Previous Sex Handguns frontman John Lydon has actually dismissed his bandmates’ choice to reform with Frank Carter on vocals, comparing the entire venture to “karaoke”.
News of a trip from the Sex Handguns emerged in 2024 when it was initially revealed that the band– including initial members Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Glen Matlock– were to reunite for a two-night affair to benefit West London’s Bush Hall..
The reunion did not, nevertheless, function Lydon, who acted as the singer of the band under his Johnny Rotten name. Rather, the group was to be fronted by Carter, who has actually formerly fronted acts such as Gallows, Pure Love and Frank Carter And The Rattlesnakes.
The preliminary programs quickly caused additional dates around the U.K. and Europe, with the band billed as Sex Handguns including Frank Carter. Additional programs have actually considering that been revealed for Australia, New Zealand, and other European nations throughout 2025. In January, Jones confirmed U.S. dates would follow, though specifics are yet to get here.
Lydon, nevertheless, had actually stayed mostly peaceful in regard to the nascent programs from the band. On Thursday (Feb. 13), he talked to British publication The i Paper about the trip, discussing that he mostly felt “frustrated” by the entire affair and feared it would stain the group’s tradition.
” When I initially heard that the Sex Handguns were visiting this year without me it pissed me off,” he discussed. “It frustrated me. I simply believed, ‘they’re definitely going to eliminate all that was great with the Handguns by removing the point and the function of all of it.’ I didn’t compose those words gently. They’re attempting to trivialise the entire program to get away with karaoke however in the long term I believe you’ll see who has the worth and who does not. I have actually never ever offered my soul to make a dollar. It’s the Catholic in me– that regret I do not wish to journey.
” Like Nancy Reagan, I have actually constantly discovered it simple to simply state ‘no,'” he continued. “If something obstacles your heart and your soul and your mind and your sense of pureness of what is best and incorrect worldwide, then simply state no. Which, according to the business thinking which riddles the music organization makes me the title of ‘hard to deal with’– a title of which I’m extremely happy.”.
The brand-new trip is not the very first time, nevertheless, that Sex Handguns members have actually carried out tunes with a various singer. Recently, Jones and Cook partnered with Billy Idol and Tony James of Generation X to form the supergroup Generation Sex. Though at first a one-off incident in 2018, the group would later on start a European trip in 2023.
Lydon discussed both the nascent version of the Sex Handguns and the Generation Sex group in another recent interview with the Classic Album Evaluation podcast, declaring it’s his existence that produces the authentic short article.
” I composed the fucking tunes, didn’t I? I provided the image,” he discussed. “I was the frontman. I am the voice what made the entire world sing. And now [they’re] heading out, as they did the year before with Billy Idol. It’s simply karaoke, truly.
” I would enjoy to be humiliated by top quality songwriting from them,” he continued. “They’ve had enough time to get that together now, have not they? However no. They proclaim their hatred for me, however they can’t live without me. I am the penalty that goes on providing.”
The Sex Handguns at first existed from 1975 till 1978, launching their sole studio album Never Ever Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Handguns in 1977. Admired as a pioneering punk clothing regardless of their brief preliminary period, the band would later on reform in 1996 for a world trip, and carried out erratic trips till 2008.
Notoriously, the band were inducted into the Rock-and-roll Hall of Popularity in 2006, though declined to go to the event, identifying the organization a “piss stain.”
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