| The Plain Dealer Cleveland, OH Happy Ex-Pistol Refuses To Be Hung Up In The Past; Jim Sullivan John Lydon - once (and probably forever) known as Johnny Rotten - does not stomp around the world in a bad mood,contrary to popular belief. 'How could I walk around angry?' Lydon says, his voice rising in mock horror. 'I am not like that at all. I mean, when the song is about a specific subject, then I can be angry. But I am jolly and substantive.' At 42, he's happily married and living in Venice Beach, Calif. He's still funny, acerbic, and opinionated. 'Humour is the best way of dealing with complete and utter nonsense,' says the former singer for the Sex Pistols and for Public Image Ltd, a band whose career is reviewed in a recently released 4 CD set. The wild eyed punk rocker who in 1976 sang of the Sex Pistols as 'the poison in the human machine,' looks at humankind this way now 'I am more amused. I have always spent more time having fun with things than being miserable and down.' This goes back to the Pistols days; there was often a laugh mixed in with the vitriol. But Lydons idea of fun certainly includes expressing distain for the rampant banalities of todays culture. The pop music business, for which he has long expressed a deep loathing, is at a nadir in Lydons opinion. Consider the chart topping rap-metal group that is Limp Bizkit. 'Hello!' Lydon says, sounding a wake up call. 'The whole Limp Bizkit thing is completely manufactured. That band is so aptly named. It does sum up the industry right now One Big Limp Biz kit . (Their young fans) aren't interested in anything at all and they think its clever not to be interested. They spend a great deal of time unlearning and being victims, ultimately. Theres some people like that in every generation, but it seems to be the majority in this one. Let them enjoy being stupid, because in 20 years time they're going to be one sorry, sad sack of people, unemployingly ignorant. To see knowledge as something boring, and to have it celebrated...' Lydon is unwilling to don a salesman's jacket about the retrospective CD set, 'Plastic Box.' 'These are records I released a long time ago,' mused Lydon, of the package, 'and I'm kind of indifferent. If somebody likes, then I'm pleased. If not, well, so what? I have other things I'm starting on. You know, I'm always up to something.' Part of Lydons professed indifference to 'Plastic Box' probably has to do with the fact it was released by Virgin, a label with which he has long fueded and is no longer connected. 'Its an outrage that a label like Virgin would find great difficulty with Public Image Ltd and put out (bad music) like the Smashing Pumkins which does nothing but right out copy the '80s.' Post Punk Charge Public Image Ltd, which released its debut album in 1979, helped lead Englands post punk charge, making music that had the edge and intensity of punk but with less atntion to verse/chorus/verse 'rock' structures. The early PiL began as something of an idealistic collective. Various fallings out and frequent personnel shifts over the years left the public impression that Lydon plus whoever was PiL. With those changes came changes in sound a stark, percussive-heavy sound with the 'Metal Box' & 'Flowers of Romance' albums, a more melodic, but still enjoyably abrasive, approach with 'Album', a more traditional sounding rock era ushered in with 'Happy?' Public Image Ltd. flitted in and out of the alternative rock Zeitgeist, scoring with the songs 'This Is Not A Love Song', 'Rise' and 'Disappointed.' Lydon doesn't care for labels or quick sketches. Nor does he care for a common line of thought that suggests PiL flattened out and became more conservative over time. 'There aren't any phases, just different members,' he insists. The aforementioned theory 'is a very lazy outlook the British music press came up with and it's nonsense. This is one of the very few outfits that does not believe in compromise. I can't think of any two songs that are similar. Sometimes we messed about with an absolute, strict forumla for a rock song, or a country song or a pop song. Sometimes we took it 10 steps further. Whatever was necessary for the song. I think PiL played some of the smartest hard rock possible. In 1996, Lydon brought together his old mates in the Sex Pistols for a reunion tour, risking the nostalgia tag and suffering many sling and arrows. 'It was about paying alot of outstanding debts,' says Lydon. 'we went out without hardly any equipment and did it the way we always did it. No nonsense. Small guitar amps, a minimized drum kit. All the rest is garbage and fluff, a cover-up for basic inadequacy. Well, the Pistols were basically inadequate, I suppose, but it doesn't matter. Its the content. If you've got something to say, all the rest fits in naturally into play...' Lydon released a strong, but mostly unheard, solo album two years ago. PiL exists, he says, 'in my mind. It is very difficult to raise the money to finance it now. There is alot of animosity toward a group that won't play by the norms. We have always been viewed spitefully and it's always presumed we're doing (our music) to spite people. When in fact we're not. Everything is begrudged to PiL.' What is in the future? John Lydon, TV talk show host? VH1 has ashow in development with Lydon. 'Its not a set show,' he says, 'not a weepy guest celebrity nonsense. It does not have a format, which is murderous on any sort of writing. There might be music, their might not be. Everything will be on a tightrope. I don't want the world to expect any great, suave, well produced thing at all. This will raise more questions than answers.' |
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