John Joseph Lydon (born 31 January 1956), also known as Johnny Rotten, is a British rock musician and lyricist, best known as the lead vocalist of the punk rock group Sex Pistols during the 1970s and 2000s, and also as the vocalist of post punk group Public Image Ltd in the 1980s and 1990s.
Lydon became notorious in the media during the 1970s as a
figurehead of the
punk movement, and
for his stance against the music establishment, class system and
the
British monarchy. He has since
become a television personality, appearing on television shows in
both the UK and elsewhere, and an interviewer remarked in 2005 that
"somehow he's assumed the status of
national treasure."
Biography
1956-1975: Early life
John Lydon
was born in London
to Irish Catholic immigrants, his father from Tuam
, County Galway
, and his mother from Shanagarry
,County
Cork
. He grew up on a council estate in Finsbury
Park
, North
London
with three younger brothers. At the age of
seven, he contracted
spinal
meningitis, putting him in and out of
comas
for half a year and erasing most of his memory. The disease left
him with a permanent curve in his spine and also damaged his
eyesight, resulting in his characteristic stare.
He attended St.
William of York School in Islington
, North
London, where his friends included David Crowe, Tony
Purcell and John Gray. David Crowe went on to become
involved with Public Image whilst John Gray became a school teacher
and Tony Purcell went on to become a pioneer of the
Internet industry in Scotland.
1975-1978: Sex Pistols and the Punk movement
In 1975, Lydon was among a group of youths who regularly hung
around
Malcolm McLaren and
Vivienne Westwood's fetish clothing shop
SEX. McLaren had returned from a
brief stint travelling with American
proto-punk band the
New
York Dolls, and he was working on promoting a new band formed
by
Steve Jones,
Glen Matlock and
Paul
Cook called
Sex Pistols. McLaren was
impressed with Lydon's ragged look and unique sense of style,
particularly his orange hair and modified
Pink Floyd T-shirt (with the band members' eyes
scratched out and the words
I Hate scrawled in felt-tip
pen above the band's logo). After tunelessly singing
Alice Cooper's "
I'm
Eighteen" to the accompaniment of the shop's
jukebox, Lydon was chosen as the band's
frontman.
The origin of the stage name
Johnny Rotten has had varying
explanations. One, given in a
Daily
Telegraph feature interview with Lydon in 2007, was that
"he was given the name in the mid '70s, when his neglect of
oral hygiene saw his teeth turning
green". Another story says the name was allegedly given to him by
Steve Jones, after Jones saw
his teeth and exclaimed "You're rotten, you are!"
In 1977, the band released "
God Save the Queen"
during the week of
Queen Elizabeth II's
Silver Jubilee. The song was a hit,
but caused so much controversy that Lydon was attacked in the
streets by an angry mob. They stabbed him in his left hand, his
leg, and nearly gouged out his eye with a beer bottle. Since then,
he has not been able to properly make a fist with his left
hand.
Lydon was also interested in
dub music.
McLaren was said to have been upset when Lydon revealed during a
radio interview that his influences included progressive
experimentalists like
Magma,
Can,
Captain
Beefheart and
Van der Graaf
Generator.
Tensions between Lydon and bassist
Glen
Matlock arose. The reasons for this are disputed, but Lydon
claimed in his autobiography that he believed Matlock to be too
white-collar and
middle-class and that Matlock was "always going
on about nice things like
the Beatles".
Matlock stated in his own autobiography that most of the tension in
the band, and between himself and Lydon, was orchestrated by
McLaren. Matlock quit and as a replacement, Lydon recommended his
school friend John Simon Ritchie. Although Ritchie was an
incompetent musician, McLaren agreed that he had the look the band
wanted: pale, emaciated, spike-haired, with ripped clothes and a
perpetual sneer. Rotten dubbed him "
Sid
Vicious" as a joke, taking the name from his pet hamster, a
finger-biting creature named Sid the Vicious. According to Kit and
Morgan Benson's biography, Ritchie got his name after Sid the
hamster bit him on his hand, and he exclaimed: "Sid is really
vicious!"
Vicious' chaotic relationship with girlfriend
Nancy Spungen, and his worsening
heroin addiction, caused a great deal of
friction among the band members, particularly with Lydon, whose
sarcastic remarks often exacerbated the situation.
Lydon closed the final
Sid Vicious-era Sex Pistols concert in San Francisco
's Winterland in January
1978 with a rhetorical question to the audience: "Ever get the
feeling you've been cheated?" Shortly thereafter,
McLaren, Jones, and Cook went to Brazil
to meet and
record with former train robber Ronnie
Biggs. Lydon declined to go, deriding the concept as a
whole and feeling that they were attempting to make a hero out of a
criminal who attacked a train driver and stole "
working-class money". Lydon was abandoned in
San Francisco virtually penniless.
The Sex Pistols' disintegration was documented in
Julian Temple's
satirical pseudo-
biopic,
The Great Rock 'n'
Roll Swindle, in which Jones, Cook and Vicious each played
a character. Matlock only appeared in previously-recorded live
footage and as an animation and did not participate personally.
Lydon refused to have anything to do with
The Great Rock 'n'
Roll Swindle, feeling that McLaren had far too much control
over the project. Although Lydon was highly critical of the film,
many years later he agreed to let Temple direct the Sex Pistols
documentary
The Filth and the
Fury. That film included new interviews with band members
hidden in shadow, as if they were in a
witness protection program. It
featured an uncharacteristically emotional Lydon choking up as he
discussed Vicious' decline and death. Lydon denounced previous
journalistic works regarding the Sex Pistols in the introduction to
his
autobiography,
Rotten - No
Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, which he described as "as close to
the truth as one can get".
1978-1993: Public Image Limited, Time Zone and
Copkiller
In 1978, John Lydon formed the
post-punk
outfit Public Image Limited (PiL). PiL lasted for 14 years with
Lydon as the only consistent member. The group enjoyed some early
critical acclaim for its 1979 album,
Metal
Box (a.k.a.
Second Edition), and influenced many
bands of the later
industrial
movement. The band was lauded for its innovation and rejection of
traditional musical forms. Musicians citing their influence have
ranged from the
Red Hot Chili
Peppers to
Massive Attack.
The first lineup of the band included bassist
Jah Wobble and former
Clash guitarist
Keith
Levene. They released the albums
Public Image (also
known as
First Edition),
Metal Box and
Paris
in the Spring (live). Wobble then left and Lydon and Levene
made
The Flowers of Romance. Then came
This Is What
You Want...This Is What You Get featuring
Martin Atkins on drums (he had also appeared
on
Metal Box and
The Flowers of Romance); it
featured their biggest hit, "This Is Not A Love Song", which hit #5
in 1983.
In 1983, Lydon co-starred with
Harvey
Keitel in the movie thriller
Corrupt, a.k.a. Copkiller and The Order of
Death. While the film was generally panned, Lydon won some
praise for his role as a
psychotic rich
boy. Lydon would act again very occasionally after that, such as a
very small role in the 2000 film,
The Independent, and as the host
of the skateboard film,
Sorry, featuring the Flip Skate
Team.
In 1984, Lydon worked with
Time
Zone on their best-known single, "World Destruction". A
collaboration between Lydon,
Afrika
Bambaataa and producer/bassist
Bill
Laswell, the single was an early example of "
rap rock", along with
Run-DMC. The song appears on Afrika Bambaataa's 1997
compilation album,
Zulu Groove. It was arranged by Laswell
after Lydon and Bambaataa had acknowledged respect for each others'
work, as described in an interview from 1984:
- Afrika Bambaataa: "I was talking to Bill Laswell saying I need
somebody who's really crazy, man, and he thought of John Lydon. I
knew he was perfect because I'd seen this movie that he'd made
(Corrupt, a.k.a. Copkiller and The Order of
Death), I knew about all the Sex Pistols and Public Image
stuff, so we got together and we did a smashing crazy version, and
a version where he cussed the Queen something terrible, which was
never released."
- John Lydon: "We went in, put a drum beat down on the machine
and did the whole thing in about four-and-a-half hours. It was
very, very quick."
The single also featured
Bernie
Worrell,
Nicky Skopelitis and
Aïyb Dieng, all of whom would later
play on PiL's
Album; Laswell also played bass and
produced.
Then in 1986 Public Image Limited released
Album (also
known as
Compact Disc and
Cassette). Most of the
tracks on this album were written by Lydon and
Bill Laswell. The musicians were session
musicians including bassist
Jonas
Hellborg, guitarist
Steve Vai and
Cream drummer
Ginger Baker. Like the
previous album, this also featured a hit, the anti-
apartheid anthem "Rise".
The band's performance on the dance/concert TV show
American Bandstand saw Lydon giving
up on lip synching not long into the performance and dancing with
audience members instead.
In 1987 a new lineup was formed consisting of Lydon, former
Magazine,
Siouxsie & The Banshees and
The Armoury Show guitarist
John McGeoch,
Alan
Dias on bass guitar in addition to drummer
Bruce Smith and
Lu
Edmunds. This lineup released
Happy? and all except Lu
Edmunds released the album
9 in 1989. In 1992 Lydon, Dias
and McGeoch were joined by Curt Bisquera on drums and Gregg
Arreguin on rhythm guitar for the album
That What Is Not.
This album also features the
Tower of
Power on two songs and Jimmie Wood on
harmonica. Lydon, McGeoch and Dias also wrote the
song "Criminal" for the movie
Point
Break. After this album, in 1993, Lydon put PiL on
indefinite hiatus, in which state they remain today. Recently Lydon
has agreed to revive PiL to do a UK tour in December which
coincides with the 30th anniversary of the Metal Box album.
1993-2006: Solo Album, Autobiography and Celebrity Status
In 1995, Lydon published his autobiography,
Rotten - No Irish,
No Blacks, No Dogs, which dealt with his early life and career
in the Sex Pistols. In December 2005, Lydon told
Q that he is working on a second
autobiography to cover the PiL years.
In the mid-1990s, Lydon hosted
Rotten Day, a daily
syndicated US radio feature written by
George Gimarc. The format of the show was a
look back at events in popular music and culture occurring on the
particular broadcast calendar date about which Lydon would offer
cynical commentary. The show was originally developed as a radio
vehicle for Gimarc's book,
Punk Diary 1970-79, but after
bringing Lydon onboard it was expanded to cover notable events from
most of the second half of the 20th century.
In 1997 Lydon released a solo album on
Virgin Records called
Psycho's Path. He wrote all the songs and
played all the instruments. In one song, "Sun", he sang the vocals
through a toilet roll. It did not sell particularly well and
received mixed reviews from critics. The U.S. version included a
Chemical Brothers remix of the
song "Open Up" by
Leftfield with vocals by
Lydon. This song is heard during the title menu of the computer
game
All Star Baseball 2000 (
Acclaim Entertainment). The song was
also a club hit in the U.S. and a big hit in England. John Lydon
has recorded a second solo-album but it has not been released. One
song from the album was released on
The Best of British £1
Notes.
In November 1997, Lydon appeared on
Judge
Judy fighting a suit filed by his former tour drummer
Robert Williams for breach of contract, and
assault and battery. Lydon won the case,
although Judge
Judy Sheindlin wasn't
overly impressed with Lydon's antics and did advise Lydon to keep
quiet several times.
In 2000, Lydon hosted
Rotten TV, a short-lived show on
VH1. The show offered his acerbic commentary on
American politics and pop culture. In one segment he took
Neil Young to task for not appearing on the show,
making fun of Young's singing style and pointing out that Young had
once proclaimed Johnny Rotten "the king" in the song "
Hey Hey, My My ".
In 2003 Lydon appeared as a panelist on an episode of
Richard Belzer's ill-fated
conspiracy-themed panel show,
The
Belzer Connection. The episode in question posed the query,
"Was there a conspiracy involved in the death of
Princess Diana?" For his part, Lydon proved
as witty and scurrilous as ever, responding to suggestions of
Royal Family involvement by proclaiming
"If the Royal Family was going to assassinate someone, they would
have gotten rid of me a long time ago." The series ran for only two
episodes.
In January 2004, Lydon appeared on the British
reality television programme,
I'm a
Celebrity... Get Me Out of
Here!, which took place in Australia. He proved he still
had the capability to shock by calling the show's viewers "fucking
cunts" during a live broadcast. The television regulator and
ITV, the channel broadcasting the show, between
them received 91 complaints about Lydon's use of bad language. In a
February 2004 interview with the Scottish
Sunday Mirror, Lydon said that he and his
wife "should be dead", since on 21 December 1988, thanks to delays
caused by his wife's packing, they missed the doomed
Pan Am Flight 103. During this interview,
Lydon said that the real reason for him leaving
Get Me Out of
Here! was his fear over the Pan Am incident and the
"appalling" refusal of the programme makers to let him know whether
his wife had arrived safely in Australia.In an interview previous
to the show's first episode, he had described it as "moronic", and
throughout the show's run he had displayed an indifferent attitude
to staying and threatened to walk out on numerous occasions. 30
hours following ex-
football star
Neil Ruddock's departure, Lydon left
the show for unclear reasons, although he had been very visibly
angry both to and about fellow star
Jordan. British newspapers claimed that
Lydon had won a
£100 bet with Ruddock over
who would stay in the longest. Lydon, however, stated on air that
he felt he would win outright and that it would be unfair to the
other celebrities for him to win.
After
I'm a Celebrity..., he presented a documentary about
insects and
spiders
called
John Lydon's Megabugs that was shown on the
Discovery Channel.
Radio Times described him as "more an
enthusiast than an expert". He went to present two further
programmes:
John Lydon Goes Ape in which he searched for
gorillas in
Central Africa, and
John Lydon's Shark
Attack in which he swam with
sharks off
South Africa.
In 2005,
he appeared in Reynebeau & Rotten, a five episode
documentary on Canvas, the
cultural channel of the Flemish public broadcaster VRT
, in which Lydon guided Belgian journalist Marc
Reynebeau through Great Britain in a chauffeured Rolls Royce, having a go at things
typically 'British'. When asked why he was chosen as a
guide, he answered that he was the cheapest one available. After
the show had been broadcast, Lydon claimed in an interview with the
popular Belgian magazine
HUMO that he
was very unhappy with the way they handled post-production and was
very angry with the way they depicted him in this particular show.
He claimed that the creators mainly showed his humorous, sometimes
clownish antics, instead of focusing on his personal opinions and
arguably philosophical conversations he had with Marc Reynebeau.
Lydon was also infuriated that the production company used songs
from the Sex Pistols' catalogue, without consulting all the
remaining members of the band, including him.
Lydon broadcast a short pod on
Current TV
in which he critiqued
The Doors'
keyboardist
Ray Manzarek's previously
broadcast pod. Manzarek's advice to young people had been to "fuck
your brains out." He emphasized this especially for 25-year-old
women, saying that "it won't last." Lydon had several choice words
for Manzarek and told young people that the best thing they could
do was get an education because knowledge is free. Lydon also
suggested that at one point Manzarek had asked him to work on a
project together and that he did not do it because it would
negatively affect his career.
In late 2008 Lydon appeared in an advertising campaign for
Country Life, a popular brand of butter, on
British television. Lydon was widely mocked as a
sell-out for this move. The advertising campaign
proved to be highly successful, with sales of the brand raising 85%
in the quarter following, which many in the media attributed to
Lydon's presence in the advert.
2006-2009: Sex Pistols Revival
Although Lydon spent years furiously denying that the Sex Pistols
would ever perform together again, the band re-united (with Matlock
returning on bass) in the 1990s, and continues to perform
occasionally. In 2004, Lydon publicly refused to allow the
Rhino record
label to include any Sex Pistols songs on its box set
No Thanks!: The
70s Punk Rebellion.
In 2006, the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame
inducted the Sex Pistols, but the band refused to
attend the ceremony or acknowledge the induction, complaining that
they had been asked for large sums of money to attend and stating
that it went against everything the band stood for.
In June
2007, Lydon, Jones and Cook re-recorded "Pretty Vacant" in a Los Angeles
studio for the video game Skate and, in a
radio interview in the same month, Lydon announced that the Sex
Pistols may perform again over the Christmas period. They also re-recorded
"
Anarchy in the UK" for the video
game
Guitar Hero
III: Legends of Rock.
In September 2007, Lydon announced that the
Sex Pistols would play a concert for the 30th anniversary of
Never Mind the Bollocks at the Brixton Academy
on 8 November 2007. Due to popular
demand, four additional concerts were added, as well as further
shows in Manchester
and Glasgow
.
The Sex Pistols appeared at the
Isle Of Wight Festival 2008 as
the headlining act on Saturday night.
They also appeared at
the Peace and Love Festival in
Sweden
, Electric Picnic in Ireland, the Live at Loch Lomond Festival in
Scotland, Heineken Open'er
Festival
in Gdynia
(Poland
), Paredes de
Coura Festival in Portugal
, Traffic Free Festival in Turin
(Italy
) and
EXIT festival in Serbia
the same
summer.
2009 - PiL Reformation
In September 2009 it was announced that PiL would reform, including
earlier members Bruce Smith and Lu Edmonds, for a number of
Christmas shows in the UK.
Controversy
180px-John_Lydon_dice_"Se_acabó_Londres,_se_acabó".jpg"
style='width:180px' alt="" />
John Lydon (2008)
2008 Ritz Carlton Hotel incident
On 23
January 2008 Lydon was reportedly involved in a string of offences,
including battery, sexual abuse, sexual
assault and physical assault in
Marina del
Rey
. Roxane Davis, who was Lydon's personal
assistant on the television program
Bodog
Battle Of The Bands, claimed that she was punched in the face
by Lydon after being called a "cunt" several times. It is believed
that Lydon wished for a door between his hotel room and his male
friend's room at the hotel
Ritz
Carlton, but was given a separate room without a dividing door.
Lydon reportedly became infuriated with the hotel staff, before
assaulting his own employee who was staying in the same hotel. Upon
being questioned by journalists over the incident, Lydon was
unavailable. Davis has taken legal action against Lydon.
2008 Summercase incident
Bloc Party singer
Kele Okereke claims he was left with severe
facial bruising and a split lip following what he alleges was a
verbal and physical racist
assault by three members of Lydon's entourage.
The incident occurred
on the evening of 19 July 2008 at the Summercase festival in Barcelona
while the bands were socialising
backstage.
However in statement to
NME, Lydon has denied
the allegations of his involvement in this assault. Since the
report,
Super Furry Animals lead
singer
Gruff Rhys has come forward in
support of Okereke's claim, saying "the statements Kele has said
are absolutely true, it did happen."
A British tabloid accused Lydon of racism due to the incident,
something he strongly denied during an appearance on
The One Show, claiming that they were
"atrocious" and "hurtful". He went on to say that:
He went on to say, when asked if he was racist, that:
2008 Duffy incident
At the 2008
MoJo awards ceremony, Welsh singer
Duffy attempted to say hello to Lydon
when, according to her; "I was literally slammed against the wall,
pinned by his arm at my throat. He called me a cunt." She spent the
whole night crying over the incident and felt awful about it for
the following week. Other reports indicate a slightly different
scenario, that Lydon "was being interviewed and he had his back to
door and she banged into him and then grabbed him. He then turned
round in no uncertain terms to tell her to back off him". Lydon
later claimed he hadn't realised who Duffy was, saying; "people are
trying to pin something on me. I don't know who this Duffy person
is, or why she'd want to get publicity from this. I was doing an
interview and she came up behind me - I didn't see anything. I’ve
been with my wife for 30 years and I've been brought up to be
polite and have respect for people, especially women."
Adam Sherwin of the
Times, who witnessed the attack on Duffy, wrote about
the incident, giving an account which differs from that offered by
Lydon, but placing the blame for the physical assault on John's
minder rather than Lydon himself.
Personal life
Lydon is married to Nora Forster. They have no children together,
but Lydon is
stepfather of Forster's
daughter,
Ari Up, who herself had been the
lead singer in the influential
postpunk,
dub reggae band,
The
Slits. He currently lives in Los Angeles.
Discography
All chart positions are UK.
Sex Pistols
Studio albums
Compilations and live albums
- The
Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (Virgin, 1979)
- Some Product: Carri On Sex Pistols (Virgin, 1979)
- Kiss This (Virgin, 1992)
- Never Mind the Bollocks / Spunk (aka This is
Crap) (Virgin, 1996)
- Filthy Lucre Live (Virgin, 1996)
- The Filth and the Fury (Virgin, 2000)
- Jubilee (Virgin, 2002)
- Sex Pistols Box Set (Virgin, 2002)
Singles
Public Image Ltd.
Studio albums
Compilations and live albums
Singles
- "Public Image" - 1978 #9
- "Death Disco" - 1979 #20
- "Memories" - 1979 #60
- "Flowers of Romance" - 1981 #24
- "This Is Not a Love Song" - 1983 #5
- "Bad Life" - 1984 #71
- "Rise" - 1986 #11
- "Home" - 1986 #75
- "Seattle" - 1987 #47
- "The Body" - 1987 #100
- "Disappointed" - 1989 #38
- "Don't Ask Me" - 1990 #22
- "Cruel" - 1992 #49
Time Zone
Single
Solo
Studio albums
Compilations
Singles
Footnotes
External links
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search
