Sex Pistols

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The Sex Pistols are an English punk rock band formed in London in 1975. Although their initial career lasted just two and a half years, they became culturally influential in popular music. The band initiated the punk movement in the United Kingdom and later inspired many punk, post-punk and alternative rock musicians, while their clothing and hairstyles were a significant influence on the early punk image.

The Sex Pistols' first line-up consisted of vocalist Johnny Rotten (byname of John Lydon), guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook, and bassist Glen Matlock, with Matlock replaced by Sid Vicious in early 1977. Under the management of Malcolm McLaren, the band gained widespread attention from British press after swearing live on-air during a December 1976 television interview. Their May 1977 single "God Save the Queen", which described the monarchy as a "fascist regime", was released to coincide with national celebrations for the Queen's Silver Jubilee. The song was promptly banned from being played by the BBC and by nearly every independent radio station in Britain, making it the most censored record in British history.

Their sole studio album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (1977) was a UK number one and is regarded as seminal in the development of punk rock. In January 1978, at the final gig of a difficult and media-hyped tour of the US, Rotten announced the band's break-up live on stage. Over the next few months, the three remaining members recorded songs for McLaren's film of the Sex Pistols' story, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. Vicious died of a heroin overdose in February 1979 following his arrest for the alleged murder of his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen. Rotten, Jones, Cook and Matlock later reunited for a successful tour in 1996.Template:Sfn Further one-off performances and short tours followed over the next decade. In 2024, Jones, Cook, Matlock, and guest vocalist Frank Carter, reformed the Sex Pistols to play a series of shows that year, with further dates scheduled for 2025.

The Sex Pistols have been recognised as a highly influential band.Template:Sfn In 2006, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame although, true to their image, they refused to attend the ceremony, with Rotten referring to the museum as "a piss stain".Template:Sfn

History

Formation

The Sex Pistols evolved from the Strand (sometimes known as the Swankers), formed in London in 1972 by teenagers Steve Jones on vocals, Paul Cook on drums and Wally Nightingale on guitar. According to Jones, both he and Cook played on instruments he had stolen.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The band regularly hung out at two clothing shops on the King's Road in Chelsea, London: John Krivine and Steph Raynor's Acme Attractions Template:Sfn Template:Sfn and Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die. McLaren's and Westwood's shop had opened in 1971 as Let It Rock, with a 1950s revival Teddy Boy theme. It had been renamed in 1972 to focus on another revival trend, the '50s rocker look.Template:Sfn The shop then became a focal point of the early London punk rock scene, bringing together participants such as the future Sid Vicious, Marco Pirroni, Gene October, and Mark Stewart.Template:Sfn Jordan, the wildly styled shop assistant, is credited with "pretty well single-handedly paving the punk look".Template:Sfn

In late 1974, Jones asked McLaren to take over the band's management. Glen Matlock, an art student who occasionally worked at McLaren's and Westwood's shop, joined as bassist.Template:Sfn McLaren and Westwood conceived a new identity for their shop: renamed Sex, it changed its focus away from retro 1950s couture to S&M-inspired "anti-fashion".Template:Sfn Template:Sfn After managing and promoting the New York Dolls, McLaren returned to London in May 1975 and began to take more of an interest in the Strand.Template:Sfn

The group had been rehearsing regularly, overseen by Bernard Rhodes (who would later go on to manage the Clash) and performing live. Soon after McLaren's return, Nightingale was dismissed and Jones, uncomfortable as frontman, took over guitar.Template:Sfn McLaren had been talking with the New York Dolls' Sylvain Sylvain about coming over to England to front the group. When those plans fell through, McLaren, Rhodes and the band began looking locally for a new member to assume the lead vocal duties.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn As described by Matlock, "Everyone had long hair back then, even the milkman, so what we used to do was if someone had short hair we would stop them in the street and ask them if they fancied themselves as a singer".Template:Sfn For instance, Midge Ure, the later front man of Rich Kids (with Matlock) and Ultravox, claims to have been approached, but refused the offer.Template:Sfn With the search for a lead singer proving fruitless, McLaren made several calls to Richard Hell, who also turned down the invitation.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Lydon joins

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The Sex Pistols, early 1976; from left: Rotten, Jones, Matlock and Cook

Describing the social context in which the band formed, John Lydon said that mid-seventies Britain was "a very depressing placeTemplate:Spaces... completely run-down, there was trash on the streets, total unemployment, just about everybody was on strikeTemplate:Nbsp... if you came from the wrong side of the tracksTemplate:Nbsp... then you had no hope in hell and no career prospects at all."Template:Sfn

In August 1975, Rhodes spotted Lydon, then 19 years old, wearing a Pink Floyd T-shirt with the words 'I Hate' handwritten above the band's name and holes scratched through the Floyd members' eyes.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Soon after, either Rhodes or McLaren asked Lydon to audition.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn During the session, Lydon improvised to Alice Cooper's "I'm Eighteen" on the Sex jukebox. According to Jones, "he came in with green hair. I thought he had a really interesting face. I liked his look. He had the 'I Hate Pink Floyd' T-shirt on...held together with safety pins... he was a real arsehole—but smart."Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Jones renamed Lydon as "Johnny Rotten" as a joke, apparently because of his particularly bad teeth.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Cook had a full-time job and was threatening to quit the band. New Musical Express journalist Nick Kent occasionally played second guitar with the band but left acrimoniously when Lydon joined.<ref>O'Hagan, Sean. "Nick Kent: 'I was in the right place at the right time, on the wrong drugs' Template:Webarchive". The Guardian, 9 January 2021 Retrieved 8 November 2023</ref> An advertisement was placed in Melody Maker looking for a "whizz kid guitarist ... not older than 20 ... not worse looking than Johnny Thunders."Template:Sfn As Steve New was the most talented guitarist to audition, he was asked to join. However, Jones' playing had greatly improved, and New left a month after joining the band.Template:Sfn

File:Sex Pistols, August 1975.jpg

August 1975, from left: Rotten, Matlock, Jones, and Cook

After considering band name options such as Le Bomb, Subterraneans, the Damned, Beyond, Teenage Novel, Kid Gladlove, and Crème de la Crème, they decided on Sex Pistols.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Matlock said the band decided on the name while McLaren was in the United States before Rotten joined. Jon Savage says the name was not firmly settled on until just before their first show in November 1975. McLaren later said the name derived "from the idea of a pistol, a pin-up, a young thing, a better-looking assassin". Not given to modesty, false or otherwise, he added: "[I] launched the idea in the form of a band of kids who could be perceived as being bad."Template:Sfn The group began writing original material: Rotten was the lyricist and Matlock the primary melody writer (though their first collaboration, "Pretty Vacant", had all lyrics by Matlock, which Rotten tweaked a bit); official credit was shared equally among the four.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Their first gig was arranged by Matlock, then studying at Saint Martin's School of Art. The band played at the school in November 1975,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn supporting the pub rock group Bazooka Joe. They performed several covers including the Who's "Substitute", the Small Faces' "Whatcha Gonna Do About It", and the Monkees' "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone".Template:Sfn

Early following

The Saint Martins gig was followed by performances at colleges around London. The band's core early followers—including Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin and Billy Idol, Jordan, and Soo Catwoman—came to be known as the Bromley Contingent, after the suburban south-east London borough that several of them were from.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Their cutting-edge fashion, much of it supplied by Sex, ignited a trend that was adopted by the new fans the band attracted.Template:Sfn McLaren and Westwood saw the incipient London punk movement as a vehicle for more than just couture. They were influenced by the May 1968 radical uprising in Paris, particularly by the ideology and agitations of the Situationists.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn These interests were shared with Jamie Reid, a friend of McLaren who took over the design of the band's visual imagery in the spring of 1976.Template:Sfn His cut-up lettering—based on notes left by kidnappers or terrorists—were used to create the classic Sex Pistols logo and many subsequent designs for the band, although they were actually introduced by McLaren's friend Helen Wellington-Lloyd.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Reid has said that he used "to talk to John [Lydon] a lot about the SituationistsTemplate:Nbsp... the Sex Pistols seemed the perfect vehicle to communicate ideas directly to people who weren't getting the message from left-wing politics".Template:Sfn McLaren was also arranging for the band's first photo sessions.Template:Sfn According to the writer Jon Savage, Lydon "with his green hair, hunched stance and ragged lookTemplate:Nbsp...[Lydon] looked like a cross between Uriah Heep and Richard Hell".Template:Sfn Template:Refn

Their first gig to attract attention was as a supporting act for Eddie and the Hot Rods, a leading pub rock group, at the Marquee in February 1976.Template:Sfn The band's first review appeared in the NME, accompanied by a brief interview in which Jones declared, "Actually we're not into music. We're into chaos."Template:Sfn Among those who read the article were two students at the Bolton Institute of Technology, Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley, who headed down to London in search of the Sex Pistols. After chatting with McLaren at Sex, they saw the band at a couple of late February gigs.Template:Sfn The two friends immediately began organising their own Pistols-style group, Buzzcocks. As Devoto later put it, "My life changed the moment that I saw the Sex Pistols."Template:Sfn

The Pistols soon played other important venues, notably playing at Oxford Street's 100 Club for the first time on 30 March.Template:Sfn On 3 April, they played for the first time at the Nashville, supporting the 101ers. The pub rock group's lead singer, Joe Strummer, saw the Pistols for the first time that night—and recognised punk rock as the future.Template:Sfn A return gig at the Nashville on 23 April highlighted the band's growing musical competence. However Westwood started a fight with another audience member which also dragged in McLaren and Rotten.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Cook later said, the "fight at the Nashville: that's when all the publicity got hold of it and the violence started creeping inTemplate:Nbsp... I think everybody was ready to go and we were the catalyst."Template:Sfn

The leading New York punk band, the Ramones, released their debut album on 23 April 1976. Although regarded as seminal to the growth of English punk rock, with Cook and Jones being fans of the album,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref> Lydon has repeatedly rejected that it influenced the Sex Pistols, claiming that they "were all long-haired and of no interest to me. I didn't like their image, what they stood for, or anything about them". Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Cook also denied being influenced by their music, stating, "the Ramones and the Pistols were different animals, with a different flavour. They were more basic, three-chord rock’n’roll", but added that the release of the album made the Pistols think, "We’d better crack on here.”<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On 11 May, the Pistols began a four-week Tuesday night residency at the 100 Club.Template:Sfn They devoted the rest of the month to touring small cities and towns in the north of England and recording demos in London with producer and recording artist Chris Spedding.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The following month they played their first gig in Manchester, arranged by Devoto and Shelley. The Sex Pistols' 4 June performance at the Lesser Free Trade Hall set off a punk rock boom in the city.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

On 4 and 6 July, respectively, two newly formed London punk rock acts—the Clash, with Strummer as lead vocalist, and the Damned—made their live debuts opening for the Sex Pistols. On their off-night on the 5th, the Pistols attended a Ramones gig at Dingwalls, like virtually everyone else at the centre of the early London punk scene.Template:Sfn During a return Manchester gig on 20 July, the Pistols premiered a new song, "Anarchy in the U.K.", reflecting elements of the radical ideologies to which Rotten was being exposed. According to Savage, "there seems little doubt that Lydon was fed material by Vivienne Westwood and Jamie Reid, which he then converted into his own lyric".Template:Sfn

"Anarchy in the U.K." was among the seven original songs recorded in a demo session overseen by the band's sound engineer, Dave Goodman.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn McLaren organised a major event for 29 August at The Screen on the Green in London's Islington district, with the Buzzcocks and the Clash opening for the Pistols.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Refn Three days later, the band were in Manchester to tape their first television appearance, for Tony Wilson's So It Goes.Template:Sfn The Pistols played their first gig outside Britain on 3 September, at the opening of the Chalet du Lac disco in Paris. The Bromley Contingent were in attendance and Siouxsie was harassed by locals due to her outfit with bare breasts.Template:Sfn The following day, the So It Goes performance aired.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn On 13 September, the Pistols began a tour of Britain.Template:Sfn A week later, back in London, they headlined the opening night of the 100 Club Punk Special. Organised by McLaren (for whom the word "festival" had too much of a hippie connotation), the event was "considered the moment that was the catalyst for the years to come".Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Belying the common perception that punk bands couldn't play their instruments, contemporary music press reviews, later critical assessments of concert recordings, and testimonials by fellow musicians indicate that the Pistols had developed into a tight, ferocious live band.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn As Rotten tested out wild vocalisation styles, the instrumentalists experimented "with overload, feedback and distortionTemplate:Nbsp... pushing their equipment to the limit".Template:Sfn

Mainstream fame

Template:See also

Template:Listen The record label EMI signed the band on a two-year contract on 8 October 1976.Template:Sfn The Pistols were soon in a studio recording a full-dress session with Dave Goodman. According to Matlock, "The idea was to get the spirit of the live performance. We were pressurized to make it faster and faster."Template:Sfn The results were rejected by the band. Chris Thomas, who had produced Roxy Music and mixed Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, was brought in to produce.Template:Sfn The band's first single, "Anarchy in the U.K.", was released on 26 November 1976.Template:Sfn The musician and journalist John Robb later described the record's impact: "From Steve Jones' openingTemplate:Nbsp... descending chords, to Johnny Rotten'sTemplate:Nbsp... sneering vocals, this song is the perfect statementTemplate:Nbsp... a stunningly powerful piece of punk politics."Template:Sfn Colin Newman of the early post-punk band Wire, described it as "the clarion call of a generation".Template:Sfn

The lyrics of "Anarchy in the U.K." linked punk to a newly politicised and nihilistic attitude, typified by phrases such as "I am an anti-Christ" and "Destroy!".Template:Sfn The single's packaging and visual promotion also broke new ground. Reid and McLaren came up with the idea of selling the record in a completely wordless, featureless black sleeve.Template:Sfn The primary image associated with the single was Reid's "anarchy flag" poster: a ripped up and partly safety-pinned back together Union Flag, with the song and band names clipped across the middle. These and other of Reid's images for the band quickly became punk iconography.Template:Sfn

File:The Fucking Rotter 31 Second.ogg

Clip from the 1976 interview with by Bill Grundy

Template:AnchorThe Pistols' behaviour as much as their music attracted national media attention. On 1 December 1976, the band, accompanied by members of the Bromley Contingent, repeatedly swore during an early evening live broadcast of Thames Television's Today programme, hosted by Bill Grundy. Appearing as last-minute replacements for Queen, the band and their entourage were offered drinks as they waited to go on air. During the interview, encouraged by Grundy, Jones said the band had "fucking spent" its label advance, and Rotten used the word "shit". Grundy—who later claimed to have been drunk—then attempted to flirt with Siouxsie Sioux, who replied that she had "always wanted to meet" him. Grundy responded, "Did you really? We'll meet afterwards, shall we?", prompting Jones to repeatedly swear.Template:Sfn

File:Filthandfury.png

Daily Mirror front page, 2 December 1976

Although the programme was only broadcast in the London region, the ensuing media coverage occupied the tabloid newspapers for days. The Daily Mirror famously ran the headline "The Filth and the Fury!", and asked "Who are these punks?";Template:Sfn other papers such as the Daily Express ("Fury at Filthy TV Chat") and the Daily Telegraph ("4-Letter Words Rock TV") followed suit.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Thames Television suspended Grundy and the interview effectively ended his career.<ref>"Grundy banned Template:Webarchive". The Guardian, December 1976. Retrieved 16 October 2023</ref>Template:Sfn Steve Jones reflected; Grundy was the big dividing line in the Sex Pistols' story. Before it, we were all about the music, but from then on it was all about the media. In some ways it was our finest moment, but in others it was the beginning of the endTemplate:Nbsp... In terms of the Sex Pistols having any kind of long-term future, this sudden acceleration was the worst thing that could possibly have happened.Template:Sfn

The interview made the band a household name overnight in Britain and brought punk into the mainstream.<ref name=fader>Template:Cite web</ref> They launched the UK Anarchy Tour, supported by the Clash and Johnny Thunders' band the Heartbreakers, over from New York. The Damned were briefly part of the tour, before McLaren kicked them off. Media coverage was intense, and many of the concerts were cancelled by organisers or local authorities; of approximately twenty scheduled gigs, only about seven actually took place.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Following a campaign in the south Wales press, a crowd including carol singers and a Pentecostal preacher, protested against the group outside a show in Caerphilly.Template:Sfn Packers at the EMI plant refused to handle the band's single.Template:Sfn London Conservative councillor Bernard Brook Partridge said, "Most of these groups would be vastly improved by sudden death. The worst of the punk rock groups I suppose currently are the Sex Pistols. They are unbelievably nauseatingTemplate:Nbsp... the antithesis of humankind. I would like to see somebody dig a very, very large, exceedingly deep hole and drop the whole bloody lot down it."Template:Sfn Template:Refn

Three concerts were arranged in the Netherlands for January 1977. The band, hungover, boarded a plane at London Heathrow Airport early on 4 January; a few hours later, the Evening News was reporting that the band had "vomited and spat their way" to the flight.Template:Sfn Despite categorical denials by the EMI representative who accompanied the group, the label, which was under political pressure, released the band from their contract.Template:Sfn In one journalist's later description, the Pistols had "stoked a moral panic Template:Nbsp... precipitating the cancellation of gigs, the band's expulsion from their EMI record deal and lurid tabloid tales of punk's 'shock cultTemplate:'".Template:Sfn As McLaren fielded offers from other labels, the band went into the studio for a round of recordings with Goodman, their last with either him or Matlock.Template:Sfn

Sid Vicious replaces Matlock

File:SexPistolsNorway1977.jpg

The Sex Pistols (Sid Vicious left, Steve Jones centre, and Johnny Rotten right) performing in Trondheim, Norway, July 1977

On 28 February 1977 McLaren announced Matlock was leaving the band because Matlock "went on too long about Paul McCartney."Template:Sfn Although Matlock says he left voluntarily, Jones claimed in a contemporary interview that he was sacked because he "liked the Beatles".Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn In 2005, Jones admitted that although Matlock was a good songwriter, he "didn't look like a Sex Pistol".Template:Sfn Template:Refn In 1990, Matlock described the reason as his bitter relationship with Rotten, exacerbated—in Matlock's account—by Rotten's attitude "once he'd had his name in the papers".Template:Sfn Jon Savage suggests that Rotten pushed Matlock out to demonstrate his power and autonomy from McLaren.Template:Sfn

Matlock was replaced by Rotten's friend Sid Vicious, previously the drummer of two inner circle punk bands, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Flowers of Romance. According to Matlock, Rotten wanted Vicious in the band because Template:Nowrap of him against Steve and Paul, it would become him and Sid against Steve and Paul. He always thought of it in terms of opposing camps."Template:Sfn According to Jones, "to Cookie [Paul Cook] and me, it just didn't make any sense to have someone who couldn't play a note trying to fill Glen's shoes, but it was never about the music for McLarenTemplate:Nbsp... from the minute Sid joined the band, nothing was ever normal again."Template:Sfn

Julien Temple, then a film student McLaren had employed to create a comprehensive audiovisual record of the band, agrees: "Sid was John's protégé in the group, really. The other two just thought he was crazy."Template:Sfn McLaren later stated that, much earlier in the band's career, Westwood had told him he should "get the guy called John [Sid Vicious] who came to the store a couple of times" to be the singer. When Lydon was recruited, Westwood said McLaren had recruited "the wrong John".<ref name=Blood>Blood on the Turntable: The Sex Pistols (dir. Steve Crabtree), BBC documentary (2004).</ref>

File:Sex Pistols i Norge, 1977 (6262827245).jpg

The Sex Pistols on stage at the Student Society in Trondheim, 1977

Vicious was arrested after hurling a glass that shattered and blinded a girl in one eye at a Damned gig at the 100 Club Punk Special. He served time in a remand centre and the incident contributed to the 100 Club banning punk bands.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn He assaulted Nick Kent with a bicycle chain during a gig at the 100 Club.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn According to McLaren, "when Sid joined he couldn't play guitar but his craziness fitted into the structure of the band."Template:Sfn "Everyone agreed he had the look," Lydon later recalled, but musical skill was another matter. "The first rehearsalsTemplate:Nbsp... with Sid were hellish".Template:Sfn Marco Pirroni, who had performed with Vicious in Siouxsie and the Banshees, has said, "After that, it was nothing to do with music anymore. It would just be for the sensationalism and scandal of it all. Then it became the Malcolm McLaren story".Template:Sfn

Being in the Pistols had a progressively destructive effect on Vicious. As Lydon observed, "Up to that time, Sid was absolutely childlike. Everything was fun and giggly. Suddenly he was a big pop star. Pop star status meant press, a good chance to be spotted in all the right places, adoration."Template:Sfn Early in 1977, he met Nancy Spungen, an emotionally disturbed drug addict and sometime prostitute from New York.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Spungen introduced Vicious to heroin, and their emotional codependency alienated him from the other band members. Lydon later wrote, "we did everything to get rid of NancyTemplate:Nbsp... She was killing him. I was absolutely convinced this girl was on a slow suicide missionTemplate:Nbsp... She wanted to take Sid with her."Template:Sfn

A&M, Virgin, and Jubilee week

The Pistols signed to A&M Records at a March 1977 press ceremony held outside Buckingham Palace. Afterwards, intoxicated, they went to the A&M offices where Vicious reportedly broke a toilet bowl and Rotten verbally abused members of the label's staff.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn A couple of days later, the Pistols got into a fight with another band at a club; one of Rotten's friends threatened a friend of A&M's English director; A&M broke their contract with the Pistols on 16 March. Although 25,000 copies of the "God Save the Queen" single had already been pressed, nearly all were destroyed.Template:Sfn

File:Sex Pistols - God Save the Queen.jpg

Jamie Reid's "God Save the Queen" sleeve; in 2001, it was named the greatest record cover of all time by Q magazine.Template:Sfn

Vicious first performed with the Pistols at London's Notre Dame Hall on 28 March.Template:Sfn That May, the Pistols signed with Virgin Records, their third label in little more than half a year. During Virgin's release campaign for "God Save the Queen", workers at the pressing plant laid down tools in protest at the song's lyrics and Reid's cover art of Queen Elizabeth II with her face obscured by cutout letters forming the song title and the band name.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn The single was eventually released on 27 May.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Its lyrics–"God save the queen / the fascist regime..She ain't no human being / and there's no future / in England's dreaming"–lead to widespread outcry from the British tabloids,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn leading to several major chains withdrawing it from sale.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn It was banned by BBC radio and television and every independent radio station, making it, according to the music critic Alexis Petridis, the "most heavily censored record in British history".Template:Sfn The song's social impact has been described by the musician and journalist Sean O'Hagan as "punk's crowning glory".Template:Sfn

The single was timed to coincide with the height of Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee celebrations. By Jubilee weekend, a week and a half after the record's release, it had sold more than 150,000 copies. On 7 June, McLaren chartered a boat to have the Sex Pistols perform while sailing the River Thames, passing Westminster Pier and the Houses of Parliament. The event was conceived as a mockery of the Queen's river procession planned for two days later, but ended in chaos. Police launches forced the boat to dock, and constabulary surrounded the gangplanks at the pier. While the band members and their equipment were hustled down a side stairwell, McLaren, Westwood, and many of the band's entourage were arrested.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Listen

"God Save the Queen" opened at number 2 on the official UK record chart for Jubilee week, behind Rod Stewart's "I Don't Want to Talk About It". McLaren claimed that CBS Records, who distributed both singles, told him that the Pistols were outselling Stewart two to one. There is evidence that exceptional measures were taken by the British Phonographic Institute, which oversaw the compilation of the UK chart, to exclude sales from Virgin's shops.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Attacks on punk fans rose and in mid-June, Rotten was assaulted by a knife-wielding gang outside Islington's Pegasus pub, causing tendon damage to his left arm. Reid and Cook were beaten up in other incidents; three days after the Pegasus assault, Rotten was attacked again.Template:Sfn According to Cook, after the "God Save the Queen" single and the Grundy incident, the Pistols were public enemy number one, and there was a rivalry between gangs of rockabillies, Teddy Boys and punks, which often led to violence. By that August the band were unable to publicise UK dates, forcing them to tour pseudonymously as the SPOTS (Sex Pistols on Tour Secretly) to avoid cancellation.Template:Sfn

McLaren had long wanted to make a movie featuring the Sex Pistols. Temple's first task was to assemble Sex Pistols Number 1, a 25-minute mosaic of footage from various sources, much of it refilmed from television screens.Template:Sfn Number 1 was often screened at concert venues before the band took stage. Using media footage from the Thames incident, Temple created another short, Jubilee Riverboat (aka Sex Pistols Number 2).Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Never Mind the Bollocks

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File:Thesexpistols-logo.svg

Jamie Reid's logo for Never Mind the Bollocks

Beginning in early 1977, Lydon, Jones and Cook began to record tracks for their debut album with producer Chris Thomas. Initially titled God Save Sex Pistols, it became known during the summer as Never Mind the Bollocks.Template:Sfn Vicious's lack of musical ability became apparent soon after he joined the sessions; according to Jones they "tried as hard as possible not to let [Vicious] anywhere near the studio".Template:Sfn Although Matlock was asked to return as a session musician, Jones ultimately played most of the bass parts.Template:Sfn Vicious's bass is reportedly present on "Bodies": According to Jones, "we just let him do it. When he left I dubbed another part on, leaving Sid's down low."Template:Sfn Jones says that Vicious showed up for the "God Save the Queen" session, while Lydon remembers him being there during the recording of an unused version of "Submission".Template:Sfn Two further singles were released from the Thomas sessions; "Pretty Vacant" on 1 JulyTemplate:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn and "Holidays in the Sun" on 14 October.Template:Sfn Each was a top-ten hit.Template:Sfn

The album was released on 28 October 1977.Template:Sfn Rolling Stone described it as "the most exciting rock & roll record of the Seventies".Template:Sfn Some critics were disappointed that the album contained all four previously released singles, and dismissed it as little more than a "greatest hits" compilation.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Containing the track "Bodies"—in which Rotten says "fuck" six times—and "God Save the Queen", and featuring the word bollocks in its title, the album was banned by Boots, WHSmith and Woolworths.Template:Sfn The Conservative shadow minister for education condemned it as "a symptom of the way society is declining", and both the Independent Television Companies Association and Association of Independent Radio Contractors banned its advertisements.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Nonetheless, advance sales were sufficient to make it number one on the album chart.Template:Sfn

The album title led to a high-profile legal case after a Nottingham Virgin Records store was threatened with prosecution for displaying "indecent printed matter". The case was thrown out when defending QC John Mortimer produced an expert witness who established that bollocks was an Old English term for a small ball, that the word appeared in place names without causing local communities erotic disturbance, and that in the nineteenth century bollocks had been used as a nickname for clergymen: "Clergymen are known to talk a good deal of rubbish and so the word later developed the meaning of nonsense."Template:Sfn In the context of the album title, the term does in fact primarily signify "nonsense". Steve Jones off-handedly came up with the title as the band debated what to call the album. An exasperated Jones said, "Oh, fuck it, never mind the bollocks of it all."Template:Sfn

After dates in the Netherlands, the band set out on a Never Mind the Bans tour of Britain in December 1977. Of eight scheduled dates, four were cancelled due to illness or political pressure. On Christmas Day, the Pistols played two shows at Ivanhoe's in Huddersfield, the first show being for the children of striking firemen.Template:Sfn These were the band's final UK performances for more than eighteen years.Template:Sfn

The Pistols January 1978 US tour was initially scheduled for nine dates, but due to Vicious's drug use and the breakdown in the relationship between Lydon and McLaren was cut short after seven shows.Template:Sfn It was delayed due to American authorities' reluctance to issue a visa to Jones, given his criminal record, leading to the cancellation of several dates in the Northeast.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Although the tour had been highly anticipated in the US, it was plagued by in-fighting and poor planning, leading to frustrated and belligerent audiences.<ref name=Blood/>Template:Sfn

Early in the tour, Vicious was arrested while trying to buy heroin in Memphis and beaten by the security team hired by Warner Bros., the band's American label.Template:Sfn He subsequently appeared with the words "Gimme a fix" scarred on his chest.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn During a concert in San Antonio, Vicious called the crowd "a bunch of faggots" before hitting an audience member on the head with his bass guitar.Template:Sfn Suffering from heroin withdrawal during a show in Dallas, he spat blood at a woman who climbed onstage and punched him in the face.Template:Sfn He was admitted to hospital later that night to treat various injuries. Offstage he is said to have kicked a photographer, attacked a security guard, and challenged one of his own bodyguards to a fight.Template:Sfn Template:Listen

Rotten was suffering fluTemplate:Sfn and coughing up blood, and he felt increasingly isolated from Cook and Jones and disgusted by Vicious.Template:Sfn Jones later said that he and Cook "couldn't stand being around Johnny and Sid anymore. You couldn't turn round for a minute without Sid starting a fightTemplate:Nbsp... Then on top of that you had Rotten, who was on his own trip and basically thought he was God by that stage."Template:Sfn

On 14 January 1978, during the tour's final date at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, a disillusioned Rotten introduced the band's encore saying, "You'll get one number and one number only 'cause I'm a lazy bastard." That one number was a Stooges cover, "No Fun". At the end of the song, Rotten, kneeling on the stage, chanted an unambiguous declaration, "This is no fun. No fun. This is no fun—at all. No fun." As the final cymbal crash died away, Rotten addressed the audience directly—"Ah-ha-ha. Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? Good night"—before throwing down his microphone and walking offstage.Template:Sfn Template:Refn He later observed, "I felt cheated, and I wasn't going on with it any longer; it was a ridiculous farce. Sid was completely out of his brains—just a waste of space. The whole thing was a joke at that pointTemplate:Nbsp... [Malcolm] wouldn't speak to meTemplate:Nbsp... He would not discuss anything with me. But then he would turn around and tell Paul and Steve that the tension was all my fault because I wouldn't agree to anything."Template:Sfn

On 17 January the band travelled separately to Los Angeles. Vicious, in increasingly bad shape, was brought by a friend who then took him to New York; Vicious took a mixture of valium and methadone (later excused as "nervous exhaustion") and was hospitalised on arrival.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Rotten flew to New York to visit Vicious, and announced the band's break-up on 18 January.Template:Sfn Virtually broke, he telephoned the head of Virgin Records, Richard Branson, who agreed to pay for his flight back to London.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Post-Lydon phase and breakup

Cook, Jones and Vicious did not play live together again after Rotten's departure. Over the next several months, McLaren arranged for recordings in Brazil (with Jones and Cook), Paris (with Vicious) and London; they and others stepped in as lead vocalists on later tracks. On 30 June, a single credited to the Sex Pistols was released: on one side, notorious criminal Ronnie Biggs sang "No One Is Innocent" accompanied by Jones and Cook; on the other, Vicious sang the classic "My Way", over both a Jones–Cook backing track and a string orchestra.Template:Sfn Template:Refn The single charted at number seven.Template:Sfn

Vicious moved to New York, where he attempted to launch a career as a solo artist with Spungen as his manager. In September 1978, backed by members of the New York Dolls, Vicious recorded songs eventually released on his posthumous 1979 live album Sid Sings. On 12 October 1978, Spungen was found dead aged 20 in the Hotel Chelsea room she was sharing with Vicious, from a stab wound to her stomach.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Police recovered drug paraphernalia from the scene and Vicious was arrested and charged with her murder.Template:Sfn While on bail, Vicious was arrested for smashing a beer mug in the face of Patti Smith's brother Todd Smith. Vicious was taken into custody on 9 December 1978 and spent the next 54 days in Rikers Island jail, where he underwent enforced cold turkey detox. He was released on bail on 1 February 1979. Later that night, following a small party to celebrate his release, he died of a heroin overdose, aged 21.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Cook and Jones continued to work together, with two new tracks they'd recorded, "Black Leather" and "Here We Go Again", appearing on the Japanese compilation The Very Best Of Sex Pistols And We Don't Care in December 1979,<ref>Robertson, Sandy. "God Save the Sex Pistols". Sounds, January 1980</ref> Other new songs appeared on The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, a soundtrack album for a then-uncompleted film about the Sex Pistols. The album was released by Virgin Records in February 1979, and consisted mostly of cover songs and new tracks sung by Jones, Vicious, Cook, Biggs, McLaren and Edward Tudor-Pole. Several tracks feature Rotten's vocals from early unissued sessions, in some cases with re-recorded music by Jones and Cook. There is one live cut, from the band's final concert in San Francisco. The album also contains tracks in which other artists cover Sex Pistols songs.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Refn Four songs from Swindle became top ten singles, one more than from Never Mind the Bollocks. The 1978 "No One Is Innocent"/"My Way" single was followed in 1979 by the Vicious-sung cover of Eddie Cochran's "Something Else" (number three, and the biggest-selling single under the Sex Pistols name); Jones singing an original, "Silly Thing" (number six); and Vicious's second Cochran cover, "C'mon Everybody" (number three). Two more singles from the soundtrack were put out under the Sex Pistols name, with Tudor-Pole and others singing "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle", and "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone", which featured a Rotten vocal from 1976, ; both fell just shy of the Top Twenty.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Meanwhile, Lydon initiated legal proceedings against McLaren and the Pistols' management company, Glitterbest, which McLaren controlled. Among the claims were non-payment of royalties, improper usage of the title "Johnny Rotten", unfair contractual obligationsTemplate:Sfn and damages for "all the criminal activities that took place".Template:Sfn Hearings began on 7 February 1979, five days after Vicious's death. Cook and Jones allied with McLaren, but as evidence mounted that their manager had spent virtually all of the band's revenue on his film project, they switched sides. On 14 February, the court put the film and its soundtrack into receivership—no longer under McLaren's control, they were now to be administered as exploitable assets for addressing the band members' financial claims. McLaren was left with substantial personal debts and legal fees.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Aftermath

After leaving the Pistols, Rotten reverted to his birth name of Lydon and formed the influential post-punk band Public Image Ltd with former Clash member Keith Levene and school friend Jah Wobble. The band scored a UK top-ten hit with their debut single, 1978's "Public Image".Template:Sfn

Following their fall out with McLaren, Cook and Jones formed the Professionals, which lasted from 1979-1982.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Jones went on to play with the bands Chequered Past and Neurotic Outsiders. He also recorded two solo albums, Mercy and Fire and Gasoline.Template:Sfn As of 2017, Jones lives in Los Angeles, where he has hosted a daily radio programme, Jonesy's Jukebox, since 2015.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Since the Rich Kids' break-up in 1979, Matlock has played with various bands, including recording and touring with Iggy Pop in 1980.Template:Sfn

McLaren went on to carry out a one-month consultancy for Adam and the Ants and manage their offshoot Bow Wow Wow. In the mid-1980s he released a series of successful and influential records as a solo artist.Template:Sfn

The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle film was eventually completed by Julien Temple, who received sole credit for the script after McLaren had his name taken off the production. Released in 1980, it heavily reflects McLaren's vision. It is a fictionalised and partially animated retelling of the band's history and aftermath with McLaren in the lead role, Jones as second lead, and contributions from Vicious (including his memorable performance of "My Way") and Cook. It incorporates promotional videos shot for "God Save the Queen" and "Pretty Vacant" and extensive documentary footage as well, much of it focusing on Rotten. In Temple's description, he and McLaren conceived it as a "very stylizedTemplate:Nbsp... polemic". They were reacting to the fact that the Pistols had become the "poster on the bedroom wall of the day where you kneel down last thing at night and pray to your rock god. And that was never the pointTemplate:Nbsp... The myth had to be dynamited in some way. We had to make this film in a way to enrage the fans."Template:Sfn In the film, McLaren claims to have created the band from scratch and engineered its notorious reputation; much of what structure the loose narrative has is based on McLaren's teaching a series of "lessons" to be learned from "an invention of mine they called the punk rock".Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

The 1979 court ruling left many issues between Lydon and McLaren unresolved. Five years later, Lydon filed another action. Finally, on 16 January 1986, Lydon, Jones, Cook and the estate of Sid Vicious were awarded control of the band's heritage, including the rights to The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and all the footage shot for it—more than 250 hours.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn That same year, the fictionalised film of Vicious's relationship with Spungen was released: Sid and Nancy, directed by Alex Cox. In his autobiography, Lydon attacked the film, saying that it "celebrates heroin addiction", goes out of its way to "humiliate [Vicious's] life" and completely misrepresents the Sex Pistols' part in the London punk scene.Template:Sfn

In May 2022 FX released the miniseries Pistol about the band.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Reunions

The original band members reunited in 1996 for the six-month Filthy Lucre tour, which included dates in Europe, North and South America, Australia and Japan.Template:Sfn Their access to the archives associated with The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle facilitated the production of the 2000 documentary The Filth and the Fury. The film was also directed by Temple and formulated as an attempt to tell the story from the band's point of view, in contrast to SwindleTemplate:'s focus on McLaren and the media.Template:Sfn In 2002 the band reunited to play the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre in London. They undertook a short tour of North America in 2003.<ref>"The Sex Pistols Return To The Road Template:Webarchive". billboard, 18 July 2003. Retrieved 19 July 2023</ref>

In March 2006, the band sold the rights to their back catalogue to Universal Music Group. In November 2006, the Sex Pistols were inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,Template:Sfn but the band rejected the honour.Template:Sfn According to Jones, "once you want to be put into a museum, Rock & Roll's over; it's not voted by fans, it's voted by people who induct you ... people who are already in it."Template:Sfn

The Pistols reunited for seven performances in the UK in November 2007.Template:Sfn In 2008, they undertook a series of European festival appearances, titled the Combine Harvester Tour. That same year, they released the DVD There'll Always Be An England, recorded at their Brixton Academy appearance on 10 November 2007.Template:Sfn The band signed with Universal in 2012 to re-release Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols.Template:Sfn

File:SexPistolsRAH240325 (80 of 99) (54409673748).jpg

The Sex Pistols and Frank Carter performing at the Royal Albert Hall on 24 March 2025

On 3 June 2024, Cook, Jones, and Matlock announced two reunion shows at the Bush Hall in Shepherds Bush billed as "Frank Carter and Sex Pistols". Carter, of Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes and Gallows, provided lead vocals in the absence of Lydon.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> They played the sole Sex Pistols studio album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols in its entirety.<ref name=":0" /> On August the 25th, they headlined along with Editors, the 2024 AMA Music Festival.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> A UK tour was later announced for September 2024, which was officially billed as "Frank Carter and Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols do Never Mind the Bollocks".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On September the 20th, they played the Rock City venue in Nottingham,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the next day the Birmingham o2 Academy <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and on September the 26th, they played in London, Kentish Town.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On 12 November 2024, they were announced as part of the 2025 Download Festival lineup.<ref>Green Day playing Download Festival 2025 with McFly and Sex Pistols - full lineup Derbyshire Telegraph. 12 November 2024. Retrieved 13 November 2024.</ref> In January 2025, they announced their first Australian tour since 1996, set for April 2025.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Musical style

The Sex Pistols were a punk rock band. According to Mark Deming of AllMusic, Template:Quote

Legacy

Influence

File:Blek le Rat in Los Angeles 2008.jpg

Graffiti art of Rotten, Los Angeles, 2008

The Sex Pistols are widely regarded as one of the most influential acts in popular music history.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Their Trouser Press Record Guide entry claims that "their importance—both to the direction of contemporary music and more generally to pop culture—can hardly be overstated".Template:Sfn The music critic Dave Marsh called them "unquestionably the most radical new rock band of the Seventies".Template:Sfn Although not the first punk band, Never Mind the Bollocks is regularly cited as one of the all-time great albums: in 2006, it was voted No. 28 in Q magazine's "100 Greatest Albums Ever",Template:Sfn while Rolling Stone listed it at No. 2 in its 1987 "Top 100 Albums of the Last 20 Years".Template:Sfn It has come to be recognised as among the most influential records in rock history.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn According to AllMusic, the album is "one of the greatest, most inspiring rock records of all time".Template:Sfn

They directly inspired the style of many punk and post-punk bands, including the Clash,Template:Sfn Siouxsie and the Banshees,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn the Adverts,Template:Sfn Subway Sect Template:Sfn and the Slits.Template:Sfn Their June 1976 concert at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall became one of the most mythologised events in rock history. Many among the audience of about forty became leading figures in the punk and post-punk movements, including Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto, who organised the gig, Bernard Sumner, Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Mark E. Smith, John Cooper Clarke, Morrissey and Anthony H. Wilson.Template:Sfn Among the many later musicians who have acknowledged their debt to the Pistols are members of the Jesus and Mary Chain,Template:Sfn the Stone Roses,Template:Sfn Guns N' Roses,Template:Sfn Nirvana,Template:Sfn Green Day Template:Sfn and Oasis.Template:Sfn Calling the band "immensely influential", a London College of Music study notes that "many styles of popular music, such as grunge, indie, thrash metal and even rap owe their foundations to the legacy of ground breaking punk bands—of which the Sex Pistols was the most prominent."Template:Sfn

File:Sid vicious madrid.jpg

Graffiti of Vicious, Madrid

According to the music journalist Ira Robbin, "the Pistols and ... McLaren challenged every aspect and precept of modern music-making, thereby inspiring countless groups to follow their cue onto stages around the world."Template:Sfn Critic Toby Creswell locates the primary source of inspiration somewhat differently. Noting that "[i]mage to the contrary, the Pistols were very serious about music", Creswell wrote that "essentially, the Sex Pistols reinforced what the garage bands of the '60s had demonstrated—you don't need technique to make rock & roll. In a time when music had been increasingly complicated and defanged, the Sex Pistols' generational shift caused a real revolution."Template:Sfn

Their cultural influence is evident in other media. Reid's work for the band is regarded as among the most important graphic design of the 1970s and still influences the field in the 21st century.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Aged twenty-one, Vicious was already a "t-shirt-selling icon".Template:Sfn While the manner of his death signified for many the inevitable failure of punk's social ambitions, it cemented his image as an archetype of doomed youth.Template:Sfn British punk fashion, still widely influential, is now customarily credited to Westwood and McLaren; as Johnny Rotten, Lydon had a lasting effect as well, especially through his bricolage approach to personal style: he would wear a ted style velvet collared drape jacket, large pin-stripe pegs, a pin-collar Wemblex customised into an Anarchy shirt and brothel creepers.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Christopher Nolan, director of the Batman movie The Dark Knight, has said that Rotten inspired his characterisation of The Joker.Template:Sfn

Conceptual basis

The Sex Pistols were defined by ambitions that went beyond the musical—indeed, McLaren was at times openly contemptuous of the band's music and punk rock generally. "Christ, if people bought the records for the music, this thing would have died a death long ago", he said in 1977.Template:Sfn He claimed that the Sex Pistols were his personal, Situationist-style art project: "I decided to use people, just the way a sculptor uses clay."Template:Sfn According to McLaren, they were something with which "to sell trousers"Template:Sfn and a "carefully planned exercise to embezzle as much money as possible out of the music industry". Jon Savage characterises McLaren's core theme in The Great Rock 'n' Roll SwindleTemplate:Sfn as an attempt to extract "cash from chaos".Template:Refn

Lydon dismissed McLaren's influence: "We made our own scandal just by being ourselves. Maybe it was that he knew he was redundant, so he overcompensated. All the talk about the French Situationists being associated with punk is bollocks. It's nonsense!"Template:Sfn Cook agreed and said that "Situationism had nothing to do with us. The Jamie Reids and Malcolms were excited because we were the real thing. I suppose we were what they were dreaming of."Template:Sfn According to Lydon, "If we had an aim, it was to force our own, working-class opinions into the mainstream, which was unheard of in pop music at the time."Template:Sfn

Toby Creswell argues that the Pistols message was "inchoate, to say the least. It was a general call to rebellion that falls apart at the slightest scrutiny."Template:Sfn Critic Ian Birch, writing in 1981, called "stupid" the claim that the Sex Pistols "had any political significanceTemplate:Nbsp... If they did anything, they made a lot of people content with being nothing. They certainly didn't inspire the working classes."Template:Sfn While the Conservative triumph in 1979 may be taken as evidence for that position, Julien Temple has noted that the scene inspired by the Sex Pistols "wasn't your kind of two-up, two-down working class normal families, most of it. It was over the edge of the precipice in social terms. They were actually giving a voice to an area of the working class that was almost beyond the pale."Template:Sfn Within a year of "Anarchy in the U.K.", that voice was being echoed widely: scores if not hundreds of punk bands had formed across the country—groups composed largely of working-class members or middle-class members who rejected their own class values and pursued solidarity with the working class.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

In 1980, critic Greil Marcus reflected on McLaren's contradictory posture:Template:Sfn Template:Bq

File:Sex Pistols in Paradiso - Johnny Rotten 2.jpg

Johnny Rotten on stage in Paradiso, Amsterdam, January 1977

Critic Bill Wyman writes that Lydon's "fierce intelligence and astonishing onstage charisma" were important catalysts, but ultimately finds the band's real meaning lies in McLaren's provocative media manipulations.Template:Sfn While some of the Sex Pistols' public affronts were plotted by McLaren, Westwood, and company, others were evidently not—including what McLaren himself cites as the "pivotal moment that changed everything",Template:Sfn the clash on the Bill Grundy Today show.Template:Refn According to Cook, McLaren "didn't instigate [situations]; that was always our own doing."Template:Sfn Matlock said that at the point when he left the band, it was clear to him that McLaren "was in fact quite deliberately perpetrating that idea of us as his puppetsTemplate:Nbsp... However, I've since found out that even Malcolm wasn't as aware of what he was up to as he has since made out."Template:Sfn By his absence, Matlock demonstrated how crucial he was to the band's creativity: the band only wrote two songs in the eleven months between his departure and their break-up.Template:Sfn

Band members

Current members

Steve Jones – guitar, backing vocals (1975–1978, 1996, 2002–2003, 2007–2008, 2024–present), bass (1977),Template:Sfn lead vocals (1975)
Paul Cook – drums (1975–1978, 1996, 2002–2003, 2007–2008, 2024–present)
Glen Matlock – bass, backing vocals (1975–1977, 1996, 2002–2003, 2007–2008, 2024–present)

Current touring musicians

Frank Carter – lead vocals (2024–present)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Former members

Johnny Rotten – lead vocals (1975–1978, 1996, 2002–2003, 2007–2008)
Wally Nightingale – guitar (1975; died 1996)
Nick Kent – guitar (1975)
Steve New – guitar (1975; died 2010)
Sid Vicious – bass, backing and occasional lead vocals (1977–1978; died 1979)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Timeline

<timeline> ImageSize = width:600 height:auto barincrement:25 PlotArea = left:90 bottom:110 top:10 right:10 Alignbars = justify DateFormat = mm/dd/yyyy Period = from:01/01/1975 till:{{#time:m/d/Y}} TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy Legend = orientation:vertical position:bottom columns:3 ScaleMajor = increment:3 start:1975 ScaleMinor = increment:1 start:1975

Colors =

id:lvocals    value:red        legend:Lead_Vocals
id:bvocals    value:pink       legend:Backing_Vocals
id:guitar     value:green      legend:Guitar
id:bass       value:blue       legend:Bass
id:drums      value:orange     legend:Drums
id:tour       value:yellow legend:Touring_or_session_musician
id:album      value:black      legend:Studio_album
id:other      value:gray(0.7) legend:Soundtrack_album

LineData =

layer:back
color:album
at:10/28/1977
layer:back
color:other
at:02/23/1979

BarData =

bar:Johnny      text:"Johnny Rotten"
bar:Frank       text:"Frank Carter"
bar:Steve       text:"Steve Jones"
bar:Wally       text:"Wally Nightingale"
bar:Nick        text:"Nick Kent"
bar:Steve_N     text:"Steve New"
bar:Glen        text:"Glen Matlock"
bar:Sid         text:"Sid Vicious"
bar:Paul        text:"Paul Cook"

PlotData =

width:11
bar:Johnny      from:08/01/1975 till:01/14/1978  color:lvocals
bar:Johnny      from:06/21/1996 till:12/07/1996  color:lvocals
bar:Johnny      from:07/27/2002 till:09/08/2003  color:lvocals
bar:Johnny      from:10/27/2007 till:09/05/2008  color:lvocals
bar:Frank       from:08/13/2024 till:end         color:lvocals
bar:Frank       from:08/13/2024 till:end         color:tour width:3
bar:Steve       from:01/01/1975 till:08/01/1975  color:lvocals
bar:Steve       from:08/01/1975 till:07/14/1978  color:guitar
bar:Steve       from:06/21/1996 till:12/07/1996  color:guitar
bar:Steve       from:07/27/2002 till:09/08/2003  color:guitar
bar:Steve       from:10/27/2007 till:09/05/2008  color:guitar
bar:Steve       from:08/13/2024 till:end         color:guitar
bar:Steve       from:08/01/1975 till:05/14/1978  color:bvocals width:3
bar:Steve       from:05/14/1978 till:07/14/1978  color:lvocals width:3
bar:Steve       from:06/21/1996 till:12/07/1996  color:bvocals width:3
bar:Steve       from:07/27/2002 till:09/08/2003  color:bvocals width:3
bar:Steve       from:10/27/2007 till:09/05/2008  color:bvocals width:3
bar:Steve       from:08/13/2024 till:end         color:bvocals width:3
bar:Steve       from:02/01/1977 till:08/01/1977  color:bass    width:7
bar:Wally       from:01/01/1975 till:03/01/1975  color:guitar
bar:Nick        from:03/01/1975 till:07/31/1975  color:guitar
bar:Steve_N     from:09/01/1975 till:09/30/1975  color:guitar
bar:Glen        from:01/01/1975 till:02/01/1977  color:bass
bar:Glen        from:06/21/1996 till:12/07/1996  color:bass
bar:Glen        from:07/27/2002 till:09/08/2003  color:bass
bar:Glen        from:10/27/2007 till:09/05/2008  color:bass
bar:Glen        from:08/13/2024 till:end         color:bass
bar:Glen        from:01/01/1975 till:02/01/1977  color:bvocals width:3
bar:Glen        from:06/21/1996 till:12/07/1996  color:bvocals width:3
bar:Glen        from:07/27/2002 till:09/08/2003  color:bvocals width:3
bar:Glen        from:10/27/2007 till:09/05/2008  color:bvocals width:3
bar:Glen        from:08/13/2024 till:end         color:bvocals width:3
bar:Sid         from:02/28/1977 till:05/14/1978  color:bass
bar:Sid         from:02/28/1977 till:12/25/1977  color:bvocals width:3
bar:Sid         from:12/25/1977 till:05/14/1978  color:lvocals width:3
bar:Paul        from:01/01/1975 till:07/14/1978  color:drums
bar:Paul        from:05/14/1978 till:07/14/1978  color:lvocals width:3
bar:Paul        from:06/21/1996 till:12/07/1996  color:drums
bar:Paul        from:07/27/2002 till:09/08/2003  color:drums
bar:Paul        from:10/27/2007 till:09/05/2008  color:drums
bar:Paul        from:08/13/2024 till:end         color:drums

</timeline>