5 Lessons
By Tom Lanham
photos by Paul Heartfield
J
ohn Lydon – former Sex Pistol firebrand and current anchor of the inventive art-rock ensemble Public Image
Limited, or PiL – has heard all the tall tales
of his notorious irascibility. But he simply
doesn't see himself as being any kind of
belligerent instigator, let alone even modestly temperamental. As in, for instance,
his bristly appearance on the late Tom
Snyder's Tomorrow show, in which he kept
bumming cigarettes from the increasingly
perturbed host, who finally asked the rocker to forgive him for speaking while Lydon
was interrupting. Or that historic American
Bandstand PiL performance, where he
stuck the microphone in his back pocket
and wandered into the teenaged crowd
instead of lip-synching. "I've just always
told it like it is," the Londoner declares,
phoning from his current home in Los
Angeles, where he recently became an
American citizen. "I'm just me. I don't do
things to offend or upset people – I'm personable.
"But for some bizarre reason," the man
once known as Johnny Rotten continues,
"probably because of how good my work
is, or jealousy factors, or the position of
control that some interviewers assume –
I'll talk to anybody on a level basis. But if
you start giving me attitude, it's going to
get really bad for you, you know? Because
words are my weapons, and I know how to
use them. But other than that, I'm very
mellow in my approach to people, and I
am, generally speaking, very shy. But I got
22 illinoisentertainer.com
painted that way maybe because the things
I was saying hit home loud and clear, and
opened issues that needed to be opened.
Like discussions of the royal family," he
adds, referring to definitive Pistols single
"God Save the Queen." None of these
things would ever have happened without
me having a word on it."
And that's how an interview with the
legendary Lydon starts. You have been
warned. Or at least served none-so-subtle
notice to proceed with caution, even reverent – and much-deserved – respect. He's a
calm, terse-worded thoughtful chap,
\ H