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John Lydon
From The Pistols To Pil With A Side Of Butter

The shrill declaration “I am an antichrist!” was the first line the world heard from the piercing, unmistakable voice of John Lydon — better known as "Johnny Rotten." With the Sex Pistols, Lydon spun rock 'n' roll on its head in the late-'70s, riding on the shock value of his inflammatory lyrics and the band’s irreverent, rebellious attitude. The legendary British punk outfit was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, an honor which the remaining Pistols — bassist Sid Vicious died of a heroin overdose in 1979 — fittingly refused, scrawling a note that called the museum, and rock 'n' roll altogether, “a piss stain” compared to them. The post-Sex Pistols era saw Lydon form Public Image Limited (PiL) — a post-punk band that afforded Lydon the freedom to flex his creative muscle, producing a vast spectrum of music from experimental to pop offerings, all bent through the prism of this idiosyncratic frontman. During its initial run from 1978 to 1993, PiL would go on to be, arguably, as influential as the Sex Pistols, but without the same amount of adulation, perhaps because of its relative lack of notoriety. Now, after a 17-year hiatus, PiL has returned, but its abrasive, anarchist founder has, quite literally, turned to butter.

Country Life butter, to be precise. Lydon has appeared in several advertisements for the British company over the past year. Go ahead and call him a sellout, but Lydon — now 54 and living in Los Angeles — contends that the spots aren’t out of character at all, plus they're the reason why he was able to revive PiL.

“The lack of record company interest over the years has been very detrimental,” Lydon says. “I managed to run a butter campaign in Britain and the money I drew from that is now financing this PiL tour. [It happened] in sort of an oddball, kind of a crazy way, which appealed to the anarchist streak in me. They’re deeply hilarious,” he says of the commercials. “They gave me a free hand, more or less, to just basically throw a script out and come up with whatever I wanted, and that’s what I did. And amazingly enough, the product’s sales went up by 87 percent,” he says, laughing incredulously.

“They treated me better than any record label,” Lydon says of Country Life Butter, which is owned by Dairy Crest. “They treated me with respect and it was overwhelming. I really, really enjoyed it — seriously. I viewed it as a good piece of work. You know, I wouldn’t be promoting something I didn’t like. It’s just not possible. And if you care to be politically incorrect, butter’s just about there, isn’t it? True anarchy — in a pound of butter!”

Throughout his career, Lydon has been repeatedly disappointed with his treatment by record labels. While much has changed over the years, this is one constant. “It seems to be that the record companies I’ve been on, they seem to love to sign bands that imitate or copy whatever it is I do, and seem to work very tightly and rigorously with that, but have little or no respect for me,” Lydon says, making it abundantly clear, as far as he’s concerned, that imitation is not a form of flattery. “Unfortunately, the music business does seem to be populated by assholes who just feel the need to go out and blatantly imitate what somebody’s had to do before them. That’s why I’ve never liked genre-hopping, you know? People who try one form of music; if that doesn’t work, they hop onto somebody else’s. You know, a bunch of white kids in Idaho who want to be in a reggae band and sing about roots when there’s absolutely no roots in it for them.

“I’ve created a lot of different styles,” Lydon continues. “I’ve never set out deliberately to copy or imitate anything, and indeed have not. Even in the Pistols, you would hardly say that we sounded like any regular Joes. When I first started, I was presumed talentless and couldn’t sing, but now that became an art form in itself. There’s so many people out there that want to sound like me, that that’s now a singing voice. Hilarious, isn’t it? Oasis comes to mind. My idea of a pop song has now, over a 30-year period, become not something abstract, vile and horrible and should be banned, but kind of an easy, set-up format for someone to imitate, the way I mess and fuddle about with verse-chorus structures. I’m highly capable of producing a most excellent pop record, but it’s always on my terms.”

Yet, for as much as Lydon dislikes record labels, he is equally unimpressed with the more egalitarian, internet-based landscape of today’s music industry. “Oh, I think it’s ridiculous,” he says. “They’ve kind of self-imploded. It’s just become an internet fiasco, this mp3 file-stealing, song-stealing thing. Nobody knows how they’re ever going to get paid. It’s killing creativity, actually, by making everything so accessible. I’m old-fashioned, but I consider that if I go to all the hard work of recording something, that I should be paid for that. And somebody shouldn’t have the right to just pirate it off me, or indeed even imitate it; not without asking. If you kill that pay packet sense to it, who is going to bother doing anything? What’s the point? It’ll be stolen in 30 seconds after you release it. It’s most ungratifying, ‘cause I, like everyone, have to live. If I have to go and work in a garage, I might as well just stay working in the garage and stop making music, and that’s unfortunate. Everybody now can put a noise together on the internet — it’s very easy — to get into all these sound samples and things and, ‘Hey! Bingo! You’ve made a dance beat!’ But, have you listened to a lot of it? It’s really poor! It reminds me that not everyone is cut out to make music. Not everyone is cut out to be a good cook, or cut out to be a good anything.”

Lydon explains that reviving PiL for a tour and a new album, to be recorded later this year, was precipitated by two factors: his securing of the finances for a tour through his butter campaign and the death of his father last year. “I was playing ‘Death Disco’ and the feelings just became overwhelming,” he says of the song, which he originally wrote about his mother’s death. “I really need that outlet again: to scream in pain to the underpinned melodies. It’s, oddly enough, a relief from the stress and tension you feel about tragedy. That’s what PiL is: it’s really, seriously, proper shout therapy. It’s far more personal [than the Sex Pistols]. It’s actually about emotions. I wasn’t really grasping that in the Pistols. My songwriting was topic-orientated. In PiL, I can write deeply personal things — things that matter, that have to do with emotions — and what it really means to be a human being, and how confusing life all is. The Pistols doesn’t give me that outlet, and I’m not really able to experiment.”

Joining Lydon in PiL’s latest incarnation (the project has had a revolving door of over 40 members in its 22-year history) are two returning members: guitarist Lu Edmonds and drummer Bruce Smith. A newcomer, bassist Scott Firth, rounds out the current lineup. Lydon could not be more thrilled with this version of PiL. “On a personal level, we understand each other,” Lydon says. “There’s never any animosity or arguments between us. And the bass player who we picked up, his repertoire was everything from Steve Winwood to the Spice Girls, and that range, to me, that’s important, because I love music so much. I never look down my nose at any one form of it. I want it all! I’m not in the business of denying people access to anything; quite the opposite. Open your mind! You’ll find that you’ll be liking things that you would have thought, socially, didn’t fit you. And that can include the Spice Girls. You can’t take pop music away from us. I love popular music as much as I do any other form. You take Public Image and you look through the track listing and the vast range and differences of sounds that we’ve created, there’s always a pop theme in there and there’s always extreme avant-garde. We can swing either way.

“To people that don’t like bass, this is the bass from hell,” Lydon says, raving about the live sound of his current band. “Very deep, full-textured sounds. Some songs take on almost an orchestra kind of theme to them, just because of the instrumentation. Many of the guitar parts are played on various Turkish instruments, which give an absolutely wonderful, different texture. Basically, for me, PiL is a folk band, so we’re open to folk instrumentation. Although we love technology and we dabble with it from time to time, we like to be able to play it live and not rely on sound loops and samples, because, you know, if there’s an electrical power cut, what the fuck are you going to do next? You know? I mean, basically, it’s busking, isn’t it? But through a PA. I like that. You know, for me, I still have fond memories of busking in the London Underground with Sid — me on a violin and him on a tambourine. I remember that. People would give us money to shut up. The favorite song was ‘I Love the Dead’ by Alice Cooper. You know, I’ve never left them kind of roots.”

Reflecting on his career, Lydon hopes aloud: “With a bit of luck, some of all of this will mean something to someone." He's talking about PiL’s music. “Might actually help improve their lives; might help improve their outlook on life. There’s no self-pity in anything Public Image do. It’s all open eyes, looking to the future. It’s — you know — it’s almost like a contradiction, considering the end refrain of ‘God Save the Queen’: ‘No future.’ What that always meant was there’d be no future if you don’t get up and do something,” Lydon explains, suggesting that the song actually has more to do with activism than nihilism. “PiL is getting up and doing something. So I taught myself something. When there are problems in the world, I think they need solving. The Sex Pistols started that prospectus for me, and Public Image is definitely continuing it. If there’s a problem, face it. Change it. And then it’s not a problem no more. That’s not reactionary. That’s positivism.”  | RDW

Public Image Limited • 4/28, 8 p.m. • The Crofoot Ballroom • 1 S. Saginaw, Pontiac • 248.858.9333 • thecrofoot.com • $30 in advance, $35 day of

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Rotten Remarks

... on the recent death of Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren: “For me, Malc was always entertaining, and I hope you remember that. Above all else he was an entertainer and I will miss him, and so should you.”

… on electronic music: “Live music, for me, is essential. Although I love rave and house music, how can you be playing that stuff live? You’re not. Actually, you’re just turning the keyboards on and standing back and letting the drum machine and them just paradiddle away while you’re trying to look handsome in your sunglasses and fucking rave gear. It’s just kind of disappointing. Rave? Just spin the records, Mr. DJ! Great, leave it at that. Don’t try to be putting any personalities to it.”

… on American Idol: “I watched last night; I was appalled. I thought the standard was really low. But then again, I’ve never enjoyed the idea of a singer being accoladed merely because they could sing in tune. I would pay more attention to 'can they write their own songs?' American Idol, to me, is more Las Vegas circus clowns. I don’t agree that that is what singing is. Singing is if you can express from your heart and soul something that you truly feel. And showing up and being a mime artist to someone else’s hits doesn’t cut it for me; that’s karaoke.”



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