10 Things We Learned From Johnny Rotten’s ‘Uncensored’ New Memoir

Never mind the other bollocks: Johnny’s still got plenty of his own. More than 20 years after the publication of his first book, Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, the Sex Pistols‘ Johnny Rotten (né Lydon) can still bombard with enough opinions and adventures to fill a 500-page autobiography.
Out Tuesday, Anger Is an Energy: My Life Uncensored covers plenty of familiar ground, from the Sex Pistols‘ supersonic rise to the long, twisted history of his anarchic follow-up, Public Image Ltd. But among twice-told tales about Malcolm McLaren’s fecklessness, Sid Vicious’s tragic cluelessness and Lydon’s own poor eyesight (it gave him his psychotic glare) and meningitis (he contracted it from rat urine in the puddles where he played as kid), the book features plenty of morbidly fascinating tidbits from one of England’s least likely national treasures. Here are our 10 favorites.
Pretty Vacant
Lydon doesn’t actually listen to much punk music. The Buzzcocks, Magazine, X-Ray Spex, the Adverts, the Raincoats: “Those, I liked. They were skirmishing on the outside of it rather than the typical slam-dunk bands that drove me nuts, because they all sounded the same.”
Flowers of Romance
He’s heard the rumor that he and Sid Vicious had a gay affair, and he flatly denies it. “Just, NO!!!” he writes, emphasis his. Though he does admit that he sometimes wondered about his bandmate’s sexuality: “I don’t know if Sid ever worked out what he was.”
Careering
Richard Branson wanted to get Lydon to become the lead singer of Devo. Mark Mothersbaugh has told this story before, but in his version, Branson pins the idea on the former Sex Pistol. Lydon claims he had nothing to do with it: “I certainly don’t think he ever asked me.” It would have been “an absolute no-no to me” – not because he didn’t like Devo but because he believed it wouldn’t be his place to impose himself on another band.
Anarchy in the U.K.
Lydon was no fan of the Clash. To him, their songs “didn’t have any content, and they really didn’t seem to stand for very much at all other than this abstract socialism.” As a band, “they had nothing to offer, character-development wise.” He liked Joe Strummer just fine as a person, he claims, but he didn’t exactly respect him musically or ideologically. It was “infuriating” when Strummer declared in Melody Maker that the group would be bigger than the Sex Pistols: “He began to lack a sense of humor about himself. He. . .was definitely out to grab himself a crown.”
Holidays in the Sun
Like the Clash, Lydon tried to record with Jamaican dub savant Lee “Scratch” Perry. Shortly after the Sex Pistols broke up, he traveled to Jamaica as a talent scout for Virgin Records. He went to Black Ark, Perry’s infamous studio, and took a stab at a reggae version of the Pistols’ “Submission” – “but I couldn’t get to grips with him. Too many distractions, too nervous and too stoned.”