In August 2024, three founding Sex Pistols members—guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook, and bassist Glen Matlock—reunited with a new singer, Frank Carter, to play a series of benefit shows at the Bush Hall club in London. The old bandmates and Carter then played several more 2024 shows in the U.K., as well as an Italian festival, and they now have a full-fledged tour scheduled for 2025.
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Original Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon has been estranged from his bandmates since the all last toured together in 2008. Lydon a.k.a. Johnny Rotten, also launched an unsuccessful lawsuit trying to block Sex Pistols music from being used in the 2022 Hulu biographical series Pistol, which was based on Jones’ 2016 memoir, Lonely Boy.
Now, Lydon has shared his feelings about his former bandmates continuing to play Sex Pistols concerts without him in an article posted on U.K. newspaper The i Paper’s website.
“When I first heard that the Sex Pistols were touring this year without me, it p—ed me off. It annoyed me,” the 69-year-old singer wrote. It annoyed me. “I just thought, ‘they’re absolutely going to kill all that was good with the Pistols by eliminating the point and the purpose of it all.’”
Lydon, who was the band’s main lyricist, continued, “I didn’t write those words lightly. They’re trying to trivialize the whole show to get away with karaoke but in the long term I think you’ll see who has the value and who doesn’t. I’ve never sold my soul to make a dollar. It’s the Catholic in me—that guilt I don’t want to trip.”
Lydon Reflects on His Reputation of Being “Difficult to Work With”
The singer then reflected on his penchant for standing up for not going along with things he doesn’t believe are right, while using as a comparison, perhaps surprisingly, a famous U.S. political figure.
“Like [former first lady] Nancy Reagan, I’ve always found it easy to just say ‘no,’” Lydon noted. “If something challenges your heart and your soul and your mind and your sense of purity of what is right and wrong in the world, then just say no. Which, according to the corporate thinking which riddles the music business earns me the title of ‘difficult to work with’–a title of which I’m very proud.”
Lydon’s 2025 Tour Plans
Lydon continues to front Public Image Ltd., the post-punk band he co-founded in 1978. The band has an expansive tour of the U.K. and mainland Europe lined up in 2025. The trek kicks off on May 22 in Bristol, U.K., and currently is plotted out through an August 23 show in Wrocław, Poland.
John also will mount a lengthy spoken-word tour of the U.K. and Ireland during the late summer and fall.
The outing gets underway September 4 in Armagh, Northern Ireland, and runs through a November 24 appearance in London.
Lydon also revealed recently that Public Image is hoping to tour North America and record a new album in 2026.
More About the Sex Pistols Featuring Frank Carter
Sex Pistols Featuring Frank Carter’s 2025 tour plans begin March 30 with a performance in Chiba, Japan, at the Punkspring festival. The band also has concerts lined up in New Zealand, Australia, the U.K., Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, and Brazil.
At two shows, on July 24 in Vienna, Austria, and July 28 in Luxembourg, the Sex Pistols and Carter will be opening for Guns N’ Roses.
Carter also sings with the band Gallows and Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes.
In a November 2024 interview on the Rockonteurs podcast, Jones shared how he felt playing shows with Carter.
“It’s just fun. You know what I mean?” Jone said. “And it comes across as fun. Plus, we’re playing [Sex Pistols music] it how it should be played. And you got this lunatic jumping around all over the place. And he brings a big element to the fun part of it.”
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