NEVER MIND THE SEX PISTOLS HERE THE.

Rip It Up, Issue 8, 1 February 1978, Page 6

NEVER MIND THE SEX PISTOLS HERE THE.

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DJ: Johnny and Paul, it’s very good to see you here in Newcastle. We've got a lot to talk about. How was the band formed and why was it formed? Was it a case that you formed the band from a purely musical point of view or you formed it to express certain ideas and attitudes that you felt had to be aired to the public or was it a combination of both? Johnny Rotten: Well . . . you talk too much for a start. But Paul’ll tell you how the band was started. Paul Cook: We started in . . . nineteen . . . God knows when ... it was a few years back and . . . Johnny: Shut up and tell them how you got the dynamic me. Paul: We found the dynamic John, what’s the classic one? Looking bored in Malcolm’s shop (Malcolm McLaren, the Pistols manager).

Johnny: F**k off you hated my guts and you know it. Paul: We saw him and we asked him if he could sing and he said, “No, course I can’t.” So we said that's great, that’s just what we need. We had a couple of rehearsals and it just worked out from there. We just started because we were just bored with everything that had gone before us.

Johnny: Right. They got me in the band. I’d never been in any band of any kind before. I’d never sung in my life before and none of us had any direction when we started. But like in our early rehearsals we really hated eath other. The fights were excessive. Everybody quit day after day. Just out of that, like a kind of honesty just came out of it. Everybody grew to like respect everybody else.

Paul: We didn’t know what we wanted in the beginning. We knew we wanted something but we weren’t sure w.hat direction it was going to take. It just sorta happened. DJ: They’ve been talking for years about a replacement for the Beatles that would be original and exciting and whereby anybody could participate . . .

Johnny: Yeah and they got it through the likes of us. But they didn't like that, because what they really wanted was someone they could completely understand in three easy moves and play snakes and lad-

ders with ail the way through the music press. DJ: We went through four or five years of doldrums when so many bands got so big that they had to become unavailable in terms of playing live. Johnny: No they didn’t have to become unavailable. They made themselves unavailable. Deliberately. That was their trip. Do huge halls and ignore everybody and make huge stacks of money. I've got a whole list of people, all those old big time bands that’ve bored me to death. Permanent. That have taught me how not to be. And now I know how to be. DJ: Your music has opened the door for people to just get up and play. Johnny: Well at least I’ve done something in my poxy life. The only chance I got and I used it properly I think.

DJ: The things you write about are the things you feel frustrated about and you've got good reason to feel frustrated that people don’t understand what you’re trying to say.

Johnny: If they don’t understand there’s nothing I can do about it. If they get some idea about waking up that’s all that matters.

People read their own things into the songs and good on them. But I know why I writ it and that’s all that matters to me. If you don’t understand it well . . . tough cheese, pal. What else can I say?

DJ: But a lot of people might be offended because they don’t understand it.

Johnny: Yeah, but they’re the people we don't give a shit about. Your forty year old councillors. They can interpret what they like and the more insulted they get, the better I feel.

DJ: But I’m not talking about forty year old councillors but forty year old people or people of any age . . .

Johnny: Well they can all drop dead forall I care.

My mum’s forty f**king eight and she understands. My old man’s fifty eight and he understands. If you don’t understand the most basic honesty, then you don’t understand nothing. We are not philosophers. We never claimed to be poets. We’re just ourselves. Sorry if I haven’t got a smart education and all that but what I say means a lot more to a lot of people than anything like what Maggie Thatcher can say. DJ: What do you see for the future for the Sex Pistols?

Johnny: I cannot predict the future. God knows what’s going to happen. It doesn’t matter really, does it? I’m waiting for a band to take over from us. That’s all that matters, just so long as things carry on.