SEX.

It was pretty straight in the UK
around that time,

and calling a band the Sex Pistols
was pretty outrageous.

In fact, very outrageous, actually.

to try and buy '50s-style clothes
for his shop

and met the guys
from the New York Dolls.

# 'Jet Boy'

They played for me
this tape of theirs.

I thought it was the worst record
I'd ever heard.

But they were so funny,
it didn't matter.

I realised it didn't matter
that the music was bad.

What mattered more was the fact
that they were so good at being bad,

and that gave me
a whole other attitude towards music

and it locked in my own thoughts
about what was important.

And that was the presentation
of it all

and the attitude behind it.

But because he'd been on the scene
a little bit in New York,

he was hip to a few other people,
the fledgling Ramones,

and Richard Hell,
and Television, the Heartbreakers,

and it's all kind of interconnected.
Malcolm would come back to England

and he said, "If you want me
to be involved,

you gotta get rid of Wally."
He didn't look right, I suppose.
He had big glasses and funky hair.

It was quite ruthless, really.
But that's the way it was,

and we had a bit of
an attitude problem with Wally.
You know, I liked Wally,

and I would fight his corner.
Then one day when we were
sitting in the pub,

Paul turned around to me, he said,
"I don't know why you defend Wally,

he's always trying
to get rid of you."

So I went, alright,
that's that then. So Wally's gone,

Steve's moving to the guitar,
and then he got Malcolm and Bernard

involved with us a bit more.
That's the when we started

to be on the lookout for a singer.

And on Bernard Rhodes' suggestion,
lookout for this guy called John.

And this guy John came in the shop,
and it was John Lydon.

They asked me cos they thought
I was a nutcase,

and they had no idea
what the hell they were doing.

I went to a kind of a mock rehearsal
to see if I could sing or not

in front of a jukebox, and I was
completely awful, and they liked it,

and that was that.

Singing didn't matter at the time.
Could we play? We couldn't
really play at the time.

Could John sing? Who cared?
We wanted to be in a band.
It was just the attitude,

and just clicked straight away.
The planets were aligned.
There was the Sex Pistols.

But then a couple of days later,
Bernard Rhodes came in and we said,

"Oh, we found a singer, John."
He said, "Oh great.
You got the guy I wanted."

And a couple of days after that,
he saw John and he said,
"Well, that's not John."

He said, "No, the other John."
And there was another John,
and he'd seen... John Beverley,

aka Sid Vicious.

They were all mates,
and there four of them.

There was John Lydon,
who became Johnny Rotten.

There was his mate called John Gray.

There was another guy
called John Wardle,

who became Jah Wobble.
John Beverley became Sid Vicious.

But Johnny Rotten
was the leader of the pack,

so he was always John.

But there was something about him
that was like,

hmm, trouble, with me,
Steve and Paul and John.

But I think
John never saw it that way,

he thought it was three against one.

But when he joined,
we started rehearsing regularly

and trying to work out ideas.
And back then we had four
music papers that came out weekly.

Well, I was flicking through the ads
and it was this lease for sale
of a rehearsal place

in Denmark Street in London.
I showed it to Malcolm. He said,

"Wow!" He said, "Call the guy up
and offer him £1,000

without seeing it." I said,
"You're mad." He said, "Call him."
So me and Steve moved in

and we had our own rehearsal place.
Hello. Uh, fancy seeing you here.

Here we are.
We are in Denmark Street.

This where we used to rehearse
downstairs. But come upstairs.

The HQ, the centre of operations.
Has changed a bit,

cos it's gonna be part of
some swanky complex

for the 21st century.

But what they've done is,
they've preserved all these drawings

on the walls that, I think,
Johnny Rotten did.

There's Malcolm, Malcolm Muggerage.

Fatty Jones.

Supposed to be Nancy there and Sid.
There was a little bed there.

Steve had a bed there
and I had a bed here.

And we'd hang out
and have a go at writing songs.

It was a bit of a dump back then,
but it was home.

Well, the recorder was upstairs,

but we played down,

that's where we used to rehearse,
downstairs.

That's where every song was written,
downstairs.

Before that, I was just
staying round Cookie's house

or various couches,
Malcolm's and Vivienne's place.

So when we got Denmark Street,
like, this is my place now.

It was rats there
and the toilet was outside.

I loved it, though. It was quiet.

And then you'd go
down to Denmark Street

and it was like,
you are right there.

You could go to the clubs

and then end up
just staggering back

to Denmark Street,
get up the next day and rehearse.

I was working at the time,
so I had to get up, go to work

and then come back.
I was tentative about,
do I really wanna be in a band?

I was brought up in this world
where you left school

and you got a job, it was
a very straight world
where I came from.

And so it was a dilemma for me.
It was.

That's when we then
really started applying ourselves.

John always turned up and he always
had like a little carrier bag

with scraps of paper in it
with ideas for lyrics.

And Malcolm had always been going on
that we should write a manifesto,

and it goes back to his
sort of '60s agitprop days.

Now, one day I'd been having a go
at Steve saying, "I've been
coming up with a few ideas,

why don't you come up
with something?"

And he sort of played
a couple of things,
they weren't that good.

And he went, "Oh, you're so clever,
what you got then?" I just played...

And he went, "Yeah?"

And I went.

And he went, "Yeah?"

(ONE STRING TWANGS)

"Yeah?"
(ANOTHER STRING VIBRATES)

He went, "Oh, I like that."
He said, "What comes next?"

(STRINGS RIFFING)

# Now # (LAUGHS)

That's when John said,
"Finally, you've got something

to go with these lyrics."

# I am an antichrist

# I am an anarchist #

When I got in the studio,
I wrote the words to that

in 20 minutes,
straight off the top of my head.

# ..passerby, cos I

# Wanna be

# Anarchy

# No dogsbody! #

This used to be
Saint Martin's School of Art.

My foundation year,
studio was the one on the left,

and the gig we did
was right up the top.

And that is where the Sex Pistols
did their first show.

We'd been rehearsing
for a couple of months by then,

feeling we was getting something
together. Come on Malcolm,
get us some gigs. Nothing.

No, no, no, you're not ready.

Reading between the lines,

I thought Malcolm has got no idea
how to get us a gig.

I approached the social secretary
at Saint Martin's,

and said, can we play?
And they had this other band on

and there was supposed to be
a support band
who wasn't gonna do it,

so we got the gig. And that band
was a band called Bazooka Joe.

We had been playing
for several years in pubs
around London.

We'd been hiring vans.
We'd bought our own equipment.

We bought a PA system
on installments.

We knew there was gonna be
a support band.

We didn't know quite who they were.

Before then, I booked another gig
at Central School of Art,

and that's where I met a guy
called Alexander McDowell.

I was social secretary,

and I was booking rockabilly bands
or whatever,

and this young man
walked in off the street

and said, "Do you want a band
to play for free tomorrow night?"
I went, "Sure." And then he said,

"Come to Saint Martin's
and see us play."

We had to go and get our stuff
in the pissing rain.

Wheeling it
down Charing Cross Road.

And then the lift was broken,
carry it all the way up the stairs
and set it up.

Bazooka Joe sort of had
a little bit of an attitude,

but they let us use their PA.
There was no stage.

We were just set up on a flat thing.
There wasn't a lot of people.

We plugged in
and made an awful racket.

I mean I only picked the guitar up
three months before.

I was so nervous, I took
a Mandrax and a couple of pints,

then it all kicked in,
and then we started.

# I am the antichrist

# I am an anarchist #

The lead singer was starting
to smash the equipment up,

and he started kicking the speakers.
They weren't even my speakers.

I was still paying for them.
So, enraged, I leapt into the fray.

And there was a bit of a fight,
scuffle on stage.

It just all descended into chaos.

And they pulled the plug on us
after about 15 minutes.

That is not true. We did not
pull the plugs on the Sex Pistols.

No, they did. I was there.

They took 'em off.

They pulled the fucking plug.

We only had a few songs,

and so they didn't cut us short
by that much.

I remember thinking
that they weren't that good,

but you know,
they had the last laugh,

cos they went on to become legends,
and quite rightly so.

It was something magical
that happened for me.

Like this is we're finally
doing something. This is it.

This is what I've been wanting to do
for many years, be in a band.

And John was great. I loved it.

Even though it was for 15 minutes.

Just seeing them at all
was just such a radical shift
in thinking.

The attitude
that was coming off the stage

was something we'd never seen.

And it was completely captivating,

and almost immediately
we were cutting our hair

and trying to copy John.

And it was an immediate shift
into a visible expression
of discontent.

(REPORTER) All are aware
that Britain was in its worst
economic crisis

for more than 40 years.

Politically,
it was very suppressive.

Thatcher was extremely right-wing,

and you were dealing with bombs
going off with the IRA,

and real unrest.

There are problems which have been
pushed underground for too long.
Today they have to be brought up.

People ain't got time
to think about the cosmos

and the universe when they ain't got
any money to live off.

Yeah.
There was like a hung Parliament.
Everybody's on strike.

In London particularly,
a pervading air of hopelessness.

And now I just got this
sort of vacant kind of idea,

and then the 'Pretty Vacant' thing
came to me.

(SINGS) # We're so pretty,
oh, so pretty

# Vacant #
But it needed something. A riff.

And this is the Cambridge Pub,
where we used to hang out.

And I'm sitting there having a pint
one lunchtime

and a record came on the jukebox
and it was 'SOS' by ABBA.

That riff isn't in the song,

but it was something
that the bass player does,

he plays his octave thing.
# When you're gone

# How can I even try to go on? #

And it gave me the idea
for the riff.

And I just finished off my pint,
went back and went...

Ooh!
# 'Pretty Vacant' Hello, (BLEEP)

I gave John the set of lyrics,

which he seemed to like and sing.

He said, "This is fantastic."
He said, "If we get it on the radio,

you give me a way to say 'cunt'
on the radio."

And I'd never even thought of that.
I was just thinking of 'vacant,'
with an A.

# We're so pretty, oh, so pretty

# Vacant #

It summed up the angst
and the chaos

that he felt in his community.

I mean,
that's part of our job as artists

is to report on the news
of what's going on all around me.

It reconfirms for us
that we're not alone.

I saw a number of the early shows,
and going from doing covers

to like starting
to do their own songs,

and they were these classic anthems.
I mean the first song I heard,

I really realised was their own song
was 'Pretty Vacant.'

(STREET-PORTER) When you stood up
and started singing the first time,

what happened? I mean...
(MAN) Come on, John. Go on.

It was wonderful.
No, come on. People loved me.

They threw flowers.
And what sort of people
came to see you in the beginning?

Well, no-one knew us, the beginning.

We were just a regular band.
Turned up. Cos we used to turn up
with our equipment crash in,

do the gigs. Nobody knew
we was playing until we got there.

We didn't even know, actually.
Yeah, there used to be
this magazine called Time Out,

and I'm pretty sure
Malcolm would just go through it,

see what's coming up, and see a gig

and say, "Oh, you're playing there."
He never spoke to them.
We just used to turn up and say,

we're the support band.
People would go, "Oh. Oh, really?"

We'd go, "Yeah." "Well, come on."
But we needed other places to play.

And Malcolm come up with this place
El Paradise.

It was a proper
old-school, seedy strip club.

Malcolm had hired this strip club
from the Maltese mafia

and, honestly,
it was an absolute dump.
We actually went and bought a bucket

and a mop and some disinfectant.
There was like a few punters
who'd just come in off the street,

thinking actually there
was a strip show going on.

Malcolm was just taking
all the money, and we literally
had to run from the place

cos the Maltese mafia
suddenly turned up. But those
first early gigs were amazing.

They were so exciting to be at.

They were learning
to play their instruments.

(LAUGHS) You could tell.
But that's what was exciting to us,

cos, like, oh man,
these guys don't care.

That's the idea. Get up there
and learn to play.

Rotten had
this great sense of humour.

They'd finish a song and he'd be,
"Uh! Now clap."

Before the audience had a chance
to respond,

he'd be straight on their case,
and very entertaining.

And started building up
a following. It was mainly people

who would come in the shop
on Saturday afternoon,
Steve Severin and Siouxsie,

became Siouxsie Sioux
from the Banshees. Sid, Billy Idol.

The scene was very small.
We were friends who used to hang out

and go and see all the music.
Caroline Coon of Sounds
called us the Bromley Contingent,

cos we were all from Bromley.
It's just the same
as when it was before,

when they had the Stones
and the Who and they came along,

and they thought they were great
because they destroyed
everything that went before them.

But now they can't take it,
cos we're destroying everything
before us.

I loved the Nashville gigs
especially,

cos you never knew
what was actually gonna happen.

Vivienne would sort of like
scream and shout and be rude
to a person who was next to her.

Massive fist fights.
Chairs would be flying.

It was a great night.
A fight broke out in the audience,

and this guy took a photograph of us
fighting with this guy.

But we was actually
trying to stop him.

But it became the cover
of the Melody Maker.

Looking back,
it was all part of the plan

to get them sort of noticed.

Doctors of Madness
were one of those bands

that were around the pub rock scene
at the time, and everyone thought

they were gonna be
the next big thing.

# ..nights now #
And Richard Strange on guitar
with the weird make-up,

very glam rock.

It's early '76, we're doing great.

We're playing to 800 people a night
wherever we go,

and I got a call from our agent,
"I need a favour from you.

I've got this guy driving me crazy
in London. He's got this band.
I can't think of anyone

who'd have him on the bill
apart from you."
The day of the gig came.

We showed up there,
got out for a sound check,

and they wouldn't let us
use any monitors,

and they were a bit like,
oh, brushed us off.

The doors open
and the audience comes in.

I said, "This is weird,
because the 800 kids

who've come to see us at the minute,

they normally go straight to
the bar." And I'm watching them

and half come straight in
to see the support band.
Quite a few of the audience

are wearing badges, or they've got
ripped clothes or something.

The lights go down,
ladies, gentlemen, the Sex Pistols.

# ..to attend
Cos we ain't all there

# Don't pretend, yeah,
we don't care #

And I knew someone had just moved
the fucking goalposts.

That generational change,
that baton,

had just been handed over.

Then the Doctors of Madness went on.

But while they was on stage,
Steve went in the dressing room

and spat in their stack-heels
and rifled their pockets.

By the time
you get into the dressing room,

the Pistols have gone,

and so has 12 quid
from my back pocket.

Other stuff has been...
just been nicked, just gone.

So it was a really bad day.

Me career had gone and 12 quid.
(LAUGHS)

I'm sure they were most upset
with us,

cos they thought they were gonna be
the next big thing,

and it just kind of fizzled out.
But I paid him back.

(STREET-PORTER) Things
really started to move

for the Sex Pistols
when they were spotted
by promoter Ron Watts,

who gave them a booking
at the 100 Club in Oxford Street.

I saw them at High Wycombe.

It was interesting, because they
really managed to upset the crowd,

most of the crowd. It was
the only thing that didn't come
from the industry,

it came from the kids.
Something had to come from the kids.

First gig,
there was hardly anybody there.

John was a bit out of it,
and he was singing all the words
to the songs perfectly,

but not the song we was playing
at the time. He said to me,
"Do you wanna fight?"

And I said, "Yeah, I'll fight you,
but maybe not
while we're on stage."

And he got off the stage,
and Malcolm followed him,

and he comes skulking back
on the stage,

and he looked daggers at me.

I spoke to Malcolm afterwards
and I said, "What happened?"

And he said, "Well,
do you know what?

He was outside at the bus stop
waiting for the number 73 bus

to go back home to Finsbury Park."
And I said, "What'd you say to him?"
"If you don't get back on stage,

mate, you're out of the band."

Tuesday night usually
was a jazz night at the 100 Club.

So people kind of came in
and their sort of mouths'd be...

They couldn't believe
what they were seeing,

cos no-one
had seen anything like this.

And they was so anarchic,
cos they weren't really talking
to the audience.

Johnny would be talking to Malcolm
off-stage. He'd go, "Malcolm,

why don't you get me a beer?"

Then he'd see someone in the...
there'd be like someone
coming off Oxford Street,

all in denim, with flares,
long hair,

he'd go, "Oh, look at you
with your flares and your long hair.

Why don't you go back
to your Melanie records?"

(HECKLER YELLS) You fucking....

Sit down! Yeah!
(MIC FEEDBACK)

Fucking old hippies all over again.

Rotten's attitude
was off the charts.

But then Glen's kind of adding
a musicality to it,

which felt, this is part of
what makes groups great

is the individual characteristics
of the people in the band.

And then watching them
week by week progress

was really exciting.

People say they can't play,

and the Pistol songs are largely
three-chord songs,

but, boy they can really play,
and it absolutely rocks.

The hardest thing to have
is to have a sound that's your own.

The Sex Pistols certainly had that.

I can tell in eight bars
if it's Steve or Glen or Paul.

When John sings,
of course you know it's him.

He's got a very unique sound.
We sound like that
as we'd actually learned to play

together at the same time.
I don't know where
our sound came from, to be honest.

It was an amalgamation
of lots of different things.

It's just a natural primal scream,
I guess.

They never really played too fast.

They weren't trying to emulate
the Ramones in that way.

There was more of a groove.
Da da da and da and da.

There was none of that. And we loved
beats that went bush, bash,
buhbuhbash.

I liked hard, fast, simple chords.

# 'I Wanna Be Me'

Steve used to break into
Ronnie Wood's house in Richmond

and have a go in his guitar
and leave a little note saying,
'Steve was here.'

And Steve, I think, was kind of
going for that kind of sound.

But one of the best things
I've ever read in this
article somewhere it said,

Steve's guitar sound
is the sound of him
paying his stepfather back.

Which is kind of quite heavy,
but probably true.

# This is brainwash and this is... #

What we was was just us together.

That's the way it turned out.
No-one was telling us

we have to play a certain way
or anything.

Malcolm didn't even do that.

I mean, it... you just knew
it's Glen's bassline,

and you knew it starts the song off.

It made you wanna write songs too,
that's so good.

# Kiss me deadly tonight #

Early summer of '76,
the word was out.

People wanted something different.

And once we came along,

it kind of opened
the doors of possibility.

You don't have to be
a fantastic musician.

You don't have to be old.

You don't have to been
in the music business years.
You can just get a guitar,

play for a few weeks
and go on the stage and do it.

Well, there's no question
that the Pistols came first.

They were the trigger for all of it.

I mean,
it was happening really fast.

There was this small group of us

that were looking different
and voicing our opinion.

Nobody that wanted
a successful career

in the music business
would turn around and criticise
the music industry, the government,

the police, the Queen.
That wasn't how you got successful.

And so we had nothing to lose.
You know, what are they gonna do?

Except put us back on the dole
and take the clothes off our back.

It was a great leveller,
cos it wasn't
about musical virtuosity.

It was about keeping it real,
and still being creative
with maybe limited skills.

I remember rehearsing
at Denmark Street once

and the door opened,
and Bernard Rhodes come in

with this bunch of guys.
Then he met me.
Then he met you. We met him.

Hand in hand with the Sex Pistols
was the Clash.

It was Malcolm McLaren
and Bernie Rhodes

in constant competition
to see who could up the other one.

Him and Malcolm had this idea

that if you had one band,
it was an oddity,

if you had two bands
that was kind of curious.

But if you had three bands,
it was a movement.
# 'Police And Thieves'

The Clash were more political.

That was kind of their thing.
I loved the Clash, by the way.

We saw the flyer.
It was a midnight special

that was happening.
Got the Sex Pistols playing,

supported by a band
that hadn't played before

called the Clash.
And a new band from Manchester

called the Buzzcocks. The Pistols
was something completely different.

There was real anarchy
when they came on.

I mean, Johnny smashed his mouth
on the mic

and had to run into the toilet,
cos he'd knocked his tooth out.

It changed my life, that show.

We went back to school

and we started to form
what became Spandau Ballet.

(INTERVIEWER) What about the word
'punk?' It means worthless, nasty.

Johnny Rotten,
are you happy with this word?

No. The press gave us it.

It's their problem, not ours.

We never called ourselves Punk.

Hang on a second, this word 'punk,'

it didn't exist as a word
when we formed.

They did big articles on us

and they come up with
this word 'punk.'

And if you look up what it means,
it's not particularly savoury.

And who wants to be called a punk?

Punk has always been
a term of maximum derision.

I'd read stories of this
new music movement emerging,

Punk Rock, and they'd all say,
yeah, we listened to the MC5,

and I'd rip the magazines up
and flush them down the toilet,
cos I didn't want anyone

to associate me
with this Punk music movement.

When Punk came out,
I didn't really like it.

But I loved
the excitement it generated,

and the enthusiasm that's behind it.
But the music I felt was not for me.

I don't believe in swearing
and spitting and gobbing everywhere.

Punk rock's really taken off

both in London and in New York.

And although anyone
thinks punk is that great a name
for it, it seems to have stuck.

There was a huge,
strong music press

that thrived
on exposing all of this energy,

this change, this fashion.

It was very prevalent
and spread around the country

really quickly.
It's actually music
born out of a frustration

to get something across
that is of their own.

You're also
trying to shock everyone.

Your clothes are bizarre.
They ain't bizarre to young kids.
Possibly.

I don't have a safety pin
through my nose.

McLaren borrowed the label 'punk'
from New York,

where it described
a very particular trend

in outrageous clothes.

But London Punk was very different.

Raw, working-class
and deliberately anti-Establishment.

We tapped into a feeling of unrest
in the country,

without a doubt, with all the kids.
They were all cutting their hair,

tearing up their T-shirts.

I wanted to do something for me.

Cos look at me now, I'm nothing.

Vivienne created something extreme.

Something they could feel that they
were actually doing something in.
You can be cynical about the Pistols

and say they were a boy band
that was sort of dressed
by McLaren and Westwood.

But boy, were we jealous that they
had access to those clothes,

cos those clothes
were magnificently heroic.

I mean,
I was really annoyed with the Clash.

Cos when we had a rehearsal place
in Denmark Street,

I decided
to paint the ceiling white.

But I only had one pair of trousers
and I got paint on them,
and I couldn't get it off.

I thought,
I'll just put more paint on it,

and then it became
this Jackson Pollock thing.
When the Clash played the 100 Club,

they had a full-on
Jackson Pollock look,
and they'd sort of nicked my idea.

Some of these bands had started
doing a few tiny little gigs,

and we assembled them all
for this Punk festival.

And there were all these
other bands playing

and the Clash played there.

Siouxsie did her first gig.

Had you sung before?
Not on stage, no.

Did you think that was important?

Um... no.

And who was backing you up?
Sid Vicious on drums,

Steve Severin on bass...

It was two nights. One night
was headlined by the Sex Pistols,

and the second night
was headlined by me.

# Motorbikin'

# Motorbikin' #

None of those bands
had had any records out.

If Malcolm
wanted to promote a festival,

he had to have a bankable name.
Cos I'd had my 'Motorbikin'' record
the year before,

Malcolm said, "Well
you gotta come and play."

And then one day I got a call
from a friend of mine,

Chrissie Hynde,
she used to work in Malcolm's shop.

She said, "You gotta
come and see this band."

And it was the Sex Pistols.

I was quite impressed
with Steve Jones,

who was attacking his guitar
and kept breaking strings,

and yet never went out of tune
and still sounded great.

I said to Malcolm, "I know
what a record company would want

to sign you. They would want
a three-song demo. I can do that."

And we went in the studio
called Majestic in South London.

And so we set up
and ran a few run-throughs.

And I told the engineer, take it.
And he said, "Come in and listen."

And we said, "No, no, no, no, no,
we haven't recorded it yet."

He said, "No, we have." And we said,
"No, we can't have done.

You didn't put the red light on."
And of course, it sounded great.
He said he didn't put the red on

because it was our first time
in the studio and he didn't want us
to get red light fever,

he called it, where you get uptight
and you start making mistakes.
By five o'clock in the afternoon,

we had three songs down.
# Too many problems, why am I here?

# Need to be
cos you're all too clear

# And I can see
there's something wrong with you #

Shortly after that, they did
more recordings with Dave Goodman.

Dave suggested
that we use the rehearsal place

in Denmark Street,
and he had a four-track Revox
reel-to-reel tape recorder

and recorded the band live in there.

It was good with Dave,
because there was no time pressure.

So we was experimenting a lot more.
Doing bubble sounds

on a teapot for 'Submission'
and overdubbing a bit more.

And then he suggested to Malcolm,
a bit more money, we could get
a proper studio

and record the vocals there,
and mix it,

and that became
what is the 'Spunk album.

# Submission

# I'm going down, down, down #

It wasn't sonically the best,

but there was some great ideas.

Alright, what should we do?
Should we just sing with...

Every time we was having a go
at recording 'Anarchy,'

and when there was a break,
I'd be on the piano going,
dun, dundadun.

I had this thing, dunda.

And they're going,
"Glen, for fuck sake, shut up."

"No, I've got something."
I went home, picked up my guitar
and found the riff.

So I had the beginnings of the riff
for 'God Save The Queen.'

# 'God Save The Queen'

When I came up with the riff,

I could always imagine
Steve doing it with a bit more,
(IMITATES ELECTRIC GUITAR))

It was like a beneficial
kind of partnership.

And then John had some lyrics for it

and then we kind of argued
over how to arrange it.

# God save the Queen

# The fascist regime

# They made you a moron #
We argued morning, noon and night.

But you have to, because that's
what being in a band is all about,
diversity.

I never liked anything he ever did,
and he thought the same about me.

And we'd meet in the middle,
and it would make for good records.

We argue so much
that the frustration comes up

when we actually play it.
To me, if you listen
to the Spunk stuff,

the bass-playing, that's where
the little bits of melody

and counterpoint come in.

The bass playing is by far superior
to the bass playing
that wound up on the album,

which was kind of
much more methodical

and just kind of eighth notes.

I don't think the rest of the band
appreciated him.

You needed somebody
with a bit of musical know-how,

and a bit of confidence
nd Glen had that.

Hang on. Dave Dew speaking.
This is Chris Parry.
Doug D'Arcy, Chrysalis Records.

They were a particularly ugly band.
That's dreadful.

I was the one
that picked up the phone

when Malcolm McLaren called.

And so I went down and saw them
at the 100 Club.

This band
was doing something interesting

and they were making great noises.
They had something to say

and I talked my boss
into signing them.

the rest was troubled history.

When we got the record deal
with EMI, it was, for me,

you'RE gonna go with this
or you're not.

It was a big thing to leave
an apprenticeship at the time

in a good job.
And everyone said, "You're mad.

You'll never do anything
with this band.

They're rubbish, they can't play,"
et cetera.

But I knew there was
something good going on there.
Prior to us

being presented
with a recording contract,

we got presented
with a management contract,

and I kind of read through it,

and Malcolm wanted to take 25%
off the top.

And Steve and Paul were like, "Oh."

John wasn't there
and I mentioned it to John,

and he said he was gonna sign it
anyway.

But he actually said to me
when we were signing it, he said,
"Glen, you've read it and I haven't.

If there's anything wrong with it,
it's your fault."

Me and Steve, we was just happy
to be in a band.

We didn't worry about contracts
and stuff like that.
They were trying.

Malcolm definitely saw
an opportunity and milked it.

The first time
we played with the Pistols,
I think we got aid five pounds,

and Malcolm wanted 25 quid
to use the PA.

You know, he could be such a cunt.

But I quite always liked Malcolm,
cos he was a hustler.

He was the fifth member
of the band, if you like.

The Svengali, the manipulator,

and all those other terms
people level at him.

Look, most of them true, by the way.

After we signed to EMI,
we're straight in the studio,

and because we'd done the demos
with Dave Goodman,

we thought we'd give Dave a shot
producing,

and Dave wasn't a proper,
fully-fledged producer.

# I am an antichrist #

And we would, literally,
do 'Anarchy' in the studio

a thousand times.
We wanted to get it right.

I wanted to make the heaviest song
that had ever been in the universe.
He was fucking stoned with weed.

And we're like, this is a joke.
So effectively, we went on strike,

and Paul Cook
suggested Chris Thomas,

who produced Roxy Music,

and Chris Spedding
had taken Chris Thomas down

to see us at the 100 Club.
So he was up for it.

Maybe a week later,
we're in Wessex Studios.

Queen were there, and we walked in,

and Freddie's in full tilt and like,
"Woooh, I'm sorry," you know.

But they were cool, Queen.
They let us have some of their time

to record the single quickly.
# 'Anarchy In The UK'

And we did 'Anarchy' in two takes.

That was it. He said he got us.
Cos Chris knew

when enough was enough,
and that it was good enough.

And it's funny,
it finishes how it finishes

because the tape run out.
That's why it goes, blemm.

I think
that was one of the best times,

my whole time in the Sex Pistols,
was recording.

That's the only song
Glen plays bass on

on 'Never Mind the Bollocks.'

When we were in the studio together,
it was just a question
of getting the music down,

and getting it down well.
They were professional.

It was definitely not the image
that was publicised.

Only a couple of days later,
as I opened the door,

Freddie Mercury is like bending over
by the door,

and he was listening. Queen,
they were quite big
in the Sex Pistols career.

The whole reason
we did the Bill Grundy Show,

Queen was supposed to do it,

but Freddie Mercur
had a bad toothache that day

and pulled out.
The famous Bill Grundy interview.

Yes, I do remember it.

We was in Kilburn rehearsing.

All of a sudden
a phone call comes through,

"We're sending the car for you."
Malcolm says, "If you don't do it,

you don't get your wages this week."
Then we're in the studio
behind the cameras,

there's Siouxsie
and half the Bromley Contingent,

and it's like, hmm. And then
this guy comes on set, Bill Grundy.

Punk rockers,
the new craze they tell me.

Now, Bill Grundy
was a really big deal guy.

He was Walter Cronkite
kind of territory.

And he had a real attitude with us.

Not the nice, clean rolling Stones.

You see, they're as drunk as I am.
They're clean by comparison.

They're a group
called the Sex Pistols.

And the shit hit the fan.

I am told that
that group have received £40,000

from a record company.

Doesn't that seem to be
slightly opposed

to their anti-materialistic
view of life?

No, the more the merrier.
Really? Oh yeah.

Well, tell me more then.
We've fuckin' spent it, ain't we?

I don't know. Have you?
Yeah, it's all gone.

Steve had found a bottle of wine,

and he's drunk pretty
much all of it to himself

and it's starting kicking in.
And it just went from bad to worse.

John swore accidentally,
he said 'shit,'

and he pushed him on it.
It's what? Nothing. A rude word.

Next question.
No, no. What was the rude word?

Shit.
Was it really?

Good heavens,
you frighten me to death.
Oh alrighty.

What about you girls behind?
Always wanted to meet you.
Did you really? Yeah.

We'll meet afterwards, shall we?

You dirty sod!

Go on,
you've got another five seconds.

Say something outrageous.
You dirty bastard.

Go on, again.
You dirty fucker.

What a clever boy.
What a fucking rotter.

Well, that's it for tonight.

While the show's going on,
I could see Malcolm
just behind the camera.

Malcolm would go, "Oh, no."
As we went off, he was white.

He said, "You've done it now."
Dragged me out.

We got in the car,
and as we're just pulling away

a Black Maria turned up,
a police van.

There were these police,
they're rushing into the TV studio

with their truncheons out and we're
sort of like waving to them.
What a (BLEEP) rotter.

Well, that's it for tonight.

It was going out live
on prime-time TV,

just after the news
when millions of people watched it.

And I didn't know my dad
had called around the family saying,

"Glen's gonna be on the TV."
(BLEEP) And we didn't speak

for a year.

It all got crazy very quickly

once the publicity machine
started rolling.

The greatest technique

involved in managing the Sex Pistols

was always
to create the right explosion

and then know
that it was gonna happen.

And as a manager,
run into the toilet

and come out after the explosion
and say, "God, what's happened?"

Really? I didn't notice that.
Although later on he said

he had made all that happen, I think
he was terrified that he'd blown it
for them.

(INTERVIEWER)
Why all the infamous language?

Infamous language? You're joking.

They were famous in England
before they even had a record out.

I don't think that ever happened
before in the music industry.
Punk was all about revolution.

It was an attitude. Then they became
a figurehead for that attitude.

And willingly or not, they became
the visible leaders of a movement.

(REPORTER) Unseen dangers
awaited punks in the dark.

There was ramifications.

John got attacked
by more right-wing people

who thought
we were decrying the nation.

It was a very dangerous time
for us after the Grundy Show,

and we were
public enemies number one, for sure.

They're trying to put it
across the country,

starting in Britain,
but we're not having it.

That is why
we've given them a good hiding
every time we meet them.

I got attacked walking down
on Shepherd's Bush.

I just came out of the station

with my girlfriend at the time,

and these four rockabillies,
Teds, whatever you call them,

didn't like the fact
that I was wearing Brothel Creepers.

I said, "What? It's just a shoe.
Why, what's the problem?"

Anyway, bang, and I got attacked.
Yeah, ended up in hospital.

We had to watch our backs.
It was a pretty dangerous time.

(SIREN WAILS)

You started taking your life
in your hands a little bit,

wearing your punk threads.
It was almost like war was declared.

On Charing Cross Station,
I was kind of just looking off at,

I don't know, when the train's
coming. Next minute, (LAUGHS)...

..got punched
in the side of the face,

and then I saw
a pair of black Brothel Creepers

walking away, so I knew was...
I got ambushed, you know.

(PHONE RINGING)
I mean, the national press

had exploited Punk
for its sensation value,

and the violence
really stems from their coverage

and the fact that they've
only really given coverage

to the more violent aspects,
not to any of the ideals,

and certainly not very much
to the music at all.

We had a tour planned,
the Anarchy Tour.

Malcolm, he had that kind of idea

that we'd have
some kind of Punk Rock review.

So we had the Clash, the Damned,

and he brought over
from the States the Heartbreakers.

We were going around in this coach
from place to place.

As we're turning up to a show,
and then it was cancelled.

We were supposed to have
like 23 gigs or something

around the country,
and we're starting being banned.

..one of the most reviewed
and reviled rock phenomena
of recent weeks...

Do you really think Punk Rockers
are such a threat to society

that you're justified
in banning their concerts?
We are responsible

for public safety.

There was such a storm around them.

You couldn't do anything.
Even we couldn't do anything.
I remember one specific,

and they just came up
and threw us out immediately

just because we were a band
on tour with the Sex Pistols.
(REPORTER) Mr Stabler,

you can't watch
punk concerts in Newcastle either.
The decision was made

when we discovered it was mere
children watching the performance.

Now, out of all those dates,

how many dates would you say
are there, look?

I think
we only did five or six dates,

and we're lucky we got them.

We had to go to show that we wasn't
gonna accept their censorship.

It was very frustrating.

We had a fair amount of journalists
following us round

and finding out
where we were staying.

And I went and got a cup of tea,
came back,

got on the coach first,
I had the window open slightly,

and I heard one saying to other,
"Oh, Fred, how'd you get on?

Did you get a quote from anybody?"
He said, "Yeah." He said,

"I got two fucks and a shit
from Johnny Rotten."

Just sells their papers
putting us in it now.

You know what I mean?
Yeah. Put us on the front,

just sells their papers,
and it's bit stupid, really.

Because we weren't allowed to play

and we was cooped up in this bus
all the time,

it started creating kind of problems
within the band.

Became kind of quite factional.

Steve and Paul were always
a bit of a double act,

which I felt they were
always a bit stand-offish,

they didn't kind of let you in.

Maybe John felt a bit threatened
by it or Glen did,

I don't know. But yeah,
we were close.

I know what I think,
and that's all that counts to me.

I don't try and impress anybody
but myself.

It'd been a simmering thing
between me and John.

I think, personally, cos... and I'm
not the only person who's said this,

but, you know,
once he got his face in the papers,

he became a bit more arrogant
and everything had to be his way
all the time,

and I thought we was in a band,
you know.

It is be hard
living up to your image sometimes?

What image?
I never thought I had one.

Well, what do you think -
I change from day to day.

There was always animosity
between John and Glen anyway,

even back to the very early days

when I was just standing
on the side of the stage

watching them, and John
would always give Glen shit.

(INTERVIEWER) Do you feel
the publicity

following the Thames Television
interview has been damaging,
or do you think it's helped you?

I don't think it's been damaging,
far from it.

Whether it's helping us
is another matter.

Later on, there was a frustration

that I found out that we could play
in certain places.

Went to see the Ramones
when they finally come over,

and some promoter asked me, he said,
"Hey, Glen, you can't play?"

And I said, "No." He said,
"I'll put you on. Tell Malcolm."
So I tell Malcolm. He goes,

"No, no, you're banned."
Hang on, I wanna be in a band

because I wanna be a musician
and I wanna play.

I started to think there was
a bit of dishonesty involved.

We ended up in London
just before Christmas,

penniless,
without a real sense of achievement.

And then the record company,

while we was away on tour
and had got a load of shit,

backlash from the TV show,
and they pulled the record.

The ground floor was very unhappy
about that firing.

It was just the big bosses.
The way I read it was that EMI

was very close
to the British Establishment.

You know, they had friends
in Parliament and all that.
And the head guy of EMI,

when not running the record company,
would have dinner with the Queen!

(REPORTER) The anti-Establishment
Sex Pistols
called in the Establishment press

to protest what had happened
to them. (INTERVIEWER) OK,
you want to get your music across,

but do you feel maybe the fact
that you can't do that commercially

is because of the way
you've behaved? Oh no,

I'm not gonna
come down to their level.

The next thing,
we're on a plane to Amsterdam.

We did a TV show there.

And then we played at the Paradiso,

and then we went to Rotterdam
and played, and flew home.

But you know,
things were getting bad.
Then John was on my case,

and I was just beginning
to get fed up with the whole thing.

And I had a meeting
with Steve and Paul and Malcolm

in this restaurant
we used to go to in Covent Garden.

I'd found out they'd tried to have
a rehearsal with Sid,

and I wasn't supposed to know,
but I did know,

and I thought,
well, that's out of order.
There's this big hoo-ha,

and Malcolm says,
it's all a big secret, man.

Come down to this pub
at such and such, you know.

And I thought
they were gonna do me over,

cos I didn't turn up
to one of Rotten's parties

or something.
John sort of manipulated
the situation with Malcolm

to get rid of Glen,

and whether he'd done it
because he wanted his mate Sid

in the band
so he could feel more comfortable

up against me and Steve,
I don't know.

At this meeting Paul says,

"Look, we know
you're not getting on with John.

Can't you just pretend
that you like him?"

And I thought,
I'm coming up with these ideas.

You guys don't really realise
what side your bread's buttered.

Why can't you guys
back me up a little bit?

And I said, "Then you want me
to pretend I like John?"

I said, "No,
I can't really do that."

At the end of the day, John said
he wasn't gonna... couldn't go on

with Glen in the band. And so
it was either the band broke up

or Glen left. It was
one of the only times

that John and Malcolm
were in sync with each other.

# Or is this the UDA? #

And by that time,
the vast majority of the songs

on 'Never Mind The Bollocks'
had been written,

and that was kind of that, really.
# Or just

# Another... #
I liked Glen.

We liked the same music.
I got along with him great.

I think
it just got too weird for him.

I know Glen said he left.
Malcolm says he got fired.

It was weird, and then Sid.

And we just carried on,
like, oh, alright, OK.

We kind of just
cowardly went along with it,

I guess,
to just keep everyone happy.

And in retrospect,
we should've maybe stuck up for Glen

and kept him in the band.
Who knows what would've happened?

As far as I'm concerned,
I quit, and that was that.

I'd shaken hands with Steve and Paul
and Malcolm

before he sent the telegram
to the NME.

I thought it was
the stupidest fucking move

they ever made. They say
they threw him out

because he liked the Beatles.
Fuck you
if you don't like the Beatles.

I never bought into
Malcolm's sort of PR

that you know, oh,
we've kicked him out

cos he likes the Beatles.
But I think what Malcolm
was really saying is,

we kicked him out
cos he's too musical. It proved
to me then at that point

that this was not a band
that Malcolm had any interest
in having longevity,

musical development of any kind,
or even staying together.

He wanted to destroy,
and he'd destroy you

by putting this crazy guy in on bass
who couldn't even play bass.

It felt to me that the musical heart
had been torn out the band.

Steve and myself were very concerned
when Glen left the band.

But we was pushed into a corner,
really, and we had no option.

I was left to write 'Holidays'
and a few others, 'No Feelings.'

It definitely
changed the dynamics, major.

I was the mug
who had to try and teach Sid

where to put his fingers
on the bass.

That's the last thing
I wanted to be doing.

Sid couldn't play bass.
But I mean, who gives a shit?

(MAN) You'd turn him down
in the mix.

Sometimes we used to turn him off,
actually.

We'd Elastoplast all the dials
on the M. He says,
"What you doing, Malcolm?"

"Don't worry, Sid.
You don't need to worry.

You just keep talking to the girls."

John really wanted him in the band.
Me and Steve were, oh, OK,

let's see how this goes.
He looked great, don't get me wrong.
He looked fantastic.

Yeah, he was a face around town,
and when he first joined the band,
it was great.

He was really willing to learn
and learn the numbers

and play and learn the bass.

The only thing missing with Sid
was fucking notes on the neck.

You know, pieces of tape,
this is a C.

This is a G, you know? (LAUGHS)

This poor schmuck fucking got thrown
into the fucking circus.

He never contributed
to any of the songwriting

or any of the recording.

What more can I say?

Even Sid himself would've said,
"I'm not really a musician."
We all knew why he was there.

He was the poster boy
for the punk movement.

Went and picked up my equipment
from our Denmark Street place,

and then a couple of days later
I'm down at the Roxy Club,

and then somebody said,
"John's here." And I thought, oh,
alright. And I went out,

and I was going to the loo,
and he was there with Sid,

and John's going like that to Sid,
egging him on,

and Sid follows me into the loo,

and he said, "I'm the bass player
in the Sex Pistols now." I said,
"Yeah, I know. Good for you."

He said, "What do you mean?"
He wanted to fight,

and John's sort of egging him on,
right?

But he's outside in the hallway
and me and Sid are in there.
I said, "I'll tell you what, Sid,

I'll give you some bass lessons
if you like." "Really?" "Yeah."
He said, "Aren't you annoyed?"

"No, if they want you in,
that's the way it'll be."
And John's outside,

waiting for the sound of fisticuffs.
And me and Sid sort of come out,

practically arm in arm, laughing.
And John was like...

(BURPS) Pardon me.

(INTERVIEWER) So what do you do,
now that you've lost your record
contract?

You're still recording though,
aren't you? Yeah.

What's your next single?

Uh...
# And there's no reason why

# EMI #
(INTERVIEWER) And you were signed up
then with A&M?

Yeah, for a week.
For a week!
We walked into A&M Records.

Sid collapsed
in the marketing director's chair.

He was completely gone. He'd drunk
two bottles of vodka from 10 a.m.
to three.

It was like, this wasn't a group
that had entered this building.

What had entered
was this fabulous disaster.

A couple of weeks later on,
Malcolm called me up and he said,

"Look, you know, I thought about it.
It's not working out with Sid.

I want you to come back
and kick down the doors

and be
the Sex Pistol bass player again."

I said,
"Well, I could do that, Malcolm,

but you sent that telegram to NME

saying I was sacked
for liking the Beatles,
I think it's pretty shitty, really.

So fuck you."
(CROWD CHEERING)

(MAJESTIC MUSIC PLAYING)

(STREET-PORTER) The summer of '77,
the summer of the Jubilee,

a time when the nation united

in spontaneous gestures
of patriotism.

A time when the then top 20
record charts were dominated

by this original version
of the national anthem

by the Sex Pistols.

# God save the Queen

# The fascist regime

# They made you a moron

# A potential H-bomb

# God save the Queen #
We didn't write the song

to coincide with the Jubilee at all.

We wrote that song, I think,
a year before, near enough,

it just came out at that time.
(REPORTER) ..Majesty
and Prince Philip,

to the thunderous cheers
of hundreds of thousands
of her subjects lining the route.

You can't play on the land,
and you can't hear them in the air.

So let's put them on a bloody boat!

This is insane, he whole thing.

And let's
follow the Queen's flotilla.

# We mean it, man #

When the six Pistols
went after the Queen,

It just wasn't done.

'God Save The Queen, and played it
at the Queen's Jubilee?

No, no-one has ever done anything
that ballsy.

That actually came out
after I'd left the band.

The song was written and we were
playing it, but originally

it was called 'No Future.'
And to me,

although the first line of the song
is "God save the Queen,"

the main thing to me is, no future.
There's no future.
Not that that's a good thing,

but there's no future
unless you try and do something
about it for yourself,

which is what we were trying to do.

We didn't realise how much
we were gonna shake things up.

Questions
in the Houses of the Parliament

and stuff like that going on.
You know, it was crazy.

But we had a lot of support
throughout the country.
(U.S. REPORTER) The current record,

'God Save The Queen,'
is at number one today.

But the IBA, which administers
the Broadcasting Act,

has advised us that,
particularly at this time,

this record
is likely to cause offence

to a number of our listeners
and have asked us not to play it
in our normal programming.

Not only would they not play it
on the BBC,

but they wouldn't even
print the name in the chart.
Going into Woolworths,

they had the Top 10 on a pegboard,
and then the number one was blank.

When you're that passionate
about what you're doing

that you're willing
to step over the edge

and confront the world around you,

you will generate
an equally strong reaction

in the opposite direction.

(INTERVIEWER) Are you anti-royalist?

We are.

I've never met the Queen
in me life,

so why should I wanna know her?

Where's that beer gone?

I mean, do you think, well, let's -

We don't bother about her.
We don't bother about her.

We just don't care about the Queen.
She don't give a fuck about us,
does she?

It was great that we knew
we were doing something

culturally significant
and fantastic,

but it was also very scary
that we knew people
were out to harm us.

We had to get out the country
at one time.

# No future for you

# No future
Well, then they went to the States.

# For you #

(MAN IN AUDIENCE) Hey, Johnny!

And in the meantime, I'd already
started taking some steps

to talk to other musicians,
like Steve New.

And I met this guy Rusty Egan,
he was a drummer,

and I'd already been writing
a couple of song ideas.

As soon as we heard
that Glen had quit the band,

we were on the phone.

And he said, "As a friend
and a representative of EMI,

we see you as the main tunesmith
in the band.

We'd be more than interested
in anything you come up with."
I thought, fucking handy.

And when I was on the lookout
for a singer,

everybody wanted to sound like
Rotten, last thing I wanted.

..Rich Kids. There's Glen Matlock,
formerly with the Sex Pistols,

and Midge Ure, who was with
a Scottish teenybop group
called Slik.

# Now you can see, now you can feel

# Now you can tell that it was you #

This is a kid had played
in the ultimate teenybopper group,
boyband, Slik.

To get him as the frontman
was another clever stance from Glen.

OK, this is called 'Rich Kids.'

# 'Rich Kids'

What I did want to do
with the Rich Kids

was not be
a second division Sex Pistol.

And that's why it kind of came out
a bit different.

# I'm talkin' about rich kids

# The guys too much for you #

This is the band that were
the missing link between Punk

and what we were about to do
in the '80s with New Romanticism.

They bridged that gap,

and that was a massive inspiration.

(INTERVIEWER) Do you think it will
be sort of a New Wave kind of words

and angry songs?

No, I mean I'm not
that kind of angry person.

That's one of the reasons
I'm no longer in the Pistols.
# Oh, it's too much

# To stop the rich, so true #

(INTERVIEWER) Is there
a particular reason
why you're not playing Los Angeles

or New York or...
(LYDON) There's
a very definite reason,

and all those places
that says you're obvious sellouts.
But like, who plays down South?

# 'God Save The Queen'

Playing in the South,
that was a great idea.

Down there they had this guy
cutting himself on stage,

with spiky hair
and not giving a fuck.

That was a spectacle.
It really was a spectacle.

(SOUTHERN ACCENT) The Pistols
are just outta sight.

I think they got a lotta balls.
(INTERVIEWER) Is it what they sing?
It isn't what they sing.

Get outta here!
What do they sing? They sing.
Get outta here.

It was just getting crazy.

We had lunatics following us around
all over the place.

The police
were on the side of the stage,

and the record company were worried.
We had security all around us.

It was getting horrible.

I thought someone was gonna die
on that tour.

They nearly did, with Sid
just causing chaos everywhere,

and the drug-taking
and all that thing. The band,

it went quickly downhill.

(LYDON) This is no fun.

No fun at all. No fun.

I said to the audience,
"Ever get the feeling
you've been cheated?"

And I meant it,
and I still do to this day.

The whole thing went sour.

So we split.

Ever get the feeling
you've been cheated? Goodnight.

It was getting dark and horrible,
and, to be honest,

I was glad when it was over
at the end of that American tour.

I was relieved too.

You know, I'd had enough.
That's the way it was.

That was the way it was meant to be.

Sid was in the hospital.
It was a blizzard,

and I went down to CGBGs that night
and there's Joe Stevens

with Johnny Rotten.
He asked me if I had a cigarette.

I said, "Here, man, take it."
And he goes, "Oh."

He goes, "Is this
a token of your respect?"

And I said, "Well, no.
I actually feel bad for you,
cos you're outta work." (LAUGHS)

It was an icebreaker right there,
you know.

Do you keep in touch
with any of the people

that you've played with before?
Anybody in the band? No.

They never bothered to ring me,
so I won't ring them.

It was really heavy at the time.
And yeah, I was glad.

I thought we were just gonna
split up for a few months,

maybe, then get back together.

But it never worked out like that.

Then Sid came back to London
with his tail between his legs.

Then he had a big drug problem.

But he moved into Maida Vale,
in London,

and he was friends
with some of the same people,

and then Nancy'd be around,
and I saw him quite a lot.

I've been with Sid
ever since the first day
I got to England,

and we're partners in crime.
(SID SPEAKS UNDECIPHERABLY)

We have good fun.
We wipe the shit off,

and we help each other out.

I do remember once,

there was Nancy
holding her hand over a bowl.

She cut her wrist,
sort of cut her wrist,

eating an ice cream. I go,
"Oh, Nancy, what you doing?"

She's going, "Well,
Sid don't love me anymore."

I said, "Oh, well, never mind.
Do you want a cuppa tea?"

She'd be like, "No, it's alright.

I'll just eat the ice cream."
And it was all like play-acting
kind of stuff. I liked Nancy.

She was like one of
the handful of women

that were on the scene at CBGB.

You know, we were all kids.

I got to know Nancy
and she sort of explained to me

that she had had a rough life,
a rough home life.

I don't know if you saw
any of the gigs,
but Sid was like really shining out,

and John was being like nothing.

(INTERVIEWER) What was it
that you thought

the Pistols were trying to do?

Was it just like
kick the Establishment up the arse?

(SNORES)

Sid?

And we were sitting in the pub
one night together,

and he's going, "The thing is, Glen,

people seem to think we're enemies,

but here we are
sitting having a drink together."

And I said, "Yeah,
it's kind of funny that."

He said,
"Can't we do something about it?

You know,
to prove that we're not enemies."

I said, "Well I'll tell you what,

maybe we could do a little gig
for a laugh."

He went, "Oh, really?
Who would we get?"

I said, "Well, I'll tell you what,
why don't we get Steve New,

who was my guitarist
in the Rich Kids then,

and maybe Rat Scabies?"

He said, "Who's gonna play bass?"
I said, "Well, I'll play bass.
You sing." "Oh, oh, alright."

This was like on a Monday,

and we was playing
the Electric Ballroom

the following Friday or Saturday.

Sid Vicious, I was in the Rich Kids,

and Rat was in the White Cats.

Vicious, White, Kids,

boom, and it sold out.
(VICIOUS, LIVE) This one's
dedicated to my honey, Nancy.

# 'I Wanna Be Your Dog'

There was loads of people
at the gig.

I remember Thin Lizzy came down,

and I think that's where I met
Blondie for the first time.
Joan Jett and I went together,

and Marc Bolan was there.

# So messed up, I want you here #

They had no material

and they did 'I Wanna Be Your Dog'
three times.
Kept getting encores,

and we didn't have any more songs.
So we did the same set
of about 10 songs three times.

I mean, what happened
after that gig,

Sid was gonna go to America,

and we didn't do too bad
after the gig,

and then in a kind of drunken moment
of largesse,

I said, "Let's just give Sid
the money for the gig." A couple
of days later he went to America.

The thing was, I didn't realise
that he was always skint.

He didn't have any money,
and I didn't realise
how bad he'd become,

and Malcolm
wasn't giving him any money.

So him and Nancy's on their own.

I didn't know that.

I've given him several grand
of money to go to America.

He turns up in New York, loaded.

Sid, damn you!

Fuck.

So I don't know if I didn't help
somehow, in some small way,

help him with his demise,
undeliberately.

(REPORTER) Tonight Vicious
is in real trouble,

charged with the murder
of his girlfriend

at Manhattan's Chelsea Hotel.
Vicious,

whose real name is John Ritchie,
had lived at the Chelsea
with 20-year-old Nancy Spungen

for about three weeks.

This morning,
Vicious called an ambulance
to the West 23rd Street hotel.

When it arrived,
Ms Spungen was already dead

of a stab wound in the stomach.

Really sweet enough guy. I mean,
I didn't really get to know him

until after fucking Nancy was dead.
He just got outta jail.

He was actually sober,
and you could talk to him,

and he was a very sad character.

I mean, he was, you know,
I asked him flat-out one time,

"Did you do it?"
And he goes, "I don't know."

(INTERVIEWER) And what do you think
made it happen?

It was meant to happen.

Nancy always said she'D die
before she was 21.

Sid Vicious
will not have to stand trial

for the murder of a girlfriend
at the Chelsea Hotel.

Sid is no longer vicious. He's dead,

his nude body found
in a Greenwich Village apartment,

spoon and syringe nearby.
(REPORTER) The ex-Sex Pistol
was described as happy

about prospects for a bright future
when he came here to 63 Bank
last night.

You just have to accept it.

I could no more save him
than I could've killed him.

(INTERVIEWER) Were you close to him
at that time?

He was my best mate.

All I can say
is that we really tried,

everybody tried to talk to him,
Steve and Paul.
(INTERVIEWER) Do you feel

if he'd never met you,
he might be alive today?

I don't know.

First person I see up here
is Joe Strummer,

who was a friend of mine.
I remember Joe wearing this.

Generation X,
there's Tony James there,

who used to knock around
with Mick Jones.

Scabies there, up there.

Very good drummer,
but he's a bit impulsive.

About a few years ago
I was having a jam with him

and was playing away and he did
this fantastic big drum fill

that ended like one and a half beats
into the next bar,

which it shouldn't have done.
It just all fell apart.
We was only rehearsing,

and it all broke down, and I went,
"Rat." And he said, "Glen, I hate it

when you can't follow me
when I go wrong like that."
(CREW LAUGHTER)

So there's kind of
quite a lot of connections

in this room for me.

But the only thing is,
they got pictures of Pistols

without me in it. So I'm gonna
have to address that issue.

It's funny how the media gave us
that illusion about the Pistols,

that it was all Sid, when it wasn't,
it was Glen Matlock.

It's kind of funny,
I don't get up in the morning

thinking
I used to be in the Sex Pistols.

But everything I've done
over my life,

I've never been allowed
to forget about the Sex Pistols.

But all I've ever
really wanted to do,

and maybe that was
one of the reasons I fell out
with the other guys,

you know Malcolm,
was being a working musician.

And d'you know what?

I'm 67 now, and I've managed that.

# 'Lust For Life'

After the Pistols,
I got a gig with Iggy Pop.

I'm on tour with Iggy Pop
around Europe and America

and I played on his 'Soldier' album.

With the Rich Kids,
it was fantastic.

I got to work with Mick Ronson,

he produced the album,
and I became mates with him

and he asked me
to do other projects.

There's people that influenced me
I got to work with.

Johnny Thunders,
I actually did a tour of Japan

and Australia with Johnny.

Look at the stuff he's done since.
He's played with the fucking Faces.

The band that I used to
stand in front of the mirror

at 14 pretending I was in them.

We headlined the Fuji Festival
in Japan. You know Ronnie Wood,

and Kenney Jones and Ian McLagan.

If someone said to me,
I can see into the future

and later on down the line
you're gonna get one of
the Sex Pistols playing with me,

I would go, "Go away.
Don't be silly."

But sure enough, he did.
(CROWD CHEERING)

Then I got a phone call
a year and a half ago

from Clem Burke,
Blondie was short of a bass player,

would I go and help him out?
And I said, "When,
late in the summer or something?"

He said, "No, on Tuesday."
I was like, oh...

I knew
Glen would be perfect for it.

And we did this arena tour with Glen
and it's just carried on since then.
It's been great.

Oh my god. (LAUGHS)

Yeah, you know Glen is great.

Yes, he's a sweetheart.

# 'Call Me'

# Call me, I'll arrive

# Call me, call me any day or night

# Call me, call me in my life

# When you're ready
for your sweet design #

In my experience,
there's some people

that were born to be in rock,
and that's it.

It's just, you know, who you are,

and I think that applies to him.

# ..designer sheets

# I'll never get enough #

That's one of the things
I like about Glen,

that it's not past glories.

I think his current work
is his strongest ever.

Really with his finger on the pulse

of what's going on politically
in the country and the world,

and he's writing about it.

# Until there's someone, oh yeah #

People always say the Pistols
was like a sea-change.

Maybe it was in a way,
but I dispute that.

I think music's like a baton race.

You know, the people from before you
that you dig,

you take the baton off of them,
and you do your bit,

and then you pass the baton on
for the next lot of people.

You know, here's this man
Glen Matlock, who changed my life.

Yeah, I put seeing the Sex Pistols
in the same bracket

as Paul meeting John.

# 'God Save The Queen'

Glen leaving sadly did take away

that marvellous accidental synergy

that they had, and they couldn't
really seriously recover from it.

What a damn good band we were,
to be quite frank,

and how right it was
that we ended when we did.

You know, I'm proud of the songs,
and every time you hear
a Sex Pistols record on the radio,

especially the first three singles,

you might be listening
to Johnny Rotten and Steve Jones

and Paul Cook, but you're also
listening to Glen Matlock.

He is a writer and an idea-maker.

I don't think
we would have the Sex Pistols

the same way we knew them
without him being a main ingredient.

It takes a a lot of people
to make something great,

and different opinions
and when they align,

that's when it's something special.

And in the end of the Pistols,
they were very special.

And there's not a lot of bands
that can say that they have

one record that impacted everything.

It's amazing with that one album,
how they're spoken about
in the same breath as the Who,

or even the Stones or the Beatles,

or all great rock and roll bands,
which they were one of.

They only had to make one, really.
It's so good.

No-one sounds
anywhere near that powerful.

'Never Mind'
raised the bar for everyone.

It's one of the most classic records
of all time.

Amazing, I mean I played that
to death when it came out.

That's their one statement
to the world.

And imagine getting it
so right once.

I made 10 albums,
and in my own mind,

they don't match up to that.
And I'm an arrogant bastard.

# We mean it, man

# Whichever queen, oh yeah,

# God saves #

We have got something in common
that only four people
in the whole world have,

and it's like when we get
in the room, if we ever did again,

we start playing,
we're the Sex Pistols.

It wouldn't have happened
without all the elements,

which is mainly the band,

but it wouldn't have happened
without Malcolm, without Vivienne,
without Jamie Reid's artwork.

It wouldn't have happened
without Little Helen,

Helen of Troy,
who was mates with Malcolm.

There's a power
to the music of the Pistols.

# No future for you

# No future, no future #

Yeah, maybe we could've
made another album or two.

But, you know,
bands tend to do a ballad or so,

something like the Rolling Stones'
(SINGS) # Angie, Angie #

Can't imagine Johnny Rotten
singing something like that.

# Angie... #

Alright,
that's Glen Matlock on bass.

(CROWD CHEERING)

That's a good place to end then.

# There's no point in asking,
you'll get no reply

# Just remember I don't decide

# I got no reason
and you'll get no reply

# I got no reason, yeah

# That's just fine

# We're so pretty, oh so pretty

# We're vacant

# We're so pretty, oh so pretty

# Vacant

# Don't ask us to attend,
cos we're not all there

# Don't pretend,
cos we don't care

# Got no reason, it's all too much

# Always find us

# Out to lunch, out to lunch

# We're so pretty, oh so pretty

# Vacant

# We're so pretty, oh so pretty

# Vacant

# We're so pretty, oh so pretty

# Vacant, yeah

# And we don't care

# Pretty, pretty vacant

# We don't care #