Anger is an Energy: My Life Uncensored (78 page)

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Authors: John Lydon

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9. Underage drinking - Lydon’s fave! That’s my brother Jimmy
(left)
with John Stevens (pre-Rambo). As two families, we were very
close. Rambo would take my place on family caravan holidays.

10. First picture of the Sex Pistols, in the back yard of a pub we were rehearsing above in Chiswick, in August-September 1975.
(l-r)
me, Glen
Matlock, Steve Jones, Paul Cook. Thank God I had the sense to bring John Gray along, and he had the sense to bring a camera - something that didn’t occur to Malcolm!

11. Forced fun doing photos for Malcolm in Carnaby Street, April 1976. I’ve always been at odds, even in my own band.

12. Live at the Soho strip club, El Paradise, London, 4 April 1976. There I am, wearing my favourite stripper’s outfit.

13. Fiddling about in row boats on the Serpentine because we had nothing better to do, circa April 1976. Nobody knew how to row a boat except me, and
I wouldn’t.

14. There’s not many people that can hang out with their mum, but my mum was up for a giggle. I’d just bought her a blow-up
man-doll.

15. Nora, me, John Gray and Paul Young on our way to Hampton Court in May 1977, wearing A&M promo shirts for ‘God Save The
Queen’.

16. Live at Dunstable Queens Hall, 21 October 1976. There I am, cleaning the floor. I always left the stage cleaner than when I went on.

17. With ‘Chaos’ armband, Halmstad, Sweden, 15 July 1977. The jacket’s from an old demob suit, with a pair of leather pants. It was
always mix and match with me, I was never coiffeured by Vivienne Westwood.

18. Les Deux Magots cafe, Paris, 4 September 1976. I think that’s Nora’s beret. It’s a ladies cap, worn in a jaunty beret way. That
caused some friction with the band, who thought I was being dangerous.

19. At Heathrow Airport, September 1976. It was fun going through customs with them upside down Nazi badges and crucifixes. I’m hardly
supporting these regimes, am I? It’s one of Vivienne’s original bondage jackets, before she thought, ‘Ooh, I could mass produce them…’

20. At Wessex Studios during the Never Mind The Bollocks sessions, 26 April 1977.

21. It wasn’t me, ossifer! Stopped by Police, Westbourne Grove, 23 May 1977.

22. Sex Pistols live at Stokvishal, Arnhem, Holland, 8 December 1977. The display on the wall was all about the battle there in the Second World
War.

23. Outside Malborough Street Magistrates Court, March 11th 1977 after receiving that stupid fine for amphetamine possession. I was really angry with
Malcolm for turning up without the money. That’s his lawyer Steve Fisher at the back. Between them, they couldn’t raise 40 quid.

24. Onstage during the evening show at our legendary Christmas Day ’77 gig at Huddersfield Ivanhoes. I actually remember making that
face!

25. With Sid Vicious on the tour bus, on the catastrophic Sex Pistols American tour, 8 January 1978. We always did talk, even then.

26.
(l-r)
Steve Jones, Sid Vicious, me, Paul Cook up against a wall, as we were often photographed, in Dryden Chambers, off Oxford Street,
London 14 April 1977. It was for a German magazine called
Ohr
. When everyone was accepting the punk clichés, I thought, ‘Well, fuck that’ and went off into Teddy Boy
world.

27. On Hellshire Beach, Jamaica, with U-Roy, February 1978. There’s some smoke tapering out of my mouth. I can’t imagine what that
is.

28. With underpants, Gunter Grove roof, 1978. Some kind of bandit, that is!

29. In the hatch onto the roof at Gunter Grove. That was a very dangerous roof for us to be drunk on; it was five storeys up. I had bigger plans than
being squashed like a baked bean.

30. The first line-up of Public Image Ltd, aka PiL, in the living room in Honeyfield, May 1978.
(l-r)
Jah Wobble, Jim Walker, me, Keith
Levene. On the wall above my brother Martin who’s also in the picture, you can see rosettes from the Arsenal vs Ipswich FA Cup Final. Look at the idea of nothing matching - the wallpaper, the
carpet, the couch…

31. With Ari Up, Gunter Grove, 1978. She was all of about thirteen there, before she went too heavily into pretending to be Jamaican. We were
friendlier than some people would think.

32. With John Stevens, at Trinity College, Dublin, 3 October 1980. That’s the support band playing in the background!

33. In raincoat and silly glasses, Gunter Grove, 1978.

34. At Gunter Grove, 1979. I always liked a proper sound system.

35. A nice one of me and Keith, rehearsing circa Metal Box, back when we used to get on.

36. At Gunter Grove in 1980, after the release of
Second Edition
, wearing a fantastic coat made by Kenny MacDonald. I also had one in white
which made me look like a polar bear.

37. An astounding picture of Wobble and Keith sitting next to each other on the couch at Gunter Grove, with me on the right. I can’t remember
those two even in the same room without a glare and a frown and gnashing of teeth.

38. Arriving at High Court in London in a Kenny MacDonald suit and sheepskin for the Sex Pistols case in 1979. The man with the glasses and fuzzy
hair is Joe Stevens, the photographer who helped me out after the break-up in San Francisco.

39. Gunter Grove roof, circa 1980-81.
(l-r)
Bobby Lydon, me, Martin Lydon, Paul Young.

40. PiL out driving in Toronto, Canada, 16 October 1982.
(l-r)
Me, Keith, Martin Atkins, Pete Jones.

41. The same line-up onstage at the Brooklyn Zoo, 29 January 1983. It was a gig that earned a reputation of being ‘rocking, man’. Who
told me that? Billy Idol!

42. Onstage in 1983, with neon halo for the song, ‘Religion’. In them days, it created quite a terrifying image. Now people would
probably think it looks more akin to a toilet seat.

43. Press conference for
Order Of Death
, and a European tour, Royal Lancaster Hotel, 26 October 1983. I was always happy doing press
conferences, because it meant free beer, I could smoke as much as I liked, and everyone was paying attention. So, yes - happy!

44. A very interesting photo from 1985: a fake backdrop, a bit of a net, and me sitting there. I love the cheesy fakeness of it.

45. With Nora, at home in London. I recognize our old sofa that we’re sitting on, and the Russian posters. Every wall had a crack on it, and
rather than plaster it, which never occurred to us, I’d stick a poster up.

46. An assortment of PiL sleeves, painted by yours truly, to give you a vague idea of what my style is. It’s a collection of personalities
given the Johnny Lydon absurdist treatment.

47. PiL in 1986:
(l-r)
John McGeoch, Bruce Smith, me, Allan Dias, Lu Edmonds. It really felt like a band. We were quite nutty and out there.
Every single one of us would be up to no good.

48. On stage in Toronto, Massey Hall, 23 November 1987. Our stage set in homage to Friedensreich Hundertwasser. It had slides, staircases, turrets -
one big adventure playground. On my head, I’m wearing a lobster and two squid. Lu, in the background, looks like a palm tree.

49. With Allan Dias onstage in front of 125,000 people at Rock Summer Festival, Tallinn, Estonia, 26 August 1988. You could feel the heat of that
many people’s breath. It’s like being close to a fireplace.

50. PiL in 1987. Our tasteful publicity shot from 1987. There’s a collection of outfits, eh?

51. The Sex Pistols live in Finsbury Park, 23 June 1996. I liked the idea of bursting out through the newspaper print at the start of the gig. It
wasn’t always physically possible, because you try and transport that much rolled-up newspaper. That’s a lot of newspaper to be dragging around on a crew bus.

52. So you can see my lovely ‘donkey jacket’ from the Finsbury Park gig. I sing like a donkey, I’m wearing a jacket –
it’s a donkey’s jacket. It’s by a Japanese designer, Issey Miyaki. I never met him, but I love his stuff.

53. Me dressed as Pinocchio. I wore that outfit onstage in really nutty places, like parts of Yugoslavia. If you go on looking like a cartoon
ludicrousness, it challenges an audience. ‘Hard’ comes in many shapes and sizes.

54. With Japanese audience, as captured for posterity by Johnny Rambo, November 1996. I like to connect with my crowd, but I have to be very careful
at some gigs, because they will tear you to pieces - lovingly.

55. With my Dad at the Q Awards, Park Lane Hotel, 29 October 2001. My Dad was very proud of that award. He put it up on the dashboard of his skip
truck - best place for it.

56. With ostriches on
I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!
, 27 January 2004. I’d forgotten that they’d smeared the
birds’ favourite food all over me - something like treacle - thus guaranteeing I’d be ripped to pieces. They forgot that the natural body odour of Johnny Rotten will repulse
anything.

57.
John Lydon Goes Ape
, Channel 5, Africa 2004. Having a bit of fun before we trekked 17 kms back into the jungle.

58.
John Lydon’s Shark Attack
, Channel 5, South Africa 2004. That’s how Rambo and I were dressed, swimming with great whites: it
was perceived by all the divers and trainers as borderline insanity, but I just knew clashing colours would be very off-putting for sharks. I proved the point, we’re still here.

59. With Rambo, Country Life Butter advert shoot, Lurgashall Village Green, 27 August 2008. What was going on in the background was really
interesting - Morris dancing!

60. Me and Nora on our boat. It doesn’t have a cocktail bar or anything like that. It’s only a little thing, but we like it.

61. That weird instrument is something PiL guitarist Lu gave me as a present. I always pretend I’m learning how to play it, so every now and
again I’ll send him a picture.

62. With Rambo, at Arsenal v Birmingham, League Cup Final 2011, Wembley. We won that one, didn’t we? Cough, cough.

63. Getting fitted for Jesus Christ Superstar, New Orleans, May 2014. I was going to be quite a repulsive character, but fully entertaining. An
absolute god-killer.

64. Jesus Christ Superstar cast and crew, on the day the show got cancelled, New Orleans, 30 May 2014. Includes Ben Forster second left, me centre,
JC Chasez next right, and Brandon Boyd far right. We’d all just been sacked, but we’re still smiling grimly through it.

65. PiL as we are today.
(l-r)
Bruce Smith, me, Scott Firth, Lu Edmonds. We’re a very happy bunch. We look out for each other.
There’s a lot of ideas going on all the time, and no ego fighting about who wants the biggest idea. It’s always, which is the best. That’s something I’ve strived for all my
life.

66. A collection of stuff I put together for a photo shoot at my house for the Wall Street Journal in April 2013. Dave Jackson put the giant PiL logo
together, built of the densest heaviest wood and steel plating. It’s weatherproof and absolutely immovable, the sheer weight of it. I’ve had it in the back yard in LA for 30
years.

67. Onstage with PiL at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom, 13 October 2012. It’s that moment where you think, ‘I was born to do this.
I was made for this purpose, at this moment.’

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