‘It Was Like Going Back In Time With The Crowd And The Chaos’

It likely goes without saying that when the Sex Pistols announced they would be performing live in 2024, punk fans the world over agreed they were receiving something they’d written off as an impossibility.

After all, the iconic English outfit’s history has been sporadic and fractured throughout their existence. First formed in 1975 and comprising vocalist Johnny Rotten (aka John Lydon), guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook, and bassist Glen Matlock as their classic lineup, the band only existed until 1978, releasing their sole album, Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols, the year prior.

With Sid Vicious replacing Matlock for their final year, the band would split following an ill-fated tour throughout the American south, ultimately becoming influential players in the annals of music history in the process. While Lydon would embark upon his Public Image Ltd project in the ensuing year, hopes of a Sex Pistols reunion remained but a dream for all and sundry.

That is, until 1996, when the appropriately-named Filthy Lucre tour brought the group back together for a series of shows, including their first trek down to Australia. The following years were sporadic for the band, with more dates occurring in the early '00s, with a tour of the UK and Europe being what was ostensibly their final shows throughout 2007 and 2008.

A noted breakdown of the relationship between Lydon and the rest of the band seemed to underline the fact that no further reunions would take place. Thus, when the Sex Pistols announced shows in 2024, it wasn’t surprising that they were to be joined by a different singer, with Frank Carter of Gallows and the eponymous Frank Carter And The Rattlesnakes taking on the top job.

Now, the Sex Pistols Featuring Frank Carter are heading to Australia in April, performing Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols in its entirety. However, as Jones tells TheMusic, news of a reunion shouldn’t have been too shocking given what had come before.

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In 2018, Jones and Cook teamed up with Generation X members Billy Idol and Tony James for a one-off show performing both bands’ music under the name Generation Sex. So well-received was this show that in 2023 it hit the road for a tour of the UK and Europe.

Fast forward to 2024, and London venue Bush Hall was in need of support to ensure it wouldn’t be shut down. Suddenly, with Generation Sex off the table and Bush Hall in dire straits, all the pieces came together for what we’re seeing now.

“Billy got busy and we thought, ‘Why don't we just do Pistols songs?’” Jones remembers via a Zoom call from Los Angeles. “We didn't even ask John cause we just figured he wasn't going to be interested in it because he was already upset about the Pistol TV show.

“We put our heads together, thinking of who could sing for it, and Glen's son, Louis, he knew Frank. I'd never heard of Frank, to be honest with you, even though he came on my radio show a few years ago. I did a FaceTime with him while he was in England and I was in Los Angeles, and I said, ‘All right, we’ll come over, we'll have a knockabout, and see how it goes.’”

Bush Hall, located in Shepherd’s Bush, was in need of £42,000 to secure its future after its bank spoke of forcing a sale to repay its fixed-term mortgage.

While Jones notes that it had “been there since the beginning of time”, the Hall had a storied history, with a history as a restaurant, a snooker hall, and later a venue, hosting gigs from the likes of Amy Winehouse, Nick Cave, Adele, The Killers, and countless others.

“We were like, ‘Perfect, let’s do something good, and let's see how this goes,’” Jones recalls. “And it all kind of fell into place, which is for me, always a good sign when it seemed like it would be hurdle after hurdle after hurdle.

“I went over there and we rehearsed for a week or so. We were all rusty, because me, Glen, and Paul hadn't played since 2008. We asked for a day or so by ourselves and then Frank came down. He was a little nervous, understandably, and he had to learn the words, but it all kind of came about.

“Then we did the three nights at this place,” Jones adds. “It was a bit shaky at first, but the energy was incredible. The people all showed up, it all sold out in two seconds, and it was like going back in time with the crowd and the chaos. We were like, ‘Wow, this is pretty cool.’”

By all accounts, the first show was a success, with Carter adding his trademark new-school punk energy atop the sneering rebellion that Lydon helped bring into the mix back in the day. As Jones explains, the addition of Carter was like hitting upon the secret ingredient they needed to make their live return a success.

“Frank definitely adds a different dynamic than John; he's got a tonne of energy, he's a lunatic,” Jones explains. “I think the great thing about Frank is that he doesn't try to imitate John, he just kind of does his own thing, and he's a real rock and roller – he likes to stir it up and get the crowd going.”

After their initial shows in London, the band hit the road and took their live set to Italy, Scotland, and other venues around the UK. “By that time, we were cooking, and I was really getting off on looking at the crowd, just absolutely loving this,” Jones admits. “I felt like, ‘This is great. We need to do this more often.’”

Indeed, the band certainly are doing more shows around the place. This April, they'll visit Australia for a five-date trek of the country, performing headline dates in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, and Fremantle. Further plans for more shows are in the works, providing faithful diehards and comparative newcomers the chance to catch the band that have long been credited with changing the face of punk music.

For Jones, he’s actually feeling rather surprised at the amount of positivity that has come his way, especially with the lack of Lydon up the front.

“We thought maybe we were going to get a lot of stick, but surprisingly there really wasn't that much,” he explains. “There's a few naysayers trolling on, and funny enough, I think a lot of them are kids who don't even know anything about it. They just think it's punk to put it down or whatever.

“But I think most of the people – even the older ones, who probably thought, ‘No John, no Pistols’ – showed up and were very surprised. Just like we were surprised how good it turned out when we started playing together. I mean, it would be a drag if it was a chore to do – I wouldn't even bother.”

Jones does raise a good point though. There has been a bit of discourse in relation to Lydon’s absence – some of it coming from Lydon himself.

Just a few weeks ago, Lydon expressed distaste for his former bandmates touring with Carter in an interview with British publication The i Paper, likening the whole affair to “karaoke.”

“When I first heard that the Sex Pistols were touring this year without me, it pissed me off,” he began. “It annoyed me. I just thought, ‘They’re absolutely going to kill all that was good with the Pistols by eliminating the point and the purpose of it all.’ I didn’t write those words lightly.

“They’re trying to trivialise the whole show to get away with karaoke, but in the long term, I think you’ll see who has the value and who doesn’t. I’ve never sold my soul to make a dollar. It’s the Catholic in me – that guilt I don’t want to trip.”

He later made a similar point in a discussion with Classic Album Review. “I wrote the fucking songs, didn’t I?” he mused. “I gave them the image. I was the frontman. I am the voice, what made the whole world sing. And now you’re going out, as they did the year before with Billy Idol. It’s just karaoke, really.”

In the public eye, Lydon has somewhat changed from what people would have expected him to become in his older age. In recent years, he went against the anti-royalty themes of God Save The Queen to pay respects to Queen Elizabeth II, supported Brexit, expressed equal fondness and distaste for Donald Trump, and even did an ad for butter (maybe the last one isn’t that egregious).

He’s also clashed with his former bandmates over the likes of Craig Pearce’s Pistol series, calling it the “most disrespectful shit I’ve ever had to endure”, and also lost a lawsuit over the use of the band’s songs in the series.

Regardless, some fans have evoked Lydon’s famous comments from their final show in 1978 in reference to the reunion, harking back to when Lydon asked the San Francisco crowd, “Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?” While reports of their contemporary shows indicate Carter is a stellar stand-in for Lydon, Jones admits the root of the distance between him and Lydon stems back to the completion of their last tour together back in 2008.

“I think when we finished in 2008, I know for a fact that I was done – I was done with it,” Jones explains. “I would've been happy not to do it ever again. But you never know, things change down the road.

“It was a chore. It was a real drag. We'd play two songs and I'll be looking at my watch, wondering when we're gonna end. And you shouldn't be doing it if that's the case. I learned my lesson from the last time we did it, all four of us. We weren't making enough dough. I mean, if we were getting Rolling Stones money, maybe I'd persevere with it, but it was just done.

“I literally haven't spoken to John since that last tour in 2008,” he adds. “I want to be clear, I've got nothing bad to say about John. I think he's great; I love him. We had a great past and I'm just moving on from that. That's all. It was just no fun anymore.”

In their recent shows, however, there has been a lot more enjoyment than the last global trek. While plenty of things have changed – the make-up of the band, for example, and the subject matter of the iconic God Save The Queen (though Carter now substitutes King Charles for the deceased monarch) – one thing that does still persist is the connection that Jones, Cook, and Matlock still have to the original songs that comprise their legendary studio release.

“When you think about how long that album has actually been out, and how many times we've played Never Mind The Bollocks, it's not that much, really,” he explains, before counting up the total number of shows the band have played – both in their original run and subsequent reunions.

“It’s not like we’re going through the motions now, it’s still enjoyable to play them. And there’s nothing like playing it with the original members,” he continues. “There's something that happens that other people can't can't emulate. They can try and all that. It's just like Led Zeppelin. When people try to cover Led Zeppelin songs, everyone gets it wrong because there's little nuances that you just do.

“I think the biggest task is to get it up to speed and keep it up there. We're all getting on, and normally when you do see bands who had high energy back in the day, when you see them 30 years later, it's normally a bit ploddy, you know?

“Once we get that going, it's great. You cannot help tapping your foot. So we put Frank out there, he's 40 years old, and there's us three in the back, stoking in the fire. That's what we have to do, we don't have to jump around on any of that stuff.”

Though Jones can’t promise what the future holds for the band (“We’ll see how it all settles after we've done these shows,” he notes), or if there’s any big plans for a 50th anniversary of their sole album (“Maybe we could play it backwards, though it’s bad enough just remembering it going forward,” he quips), he does say that the immediate future is much more certain.

He’s not making any wild claims about what fans should expect on the upcoming dates, other than to explain it’s rather meat-and-potatoes approach to it all that will pay service to both fans and the original songs.

“If you like Never Mind The Bollocks, and if you like the Pistols, I think you'd be silly to miss it,” he notes simply. “I don't think Australia is too much different than when we were playing in England. I think there's similar people who like the same record and whatnot.

“There's a good chance you're gonna have a good time,” he adds. “We haven't done one gig yet where we're like, ‘Oh God, what are we doing this for?’ Every gig, or even a bad gig in our minds where we thought we could have played better, just goes down a storm. We're not making people like us, you know, that's the way it is. It's pretty unbelievable to be honest with you.”

Tickets to the upcoming tour from Sex Pistols Featuring Frank Carter are on sale now.