John Lydon Dismisses New Intercourse Pistols Excursion As ‘Karaoke’

Former Intercourse Pistols frontman John Lydon has brushed aside his bandmates’ determination to reform with Frank Carter on vocals, likening the entire enterprise to “karaoke”.

Information of a excursion from the Intercourse Pistols emerged in 2024 when it used to be first introduced that the band – that includes unique contributors Steve Jones, Paul Prepare dinner, and Glen Matlock – had been to reunite for a two-night affair to learn West London’s Bush Corridor. 

The reunion didn’t, then again, characteristic Lydon, who served because the vocalist of the band underneath his Johnny Rotten moniker. As an alternative, the crowd used to be to be fronted by means of Carter, who has in the past fronted acts akin to Gallows, Natural Love and Frank Carter And The Rattlesnakes.

The preliminary displays quickly ended in additional dates across the U.K. and Europe, with the band billed as Intercourse Pistols that includes Frank Carter. Additional displays have since been introduced for Australia, New Zealand, and different Ecu nations all over 2025. In January, Jones showed U.S. dates would practice, regardless that specifics are but to reach.

Lydon, then again, had remained in large part quiet in regard to the nascent displays from the band. On Thursday (Feb. 13), he spoke to British newsletter The i Paper concerning the excursion, explaining that he in large part felt “frustrated” by means of the entire affair and feared it could tarnish the crowd’s legacy.

“Once I first heard that the Intercourse Pistols had been traveling this yr with out me it pissed me off,” he defined. “It frustrated me. I simply idea, ‘they’re completely going to kill all that used to be just right with the Pistols by means of getting rid of the purpose and the aim of all of it.’ I didn’t write the ones phrases calmly. They’re looking to trivialise the entire display to break out with karaoke however in the long run I feel you’ll see who has the price and who doesn’t. I’ve by no means offered my soul to make a buck. It’s the Catholic in me – that guilt I don’t wish to travel.

“Like Nancy Reagan, I’ve all the time discovered it simple to simply say ‘no,’” he endured. “If one thing demanding situations your middle and your soul and your thoughts and your sense of purity of what’s proper and fallacious on this planet, then simply say no. Which, in step with the company considering which riddles the tune trade earns me the identify of ‘tricky to paintings with’ – a identify of which I’m very proud.”

The brand new excursion isn’t the primary time, then again, that Intercourse Pistols contributors have carried out songs with a distinct vocalist. In recent times, Jones and Prepare dinner teamed up with Billy Idol and Tony James of Era X to shape the supergroup Era Intercourse. Regardless that first of all a one-off incidence in 2018, the crowd would later embark on a Ecu excursion in 2023.

Lydon touched on each the nascent iteration of the Intercourse Pistols and the Era Intercourse crew in every other fresh interview with the Vintage Album Overview podcast, claiming it’s his presence that makes for the real article.

“I wrote the fucking songs, didn’t I? I gave them the picture,” he defined. ”I used to be the frontman. I’m the voice what made the entire international sing. And now [they’re] going out, as they did the yr earlier than with Billy Idol. It’s simply karaoke, truly.

“I would really like to be embarrassed by means of top quality songwriting from them,” he endured. “They’ve had lengthy sufficient to get that in combination now, haven’t they? However no. They profess their hatred for me, however they are able to’t reside with out me. I’m the punishment that is going on giving.”

The Intercourse Pistols first of all existed from 1975 till 1978, liberating their sole studio album By no means Thoughts the Bollocks, Right here’s the Intercourse Pistols in 1977. Lauded as a pioneering punk outfit in spite of their quick preliminary tenure, the band would later reform in 1996 for an international excursion, and undertook sporadic excursions till 2008.

Famously, the band had been inducted into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Popularity in 2006, regardless that refused to wait the rite, labeling the establishment a “piss stain.”