August 2018

We caught up with punk rock royalty Glen Matlock recently and the experience was as memorable as it could get for a young music journalist. The British musician and founding member of the legendary group The Sex Pistols was in Mumbai to perform at Hard Rock Café, Worli alongside U.K.-based crossover artist Alluri. Matlock, who left the Pistols during the recording sessions of their much-acclaimed 1977 debut album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, went on to release a ton of solo material, perform in various other groups such as The Rich Kids, collaborate with American punk legend Iggy Pop and reunite with his Pistols band mates on multiple occasions.

In this interview with Rolling Stone India, Matlock takes us through his punk rock heyday and everything that he is looking forward to right now.

The Pistols were notorious for causing chaos wherever you’ll went – one of the most talked about instances was when you’ll appeared on the Bill Grundy Show in 1976, can you tell me what you recall from that event?

It was a program that was on right after the six o’clock news – millions of people watched it. We went on to plug our first single (“Anarchy in the U.K.”). We only got the gig at the last minute because Queen were supposed to do it but pulled out and when we got there Steve Jones (guitarist) got drunk and the guy interviewing us, Bill Grundy, for some reason didn’t like us and he tried to take his dislike on us live on TV. But he hadn’t counted the fact that Steve Jones was drunk and he tried to take it out on the wrong people and the rest is history. Overnight instead of being on the front page of the music press, we were on the front page of the tabloids and became public enemy number one.

Plenty has been written about the Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren and how he used inventive and provocative techniques in promoting the band. What was the relationship between the group and McLaren?

It was an interesting dynamic and it was complicated. He was 10 years older than us and was a very interesting fellow. I used to work for him at his Teddy Boy shop. I used to actually measure the Teddy Boys up for their drape jackets and then would have to call the tailor who would make the suits and I would have to go through Malcolm’s address book. He wasn’t the kind of guy who had all the names alphabetically, some of the names he had in were Yoko Ono, the editor of the NME – all interesting people. I thought this was an interesting kind of guy. He always claimed that he had formed us and that’s not true, we formed ourselves in his shop which was the hippest place to be on a Saturday afternoon in mid-Seventies London.

Noel Gallagher recently said in his new Netflix special, Once In A Lifetime, that he would strum along to Pistols records when he started playing guitar, what got you going?
We all had our own influences in the band. Personally, what got me going is that we used to not have a national radio station in England. To get around that there was all these pirate radio stations that sprung up on boats just outside British territorial waters broadcasting music. That coincided with bands like the Kinks, the Who, the Yardbirds and my all time favorite band the Small Faces. Little kind of three minute vignettes of pop culture, great guitar sounds, fantastic vocal delivery, kind of got into my blood somehow – so that is what I brought to the Sex Pistols.

Do you listen to modern punk rock and what do you make of it?
I don’t. The favorite record I like – and I’ve actually done a cover, the thing that has stuck out most is “Happy” by Pharrell Williams. There is something in the song, it’s got this kind of jazzy chords on a keyboard – something about it doesn’t resolve. And I thought that’s wrong – so I picked up a guitar and tried to work it out and it ended up sounding like the Pretty Things from the Sixties doing Pharrell Williams.

Since you’ve been involved in so many different projects as a bassist, guitarist and vocalist, do you tailor your performance to suit each set-up?
I do kind of tend to hopefully pick some things that are kind of cool and interesting and I do learn with different things all the time. I mean, Alluri is no Johnny Rotten (vocalist of the Sex Pistols) but he is an interesting guy and he’s got quite an encyclopedic knowledge of British music which I appreciate – it seems to work.

Speaking of Alluri, how did your collaboration with him come about?
Earlier this year, a friend of mine sent me a video clip of Alluri doing a version of “Anarchy in the U.K.” in Telugu. I thought this was interesting and he’s got this other track called “Don’t Lose Touch,” he said “would you be interested in helping him produce it” and he said he’ll be doing it in Milan. It came out really well and I got on well with Alluri, I like his songwriting knack, his general demeanor, he sings well and he plays well.

Can you tell us more about your upcoming album, Good To Go.
It’s very good. It’s got a dozen tracks and it’s my sort of brand of writing about loads of different topics. You’ll have to listen to it to find out.

When indie singer, songwriter and composer Shriram Alluri played the guitar to entertain his two-year-old nephew in November last year, little did he know that one thing would lead to another and he would land a gig with Glen Matlock, the bassist and member from the original line-up of the UK punk rock band the Sex Pistols, who’s now a singer songwriter. Alluri tells us, “I was practising for my show at the Transmusicales in France and my sister asked me to play for her son. I was tired and not too keen, so I played an acoustic version of the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy in the UK to scare him away.” On the contrary, the tot started dancing. This encouraged Alluri to cover the song in Telugu and English. “It was received well and my then manager Stephen Budd tweeted a link to Glen, who shared the song,” he adds. Thereafter, the Pistols’ bassist produced a demo Alluri wrote. That resulted in their collaborative single Don’t Lose Touch. “It was natural for me to ask him to come play with me in India. Glen hasn’t performed here before and was keen to do so,” the musician says about the impending gig.

MANY FIRSTS
Alluri is performing in Mumbai for the first time along with his band that comprises international artistes such as saxophonist Domenico Mamone (who has played with Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Tom Jones), bassist Roberto Dragonetti (for Nic Cester of Jet), drummer Davide Arzuffi and keyboardist Pietro Ubaldi. The show is also his maiden gig with Glen. “So, it will make for an interesting musical cocktail,” says the artiste. The set will have a mix of his Telugu and English tracks with his Italian band, followed by the Brit rockstar’s brief solo set and finally all the musician taking the stage. “We finish with playing Don’t Lose Touch, which was recorded with Muse’s Producer Tommaso Colliva. There will be a few covers to make sure everyone is zoned in with what is happening on stage,” Alluri says.

GOING NATIVE
Alluri, who splits his time between India, the UK and Italy, started as an English artiste but moved on to writing in Telugu and had a digital release of his second album, Tales of This Telugu Man, on August 3. Three tracks on this record are in his mother tongue. “The album was a natural process in my songwriting. Only after I released some of these Telugu songs did I get more opportunities to play abroad,” he says when asked if he had apprehensions about works in his native language being received well internationally. “Going to gigs is part of the weekly culture in the West, so the experience of listening to Rock N’ Roll in a different language is familiar enough and yet different for them. And, rhythm and melody take over at a certain point and language isn’t all that important,” he explains.
As the musician has started work on his third album, he has also written and recorded demos for nine songs, some of which he will play at the gig on August 10 at Hard Rock Cafe in Worli.

1972, London saw the formation of a band which would change Rock and Roll for ever. The Sex Pistols, as they called themselves, ignited a Punk Rock revolution throughout the UK which later capsized the world. Among the founding members of the band was bassist, Glen Matlock, who would go on to become a pioneer. He is credited as the co-author of 10 of the 12 songs on ‘Never mind the bollocks, here’s the Sex Pistols’ album.

Ever since leaving the band in early 1977, Glen went on to collaborate with heavyweights like Iggy Pop and Vicious White Kids and London Cowboys among others. Later he formed the band Glen Matlock and the Mavericks before rejoining the Sex Pistols for their reunion tours post 1996.

Currently in Mumbai, for a gig at the Hard Rock Café on the 10th August where he has collaborated with the amazing Telegu rock star Alluri, Glen spoke to Music Plus about his new album ‘Good to Go’ and more.

Tell us about your new album ‘Good to Go’.
It’s a collection of songs over the past few years. It’s got a fantastic selection of artists. The main drummer is Slim Jim Phantom from the Stray Cats. The main guitarist is Earl Slick, it’s got Chris Bedding on one track and Neil Axe on the others. It’s got a slightly different swing to it than Punk Rock music.

Which tracks should the fans look forward to in particular?
There is one track ‘Keep on Pushing’ and also there is one big blues style track called ‘Cooking You’. Then there is ‘Sexy Beast’ where Earl has played a sexy solo.

How was it collaborating with Earl Slick?
When you get to a certain age and are around for long you tend to meet certain people. I have done a few things with Earl quite a long time back. We had a common guy called Jim, who got us together in a way for this album. We decided to record it in America.

How did Sex Pistols change you?
It was the first thing any of us had done properly and it kind of formed us. Its hard to say how it changed us because its all we had ever done. Individually all our lives, no matter what we do, we still are the Sex Pistols.

How was the experience of collaborating with Alluri and what kind of a set can we expect at this Mumbai show of yours?
Its been fun. I haven’t know him for long. Recording with him in Telegu with Italian musicians in Milan was a different experience.
I don’t know yet! I got a sack full of songs, so mostly some solo stuff and then the songs which Alluri, the band and me have worked on. Well, its gonna be Rock Music in the end!

The British bassist, who is currently in India, talks about his influences, his upcoming album, and what makes a song endure.