The band lasted just two and a half years but the Sex Pistols’ legacy lives on.
In 1976, the opening words of the group’s infamous debut single Anarchy in the UK terrified some people – and electrified others.
It was the beginning of the legendary punk band’s story, a whirlwind of controversy, drugs and even murder. And now those days are about to burst on to our screens in a new TV series directed by Danny Boyle.
The Disney+ show, titled Pistol, is based on guitarist Steve Jones’ memoir of his explosive success in The Sex Pistols alongside singer John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, drummer Paul Cook, bassist Glen Matlock and Matlock’s eventual replacement, Sid Vicious.
The band met as teenagers through the countercultural scene in London against the backdrop of the hardships that defined life in Britain in the early 1970s.
Music writer Dave Simpson, who is releasing his own book called Sex Pistols: I Wanna Be Me, reckons our present day is eerily similar.
He says: “Back then, it was strikes and piles of rubbish in the street and rampant inflation. Now it’s rampant inflation and cost of living crisis.
“It’s exactly the same, and there isn’t at the moment a Sex Pistols-type group articulating that.
“But I think the original still does it really well. I’m sure there’ll be a lot of people digging out their copy of God Save the Queen on the Jubilee day.”
The Sex Pistols would cause outrage with their song denouncing the monarchy, released in June 1977 to tie in with Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee.
But their first – and arguably most important – major controversy came six months earlier during an appearance on London Thames Television show, Today.
Queen were originally booked to appear with host Bill Grundy. But Freddie Mercury had toothache and was forced to pull out. EMI put forward The Sex Pistols. The band, who had released their debut single Anarchy in the UK three days earlier, lived up to their lawless lyrics.
Bladdered and belligerent, the Pistols sneered at Grundy’s questions during the 90-second live TV slot, culminating in Jones saying of the journalist: “What a f***ing rotter”. The pre-watershed obscenities triggered immediate outrage.
The Daily Mirror ran a front page story headlined “The Filth and The Fury!”.
Simpson believes it was the moment punk mania was unleashed.
He says: “By all accounts Malcolm McLaren, their manager, was initially horrified, ‘Oh my God, what have we done?’
“Then he realised, ‘This is going to be brilliant’.Whereas Steve Jones sees it as, in a way, the worst thing that could have happened to them.
“But maybe they wouldn’t have had the significance they have because of things like the Grundy programme. They became the bête noires and the real controversial act we know and love.”
The Pistols’ newfound notoriety did have some obvious drawbacks.
Of the 19 dates planned for their Anarchy Tour of the UK, 13 were cancelled.
And EMI’s record packers refused to handle the band’s first single, which was withdrawn after charting at No.38.
A Christian choir even protested over one the Pistols’ gigs in Wales, upset by their “Antichrist” line.
Soon their own label got fed up with the band’s antics too.
After a report about vomiting and spitting at Heathrow Airport while heading to Amsterdam in early 1977, EMI scrapped the band’s two-year record deal after just 90 days.
And tensions within the band were rising too. Matlock quit after growing to despise Rotten, whom he later described as “conceited, arrogant and stroppy, just for the sake of it”.
All of a sudden, at the height of public interest in the band, they were left without a label or a bass player
Enter Sid Vicious. Born John Ritchie, Vicious had punk pedigree – he once assaulted an NME journalist with a bicycle chain – and even if he couldn’t play bass, just his pogoing dance on stage was enough.
Soon after joining, Sid met and started a relationship with Nancy Spungen, a self-destructive heroin addict from Philadelphia who’d funded her habit with sex work.
In May 1997, the Pistols were rescued by Richard Branson, who signed them to Virgin Records to release God Save the Queen.
The song, which blasts the Queen’s “fascist regime”, was released to coincide with her Silver Jubilee celebrations the following month.
As expected, the controversy was intense. WH Smith and Woolworths refused to stock the single, TV adverts were blocked, and the BBC outright banned the song.
But the record still hit No2 and it would later emerge chart compilers deliberately changed the way sales were counted for a week to stop it beating Rod Stewart’s The First Cut is the Deepest to the top spot.
In October 1977 the Pistols finally released their first and only album, Never Mind the B******s, Here’s The Sex Pistols”.
Again the work was subject to bans, but the record triumphed all the same.
It debuted at No1 in the UK, going on to spend 48 weeks in the Top 75 and ultimately being considered one of the most important albums of all time.
But despite their success, the band completely unravelled just a few months later.
At the end of a tumultuous US tour in early 1978, Lydon quit.
Seven months after the band split, Nancy was found stabbed to death in New York’s Chelsea Hotel.
Vicious was arrested and charged with the 20-year-old’s murder, but was later bailed. On his release from Rikers Island in New York, he died of a heroin overdose aged just 21.
The Sex Pistols may have self-destructed but their influence was enormous. Simpson says: “I’ve spoken to so many stars over the years, whether it was Mick Hucknall or Martin Fry.
“Their lives were changed by the Sex Pistols. The impact is ongoing – the ripples have never stopped spreading.”
Sex Pistols: I Wanna Be Me by Dave Simpson, out September 15, Palazzo Editions. Pistol is on Disney+ May 31.
