Don’t need no religion

The former front man of punk band, the Sex Pistols, John Lydon is still making music, and as outspoken as ever. He chats with Lorraine Wilson about religion, racism and the royals, ahead of his Dundee gig

Large gigs can be emotionless and it’s hard to break the ice. It’s pointless. What you’re doing is raking money in and making everyone not like you

When greeted by a “Hellllooo oooooo Dundee eeeeee!” at the other end of the phone, there’s no point in asking if it’s John Lydon on the other end of the transatlantic call. It couldn’t be anyone else. If the greeting is effusive, then the news that the Dundee gig on the upcoming Public Image Limited (PIL) tour is the first to sell out is met by further unexpected exuberance. “I’m happy for that! I can now go to the grave saying, ‘I’m big in Dundee’.”

When the announcement came that Lydon would be bringing PIL to The Church on Ward Road, with its capacity of hundreds rather than thousands, some refused to believe it, particularly as this tour marks the band’s 40th anniversary.

Lydon disapproves of playing large venues. “No. No! Don’t want to. You lose the empathy. I see the tour as a collection of pub meets. You can be more intimate with people and reveal more – it’s for the betterment of yourself and everyone else in the hall.

“Large gigs can be emotionless and it’s hard to break the ice. It’s pointless. What you’re doing is raking in money and making everyone not like you.

“I want to show vulnerability and I can’t do that in an arena. Well I can when I think about it!” he laughs, “I have done… but I won’t.”

Pil’s longevity, opposed to three years of the Sex Pistols, makes it hardly surprising that he refers to them as “my first band”.

“This tour is a 40-year celebration of whatever else I’ve done against humanity.

“I’ve described PIL over the years as a church without religion, so the irony of the Dundee venue is not lost on me.”

The word religion is delivered with a naughty growl. Now 62, Lydon is difficult to capture on the printed page. His voice swoops and falls, and although any writer tries to avoid a forest of exclamation marks, it’s often the only way to communicate his rollercoaster speech patterns. It’s also like herding verbal cats – trying for supplementary questions is impossible – but endlessly entertaining.

Coming out of his “first band” in his early 20s meant there was no strategy. “I never had any expectations for PIL, just like I never did in the first band. I didn’t know if we would be liked or disliked.

“This is what I feel the need to do and if people like it, all well and fine. I’ve only got one life to live… That sounds like a soap opera title… in fact it is! Here in America.”

Lydon moved to the US in the early 1980s, when his treatment in the UK and Ireland “I was locked up for a couple of weeks in Mountjoy Jail in Dublin, when my face assaulted some policemen’s fists,” was affecting his everyday life.

He sees the land of his birth with the love of an ex-pat but distance of a social commentator.