Lydon's improbably long career with PiL is chronicled in the new documentary The Public Image Is Rotten (out September 14) in which everyone from Flea to Thurston Moore materializes to laud the band's long-tailed influence.

But he's made far more interesting-and brashly anti-commercial-music as the leader of the pioneering post-punk group Public Image Ltd (PiL), which went from 1979's abrasive and inscrutable Metal Box to an unlikely hit with 1986's apartheid-inspired 'Rise.' 'You should never allow yourself to be categorized or bracketed or contained or neatly packaged in somebody else's phraseology.'Īs Johnny Rotten, the sneering frontman for the Sex Pistols, he mocked the queen, swore on live TV and incited concert mayhem. 'I don't see music in categories like that,' the 62-year-old insists.

The group also went on a 40th anniversary European-Japanese tour.Īsked to comment on the digital release of the film, Lydon tells Variety, “From America’s favorite immigrant, thank you for having me and being oh! so kind.John Lydon deserves as much credit for the punk explosion as any other living human. The following year, they returned to the States to headline the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.īesides the film, 2018 also saw the release of a career-spanning box set. In 1993, Lydon announced he was shifting attention to his solo career and publishing his autobiography, which was titled “Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs.”įollowing the release of an interim PiL compilation, “Plastic Box,” in 1999, the group got back together in 2009 and returned to the stage for their first live shows in 17 years with Lydon joined by former PiL members Lu Edmonds on guitar, Bruce Smith on drums, and new member Scott Firth on bass.

“I really really had to fight for my survival.” “The media wanted to bury me,” says Lydon. “There was always a huge undercurrent of danger.” “We were quite a wild band,” original Public Image Ltd. The band was marked by changing lineups (“The list was damned well endless,” Lydon says in the movie) as well as musical variety, including rock, folk, dub and dance. We started rehearsing and the songs just flowed.” And one that would approach it without that media mockery attached. Having to deal with a management that was more into the sensationalism aspect of the thing. I wanted immediately to start a new band. “It’s not very much fun being in a band like that. “We were really thrown into the deep end right from the start,” Lydon says in the film.

Public image ltd johnny rotten