John Lydon: ‘This is my art’
He was last here six months ago. John Lydon thrilled fans during a spoken word tour that took him from the Black Country to Birmingham and from Staffordshire to Shropshire.
Meeting fans before the shows, he learned how much he meant to them before delivering a monologue – and frequently ending with an unexpected rendition of an ABBA song, in memory of his former Sex Pistol friend Sid Vicious.
The spoken word tour was called I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right and coincided with the publication of a book of the same name. Lydon found the experience thrilling.
“I loved the talk tour. Who’d have thought you could fill theatres and venues just by talking about a book and keeping people there for an hour and a half? They were absolutely riveted and it was an hilarious and open minded thing. It was just like being with a bunch of friends. There were nights that were so fantastic. People were so open-hearted and open-minded.
“I have some excellent, excellent memories from that and it made me feel confident about myself in light of what had happened with the Sex Pistols court case. I realised people know what’s what.
“One of the most excellent things happened in Scotland. In the middle of me talking away and cracking jokes this huge, enormous fella stood up in the middle isle and then waved a Kilmarnock scarf. He said: ‘Johnny, it’s for your wife. The Kilmarnock emblem is two squirrels.’ That was so excellent, I had tears in my eyes that somebody could be thinking of my Nora.”
Lydon took the scarf home with him, to California and presented it to his wife, who suffers with Alzheimer’s.
“She wears that scarf each night to bed. People are so open-minded and so open-hearted. The whole tour felt like a PiL gig but without the music and some ABBA karaoke. It was great fun.”
Versions of ABBA songs won’t feature when Lydon next returns to these shores. He’s returning with his band, PiL, for a tour that starts on June 6 and ends on June 23, including a headline at Birmingham’s O2 Institute on June 17.
The band would have toured earlier, had it not been for lockdown, but Lydon is looking forward to being back on the road with his band.
“It’s about time. Apologies folks but it wasn’t my idea to put us all into lockdown and spike us with God knows what in our veins. That messed up a lot of good things for us.”
It wasn’t just Covid that got in the way of PiL. Lydon also found himself in the High Court in a battle with former Sex Pistols members over a dramatisation of their time in the 1970s band.
“I’m back though. My brother and his wife are going to move in and look after my wife while I’m away. I can’t wait to go back and perform. We’re going back into the studio too, to record new music.”
Lydon has been busy since his talk tour. In addition to planning new music with PiL and getting ready for the forthcoming tour, he’s also been working on art.
“I’ve made 100 NFTs from one piece of art called ‘Anger In NFT’. Most of them are quite abstract, a piece within a piece. There are a few extractions that are artworks in their own right.
“They aren’t following the current format of the current NFT world, where everything is created digitally and someone just puts their name to it. This is my art. Broken apart. Not everyone will get it. If you don’t like it move on and pass.”
A percentage of the proceeds from them go to helping those with Alzheimer’s.
Writing gives him considerable pleasure and he’s eager to work on the new PiL material. “The writing is just thoughts. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to write them down fairly accurately, most times by the time I get to pen and paper it’s lost. The process is that my head is filled with thoughts and ideas. I just need something to trigger that off, whether that’s (PiL guitarist) Lu Edmonds dropping a guitar or (bassist) Scott Firth playing something funny or (drummer) Bruce throwing a hissy fit. There are whole verses there just waiting for a reason to drop.
“That’s the beauty of PiL. We are friends first. Then the music just follows.”
Being apart from his bandmates during the past couple of years because of Covid has been a drag. He’s missed the camaraderie and creativity that flows when they are together.
“It’s been terrible, it’s been separation anxiety. It’s taken us a long while to become as close as we are. They understand my predicaments and I understand theirs, unlike any other band situation that I’ve been in.
“It took a long time to become independent of record labels so that we could do PiL the way we wanted to – but thank you British butter. The money we made from Country Life enabled us to do that. It helped us to get out of the stifling contracts that we were in to set up our own label, which wasn’t cheap. We are our own destiny now. All that negative interference that corporations can bring in on you is gone. We’re free of that. The music we put together zings. Every song has a life of its own.
“For too many years I grew accustomed to always thinking you had to accept that anxiety and acrimony were normal procedures. They were not. I was working with the wrong people at the right time. Now it’s the right people at the right time.
“For me, age 66 is the right time. I ain’t no teenager but I’m more active than when I was a kid.”
There’s no formula to the way Lydon writes. It’s freeform and spontaneous, characterised by a mood, a moment or an inspiration.
“The second I could tell you that there’s anything approaching a format or a formula, it would never happen again. You cannot write according to rules and regulations. You can’t paint or write at a given time. It comes and goes in cloud bursts. Sometimes some of those clouds have rainfall inside them, it’s all useful. Anything that deals with human emotions is worthy of a song.”
The intensity of PiL gigs is what Lydon’s looking forward to when he heads out on tour. Each night is catharsis.
“When it hits when it’s live, you suddenly find you’ve clicked into the same zone and everybody in the hall is on it, that’s the achievement. That’s the best gift that life has to offer. It’s complete empathy on pure instinct, not intellect. That’s when we achieve our highest heights. That happens rarely. Generally speaking, it’s about making eye contact with people in the audience. They give you that energy to dive deeper into whatever emotion you’re in. That’s when you can improvise and freeform. It’s a terrific opportunity. I’d be a mug to want to turn that into a show.
“When you’re singing songs about the death of your mother and there’s people crying out there, that’s a touch of empathy. That’s what us human beings are about. That’s what we should be most respected for having. It’s the greatest feeling to be able to share that.”
The only downside of touring is that he’s away from his beloved wife and unable to provide the 24-7 care that he happily offers.
Lydon and his wife, Nora, are inseparable and he’s provided support during her battle with Alzheimers.
“I always miss her but going on the road has to be done. I wouldn’t’ be doing Nora any favours by sitting around moaning.
“One of the worst aspects of lockdown was about poor Nora because we couldn’t have friends over. That was terrible for her. Alzheimers is a very sad illness. She needs communication. She’s always been funny.
“The few people that did come during lockdown wore face masks and she couldn’t understand that. That was sad to try to explain to her. It was so difficult. But we’re very close every day. We are watching British comedy 24-7.
“Having my brother there is massive. We couldn’t do that before because it was all such short notice.
“They are making a huge effort for me, which pleases me and Nora a lot. They have got dogs and they love Nora. It’s so good.”
