Pistol Whipping

It’s exactly 30 years since Never Mind The Bollocks... ripped everything apart. JOHN LYDON celebrates in his traditional way by laying into Bono, Sting, hippies... just about everybody really. Except David Gilmour. Interview by Elliot Stephen Cohen

I think the real story of Johnny Rotten has always been, ‘ Where’s ’is teeth?’ laughs the erstwhile John Lydon, discussing a recent Sex Pistols recording session where they remade a pair of classic songs for a popular video game.

“The big problem for me was I’ve got a tooth missing in the front of my mouth, so you can hear a slight whistle in my voice. However,” he adds, “when I did the original recordings, I had more missing teeth. So, it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other.”

Problems, of course, have always been synonymous with Lydon, even years before gaining infamy as the notorious, flame-haired, potty mouthed punk icon who once scandalised a nation. Born on 31 January, 1956 in London, to parents who’d emigrated from Ireland, at the age of seven, he was stricken with spinal meningitis, a traumatic event which helped shape his caustic ‘me against the world’ attitude.

“Listen, I don’t wallow in self-pity,” he explains, but I was in a coma for four months, and after I came out of that, it took me about five full years to regain my memory. I quite literally did not know who I was from seven to eight, and when you’re facing that as your future, you cannot tolerate people lying to you. That made me who I am. It’s been …

by Elliot Stephen Cohen
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