John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten) says he doesn't like tattoos, but try not to hold that against him. If I'd been calling in on behalf of a golf magazine, he'd probably tell me how much he's offended by the sport. Not because he's disagreeable -- he really isn't -- but because first and foremost, above all else, the OG punk rocker is a provocateur and contrarian.
The Sex Pistols frontman is back on the scene after reviving his post-punk avant-garde music project Public Image Limited (a.k.a. PiL). The band, which was formed in 1978 in the wake of The Pistols dramatic demise, featured a revolving cast of players (including SG's Martin Atkins), with Lydon being the driving force and only constant.
Returning to the stage after a 17-year hiatus, PiL played a series of critically acclaimed shows in the UK in the latter part of 2009. With the music industry in a state of flux, and with very little cash flowing to support any artistic endeavors, Lydon financed the reunion in a true-to-form, eyebrow-raising fashion. The singer who had once called for "Anarchy in the UK" become a spectacularly unlikely spokesman for a brand of British butter called Country Life, appearing in a humorous commercial which sent sales of the saturated fat soaring.
Lydon, who lives in California, is now set to bring the organized chaos that is PiL stateside. The band will be playing Club Nokia in Downtown LA on April 13 prior to a highly anticipated opening-night performance at Coachella and a series of dates across the US.
SuicideGirls called Lydon up at his Los Angeles beachside home to talk a little bollocks about life, butter, music, politics, PiL, the psychology of punk - and his apparent dislike of body ink.
John Lydon: Who's this?
Nicole Powers: It's Nicole Powers with SuicideGirls.
JL: Is that a magazine?
NP: It's a website.
JL: It's a most unfriendly title.
NP: Well it actually doesn't refer to people behaving like lemmings and jumping off cliffs.
JL: I hope not. [laughs] Because I couldn't be condoning that.
NP: It's actually a reference to a Chuck Palahniuk phrase that he used to describe a subculture of people who chose to commit social suicide by having tattoos and piercings.
JL: Oh that's quite novel.
NP: It's a very punk rock concept, since it's about people choosing to mark their body permanently, thereby permanently committing social suicide with regards to the mainstream.
JL: Oh tattoos.
NP: You don't like them?
JL: No.
NP: Oh dear! What's your objection?
JL: I think that they're ugly. [laughs]
NP: Oh no! You're not supposed to say that! Everyone assumes that tattoos are punk rock by default.
JL: Certainly not! [laughs] Not to my estimation at all. They're the very last thing I would want to be doing, to put a moniker on my body that I might not quite approve of in a few years time. You know, "Love ya Sharron," and then you're stuck with it. What I find with tattoos though is the lack of originality, particularly a punk type concept of it. It's what people think will make them punk, when punk really is a mentality.
NP: I can appreciate that. I mean I'm aware that you've done things like the Country Life butter commercial, and the UK I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here reality TV series, and the nature shows, which might seem cheesy. But then for you, that's the most punk rock thing you can do, because that's precisely the opposite of what society expects you to do.
JL: Well yeah, and it doesn't happen deliberately, it's just opportunity knocks -- and I get knocked for it.
NP: Well there's no knocking from this direction.
JL: Oh, thank you! But you know, the butter campaign, which was to promote a British product, I thought it was a very brave thing on my behalf. The money that I earned from that has now gone completely -- lock stock and barrel -- into reforming PiL.
NP: I actually want to congratulate Country Life Butter, because it was a risk on their part.
JL: It was. It was seriously, seriously an interesting project, from start to finish. Because it was an insane prospect originally, and definitely tweaked my interest.
NP: It's butter with balls, because they were putting the reputation of their brand in your hands.
JL: Yeah, they took a gamble and I treated them with the utmost respect because of that...They were very, very gracious with me. They presented something like a script, and I told them I would adlib and improvise. They went with that, and it paid off.
NP: I read one of your interviews where you talked about how Country Life Butter has been more supportive of your music than any record label.
JL: Yes. They've treated me with more respect than any record label I've ever worked with, and that's a very strange thing to be saying. You would presume that they're corporate and therefore the enemy. So we should be very careful who we attach false rumors and labels to, as indeed many have been attached to me over the years erroneously...I'm very pleased that I made butter acceptable again socially.
NP: You increased sales by 85% I understand.
JL: That's an astounding figure. Really, really kind of overwhelming. Good, golly, gosh! And my record company said they can't sell a record.
NP: What I found interesting reading the press building up to this tour is that you're finally getting the respect for what you did with PiL 14 or 15 years too late.
JL: Yes.
NP: I guess in the scheme of things it's good, because there's many artists throughout history that didn't get any respect until after they died. But it might have been nice for people to give you some respect for PiL a little sooner.
JL: Well it might not also. Because I'm the kind of person, I do have inner resolve and inner strengths, and so I'm able to -- and I love to quote Shakespeare when it suits me -- I smile in the face of adversity. In many ways the struggle is as enjoyable as the achievement. You can't keep a good dog down and all that -- maybe I should have a dog tattoo. [laughs]
NP: You worry about getting a tattoo that you'll later regret, but part of having tattoos is that you live life with no regrets. That's a very important part of the ethos.
JL: Yes. I gather that. It's certainly a way of making yourself alienated, unless everybody on planet earth has a tattoo. Because it divides doesn't it? And the powers that be just don't seem to want to employ people with tattoos.
I'll tell you, my 15-year old nephew, he's just put a tattoo on his neck and of course it's creating all kinds of uproar in the family. But it's knowing where that's going to take him, because the school have thrown him out.
Also, and I don't mean to be sounding nasty here, but Steve Jones, a fellow Sex Pistol, I hate his tattoos. They all seem to be the mass consumption ones, you know. I don't see anything that strikes me as impressively different. There's a poisoning aspect in there because of that. But I do love art, and a jolly decent drawing or painting transferred to a human body can be impressive.
One tattoo that impressed me, it was years ago, was a jigsaw thing, from head to toe, a complete jigsaw pattern. It was most excellent. I thought that was a clever idea. It was a jigsaw puzzle with a few pieces missing here and there. I thought that was really great. Things like that, that spark an immediate interest. But, my god, I live on the beach here, and the amount of second hand work is appalling. So unfortunately for you and your website, I'm focusing on all the negatives at the moment. But then I've had a career where I've suffered all the negative aspects -- and I think wrongly. I think I've done nothing but good for music. I've been consistent at it too. I think I've offered purposefully and honestly enough so many new genres into music, and to see them imitated now and be part of the casual mindset of modern music, it's intriguing that my name is missing from the list of thank yous.
NP: They do say imitation is the best form of flattery.
JL: No. I've dealt with that expression and I've found it to be not true. It's actually a cheeky way of saying, "Thanks! Look what I've stolen from ya."
NP: I can see that. Being paid in return for the inspiration would be the best form of flattery.
JL: It would kind of help. Or at least [to be] given a nod and wink in the correct way and direction. Because I do believe in respecting my fellow human beings and I don't like to see anyone, including myself, disrespected. I see no reason for it. All my life what I've done is fight for the individual, and fight for groups that are downtrodden, be it race, creed or color, or whatever economic or social reason. To be still treated as some kind of foul-mouthed job is a bit upsetting and wrong.
NP: You are very erudite. I know that you're a big bookworm too.
JL: Yes. Love books. One of the greatest tragedies of me at the moment is that my eyesight is beginning to wane. That might be from sheer over-reading, and that's really painful because the concept of losing my eyesight is really challenging to me. It's like I've run it in my mind, what couldn't I afford to lose, my ears or my eyes? Oddly enough, being somewhat of a musician, I concluded my eyes. Because nature, I couldn't bear to not be observing it. I find that much more musical than anything I've ever done.
NP: You've done some nature TV programs haven't you? What inspired you to do the nature stuff.
JL: Because I love life, all kinds. I don't know what it is that makes a thing live but I'm deeply intrigued by that, whether it be an ant, a mollusk or an elephant, or indeed my fellow human beings. I realize, as humans, we are top of the agenda because we have that most magnificent gift of all -- language.
NP: Some scientists are starting to argue that there's levels of intelligence and communication amongst animals that mean certain species should actually be given human-like rights.
JL: Yes. That's a fascinating subject, particularly the way whales can communicate. I love sharks and particularly great whites. When I was doing that program on them, I noticed that they do have a form of communication with each other. They definitely have a hierarchy, and a grouping. They travel in packs and that's surely not the wild, free-roaming, savage killers we've been led to misbelieve.
NP: So if animals are so communicative, it's not really language that sets us apart from the animal world. Really the only thing is art.
JL: Well, I don't know, I've seen chimpanzees paint.
NP: ...And elephants.
JL: And elephants, I've cottoned on to that. I'm not sure of the artistic value. I'd have to see more elephants' work.
NP: And there's some debate about whether they're just following cues from their trainers, and repeating actions, rather than consciously deciding to paint a flower for example.
JL: Yes, there's every possibility of that. Do you know that killer whale that killed the instructor recently? You can't tame the beast in them and at some point these poor animals are going to become incredibly frustrated at the prison we've wrapped them in. This is why I'm very anti zoos. That's what that is, that act of aggression is, "I want out."
NP: But then the flip side of that is that there are zoos that are very responsible with things like breeding programs.
JL: But what are they breeding? They're breeding animals that know nothing but captivity. And to be quite frank there's some wonderful nature programs that show you these creatures in their natural environments -- be happy with that. That's not the same as a wolf in a box in the corner of Whipsnade Zoo is it?
In fact I had problems when I was visiting the gorilla terrain with that too. That American money was beginning to creep in and there was future prospects of them building five star hotels for American tourists to go on gorilla safaris. Well if you start doing that you're absolutely murdering what these lovely wonderful beasts are all truly about...I think humans do not have the right to turn wild beasts into tourist attractions. It really, really upsets me. The game reserves in Africa upset me. They're all rounded up and back in their cages for the evening and let out in the morning.
NP: Well it all goes back to this idea of extending what we know as human rights to animals, and figuring out how far down the food chain you go.
JL: All the way. It's an interesting discussion. It isn't openly debated quite yet, but I'd like to see it done so. I think it could only be to the advancement of all causes.
NP: When you treat animals without humanity, you're compromising your own.
JL: Yes. I can't stand to see those chicken farms and the slaughterhouse things. But I do understand that we have two different sets of teeth in our mouths and as a species I don't suppose we would ever have advanced this far by lettuce leaves alone.
NP: Are you a vegetarian?
JL: No. I tend to eat what's available according to the environment I'm in. Thirty years of touring has taught me that. Otherwise I'd be looking for grass and bean sprouts in Milwaukee.
I tell you what the shock for me is, living in America, how cheep chicken is. Don't be raising the price on cigarettes, because that's a choice issue there. But with certain food things, if we treated animals with a bit more respect and cost, I think the slaughter and cruelty would go down as the price went up. So that may be a solution there other than Chrissie Hynde's "Meat is Murder" brigade, which takes it to too far of an extreme all at once.
NP: Right. A chicken's life should be worth more than five bucks.
JL: Yeah. Absolutely.
NP: I'm not a vegetarian either, but I want the chicken I eat to have led a happy and fulfilled life before it dies.
JL: Otherwise what are you eating but misery? Well that's going to translate into your system eventually.
NP: And knowing I didn't give a shit about that chicken's life is going to eat into my soul.
JL: Yes, I believe that.
NP: So I'm all about eating happy and fulfilled animals.
JL: Yeah, but maybe not always. I mean there are huge amounts of my time when I don't drink alcohol, but there are other times when I do, and it's the same with meat. But I don't believe running around assaulting women in fur coats is going to solve anything.
NP: And there is the argument that plants have feelings too..
JL: Ah, Prince Charles led this charge didn't he. He played Pink Floyd to his cabbages. I'm not sure where that's left him with regards to standing and reason with the world but it's a novelty. I mean he's a Buddhist, and that's where his leaning would naturally take him. It's novel. It might actually be true. He might actually be doing a cabbage a favor. You take it too far though and it would leave us without any food source whatsoever, and that's stone cold bonkers. I mean, I don't want the whole world to end up like emaciated models.
NP: So you like meat on your women?
JL: I like human beings to look human, not like concentration camp victims.
NP: That's what SuicideGirls is all about, redefining beauty to take it away from the emaciated model stereotype.
JL: Well you have to. It's preposterous. There's no one out there really capable of being that thin in the general public so who are you making and selling this dress to? Basically a bag of bones. Very unattractive. And I don't want my world full of everyone in the same size. Good heavens. I get problems with that myself, you see I'm big boned -- there's a polite way of putting it.
NP: But you always seem pretty svelte on stage.
JL: Well I have to be fit to do what I do, but I don't exercise. There's not really what you would call a muscle on me.
NP: So how do you stay fit if you don't exercise?
JL: Stress.
NP: Ahh. So what's been stressing you out recently?
JL: Trying to keep this tour together. Definitely handling the finances of it, and hoping it will be a success. I'm hoping it will raise some level of interest in what's gone wrong with the music industry, and what's still right with me. I would expect that to be of some interest to audiences both young and old.
NP: Absolutely. Music, generally, is so bland today.
JL: The latest thing I find so offensive is Sting trying to go Irish. He's done a jazz album, now he's trying to be like a Gaelic folk artist. It's just upsetting that he's not creating new genres from his own heart and soul. It's all set formats already laid out on a table for him. In he comes and fine dines, and out he waltzes onto the next menu. It's a little lazy.
NP: What do you think of Lady Gaga?
JL: I think she hilariously is very, very interesting. We know what she's up to, we know what she's doing, it's that she does it very, very well. There's a great sense of fun and self-mockery in it, which is very endearing.
NP: There's an intelligence behind it.
JL: Yeah, there is. And they are actually great pop songs. I think "Paparazzi" is stunning, amazing, such a clever way to deal with the subject.
NP: Who else do you find interesting right now?
JL: Off the top of my head nothing is coming to mind.
NP: It's a bland world out there.
JL: It is.
NP: I understand on the PiL tour you're going to be culling songs from your entire discography, some solo stuff, some Pistols stuff.
JL: Probably not The Pistols end of it, because I really want to focus on PiL and the achievements therein. If I started putting in Pistols material indeed I'd be there all night long. We play on average two and a half hours per night, although in America there's some license restrictions on that, particularly [at] Coachella. They originally offered us only one hour, but they've sensibly given us an hour and a half. But that's still not long enough for a PiL performance.
NP: Have you been out to Coachella before?
JL: Yes. It's baking bloody hot and freezing cold at night. The waiting and the hanging around in that baking heat is very draining. The waiting before any gig is so amazingly stressful.
NP: But compared to Glastonbury, Coachella is the five star festival experience.
JL: Listen, I go back 45 years and I remember the original festivals when I was 12 and 15. I'd go off to them on my own. I'd bunk up on the train. The atmosphere was amazing. It could be raining all weekend and it was just one big horrible mud bath, [but] it just always seemed better. These festivals these days seem too orchestrated. The idea of having to use a credit card to get into the toilet is insane. Everything is about purchase isn't it? You end up feeling like you're just visiting some weird and wacky shopping mall. The music, in that you're offered an infinite variety of music, that's always intriguing, but the modern aspect of these things is they have three or four stages operating at the same time. To see one band you're going to miss a couple of others. I wish it was just one stage. I don't like that dissipation of energy. It creates the cattle herding environment of people having to shift from one field to another. That's negative. It negates the open-mindedness that festivals are supposedly originally all about.
NP: Are there any other bands at Coachella you're looking forward to seeing?
JL: I'm really pleased that Jay-Z is on at the same time. No dis of his music, some of those records are great, absolutely. But live, it comes across to me like a Las Vegas production. And I say this out of experience because a few years back at a Pistols gig in Poland, Jay-Z was on the bill there and I got to catch some of that show. I just thought you could put Liberace in the middle of that and it wouldn't be much different. I thought it was rather poor because it was just him going "U-huh, huh, huh" in between all this dancing and flashing lights and it became irritating. It wasn't a sharing experience. He wasn't sharing anything. It was just showing off. I can't bear acts that go on and tell you how great they are. It's a negative for me. PiL is all about open up your heart and here we go.
NP: When you're not playing music and reading books, what do you do?
JL: I'm yelling at the news.
NP: I shout at the TV too.
JL: I can't help it. I find Faux News very entertaining. It's wonderful. I'm never going to be disappointed with the absurdities I hear nightly and daily...In fact the entire network is to me deeply hilarious that it's run under the guise of news. How the word news can be so misinterpreted.
Saying that, I love Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Coupled together, for anyone who has children, it's surely the best hour of family viewing. Children really and truly do understand and grasp the bigger issues.
NP: Talking of children, you're the stepfather of Ari Up from The Slits. They reformed recently too.
JL: Well they're bumming about yeah. That's a band that's not reformed, they're not like that. When they get the money together they go out and play, it's as simple as that. There are times when all of us have to be very, very careful on the purse-strings, because we do live almost momentarily, from moment to moment. When the money's there you can do things. There's no one there giving us handouts for this.
NP: Right. It's often hard for people to understand how you can be in a big name band and still live a very hand to mouth existence.
JL: Well my band has an enormous name and reputation, but it's not record company supported. So, indeed, where are the finances supposed to come from? It's extreme hard work. Everything I do outside of the band, for me, goes back into it. I'm not unhappy about that situation. That seems to be the way it works best for me, as indeed it had to right from the very beginning when I first formed Public Image.
NP: Artists throughout history have relied on sponsors.
JL: Yes. This is very true. Every classical composer had to have a royal family to pay them. Do you think I should approach the Queen for a bob or two?
NP: I think you should. I mean you've done so much to promote her.
JL: And I would think not negatively. Hopefully I've made it completely clear to the royal family that while I'm paying tax for them I have every right to comment. More so than most I would think seeing as I have to go through all kinds of rigmarole to earn enough to be able to pay that tax. I suppose the way I live, and Ari is the same way with The Slits, is outside of the system.
NP: What are your feelings towards the royal family these days?
JL: Wonderful people. Is there room for inbreds? Yes, of course. If in any way, shape or form you love to study nature there's a classic example.
NP: Well in America, even though there's no royalty, we've created an aristocratic class with the likes of the Hiltons and the Bush family.
JL: And the Kennedys.
NP: So there is a social need for it.
JL: Well, whether you like it or not, you have to face up to the fact that human beings somewhat need some kind of leadership. I'm all for the art of the individual, but I'm very aware that many people can't possibly be that way. Without someone telling them what to do they feel hopelessly lost. Now that might be because of the education system we all have to suffer our way through.
NP: The problem with democracy is it relies on an educated populace, and we don't have that anymore.
JL: No. Odd isn't it?
NP: That's why you see so many people voting against their interest. I know that you've been very vocal about the need to encourage literacy and education.
JL: Yes. I used to run an internet radio thing which went for six hours every Saturday morning. On it I would debate with politicians and so-called alleged intelligentsia. I remember serious debates, me saying I think children should not look down on education because I see it as just about the only thing that's free that actually carries any value. But I would get pedantic nonsense like, "Education: What does that word mean?" Well it can mean many things, but it's allowing children to be open-minded. And I'm afraid you're never going to get that with a Republican led country.
Their behavior as of late I think has embarrassed America immensely across the entire planet, and they're still promoting anger and ignorance. They really do want to keep us dumb. I mean they even want their own president to be dumb. George Bush is a classic example of how they so ill-consider us as a population. I view myself as American in this respect, because that's where I live and pay tax. I find it infuriating.
NP: So if you were president, what would you do?
JL: Retire. [laughs] I think, unlike the Bush's I would bring broccoli back to the White House. I remember that was one of his biggest issues, he hated broccoli. It's funny, every Republican president we've had, they're all very, very big meat-eaters, and they're very against vegetables. It's bizarre. This is why they're all constipated, and hence the lack of brain cells.
NP: George Bush's greatest achievement was officially declaring ketchup a vegetable.
JL: Wonderful huh? Well officially he is a vegetable. I've seen a most excellent bit of footage on CNN yesterday morning. It was terrific. It shows him and Clinton out in Haiti dealing with the homeless there. That's a great thing, to say America's here to help you. But every time George Bush shook hands with someone he then wiped his hand on Clinton's shirt. Now what does that say? A lot. Volumes. And that kind of misrepresentation of this country has got to stop. You can look at it in many ways. Is he being humorous? But ultimately he's being insulting. There's still the implication of 'you dirty peoples,' and that's wrong.
NP: So if you met George Bush what would you say to him?
JL: I'd say: "Sit down you drunken uncle." I know he's allegedly given up alcohol, but the effects are still in there. I think when he was young he drunk enough to last a lifetime.
NP: I could never quite put my finger on whether George Bush was really dumb, or really clever and acting dumb to appeal to the masses.
JL: I think he's like this; You've been to birthday parties, you know, when it's for kids and all the family members gather. He's that stupid uncle that spills the lemonade on the table and spoils the kid's birthday cake. That's him.
NP: Well the lemonade he's spilt on the planet we're going to be cleaning up for years.
JL: Yes. But that's it. He's clumsy. He thinks he's witty. He possibly is. If he's left in less dangerous situations you might actually find him very pleasant, but never, ever give a man like that a position of responsibility. People voting [for him], that's bad enough. But the fact is that party fully supported Coco the Clown and let him loose on the world. And the result is two catastrophic wars in the Middle East. Please! Why are we listening to them anymore?
NP: Well, that goes back to education.
JL: Well you know as well as I do that Republicans are not for educating the masses. They believe completely in private schooling, and bugger the rest of us.
NP: Well thank you for taking the time out to chat. I'm very much looking forward to the live show.
JL: Alrighty. Ooh, can I end on the best tattoo I've ever seen?
NP: Please do.
JL: It was on Fantasy Island. The little bloke was called Tattoo.
The Sex Pistols frontman is back on the scene after reviving his post-punk avant-garde music project Public Image Limited (a.k.a. PiL). The band, which was formed in 1978 in the wake of The Pistols dramatic demise, featured a revolving cast of players (including SG's Martin Atkins), with Lydon being the driving force and only constant.
Returning to the stage after a 17-year hiatus, PiL played a series of critically acclaimed shows in the UK in the latter part of 2009. With the music industry in a state of flux, and with very little cash flowing to support any artistic endeavors, Lydon financed the reunion in a true-to-form, eyebrow-raising fashion. The singer who had once called for "Anarchy in the UK" become a spectacularly unlikely spokesman for a brand of British butter called Country Life, appearing in a humorous commercial which sent sales of the saturated fat soaring.
Lydon, who lives in California, is now set to bring the organized chaos that is PiL stateside. The band will be playing Club Nokia in Downtown LA on April 13 prior to a highly anticipated opening-night performance at Coachella and a series of dates across the US.
SuicideGirls called Lydon up at his Los Angeles beachside home to talk a little bollocks about life, butter, music, politics, PiL, the psychology of punk - and his apparent dislike of body ink.
John Lydon: Who's this?
Nicole Powers: It's Nicole Powers with SuicideGirls.
JL: Is that a magazine?
NP: It's a website.
JL: It's a most unfriendly title.
NP: Well it actually doesn't refer to people behaving like lemmings and jumping off cliffs.
JL: I hope not. [laughs] Because I couldn't be condoning that.
NP: It's actually a reference to a Chuck Palahniuk phrase that he used to describe a subculture of people who chose to commit social suicide by having tattoos and piercings.
JL: Oh that's quite novel.
NP: It's a very punk rock concept, since it's about people choosing to mark their body permanently, thereby permanently committing social suicide with regards to the mainstream.
JL: Oh tattoos.
NP: You don't like them?
JL: No.
NP: Oh dear! What's your objection?
JL: I think that they're ugly. [laughs]
NP: Oh no! You're not supposed to say that! Everyone assumes that tattoos are punk rock by default.
JL: Certainly not! [laughs] Not to my estimation at all. They're the very last thing I would want to be doing, to put a moniker on my body that I might not quite approve of in a few years time. You know, "Love ya Sharron," and then you're stuck with it. What I find with tattoos though is the lack of originality, particularly a punk type concept of it. It's what people think will make them punk, when punk really is a mentality.
NP: I can appreciate that. I mean I'm aware that you've done things like the Country Life butter commercial, and the UK I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here reality TV series, and the nature shows, which might seem cheesy. But then for you, that's the most punk rock thing you can do, because that's precisely the opposite of what society expects you to do.
JL: Well yeah, and it doesn't happen deliberately, it's just opportunity knocks -- and I get knocked for it.
NP: Well there's no knocking from this direction.
JL: Oh, thank you! But you know, the butter campaign, which was to promote a British product, I thought it was a very brave thing on my behalf. The money that I earned from that has now gone completely -- lock stock and barrel -- into reforming PiL.
NP: I actually want to congratulate Country Life Butter, because it was a risk on their part.
JL: It was. It was seriously, seriously an interesting project, from start to finish. Because it was an insane prospect originally, and definitely tweaked my interest.
NP: It's butter with balls, because they were putting the reputation of their brand in your hands.
JL: Yeah, they took a gamble and I treated them with the utmost respect because of that...They were very, very gracious with me. They presented something like a script, and I told them I would adlib and improvise. They went with that, and it paid off.
NP: I read one of your interviews where you talked about how Country Life Butter has been more supportive of your music than any record label.
JL: Yes. They've treated me with more respect than any record label I've ever worked with, and that's a very strange thing to be saying. You would presume that they're corporate and therefore the enemy. So we should be very careful who we attach false rumors and labels to, as indeed many have been attached to me over the years erroneously...I'm very pleased that I made butter acceptable again socially.
NP: You increased sales by 85% I understand.
JL: That's an astounding figure. Really, really kind of overwhelming. Good, golly, gosh! And my record company said they can't sell a record.
NP: What I found interesting reading the press building up to this tour is that you're finally getting the respect for what you did with PiL 14 or 15 years too late.
JL: Yes.
NP: I guess in the scheme of things it's good, because there's many artists throughout history that didn't get any respect until after they died. But it might have been nice for people to give you some respect for PiL a little sooner.
JL: Well it might not also. Because I'm the kind of person, I do have inner resolve and inner strengths, and so I'm able to -- and I love to quote Shakespeare when it suits me -- I smile in the face of adversity. In many ways the struggle is as enjoyable as the achievement. You can't keep a good dog down and all that -- maybe I should have a dog tattoo. [laughs]
NP: You worry about getting a tattoo that you'll later regret, but part of having tattoos is that you live life with no regrets. That's a very important part of the ethos.
JL: Yes. I gather that. It's certainly a way of making yourself alienated, unless everybody on planet earth has a tattoo. Because it divides doesn't it? And the powers that be just don't seem to want to employ people with tattoos.
I'll tell you, my 15-year old nephew, he's just put a tattoo on his neck and of course it's creating all kinds of uproar in the family. But it's knowing where that's going to take him, because the school have thrown him out.
Also, and I don't mean to be sounding nasty here, but Steve Jones, a fellow Sex Pistol, I hate his tattoos. They all seem to be the mass consumption ones, you know. I don't see anything that strikes me as impressively different. There's a poisoning aspect in there because of that. But I do love art, and a jolly decent drawing or painting transferred to a human body can be impressive.
One tattoo that impressed me, it was years ago, was a jigsaw thing, from head to toe, a complete jigsaw pattern. It was most excellent. I thought that was a clever idea. It was a jigsaw puzzle with a few pieces missing here and there. I thought that was really great. Things like that, that spark an immediate interest. But, my god, I live on the beach here, and the amount of second hand work is appalling. So unfortunately for you and your website, I'm focusing on all the negatives at the moment. But then I've had a career where I've suffered all the negative aspects -- and I think wrongly. I think I've done nothing but good for music. I've been consistent at it too. I think I've offered purposefully and honestly enough so many new genres into music, and to see them imitated now and be part of the casual mindset of modern music, it's intriguing that my name is missing from the list of thank yous.
NP: They do say imitation is the best form of flattery.
JL: No. I've dealt with that expression and I've found it to be not true. It's actually a cheeky way of saying, "Thanks! Look what I've stolen from ya."
NP: I can see that. Being paid in return for the inspiration would be the best form of flattery.
JL: It would kind of help. Or at least [to be] given a nod and wink in the correct way and direction. Because I do believe in respecting my fellow human beings and I don't like to see anyone, including myself, disrespected. I see no reason for it. All my life what I've done is fight for the individual, and fight for groups that are downtrodden, be it race, creed or color, or whatever economic or social reason. To be still treated as some kind of foul-mouthed job is a bit upsetting and wrong.
NP: You are very erudite. I know that you're a big bookworm too.
JL: Yes. Love books. One of the greatest tragedies of me at the moment is that my eyesight is beginning to wane. That might be from sheer over-reading, and that's really painful because the concept of losing my eyesight is really challenging to me. It's like I've run it in my mind, what couldn't I afford to lose, my ears or my eyes? Oddly enough, being somewhat of a musician, I concluded my eyes. Because nature, I couldn't bear to not be observing it. I find that much more musical than anything I've ever done.
NP: You've done some nature TV programs haven't you? What inspired you to do the nature stuff.
JL: Because I love life, all kinds. I don't know what it is that makes a thing live but I'm deeply intrigued by that, whether it be an ant, a mollusk or an elephant, or indeed my fellow human beings. I realize, as humans, we are top of the agenda because we have that most magnificent gift of all -- language.
NP: Some scientists are starting to argue that there's levels of intelligence and communication amongst animals that mean certain species should actually be given human-like rights.
JL: Yes. That's a fascinating subject, particularly the way whales can communicate. I love sharks and particularly great whites. When I was doing that program on them, I noticed that they do have a form of communication with each other. They definitely have a hierarchy, and a grouping. They travel in packs and that's surely not the wild, free-roaming, savage killers we've been led to misbelieve.
NP: So if animals are so communicative, it's not really language that sets us apart from the animal world. Really the only thing is art.
JL: Well, I don't know, I've seen chimpanzees paint.
NP: ...And elephants.
JL: And elephants, I've cottoned on to that. I'm not sure of the artistic value. I'd have to see more elephants' work.
NP: And there's some debate about whether they're just following cues from their trainers, and repeating actions, rather than consciously deciding to paint a flower for example.
JL: Yes, there's every possibility of that. Do you know that killer whale that killed the instructor recently? You can't tame the beast in them and at some point these poor animals are going to become incredibly frustrated at the prison we've wrapped them in. This is why I'm very anti zoos. That's what that is, that act of aggression is, "I want out."
NP: But then the flip side of that is that there are zoos that are very responsible with things like breeding programs.
JL: But what are they breeding? They're breeding animals that know nothing but captivity. And to be quite frank there's some wonderful nature programs that show you these creatures in their natural environments -- be happy with that. That's not the same as a wolf in a box in the corner of Whipsnade Zoo is it?
In fact I had problems when I was visiting the gorilla terrain with that too. That American money was beginning to creep in and there was future prospects of them building five star hotels for American tourists to go on gorilla safaris. Well if you start doing that you're absolutely murdering what these lovely wonderful beasts are all truly about...I think humans do not have the right to turn wild beasts into tourist attractions. It really, really upsets me. The game reserves in Africa upset me. They're all rounded up and back in their cages for the evening and let out in the morning.
NP: Well it all goes back to this idea of extending what we know as human rights to animals, and figuring out how far down the food chain you go.
JL: All the way. It's an interesting discussion. It isn't openly debated quite yet, but I'd like to see it done so. I think it could only be to the advancement of all causes.
NP: When you treat animals without humanity, you're compromising your own.
JL: Yes. I can't stand to see those chicken farms and the slaughterhouse things. But I do understand that we have two different sets of teeth in our mouths and as a species I don't suppose we would ever have advanced this far by lettuce leaves alone.
NP: Are you a vegetarian?
JL: No. I tend to eat what's available according to the environment I'm in. Thirty years of touring has taught me that. Otherwise I'd be looking for grass and bean sprouts in Milwaukee.
I tell you what the shock for me is, living in America, how cheep chicken is. Don't be raising the price on cigarettes, because that's a choice issue there. But with certain food things, if we treated animals with a bit more respect and cost, I think the slaughter and cruelty would go down as the price went up. So that may be a solution there other than Chrissie Hynde's "Meat is Murder" brigade, which takes it to too far of an extreme all at once.
NP: Right. A chicken's life should be worth more than five bucks.
JL: Yeah. Absolutely.
NP: I'm not a vegetarian either, but I want the chicken I eat to have led a happy and fulfilled life before it dies.
JL: Otherwise what are you eating but misery? Well that's going to translate into your system eventually.
NP: And knowing I didn't give a shit about that chicken's life is going to eat into my soul.
JL: Yes, I believe that.
NP: So I'm all about eating happy and fulfilled animals.
JL: Yeah, but maybe not always. I mean there are huge amounts of my time when I don't drink alcohol, but there are other times when I do, and it's the same with meat. But I don't believe running around assaulting women in fur coats is going to solve anything.
NP: And there is the argument that plants have feelings too..
JL: Ah, Prince Charles led this charge didn't he. He played Pink Floyd to his cabbages. I'm not sure where that's left him with regards to standing and reason with the world but it's a novelty. I mean he's a Buddhist, and that's where his leaning would naturally take him. It's novel. It might actually be true. He might actually be doing a cabbage a favor. You take it too far though and it would leave us without any food source whatsoever, and that's stone cold bonkers. I mean, I don't want the whole world to end up like emaciated models.
NP: So you like meat on your women?
JL: I like human beings to look human, not like concentration camp victims.
NP: That's what SuicideGirls is all about, redefining beauty to take it away from the emaciated model stereotype.
JL: Well you have to. It's preposterous. There's no one out there really capable of being that thin in the general public so who are you making and selling this dress to? Basically a bag of bones. Very unattractive. And I don't want my world full of everyone in the same size. Good heavens. I get problems with that myself, you see I'm big boned -- there's a polite way of putting it.
NP: But you always seem pretty svelte on stage.
JL: Well I have to be fit to do what I do, but I don't exercise. There's not really what you would call a muscle on me.
NP: So how do you stay fit if you don't exercise?
JL: Stress.
NP: Ahh. So what's been stressing you out recently?
JL: Trying to keep this tour together. Definitely handling the finances of it, and hoping it will be a success. I'm hoping it will raise some level of interest in what's gone wrong with the music industry, and what's still right with me. I would expect that to be of some interest to audiences both young and old.
NP: Absolutely. Music, generally, is so bland today.
JL: The latest thing I find so offensive is Sting trying to go Irish. He's done a jazz album, now he's trying to be like a Gaelic folk artist. It's just upsetting that he's not creating new genres from his own heart and soul. It's all set formats already laid out on a table for him. In he comes and fine dines, and out he waltzes onto the next menu. It's a little lazy.
NP: What do you think of Lady Gaga?
JL: I think she hilariously is very, very interesting. We know what she's up to, we know what she's doing, it's that she does it very, very well. There's a great sense of fun and self-mockery in it, which is very endearing.
NP: There's an intelligence behind it.
JL: Yeah, there is. And they are actually great pop songs. I think "Paparazzi" is stunning, amazing, such a clever way to deal with the subject.
NP: Who else do you find interesting right now?
JL: Off the top of my head nothing is coming to mind.
NP: It's a bland world out there.
JL: It is.
NP: I understand on the PiL tour you're going to be culling songs from your entire discography, some solo stuff, some Pistols stuff.
JL: Probably not The Pistols end of it, because I really want to focus on PiL and the achievements therein. If I started putting in Pistols material indeed I'd be there all night long. We play on average two and a half hours per night, although in America there's some license restrictions on that, particularly [at] Coachella. They originally offered us only one hour, but they've sensibly given us an hour and a half. But that's still not long enough for a PiL performance.
NP: Have you been out to Coachella before?
JL: Yes. It's baking bloody hot and freezing cold at night. The waiting and the hanging around in that baking heat is very draining. The waiting before any gig is so amazingly stressful.
NP: But compared to Glastonbury, Coachella is the five star festival experience.
JL: Listen, I go back 45 years and I remember the original festivals when I was 12 and 15. I'd go off to them on my own. I'd bunk up on the train. The atmosphere was amazing. It could be raining all weekend and it was just one big horrible mud bath, [but] it just always seemed better. These festivals these days seem too orchestrated. The idea of having to use a credit card to get into the toilet is insane. Everything is about purchase isn't it? You end up feeling like you're just visiting some weird and wacky shopping mall. The music, in that you're offered an infinite variety of music, that's always intriguing, but the modern aspect of these things is they have three or four stages operating at the same time. To see one band you're going to miss a couple of others. I wish it was just one stage. I don't like that dissipation of energy. It creates the cattle herding environment of people having to shift from one field to another. That's negative. It negates the open-mindedness that festivals are supposedly originally all about.
NP: Are there any other bands at Coachella you're looking forward to seeing?
JL: I'm really pleased that Jay-Z is on at the same time. No dis of his music, some of those records are great, absolutely. But live, it comes across to me like a Las Vegas production. And I say this out of experience because a few years back at a Pistols gig in Poland, Jay-Z was on the bill there and I got to catch some of that show. I just thought you could put Liberace in the middle of that and it wouldn't be much different. I thought it was rather poor because it was just him going "U-huh, huh, huh" in between all this dancing and flashing lights and it became irritating. It wasn't a sharing experience. He wasn't sharing anything. It was just showing off. I can't bear acts that go on and tell you how great they are. It's a negative for me. PiL is all about open up your heart and here we go.
NP: When you're not playing music and reading books, what do you do?
JL: I'm yelling at the news.
NP: I shout at the TV too.
JL: I can't help it. I find Faux News very entertaining. It's wonderful. I'm never going to be disappointed with the absurdities I hear nightly and daily...In fact the entire network is to me deeply hilarious that it's run under the guise of news. How the word news can be so misinterpreted.
Saying that, I love Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Coupled together, for anyone who has children, it's surely the best hour of family viewing. Children really and truly do understand and grasp the bigger issues.
NP: Talking of children, you're the stepfather of Ari Up from The Slits. They reformed recently too.
JL: Well they're bumming about yeah. That's a band that's not reformed, they're not like that. When they get the money together they go out and play, it's as simple as that. There are times when all of us have to be very, very careful on the purse-strings, because we do live almost momentarily, from moment to moment. When the money's there you can do things. There's no one there giving us handouts for this.
NP: Right. It's often hard for people to understand how you can be in a big name band and still live a very hand to mouth existence.
JL: Well my band has an enormous name and reputation, but it's not record company supported. So, indeed, where are the finances supposed to come from? It's extreme hard work. Everything I do outside of the band, for me, goes back into it. I'm not unhappy about that situation. That seems to be the way it works best for me, as indeed it had to right from the very beginning when I first formed Public Image.
NP: Artists throughout history have relied on sponsors.
JL: Yes. This is very true. Every classical composer had to have a royal family to pay them. Do you think I should approach the Queen for a bob or two?
NP: I think you should. I mean you've done so much to promote her.
JL: And I would think not negatively. Hopefully I've made it completely clear to the royal family that while I'm paying tax for them I have every right to comment. More so than most I would think seeing as I have to go through all kinds of rigmarole to earn enough to be able to pay that tax. I suppose the way I live, and Ari is the same way with The Slits, is outside of the system.
NP: What are your feelings towards the royal family these days?
JL: Wonderful people. Is there room for inbreds? Yes, of course. If in any way, shape or form you love to study nature there's a classic example.
NP: Well in America, even though there's no royalty, we've created an aristocratic class with the likes of the Hiltons and the Bush family.
JL: And the Kennedys.
NP: So there is a social need for it.
JL: Well, whether you like it or not, you have to face up to the fact that human beings somewhat need some kind of leadership. I'm all for the art of the individual, but I'm very aware that many people can't possibly be that way. Without someone telling them what to do they feel hopelessly lost. Now that might be because of the education system we all have to suffer our way through.
NP: The problem with democracy is it relies on an educated populace, and we don't have that anymore.
JL: No. Odd isn't it?
NP: That's why you see so many people voting against their interest. I know that you've been very vocal about the need to encourage literacy and education.
JL: Yes. I used to run an internet radio thing which went for six hours every Saturday morning. On it I would debate with politicians and so-called alleged intelligentsia. I remember serious debates, me saying I think children should not look down on education because I see it as just about the only thing that's free that actually carries any value. But I would get pedantic nonsense like, "Education: What does that word mean?" Well it can mean many things, but it's allowing children to be open-minded. And I'm afraid you're never going to get that with a Republican led country.
Their behavior as of late I think has embarrassed America immensely across the entire planet, and they're still promoting anger and ignorance. They really do want to keep us dumb. I mean they even want their own president to be dumb. George Bush is a classic example of how they so ill-consider us as a population. I view myself as American in this respect, because that's where I live and pay tax. I find it infuriating.
NP: So if you were president, what would you do?
JL: Retire. [laughs] I think, unlike the Bush's I would bring broccoli back to the White House. I remember that was one of his biggest issues, he hated broccoli. It's funny, every Republican president we've had, they're all very, very big meat-eaters, and they're very against vegetables. It's bizarre. This is why they're all constipated, and hence the lack of brain cells.
NP: George Bush's greatest achievement was officially declaring ketchup a vegetable.
JL: Wonderful huh? Well officially he is a vegetable. I've seen a most excellent bit of footage on CNN yesterday morning. It was terrific. It shows him and Clinton out in Haiti dealing with the homeless there. That's a great thing, to say America's here to help you. But every time George Bush shook hands with someone he then wiped his hand on Clinton's shirt. Now what does that say? A lot. Volumes. And that kind of misrepresentation of this country has got to stop. You can look at it in many ways. Is he being humorous? But ultimately he's being insulting. There's still the implication of 'you dirty peoples,' and that's wrong.
NP: So if you met George Bush what would you say to him?
JL: I'd say: "Sit down you drunken uncle." I know he's allegedly given up alcohol, but the effects are still in there. I think when he was young he drunk enough to last a lifetime.
NP: I could never quite put my finger on whether George Bush was really dumb, or really clever and acting dumb to appeal to the masses.
JL: I think he's like this; You've been to birthday parties, you know, when it's for kids and all the family members gather. He's that stupid uncle that spills the lemonade on the table and spoils the kid's birthday cake. That's him.
NP: Well the lemonade he's spilt on the planet we're going to be cleaning up for years.
JL: Yes. But that's it. He's clumsy. He thinks he's witty. He possibly is. If he's left in less dangerous situations you might actually find him very pleasant, but never, ever give a man like that a position of responsibility. People voting [for him], that's bad enough. But the fact is that party fully supported Coco the Clown and let him loose on the world. And the result is two catastrophic wars in the Middle East. Please! Why are we listening to them anymore?
NP: Well, that goes back to education.
JL: Well you know as well as I do that Republicans are not for educating the masses. They believe completely in private schooling, and bugger the rest of us.
NP: Well thank you for taking the time out to chat. I'm very much looking forward to the live show.
JL: Alrighty. Ooh, can I end on the best tattoo I've ever seen?
NP: Please do.
JL: It was on Fantasy Island. The little bloke was called Tattoo.