Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock has spoken to NME about once being invited to join Oasis, what the future holds for the punk icons with Frank Carter, and his thoughts on John Lydon‘s lyrics and pro-Trump stance.
Matlock is currently touring the UK to promote his 2023 solo album ‘Consequences Coming’. Speaking to NME, the 68-year-old discussed his part in Blondie’s “heavy” and “atonal” new album and reflected on the Sex Pistols’ recent UK reunion tour, which featured himself, original members Steve Jones (guitar) and Paul Cook (drums), with guest vocalist Frank Carter in place of the estranged Lydon.
Check out our full interview below, where he alo expressed annoyance at the ongoing veneration of “likeable nitwit” Sid Vicious, who replaced him as the Pistols’ bassist in 1977, and explained his dissatisfaction with Danny Boyle’s 2022 Pistol TV biopic, which was adapted from Jones’ memoir Lonely Boy.
Debbie Harry of Blondie on stage with Glen Matlock at Glastonbury CREDIT: Kate Green/Getty Images
NME: Hi Glen! You’ve always had eclectic music tastes. Is that something you wanted to convey with ‘Consequences Coming’, which features rock’n’roll and doo-wop?
Glen Matlock: “Yeah, I’d like to not just be known as the punk rocker bloke from a long time ago – there’s an element of that. There’s only good music and bad music. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I tend to be right and everyone else is wrong!”
The title track is about feckless politicians getting their just desserts. How have you felt about Donald Trump’s return to power?
“I’m surprised, so maybe I was wrong about that. But I think there will be a consequence coming with him, as well. When [Boris] Johnson got in, all these people wrote to me, who tended to be Public Image [Ltd, the band Lydon formed after the Pistols] fans: ‘Glen, don’t you realise that right is the new left and that’s where true rebellion lies?’ They’d been hoodwinked! They’re trying to make it like Putin in Russia, controlling everything and nobody really gets a say-so. I still stand by what I said on that record.”
Were you surprised to see John Lydon come out as pro-Trump in recent years?
“Way back when, there was something about John that I didn’t get on with because I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. And him coming out with that kind of encapsulates the whole thing, really. John was fantastic back then. He wrote some great lyrics, but did he really mean ‘em? Ah, that’s the thing. I never found him that sincere.”
How was the upcoming Blondie album sounding when you laid down your bass parts?
“It was sounding good. It was all kind of heavy, a bit atonal. Some of the other guys in the band are younger than me and they try and be a bit more modern. I just think you should get the song across. But I’ve not heard the finished thing with Debbie [Harry]’s vocals and stuff. It’s gonna be exciting listening to it.”
Any idea when it’s coming out?
“I think it’s gonna be early in the new year, but I don’t wanna say too much because I’m just the bass player in Blondie and I’m not 100 per cent sure.”
The Sex Pistols shows with Frank Carter have gone down really well. Did he help to make those songs new?
“Yeah! He’s younger, for a start. He’s got a lot more energy than people of our age. He’s in the crowd; he’s a class act. He was recommended by my son, Louis, who’s in tune with what’s going on. It’s not the same as with John, but it’s not supposed to be. It seems to have struck a chord with people and all the naysayers online are people who’ve never seen it. Everyone who’s come to see it says it works.”
What made Frank the person for the job?
“I’m not gonna tell you who, but someone else was suggested. I didn’t really fancy the idea. I was on the phone to our American manager, on hands-free, and I thought I was home by myself. All of a sudden, my son appeared and he’d overheard. He said, ‘No, no, no! Frank Carter!’ So we organised a coffee, got on with him, he came down and had a play.”
Frank Carter (C) performs with Glen Matlock and Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols in 2024. CREDIT: Jim Dyson/Getty Images
What can we do to make you give us that rejected name?
“I want a million dollars in gold bullion deposited in my Post Office account. In five minutes.”
While we’re checking down the back of the NME sofa, what are the chances of a new Pistols album with Frank?
“We’ve done those shows, everyone’s got their separate ways: Steve’s gone back to the States, Frank’s touring, I’m touring, I’m not quite sure what Paul’s doing at the moment – probably eating pie and mash somewhere. We’ll see when we get back together again. I’ve been really busy with Blondie and what I’m doing now to come up with some ideas, but just travelling around, you get a little thing in the back of your head that you don’t realise you’ve got until you pick up a guitar. Maybe when we start rehearsing, something will come out.
“But is the world ready for a new Sex Pistols record? I dunno. I like what John said with this in ’96 [during the band’s Filthy Lucre reformation tour]. This journalist asked: ‘Are you gonna make a new record?’ John said: ‘Why? What’s wrong with the old one?’”
John was reportedly unhappy about your shows with Frank Carter, saying they’d be “bollocks”…
“Well, he was wrong, wasn’t he, because they were good.”
Have you heard from him about it?
“Not personally, no. There’s probably been a few little ‘use of the name’ rights issues, which have been scattered around, but we’ve sorted that one out. John’s made his bed – he can lie in it. He’s happy doing his Public Image stuff. Good luck to him. It’s not my thing and I’m sure my thing isn’t his thing. With me doing my club-level stuff, because I’ve been doing the Pistols, I don’t feel obligated to just turn up and be Glen Matlock from the Sex Pistols. Marky Ramone, who I like, goes and plays all the Ramones songs. I think that’s a little bit lame.”
Frank Carter and Sex Pistols. CREDIT: Press
Steve Jones recently said he hasn’t spoken to John since 2008. When was the last time you spoke with him?
“About the same, really.”
Do you not want to stay in touch at all? You guys changed the world together!
“How long have you been in journalism?”
About 15 years…
“Who were the first people you worked in an office with? Do you still hang out with them?”
One or two…
“Well, there were four of us in the band and three of us still hang out together, so that’s not a bad percentage.”
READ MORE: Does Rock ‘N’ Roll Kill Braincells?! – Sex Pistols’ Glen Matlock
Shortly before the Queen died, John said ‘God Save the Queen’ was “anti-royalist, but it’s not anti-human”, which kind of de-fanged the statement. How did you feel about that?
“I think he’s still trying to think he’s gonna get an MBE or something, and he was backtracking to cover his tracks. I sing the song every few nights when I’m playing; throw it in just to keep the crowd happy. I know the lyrics kinda better than John from singing ‘em. It’s pretty anti-establishment.”
When you said earlier that you “never found him that sincere”, what did you mean?
“I think some people revel in being contrarians. And this whole Trump thing, which he supported, and Farage – if he believes that, that’s one thing. If he’s just saying it to garner those kinds of people to follow him, that’s not honest and I think it’s even worse.”
Partly thanks to Pistol, Sid Vicious is still a big cultural icon who’s celebrated on Instagram…
“What can I do about it? It annoys me. It’s just that whole thing of people who died young. Marilyn Monroe, who made some great movies. James Dean: made three great movies. Jimi Hendrix: fantastic, if you like that kind of thing. And Sid played bass on one track. It’s a bit galling, to be honest. I knew Sid – we were neighbours. We hung out a bit together and he was a likeable nitwit.”
Despite his lack of musical talent, he did embody the spirit of punk…
“That might be the case that he’s a poster boy and blah blah blah, but it’s not doing him much fucking good now, is it?”
Was it also galling to see him become a face of the band after you were forced out?
“I didn’t care. I was really busy straight away doing my Rich Kids [his post-Pistols band] thing, and when that sort of happened but didn’t quite happen, I was on tour with Iggy Pop for a couple of years, making a record [1980’s ‘Soldier’], touring America and Europe.”
For years it was falsely reported – thanks to Malcolm McLaren telling a porky to NME – that you were kicked out for liking The Beatles…
“I never really liked The Beatles that much anyway! I liked bands like The Small Faces and The Kinks. That’s where I was coming from. The Beatles were around when I was growing up, I liked some of their rockers and I thought some of ‘em were a bit soppy. It hasn’t done Oasis any harm!”
You weren’t keen on Danny Boyle’s Pistol TV biopic. Have you bumped into Danny since you called him a “cunt” because of it?
“No, I haven’t seen him since then.”
What was your issue with the show?
“I bumped into Paul Weller and he said: ‘Have you seen it? It’s Rock Follies [a ‘70s drama about a rock band], isn’t it?’ [Rock Follies] was cheesy, cheap and naff, and that’s what I thought about Steve’s thing. I think he’s not got a very good memory anyway. I told him that: ‘Steve, you’ve got a shocking fucking memory.’”
Did you read Lonely Boy?
“I flicked through it. I’ve got a pile of books on the side at home from friends and compatriots and people I like. You come to look at ‘em and you think: ‘I’ll read ‘em when I’m in the care home.’”
Glen Matlock. Credit: Tina Korhonen
You mentioned Oasis earlier. What have you made of the excitement around their reunion shows?
“If you’re a fan, it’s understandable. They’ve got lots of fans. I’ve always seen Oasis as a bit Status Quo. [With Quo], to hear one song once was enough. It’s a bit like that with Oasis: to hear one song once is enough. I just find them kind of samey. I know the guys. Nice blokes. I’ve gotta be careful what I say because I bump into Noel [Gallagher] quite a lot. He lives around the corner from me. I think Liam is fantastic. He sings great – he’s like Johnny Rotten but can carry a tune. He’s got a magnetic stage personality: he can just stand there and it’s riveting. The rest of the guys? No. I think they’re boring live. I’d never go to see ‘em.”
READ MORE: Glen Matlock on playing with Blondie, solo work and “self-centred nitwit politicians”
Have you ever been to see them?
“There was a bit of talk about me helping them out with bass a long time ago – in ’95, ’96 – and then they sorted out the problem they had with the bloke who was doing it. I got invited to see ‘em at Earl’s Court. I left. It was boring. I went again to see ‘em in upstate New York with [Blondie’s] Clem Burke. Nah – I couldn’t wait to go.”
No chance of you filling in on bass for them next year, then…
“The reason they didn’t want me in the first place is because they wanted someone who’d stand still. Alan McGee asked me. So I went to see ‘em and I thought: the last thing they need is someone else standing still.”
Anything else you’d like to get off your chest, Glen?
“Oranges aren’t the only fruit; Sex Pistols aren’t the only arrow in my quiver. Once you’ve written two or three pretty good, well-respected songs round the world, it doesn’t mean you can’t write another one. So give us a break, come down, check it out. It’s a great live show. Everybody goes home buzzing. We’re good!”
The Glen Matlock Ban’s tour rolls into Stereo in Glasgow tonight (Sunday November 24) before he plays. Hill on Tuesday November 27, Docks Acacemy in Grimsby on Wednesday November 27 and London’s Dingwalls on Saturday November 30.
Sex Pistols Featuring Frank Carter are due to perform at Download Festival next year, as well as appearing at Glasgow Summer Sessions on Saturday June 21 and Dreamland Margate on Saturday August 23. Visit here for tickets and more information.
The post Sex Pistols’ Glen Matlock on being asked to play bass for “boring” Oasis and why he never found Johnny Rotten’s lyrics “sincere” appeared first on NME.
