Original Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock compared his replacement Sid Vicious to Elvis Presley and said the band’s 1978 implosion – partly because of Vicious’ nature – was regrettable.
Matlock, guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook have been touring their version of the Sex Pistols with vocalist Frank Carter after falling out with original frontman John Lydon. They just postponed their U.S. tour after Jones broke his wrist.
In a new interview with Guitar World, Matlock said he predicted what would happen with Vicious while offering a semi-positive opinion on his successor, who died in 1979 at the age of 21.
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Glen Matlock: ‘I Kind of Didn’t Dislike Sid’
“There’s a TV show over here [the U.K.] called The Fast Show; it’s like all kinds of little skits,” Matlock explained. “So, there’s two, like, English, working-class blokes sitting in a bar, you know, complaining about things, and one says to the other, ‘If that’s what you want, that’s what’s going to happen,’ you know, because it’s all going tits up.
“That’s what I thought,” he continued. “So, if they get him [Sid Vicious], if that’s what they want, well, that’s what will happen. And it kind of did, you know. That’s a shame.”
Asked what he thought of being replaced by Vicious, Matlock replied: “I kind of didn’t dislike Sid. I thought he had something going for him as a singer, not as a musician. But he was kind of a bit like Elvis [Presley] in the way that he would be quite good at singing somebody else’s song but not necessarily come up with anything himself, you know? So there you go.”
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Matlock also praised Carter’s “joyous” contribution to the Sex Pistols, saying, “He respects the songs and the sentiments behind them, and he sings them in his own way.”
He added: “Frank gets it. He’s not a po-faced, miserable git. He’s got a sense of humor. He’s got a twinkle in his eye, you know? You’re playing away, and he’ll come up to you in the middle of Steve doing a guitar solo, and he’ll pull sort of a funny face and make you laugh. That didn’t always happen before, so it’s kind of cool.”
Reflecting on his legacy with the Sex Pistols, Matlock said: “I think it’s good that we’re always up there in the top 100 songs of all time. I think that’s because they’re pretty catchy in a cool way. And I think that was my contribution. I think I gave John a vehicle for his off-the-wall lyrics.”
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