Glen Matlock: The 13th Floor Interview

Former Sex Pistol Glen Matlock brings his solo show to New Zealand in November, playing shows in Auckland and Wellington.

Along with his work with The Pistols, Matlock has a wealth of material to draw from, including songs from his solo albums and his tenures in bands such as The Rich Kids and The Spectres.

The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda spoke to Glen Matlock to find out more about these upcoming shows. During the conversation, Glen remembers his first trip to Auckland and his thwarted attempt to walk to Devonport.

Click here to listen to the interview with Glen Matlock:

 

Or, read a transcription of the interview here:

MD: You’re heading to New Zealand on a solo tour; is that right?

GM: It’s a solo tour with a band, some Australian guys.  I’m going to Australia first, to play with a band, but it’s cost prohibitive. I’m going to come and do a couple of solo shows… in Auckland. I enjoy doing the solo shows most of the time with a band

MD: Other than the fact that one is, obviously, louder than the other, how do they differ?

GM: … I’ve been… doing solo shows all around the world for a long time now. It’s more of an intimate kind of thing, and I can break and tell stories, about the songs, in between, and just go off at a tangent and have a good chat…. Of all the songs that I’ve ever written, they’ve all been written on acoustic guitar; so, you get into the ‘nitty gritty’ of the matter, and I think the lyrics come across better that way as well.

MD: What kind of stories do you end up telling?

GM: I’m not going to tell you all now. I’ve been around the block a few times – between playing with The Pistols, and touring with Iggy and The Rich Kids, and working with The Faces in more recent years, and doing my own stuff; I’ve amassed quite a few tales.

MD: Yeah, I can imagine.

GM: In fact, it’s funny: I was reading a little interview of a mate of mine, that’s now playing with Paul Cook – he’s playing with The Professionals; he’s not long joined as a guitarist – and the interviewer said, “Can you tell us some stories?” and he said, “I can tell you some right old stories, but I won’t, because me mum’s still alive.”

MD: … What kind of audience comes out to see these things? Are they pretty knowledgeable about what you’ve done and where you’ve come from?

GM: Yeah! I’ve had quite a good bit of feedback just on Facebook, from New Zealand, already; and Australia. It seems to be people in my age group – and some people that seem to be a bit older, believe it or not – and they’re kids and younger people; all sorts, really. I’m not just an old punk rocker; I think I’ve written some good pop songs over the years. I’m a little bit more left-field, and people seem to dig that sort of thing. I’ve only been to New Zealand once, and that was with The Sex Pistols, and that was twenty one years ago now; so, it should be interesting. But I’ve got lots of old mates that have moved over there; so, I think I will feel at home.

MD: I saw that show that The Pistols did, in ’96 I think, right?

GM: Yeah! It was in a big circus tent…

MD: The Super Top.

GM: Yeah, and I do remember spending a few days in Auckland. I went over to… Devonport, and I wanted to walk there – and I walked all the way to some bridge that goes all the way round – and I got right to the bridge, and there was a police woman there. She said, “What you doing?” and I said, “I’m trying to walk to Devonport,” and she said, “No you’re not,” and I said, “I am! I’m halfway there now.” “Oh no, you can’t do that! You’ll jump off the bridge,” and I said, “No I won’t jump off the bridge!” She said, “It’s famous for people jumping off the bridge;” so, I had to walk all the way back, and then I got the ferry out to Devonport. I was a bit annoyed by then, but I quite enjoyed Devonport; it was like the Isle of Wight. I don’t know all the ‘ins and outs’ of the dark recesses of Auckland, but I know that they don’t let you walk across the bridge….

MD: I remember – back twenty one years ago – when you guys were coming, there was some controversy about whether you would be allowed in the country. Do you find it strange that that stuff follows you around, even so far after ’76, ’77?

GM: Yeah, it does a bit, really. I think it’s a bit daft, to be honest. I think there’s much ‘worser’ things, than what we did, going on in the world: people coming in and out of

countries; some guy’s travelling in a rock band with something worthwhile to say. Perhaps he was frightened of what we had to say, not what we represented. I’ve always approached things more as a song writer: always wanted to be somebody like Ray Davies, or something like that. I’m a big fan of Ronnie Lane; I like Ian Hunter, and a whole host of other things; and somehow, it’s all in my music somewhere. It comes across far more when I’m doing my acoustic show; so, come on down, really.

MD: Oh, I definitely will!

GM: They’re songs of consequence, they are.

MD: You’ve translated your songs into a more classical setting as well. Something with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; is that right?

GM: I was kind of a little bit involved that. They approached me to see what I thought of it, and I helped them to do some press on it. I actually liked what they’d done to it. I did some TV show for the Anarchy Arias, and it wasn’t just my songs, it was a whole bunch of punk songs with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. I was there when they were performing No More Heroes live, and it was fantastic! There was… a lot of aplomb in the plan, and they got the dynamics great. I was chatting to the guy Rupert Christie, who was the conductor and did the arrangements; I said, “You’ve just copied the record,” and he said, “Yeah, but it sounds great.” All the parts were the same, but played on strings and brass. I think there’s only two kinds of music: there’s good music and there’s bad music, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder…. It doesn’t really matter what idiom it’s in, as long as the song’s good and it’s got some kind of message, its worthwhile listening to.

MD: When you were writing those songs for The Sex Pistols, was there a message that you, specifically, were trying to get across?

GM: It’s so long ago…. I mean, my main lyric for The Pistols is “Totally vacant”, that’s been taken as some political stance thing, but it wasn’t; I think it was a real primal scream of the frustration of growing up and trying to cut your teeth in mid-‘70s London, where it seemed like nothing was going on unless we tried to do something about it for ourselves….

MD: Do you feel like you actually accomplished something with the music?

GM: I think, just by the fact that people like you want to talk to me forty years after the event, it must have done something… it touched a chord. The whole Pistols thing, for me, is a bit of a double edged sword: I think I’ve done equally as good stuff since then, but it always gets measured against The Pistols, and, even though I’m proud of it, it kind of stops me from moving on a little bit; and I think that’s applied to all of us in the band…. But I just do what I do. If I enjoy doing it – I get to travel around the world, get to meet some great people; I get to see how the world works, maybe, a lot more than somebody who works in a biscuit factory – then I’m quite happy, really. I’d like to come to New Zealand and spread a little bit of happiness….

MD: You mentioned you’ve done a lot of other things, other than The Pistols. What would you recommend for folks to explore in anticipation of your arrival? You’ve done things with The Rich Kids and The Spectres…

GM: Well, the last album I put out: it wasn’t that widely distributed, but I put an album out called Born Running, and I’m really proud of that; it’s got some good stuff on that. I will be playing a few songs of from all the things I’ve done over the years. The beauty of playing by myself is that I… do what I’m going to do, and I just gauge it to what the crowd are picking up on or not picking up on, and I don’t have to worry about whether the rest of the band know the song, or if they know what key I’m going to do it in that night…. I just turn up, take the guitar out of the box, and if you put all the tuning pegs in the same direction, it kind of makes them almost in tune, and you just get on with it. It’s far more immediate.

MD: Sounds like a punk attitude right there! And speaking of punk: I saw that you played at a European punk festival, called Rebellion, about a month, or so, ago.

GM: Yeah. That was in England. It was only a few weeks ago, up in Blackpool. It’s like the biggest punk festival in Europe. I think people come from all over to it, and it was great, but it’s like twenty thousand punks wandering around Blackpool – I don’t know if you know Blackpool: it’s kind of the ‘let off steam’ capital of the north – and all these punks: you know, they’ve got these massive Mohawks, and they’ve always had a bit too much cider, and something else, wandering the streets; but they’re actually quite tame compared with the girls, in their skimpy outfits and cowboy hats at eleven o’clock in the morning, going on to a hen party. It’s really a weird place to be; but it was fun as well. It was the epitome of one of those old fashioned seaside postcards.

MD: Is punk a label that you embrace, and do you think that there is a vibrant scene still happening?

GM: I don’t know if there’s a vibrant punk scene. Those guys up there: they tend to live in the past. It’s a bit like the Teddy Boys were… in the ‘50s, I think. But I still think there are people of my age group that are still writing new stuff…. I don’t like living in the past; I like to live in the present with the likes of Pucifer)… I’m just doing my thing, really; normally travelling all around the world. Last week, I was with a big festival in Gibraltar – MTV calling Gibraltar Rock – it was quite fun. I did a small acoustic show there, and played in front of quite a few thousand people with my band, who came over and joined me; and that was a real mash-up of different people: Midge Ure was on, and he said, “Me and you are on the pensioner’s stage,” and then they had Tiny Temper and some disco people and David Craig. Yeah, it was quite a good festival, because there was just a real mixture, and you get to see things that you wouldn’t necessarily go and see.

MD: Do you still keep up on new music, and listening out for new sounds?

GM: Not as much as I used to. Every now and then, something comes up and catches your ear. The last thing I really liked was Up Town Funk; that was pretty good…. I think things on the R&B/Soul side of things seem to be more cutting edge than rock music these days: I like Hey Ya’ by Outkast. In fact, I even do a cover of Happy by Pharrell Williams, if you’re really lucky…. I like to mix it up a little.

MD: I’d like to ask you one more Pistols related question before we go…

GM: Oh oh!

MD: It’s just that the band is one of those bands that there’s been tons of stories that have grown up over the years, and myths and legends and rumours; and I was wondering, from your point of view, what’s the most misunderstood thing about The Sex Pistols?

GM: That we were a communist plot to bring down a government; we weren’t! We were a band. We spoke our mind. I think the best thing about The Pistols, ever, is – and this is even after I left the band – in the Pretty Vacant video, Steve Jones, who’s got a ‘No Nicotine’ handkerchief knotted on his head, like… a ‘gumby hat’ – it’s something out of Monty Python that was what all the blokes used to wear at the seaside.

Any self respecting, would-be guitar hero would not do that; and it just sums up the whole cartoon character of the band. To me, John wasn’t the leader of the band, it was Steve’s band in the first place, and it was his character that came shining through, and I think people miss that a little bit. There was a whole ‘tongue in cheekness’ about the whole thing. Not that we didn’t mean what we said, but there was a pantomime element to it as well.

Click here for more info about Glen Matlock NZ tour dates.