He replaced glen matlock on bass guitar in the sex pistols
I think Malcolm would be proud of that one! We should hire a fantastic publicist, tell all the people in the Bible belt in the US we’re coming to their towns, get them to pay us off and then don’t do it – and call it the Hush Money tour. Mind you, I have the best idea ever for if we did ever reform again. I certainly don’t get up in the morning thinking it might happen again, but then everything we’ve done over the years has come together at the last minute, so never say never, I guess. Talking of reunions, John Lydon’s now revived PiL and both his book Anger Is An Energy and Steve Jones’ Lonely Boy heavily hint that the Pistols are dead and buried for good. Growing up, we all learnt to play together and we’ve got something in common that only four people in the whole world have – when we’re in a room together and plug in, we’re the Sex Pistols! So I think we all thought that was something to be celebrated and also something to be rewarded handsomely for. I never had any problem with Sid, he was just a likeable idiot, but I think one of the best things about the reunions, especially the first one in 1996, was that it just felt right. Do you feel you’ve received your due for your role in the band at last?ĭo you mean financially or creatively? Artistically, yeah, to a degree. Įven now, people view you as the Paul McCartney of punk, the guy whose love of songcraft balanced out the anarchy in the Pistols. I’m also doing the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool and the Peace Train Festival in the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea soon, so life’s a minestrone, as someone once said. I did a charity thing there a couple of years back and Jools Holland, Mick Jones and The Pretenders’ Martin Chambers were involved, so that was great. That’s all very establishment for a Sex Pistol, isn’t it? RC : The Boisdale has an award-winning restaurant, which Tatler have voted London’s No 1 jazz venue. The ideal moment, then, to join the bassmeister as he shares some of the numerous spills and thrills from his rollercoaster, 40-year career, one that has taken him from teenage Sex Pistol to in-demand elder statesman. Gigging far and wide of late, he’s now back in the UK preparing for a five-night residency at swanky Canary Wharf venue The Boisdale. Just shy of his 62nd birthday, Matlock is chatty and eminently likeable. I ask him what he wants for doing it and he says, ‘That’s OK, you can play on my next album for nothing, too, and we can call it quits.’ That’s still how these things work in my world.” “Well, he comes down, does the riff and the lead solo and it’s great. “So, anyway, I call Chris up and say, ‘Look, I dig your guitar on that track, I’ve got a tune that needs that kind of thing, would you come down?’” he furthers. “I came up with a lick that sounded like something Spedding might play, but also reminded me of Bryan Ferry’s version of The Everly Brothers’ The Price Of Love, so I looked that up and guess what? It’s only Chris Spedding playing on it.
“Chris plays on the album’s last track, Keep On Pushing, which I’d recorded with Chris Musto, but I felt it still needed something,” Matlock says of this recent collaboration. As befits a man in possession of one of rock’s most enviable address books, his latest release Good To Go features contributions from The Stray Cats’ Slim Jim Phantom, former David Bowie guitarist Earl Slick and Chis Spedding, the man who helmed the Pistols’ very first studio demo in May 1976. When opportunity knocks, Matlock pursues a concurrent solo career which has so far resulted in half a dozen titles. Not short of ambition, however, he soon emerged from the shadow of punk’s most iconic band, founding the short-lived Rich Kids with future Ultravox frontman Midge Ure, and then established himself as one of rock’s most respected sidemen.Īfter over 40 years in the business, his CV entries include gigs and recordings with everyone from Iggy Pop to The Faces and Primal Scream. Despite being the most able musician in the early days of the Sex Pistols, Glen Matlock was ejected after the Anarchy In The UK single, but then infamously re-hired for the recording of God Save The Queen.