John Lydon on why he hated Joe Strummer’s “fake angst” and “voice that would irritate the hell out of me”

John Lydon has shed light on why he hated Joe Strummer‘s “fake angst”, saying his voice “would irritate the hell out of me”.

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The former Sex Pistols frontman touched on the late Clash legend in a recent interview with Nigel Carr, saying: “It was Joe Strummer’s voice that would irritate the hell out of me, and his fake angst and ‘last war’ nonsenses.”

“What he was doing was creating division,” he continued. “I told them all at the time, ‘Alls I want from you is tell me your middle-class experiences so we can share them instead of you coming down and imitating my lot.’”

“By that I mean my folk, my culture,” Lydon continued. “Have a picture taken outside council flats, you know, as if that equates integrity. No!”

He also shared what he’d seen of Strummer’s writing process, poking fun at the conception of his politically charged lyrics. “He’d be hanging around, but I’d see appalling situations, like he’d come around and he’d sit in front of the six o’clock news with his notepad. We guestimated this must have been [The Clash manager] Bernard Rhodes telling him how to write a rebel song.”

“And he’d take out catchphrases from the commentary, ‘Sten gun in Knightsbridge,’” Lydon continued. “You can see devolution. ‘London Calling,’ I mean come on, that’s a song about a fire brigade.”

Next month, Lydon is set to embark on a full UK and Ireland tour with Public Image Ltd, and you can visit here for tickets and more information. Asked by Carr about the upcoming trek, Lydon said their tour cycles were what kept the band “fresh and intelligent”.

Lydon had previously spoken to NME about how the upcoming tour and working on new “raucous” music are helping him navigate bereavement. From his home in Los Angeles, Lydon said he was “very much” looking forward to hitting the road again, and poignantly explained how it might help him with the grief he feels after his wife of 44 years, Nora Forster, passed away from Alzheimer’s in April 2023.

“I need to get out of the house,” he told NME. “I’ve done enough wallowing, which of course you can’t avoid, even if you think, ‘No, be the bigger man’. You cannot stop it. You cannot stop the sadness when it comes on, but enough already.”

Meanwhile, earlier this year, the former Pistols frontman criticised the band’s reunion with Frank Carter, branding it “karaoke” to NME.

In an interview with PA (via The Independent), when asked if he would reunite with the band, Lydon said: “Never, not after what I consider their dirty deeds, let them wallow in Walt Disney woke expectations. They’ve killed the content, or done their best to, and turned the whole thing into a rubbish, childishness, and that’s unacceptable.”

It echoed comments made to Carr in their conversation, in which he remained resolute that he would “never” reunite with the band.

The singer-songwriter previously fought a high-profile court battle against guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook in a bid to stop their songs being used in a 2022 Disney+ series of their story, Pistol, which was directed by Danny Boyle. Lydon eventually lost the case.

On the Sex Pistols’ current line-up, he added: “They had to get Billy Idol last year and now Mr Carter, to come in and listen to them (his lyrics) for them, that’s a clown’s circus at work.”

The post John Lydon on why he hated Joe Strummer’s “fake angst” and “voice that would irritate the hell out of me” appeared first on NME.