INTERVIEW: Sex Pistols legend Glen Matlock sounds off
Photo: Glen Matlock has had an illustrious music career with many bands and recordings. Photo courtesy of Tina Korhonen, 2019. All rights reserved. / Provided by Earshot Media with permission.
The Sex Pistols were a late-1970s punk band that revolutionized the music genre and produced many knockoffs. They came to epitomize a music style and image, even though they greatly resisted easy categorization and mainstream acceptance.
Glen Matlock was the original bassist for the band, and he left an indelible mark on punk rock. He wrote the Sex Pistols’ hit song “Pretty Vacant” and was the maestro behind such tunes as “Anarchy in the U.K.” and “God Save the Queen.”
He moved on from the Sex Pistols to another influential band, the Rich Kids, who put out the landmark album Ghosts of Princes in Towers. Since those days in the 1970s and 1980s, Matlock has stayed busy, collaborating with the likes of Iggy Pop and also charting an impressive solo career. His latest recording effort is coined Good to Go.
The impactful bassist is currently on a mini solo tour of the United States, with stops in New York City, Los Angeles and Long Beach, California. Audiences should expect to hear tunes from throughout his multi-decade career.
Recently Matlock exchanged emails with Hollywood Soapbox. Questions and and answers have been slightly edited for style.
With so many songs from so many different time periods in your career, how do you go about choosing a set list for a concert?
Well, certain songs suit the musicians who are playing with me at the time, so that whittles it down a bit. There is also the mood that I happen to be in, which narrows it further, and then there are those that I can remember the words to. So by a process of elimination and subtraction, hey, presto, we have an achievable set list!
What motivates you to keep playing, keep touring the world and keep making new music?
For a start, there is never that much worthwhile on the TV. Travel broadens the mind, and you get to meet some cool people in far-flung corners of the globe. And it’s not such a bad thing to be given chances to show off and get paid for it, so it’s a bit of a no brainier to keep on trucking.
Do you have fond memories of the early days in the Sex Pistols? Was it important for you and the band to not only rock, but also share important social and political messages?
The Pistols were a bit of a double-edged sword for me, but, yes, there are some fond memories, mainly of seeing a project come together and take off, make a mark and still see its ramifications to this day.
How did ‘Pretty Vacant’ come to be? What’s the backstory on the creation of that song?
Well, that’s a long one, but in a nutshell, it was a primal scream to do with my teenage angst of feeling hopeless in the big bad world that I found myself in in mid mid ’70s London and a way of coping with that and pressing on regardless.
Ghosts of Princes in Towers is a landmark album for the Rich Kids. What was it like working on that project?
Very interesting. I assembled a bunch of forward-thinking individuals who wanted to move on from the identikit punk, bring a whole bunch of other disparate influences in the pot and generally rock out and have some fun in the tight trousers. It was also pretty cool to get to work with the superlative Mick Ronson in the producer’s chair.
What’s on the horizon for you beyond this mini U.S. tour?
We have festival appearances in the Far East through the summer, are looking to start recording a follow up to the current Good to Go album, and there is talk of a return to the States with a the full band in the fall that I will be looking into once I have finished answering your questions.
So, plenty on the horizon and many places to go and people to see.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Glen Matlock is currently on a mini solo tour of the United States. Click here for more information and tickets.
