Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 26, 1994 TAG: 9405260066
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAVID BAUDER ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: ALBANY, N.Y. LENGTH: Medium
``I had to find some way of hiding my shyness,'' said the impish Mr. Rotten, real name John Lydon, in an interview. ``And I did rather well.''
The real story, of course, is a bit more complicated. And for the first time in more than 15 years, the man behind it is talking about it.
Lydon, a cranky sort who says he has no time for nostalgia, has written a book about his time as lead singer of the Sex Pistols, the most enduring symbol of music's punk rock era in the 1970s.
Spite has something to do with it. Lydon wants to strike back at others who have written or talked extensively about their Sex Pistols experience - particularly manager Malcolm McLaren and former bass player Glen Matlock.
But the biggest surprise of ``Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs'' is Lydon's prickly sense of humor and the feeling that, despite his grouchiness, he's really quite proud of it all.
He writes about growing up in a London slum, son of poor Irish parents. ``There used to be enormous rats that would come up from underneath the sink ... Great big sewer rats. I remember because I watched them kill a cat. They tore it to pieces,'' he wrote.
The Sex Pistols were born out of boredom - with music, with life - and Lydon's love of provoking trouble.
Little did he know how well he would succeed. Now, when the shocking is routine in popular music, Sex Pistols music sounds almost tame. But in its era, the loud, amateurish guitar rock and Rotten's eerie voice sounded like a kick in the teeth to conventional rock.
People hated the Sex Pistols, to the point of physically attacking band members. ``I didn't make life easy for myself,'' he said.
Lydon found an odd inspiration for Johnny Rotten: Sir Laurence Olivier's performance as Richard III. Olivier made the character ``nasty, evil, conniving, selfish ... riveting in his excessive disgust.''
``I had never seen a pop singer present himself quite that way,'' Lydon wrote. ``You're supposed to be a nice pretty boy, sing lovely songs, and coo at the girls.''
Lydon's unnerving stare was the result of a childhood bout with spinal meningitis. And the only reason he wore safety pins ``is because a sleeve fell off my jacket. It wasn't a fashion statement.''
The book begins where the Sex Pistols ended, with Lydon stranded in San Francisco in January 1978. The band had disintegrated, and Lydon was left to convince a disbelieving record company that he needed money to get home.
``Malcolm knew he had lost control, so he was just basically creating trouble,'' he said. ``And he managed to divide us as a band. That was the downfall.''
In fact, Rotten's famous last words delivered from the stage of San Francisco's Winterland Theater - ``ever get the feeling you've been cheated?'' - are directed more at himself than his audience.
He consistently attacks McLaren, the boutique owner whom Lydon feels gets too much credit for guiding the Sex Pistols.
``It's all kind of been twisted around to where Malcolm is this genius, masterminding God-knows-what,'' he said. ``I find that rather offensive, to find that my role in all this had been diminished to nothing more than a voice. I wrote those bloody songs, you know, and I'd like some thanks for it.''
Sid Vicious, Lydon's old school chum, emerges almost as a sympathetic character. Lydon describes how Vicious changed as he developed the drug addiction that ultimately killed him. Lydon regrets that he wasn't able to help him.
In his book, Lydon allows other voices to tell stories along with him, including his father, Pretenders leader Chrissie Hynde and Billy Idol. It makes for a punk narrative, with stories occasionally repeated and contradictions left intact.
He has little patience for many of the bands that cite the Sex Pistols as influence, saving particular disgust for Guns N' Roses.
But he believes the Pistols left a legacy.
``I do not think that you can view music before the Sex Pistols in quite the same way,'' he said. ``What you had before was merely youth movements being conned out of vast amounts of money. Since then, everything is up for question. We made an industry and we made an audience look at that industry.''
by CNB