Johnny Rotten: We decided to have a holiday as band en masse and we grouped ourselves in the Channel Islands and they immediately rejected us. To mark the album’s anniversary, Rotten and Matlock spoke with Rolling Stone to break down every track of one of the most venomous albums in rock history. (The ever-volatile Sid Vicious died of a drug overdose in 1978). These days, Rotten goes by his given name of John Lydon and is dedicated to his post-Pistols art-rock group Public Image Ltd., Jones hosts the radio show Jonesy’s Jukebox, Cook is releasing a new record with the Professionals called What in the World, and Matlock is touring as a solo artist and has recorded a new album with the Stray Cats’ Slim Jim Phantom with the working title of Cloud Cuckoo Land that will come out early in 2018. Since none of the band members are considering re-forming or making another album, the box set could be the final, definitive statement on the Sex Pistols. (“I was drunk at the time I had no idea what day it was,” Rotten says of that gig now.) The collection previously came out in a limited edition in 2012 but quickly went out of print. tour, as well as the band’s infamous riverboat party on the Thames during the Queen’s jubilee celebrations. The collection includes the original album, a disc of rarities, another containing live recordings from Europe, a 48-page book and a DVD featuring several live performances on the S.P.O.T.S. The album’s legacy will soon be the focus of a comprehensive 40th-anniversary box set. Bollocks was a cultural force and subsequently made it into the Top 50 of Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. While other bands on both sides of the Atlantic helped set the bar for punk fury, the combo of Rotten’s cutting vocals, guitarist Steve Jones’ stomping riffs and drummer Paul Cook’s crashing cymbals – not to mention bass appearances by original four-stringer Glen Matlock, who left the group in 1977, and his replacement, Sid Vicious – amplified the menace of songs like “Anarchy in the U.K.” and “God Save the Queen” into national threats. and was certified double platinum there, and in the U.S., where Rolling Stone called the group “the most incendiary rock & roll band since the Rolling Stones and the Who,” it ultimately became one of the only first-wave punk records to be certified platinum.įorty years later, the album still smacks of vitriol. Its singles were blacked out on the British charts, a record store manager was arrested and charged with obscenity for displaying the album cover, and the band – banned all over England – had to tour undercover as S.P.O.T.S. And around the time Never Mind the Bollocks came out on October 28th, 1977, the band caused chaos as much as it inspired anarchy. The record was a little less than 40 minutes of seething rock & roll frustration aimed at anyone within gobbing distance, and their home country, in particular. Ultimately, the Sex Pistols created the defining clarion call for punk mayhem. Meet the Beatle: A Guide to Ringo Starr's Solo Career in 20 Songs