Speaking in the latest issue of MOJO, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock have discussed the possibility of new Sex Pistols songs.
Jones, Cook and Matlock have been performing Sex Pistols tracks live since August last year, with former Gallows frontman Frank Carter taking the place of John Lydon, and it seems there might be some unfinished Pistols material in the locker dating back to the punk veterans’ first full reunion in 1996.
“There were a couple of ideas floating around in ’96 which John wouldn’t write lyrics for,” Matlock tells MOJO’s Tom Doyle. “I think they still could slot in, y’know, but we’ll see.”
“I think that was 2008,” adds Jones. “When we were rehearsing, we had a couple of ideas… It was just a couple of riffs or whatever, but nothing happened with them.”
Following the break-up of the Sex Pistols in 1978 (an on-the-road disintegration documented in new three-LP set Live In The USA 1978), the original Pistols line-up reunited for the Filthy Lucre world tour in 1996, and a further 32 gigs in 2008. By the end of that tour, however, old tensions between Lydon and the rest of the band had reemerged.
“Yeah, not my favourite tour,” Jones tells MOJO. “It started getting horrible at the end, y’know, the old resentments. It made me say, ‘Fuck this. I’m never gonna do this again.’”
In 2021, their intra-band grievances spilled over into court as Jones and Cook, with the support of Matlock, overruled Lydon’s objection to having the band’s songs used in Pistol, director Danny Boyle’s 2022 TV miniseries based on Jones’s 2016 memoir, Lonely Boy. “They don’t need my forgiveness. They’ve made their decision,” Lydon told MOJO in 2023, “them as people, I don’t need them in my life.”
Jones and Cook went on to perform Sex Pistols songs alongside Generation X’s Billy Idol and Tony James in punk supergroup Generation Sex, but despite a warm reception from fans, the project quickly fizzled out. “I wouldn’t mind doing more of that at some point,” Jones tells MOJO. “But then it kind of ended, and Billy was going to be doing touring or something else. So our manager said, ‘Why don’t we go out and just do Sex Pistols songs? Find the singer.’”
In 2024, Paul Cook staged a benefit for West London music venue Bush Hall and the idea of reconvening three quarters of the original Sex Pistols became a reality. “The original idea was to get all different singers in to play Never Mind The Bollocks,” says the drummer. “But it would’ve probably been a bit too much getting five or six different people in.”
At Matlock’s son Louis’ suggestion, they auditioned Carter, a lifelong Pistols fan since he picked out their “naughty” looking debut from his dad’s CD collection as a teenager.
“I said, ‘You’re up for this?’” recalls Matlock. “And he said, ‘Yep, I’m up for it. I know I’m going to get flak for it, but I’ve got big boots.’ And he rose to the challenge.”
Carter tells MOJO he’s open to the idea of writing new lyrics for the material mentioned by Matlock and Jones, but on one likely deal-breaking condition. “I would do it, of course,” he says. “It wouldn’t be the Sex Pistols, obviously, unless I could sit down and write the lyrics with John. But again, that’s just opening a can of worms. There’s so much history between them, and it’s delicate ground.”
The possibility of Lydon rejoining his former bandmates in any capacity currently seems slim (“I don’t think that’ll ever happen” reckons Cook) and Jones remains skeptical. “You’d definitely make a lot more dosh,” he points out. “But is it worth it if it’s going to be that same old bullshit?”
Neither does the guitarist seem particularly sold on the idea of adding new songs to their current repertoire of rapturously-received Pistols classics.
“For me personally, I think when a band like us starts playing new material, that’s when everyone goes to the fucking bar,” offers Jones, bluffly. “They’re not interested.”
Might fans be treated to a live Frank Carter/Sex Pistols album in the future though? “Yeah, why not?” says Jones. “You definitely wouldn’t have to overdub the crowd noise, that’s for sure.”
“As soon as we plug in, we’re the Sex Pistols…” Read the full interview with Steve Jones, Paul Cook, Glen Matlock and Frank Carter only in the latest issue of MOJO, on sale now. More info and to order a copy HERE!
Picture: Laurie Lynn Stark