Anger is an Energy: My Life Uncensored (70 page)

I have met a few exceptions over the years, but in general I don’t like politicians. I know that most of them are in it for the bump-up, which eventually leads to business management, or
corporate seating. They’re not my kind of fellas. They’re what keep the country down.

I was on the show with the Labour MP Alan Johnson and the Tory MP Louise Mensch. I wasn’t sure about Alan at first. He was wearing too sharp a suit, and he came across as a bit
smarty-pantsy. But I can be that way too at times, haha. I spoke to him and his wife after, away from the cameras, and we really got on well. The Tory woman was harmless enough, I suppose, but I
was not convinced by her drug references. Isn’t it funny that when politicians are caught taking drugs it always ends with them having a bad experience, and saying how much they regretted
taking it in the first place.

Once the show started, I don’t think I stepped out of line or talked nonsense. I told it like it is, about educating young people about drugs, and the evil of top-flight bankers –
the unmentioned dictators of a country’s economic policies.

My only squabble was with a social worker type in the front row, who was trying to lecture me about the damage drugs can do to young people. But the point I was making was that those kids need
access to as much unbiased information as possible. They must learn for themselves.

Overall, it was a really very positive thing to do. The next day when we left the hotel, myself and Rambo, and our press agent and friend Adam Cotton, God help him, decided to do a pub crawl all
the way back to London – and the show was filmed in Derby, by the way! There’d been a major rainstorm where Derby was flooded. It must’ve been the water that influenced us. And
let’s face it,
Question Time
was a tough thing to walk into as Johnny Bloody Rotten. I needed a break! Every pub we stopped in, people had seen
Question Time
. It was quite
surprising how popular we’d seemingly made the
show. People watched because they knew I was on, and they wanted to hear what I had to say. People of all walks of life
and all class systems –
all
were favourable. Not one negative from anyone in the general population.

Right from the minute I adhered rigidly to the nickname Johnny Rotten, I painted a target on my back. I’ve always known that, and no matter how many different items of
clothing I go through, or hairstyles, the target remains.

I came out of the paddock full steam, and it created a lot of flurry around me, and a lot of resentment. Who is this upstart? And I still get that vibe from people, they still view me as being
negative to their cosy idea of what a musical reality is. And so, by all means, I’m going to get the hammerings. Bloody hell, I’m an anvil: you can hammer it all day long, you
ain’t going to dent it.

And in fact, I rather like the attention of resentment and jealousy. When people take it that far, they’re almost rewarding you for your own efforts. It’s complimentary!

To this day, there’s still people that send hate mail. Many, many more send favourable stuff, but there’s always that odd one – ‘I want to kill you’ – that
you get in the post. I get that, still. A lot, from the same kind of people. You have to keep in mind that these people can’t help themselves, and at least you’re entertaining them, or
giving them a purpose in life, even though it be your destruction and downfall.

One way or the other, I’ve got to look at it like, ‘Well, at least I’m a means to an end.’ There are a lot of things to hate in the world. I don’t think I should be
one of them. There’s far better targets, but I’m more than happy to accept it.

Sometimes it can be just too bonkers. There have been women that have come up with fantasies. They send real serious hate mail, and leave things on your front door. Just unacceptable. You hear
about the stalkers around Madonna – but I get that too. And it happens quite a bit. There’s always one of that kind out for you in every different country, and you have to protect
yourself from it.

At the present time, some of my cases are ongoing, and some have been quiet for a mo. One particular girl used to get very, very insane. She sent letters declaring that
she was the real German heiress, and Nora was the fake and had to be replaced, and then we’d fall madly in love, and everything would be all right from there on in. Eh? What?!

She actually ended up working on a music TV show. I talked to her, and she’d managed to break out of it. Her job required so much energy and effort that she had no more time for that, and
saw it as foolish. So hopefully that’s what she actually believes. It’s nutty that it can unfold that way, but once she’d found a career for herself, that was the answer to
it.

It’s the problem of the modern human being that we’ve got more time on our hands than we can handle, so it goes into the wonderful world of craziness. And I hope that no one
misconstrues that as meaning that we should all be back in slave camps, where there’d be no time for that kind of behaviour! Once we were plebs, but now we’re left to our own devices,
and some of us come up with the wrong agenda. It’s a bit like, if you have a late-night club scene in a town, you’re gonna get crime. Are you able to take the crime, because the
late-night scene is so good and inspiring and artistically proper?

So, as I’ve said, I don’t answer my own hotel room door. I need a bloody witness at all points. Your open-to-the-public thing is jeopardized by this one lunatic, who, if they really
go for it at some point, will try and put a bullet in you – if that be the tool of choice. John Lennon was an example of that. It happens. People attach to what they see as celebrity figures,
and it becomes very dangerous. Many people I’ve talked to – actors, even playwrights once – they’re all telling me they get it. Somebody just decides, ‘I’ve got
to kill you, because you let me down, you’re not making the music you should. If I was you – blah blah blah!’

I have a great sense of foreboding, fear and empathy for Adam Ant, for instance, because I know he’s had this a lot, and I know
what it’s like. It gets very,
very dangerous. It seems to come and go, then raise its ugly head again for no good reason. You have to be very aware that everything you say or do is being misjudged by one of those very few
people out there with that propensity towards psychopathic behaviour. I don’t know what makes them so lonely and so bitter and twisted, that they spend their whole lives, firstly adoring and
loving you, and then spin it, for God knows what reason, to wanting to hate and kill you.

I love to go out signing autographs and talking with the fans at gigs, but I have to be aware that in that element there is that danger, that lurking propensity towards ultraviolence. They
don’t even understand what it is they’re doing themselves. They feel completely justified. Psychotic! I don’t have any disciplines really to steer that away, other than the way I
am. Look what Adam had to do – he had to leave Los Angeles. Christ! And he ain’t no wanker!

At the other extreme, I’ve been getting untold grief over the years from the so-called ‘authorities’, particularly when trying to clear immigration.

Coming into America, they’d pull me over every single time, even though I was an ‘alien resident’ green card holder. I was viewed unfavourably. I’m not making a special
case of myself, but I did get extra-frustrated with delays. I can’t sleep on planes. I’m uncomfortable. I ache. It doesn’t matter what I do or take, it doesn’t work. All of
those things that are supposed to help you relax and sleep just annoy me. They only make me extremely tired and bad-tempered when I’m facing an immigration official.

That’s when they want to ask me foolish questions, and things can go wrong. You have to bite your tongue, and I’m the kind of bloke that can’t do that. They’d take me
into a cubicle, and it’d be like, ‘Yeah, you live here, but why haven’t you applied for full citizenship?’ I later found out that this was partly because of my old
amphetamine conviction in 1977 which still showed up despite me holding an American green card.

They’ve made my life hell in US immigration. Every single time, I was made to sit there for two hours, with the other undesirables, most of whom couldn’t
speak English. The immigration officer would go, ‘Well, it’s because the English won’t drop the file on your conviction.’ Law can be tediously cruel.

So, enough was enough, and I applied for US citizenship. It was then they told me about the open file, and yet they still allowed me to go through the procedure, even though I’d delayed it
so long. It wasn’t an easy decision. In my heart and soul, I feel like, ‘Have I walked away from something here?’ Yes, I have – I walked away from unnecessary abuse.
I’m the same person, but I’ve just now got bigger guns. And I’m a pacifist and all that, but you’ve got to stand up for yourself. If that’s your only alternative then
you’ve got to take it. Sorry, but my days of anal searching are gone. I won’t allow myself to be physically and mentally abused any longer.

Then, there would sometimes be problems at the other end, arriving in London. The worst time was when my father died, and I was absolutely distraught. I got on the first plane out, and of course
got pulled up at Heathrow. I’m in bits at the airport, and they’re absolute cunts to me. Just being wicked.

After that happened I got to the point where it’s like, ‘If you don’t want to let me back into England, I don’t give a fuck. I’ll turn around and go back.’
There’s nothing in that society that stood up and defended my rights. Obviously, all this goes back to ‘Anarchy In The UK’ and ‘God Save The Queen’ –
of
course it does!
What a fool I’d be to say otherwise. Even though those songs are now how everybody thinks – it’s ‘shoot the messenger’, really. When I go back and
see everybody taking a pop at royalty on English TV, I think, ‘Where were you when it counted?’ Bunch of second-rate cowardly comedians. Now they do it in this personal-attack way.
I’ve never tried to do anything in a personal-attack way. I’ll say it again: it’s the institution, not the individuals involved.

And so my personal freedom has continuously been assaulted and abused because of everything that I ever did and said.

England is absolutely dedicated to humiliating you into old age. It kills and stifles creativity. You’re supposed to be dead at forty, and the rest of your life
you’re supposed to rot in misery. It’s always, ‘Why bother, it’s all been done before’, or ‘Act your age’ – those are
such
passion-killer
statements. It’s a fear of change, a fear of anything new and exciting. Thank God for California. Johnny Rotten definitely gives this place accolades. They go bungee-jumping here at
eighty-five, they’re diving off mountains – it’s full-on activity, keeping the brain alive. England just doesn’t seem to want that.

It took me a long time to become an American. I finally completed the process in late 2013. Now I feel like I was born an American. The rights and freedoms of all, and the belief that all of us
are born equal – these aspects are in the American ideology. It’s not perfect in its working relationship with its population, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the shit
I’ve had to endure all my life under a British government.

I’ve never had that problem with America. It’s always liked me. Bizarre as the governments here are, and how they don’t like anyone to be anti-American or whatever, I can say
what I want. It’s appreciated as being a vital part of the Constitution, so in many ways I’ve achieved incredible success being accepted in America. This is the country that fought
against the corruptions of monarchy and imperialism and the British Empire of that day, and the trouble that created for everybody around the world. Not that America is completely innocent itself
in that respect, but what a fantastic place to live.

Nora and I once drove all the way from New York to LA, just the two of us staying in the motels. It took about a week, just exploring that terrain. It was a complete adventure. I love not only
the impressiveness of the cities here – the difference between New York and LA and New Orleans – but also the landscape. Driving across the country, how it changes from state to state.
Every thousand miles is a completely different climate. It’s utterly fascinating to go from pine forests wrapped around San Francisco up north there,
into the deserts
of Utah and Nevada.
Phwoar!
And the swampiness of the south-east –
wowzers!

My God, this country’s nuts! The natural disasters here – they don’t happen on a small scale. It’s not like in England – ‘Oh my God, look at the
flooding’ – here, everything is industrially bigger. Earthquakes, fires – they’re all seriously major. From an English perspective, when I was young, I’d think,
‘Oh, those Americans are always showing off and making a big scene out of it.’ Well, you need to! It’s such a big place geologically, that mad things happen.

Mentally and physically it’s improved my health, improved my outlook on life, and it’s taken away the opportunity of despondency. In many ways, I miss the culture in Britain, and in
many ways I don’t need to miss it, because it’s
in me
. It’s firmly there, the good side.

I know many English people who’ve not been able to make it work, living here, and have eventually gone back. There’s a very big English community here around Santa Monica, and their
problem is, they’re trying to be English in a non-English situation. Big mistake. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. It doesn’t mean you’re going to lose your identity.
You’ve gone to live abroad but you’re refusing to acknowledge newer, better or different ideas as even a possibility, and so you hoodwink yourself into your own prison and failure.

Nora and I don’t hang out with expats. We have a very small circle of friends – one or two, say. Apart from that, it’s what me and Nora want to do. We do everything together. I
don’t really like or want a large collection of acquaintances.

Here’s the laugh of laughs, though: not far from our house in Malibu is Herb Alpert – the Latin-jazz trumpeter who was also the ‘A’ in A&M Records! There’s some
difference in the size of our respective properties, let me tell you. He has half a mountain. But I know it more than bugs him that I live here. Talking with the neighbours, they’ve told me
so. Well, that’s your comeuppance, you fuck.