Shortly after EMI fired the band, the band fired Matlock. The incident was splashed all over the tabloids and EMI hurriedly dropped the band’s contract (though the band members got to keep their signing money).īy this time, Johnny Rotten was the de facto band leader and spokesman, and he and Matlock were at loggerheads.
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The host, Bill Grundy, had no idea how to deal with the surly band members, and when he goaded them to “say something outrageous”, they obliged, taunting him as a “fucking rotter”, a “dirty fucker”, and a “bastard”. “I am an anti-christ”, went the lyrics, “I am an anarchist.” Most radio stations refused to play it.Ī week later, on December 1, the British band Queen had to back out of a BBC live television show because of a scheduling conflict, and as a last-minute replacement, the Sex Pistols were brought in. Although the Sex Pistols didn’t have an album yet, EMI released “Anarchy in the UK” as a single on November 26, 1976. Dubbed the “Bromley Contingent”, they included Susan Dallion (who would go on to form the influential punk band Siouxsie And The Banshees), and Billy Idol (who would later take the punk look to the American Top 40).īy late 1976, the band had attracted the attention of British record label EMI, who signed them to a contract for a payment of 40,000 pounds. Nevertheless, the band was developing a core of devoted followers who embraced their look and attitude. It became routine for venue managers to literally pull the plug on the performance, and as the band’s reputation for provoking violence spread, a growing number of clubs simply refused to book them. Most audiences thought that the Pistols looked weird, couldn’t play, and couldn’t sing, and the band members, who responded to the crowd’s taunting with acid tongues of their own, often found themselves getting in physical fights with audience members both onstage and off. But at a time when the music industry was still the realm of long-haired peace-and-love hippie bands, the Sex Pistols, with their “punk” appearance, their simple three-chord sound and their intentionally provocative stage antics, were more than most people could take. The sound and the lyrics were angry anthems of teenage rebellion against a world with, as put in one of their signature songs, “no future”.īy November 1975, the Sex Pistols were playing gigs at bars and clubs–any place that would book them. The Sex Pistols were born.įueled by Johhny Rotten’s snarling attitude and by looks designed to shock, and a dose of anarchism from McLaren and Matlock (inspired by the 1968 Paris student rebellions), the new band began performing its own songs, with lyrics by Rotten and music by Jones or Matlock. Lydon was hired, and was dubbed “Johnny Rotten” by the other band members (according to legend, the name came from the decayed state of Lydon’s teeth). So as an audition, the band put Alice Cooper’s anthem of teenage rebellion, “I’m Eighteen” on the jukebox and had him sing along. With his spiky green-dyed hair and his “I Hate Pink Floyd” t-shirt, held together with safety pins, Lydon had exactly the look that the band was searching for, but he had never been in a band and had never sung before. It was McLaren who introduced the band members to Johnny Lydon, a regular customer at the shop. Matlock worked part-time at a London leather-wear shop called “Sex”, owned by Malcolm McLaren, an anti-establishment wanna-be artist who had spent some time in the United States managing a band called The New York Dolls, and now served as The Strand’s de facto manager. The band did mostly covers of 60’s rock, especially The Who, but they were looking for a new look and sound (and, it turned out, a new name). Paul Cook and Steve Jones had been friends since grade school Glen Matlock joined the band after a couple years. In 1974, three young men in London formed a band that they called The Strand. A promotional poster for the Sex Pistols album “Never Mind the Bollocks” (photo from Wiki Commons)