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John Lydon has slammed the reissue campaign surrounding the Sex Pistols’ seminal album ‘Never Mind The Bollocks…’.
Speaking to NME, the Public Image Ltd. frontman said that although he was happy the album was being “re-released properly” and given a sonic overhaul, he was keeping himself “distant” from the media furore.
A new super deluxe boxset of the LP is being released today (September 24) to celebrate the album’s 35th anniversary which includes music, videos, interviews pictures and replica memorabilia. But Lydon said: “As you must know, I’m keeping myself distant from that.”
Then, referencing the campaign earlier this year which tried to get “God Save The Queen” to the Number One spot in the Official UK Singles Chart to coincide with the Golden Jubilee, he continued: “It wasn’t right from the start. I don’t mind the records being re-released properly, that’s a good thing, but I don’t like the vacuous nonsense of trying to create false agendas and pretending to want to be Number One. Hello? Never did nothing for Number One. Not ever. Not in my entire life. What the fuck are you lot thinking of? I’m immediately at war with them on that.”
He continued: “It’s so ridiculous. They don’t realise they’re actually killing the fucking spirit of the thing. This is not KISS.”
The singer then went on to claim that Universal should have signed Public Image Ltd. rather than the Sex Pistols, stating: “There’s been bizarre, millions-of-pound offers for tours. I don’t want it for any price; I could do with the money, you know, but not on that level. I can’t write a song for them anymore. I’ve moved on. It’s over.”
“I don’t see any progress from working with the chaps,” he continued. “To me, they’re still pocketed 30 years back and they haven’t grown out of that. That’s not fair to me, to expect me to take 10 steps back and wreck what is a perfectly healthy thing that I’m doing right now. If Universal had any sense, they’d have signed fucking PiL and not the Pistols.”
Public Image Ltd. released their latest album This Is PiL in May of this year. The LP, which was the follow-up to the band’s 1992 effort That What Is Not, was their first official studio album in 20 years and was released through their own PiL Official label.