Steve is the man. He is the #1 reason why I picked up a guitar. Im 21, now. When I was 14 or so, I heard NeverMind The Bollocks and it changed my life. Hes a great person. Thanks for this great interview!
I had ,the exact reaction, at the age,of 11 .then after listening, and getting into,Johnny Marr, and, after listening to how,he likes, laying different, souds,riffs,pics and enything else, on top of each other, upto 10. 12, different layers, for one Unique sound, that is when i realised! thats how Steve Jones, sounds so fucking, brilliant, in Sorry for blabing on Tate, just really liked your reply, I'm 54, so nice to see that music hasn't, changed, just the format, for listening, which is probably for the better?,
My heart sunk when the audience didn't spontaneously applaud when he mentioned his recovery from substance abuse of 20+ years. But when they also ignored his added accomplishment of being off cigarettes for nearly 12 years; which is even harder to kick than drugs and alcohol, imo; I was and am really pissed off! I've been clean for 13 years but I've yet to beat these stupid cigarettes. He's an inspiration to me for having stopped smoking, alone! Oh yeah, AND he also happens to be 1 of the 4 musicians in The World-Changing Sex Pistols? Huh! This man is uniquely talented and special beyond even talented and special people! I haven't even mentioned how appealing his humble personality is; which reeks of authenticity, and is just more good stuff to add to the great man who seems to not know how really great he is!
I've been clean. using, clean, using blah, blah blah for over 40 years. In recovery doesn't need applause, tobacco is a lousy and easy to quit drug compared to class A's. Are you for real. U.K. punk was honest and angry, I've had my teeth kicked in. If my heart sank every time over triviality, I'd be a fake. Like you.
Steve is such a Great Man! An amazing guitar sound, perfect along with John's voice! First time I heard God Save the Queen in 1977 altered my life for the better. I was in my kitchen making a grill cheese or something and Steve's guitar entered the room thru my cheap little clock radio on top of the fridge and I stopped and went Holy Shit!
Babs Fitzpatrick Audiences don’t deserve to hear talented people, they’re all voyeurs and wannabes, like WC Fields used to say, “never smarten up a chump”.
Love listening to this guy the sincerity no bullshit so refreshing No airs and graces ,nor trying to be anything ,clever ,smart ass,or portray an image Are there any Americans like this
Steve Jones asked to buy the chairs after the interview he loved the look and feel of them he also wrote the questions before the interview which he said was the most enjoyable of his career due to the comfort of said chairs and the amazing delivery of the questions
Could listen to him all day, so interesting he didn't look nervous on stage and could play well. Great guitar sound ,great singles dominated the charts great to grow up with. 👍
@@wyrd7545 nope. He has nothing I repeat nothing to do with any of the music. At all. He helped finance and dress them up in clothing from his shops and Vivian Westwooda designs
Steve Jones and John Lydon are the most honest about their experience in music, producers, bios, songs lyrics, lyrics that meant something. not just crap about promoting riches they didn't have. they actually said something! Music is a rare talent. not everyone has "IT". preteens, teens, twentysomethings should really learn where Punk started and why. There is no punk today!
"where Punk started" Well where it started was that music critics of the early '70s decided to label some '60s rock and roll, such as the Standells, "punk rock." So you had the Stooges for instance, and later the Modern Lovers for instance (e.g. "Pablo Picasso" -- they included Jerry Harrison btw), and later the Sex Pistols for instance.
I love listening to Steve, so bloody down the line. Reminds me of blokes like my mates and me except I never managed to play guitar on the greatest songs I've ever heard!
Agreed, Ant. I love to hear Steve talking about things. He has a nice speaking voice. His guitar playing is so special. When I crank up the live reunion performances, they are phenomenal.
i love steve jones, he says he couldn't play back then but i think even during the sex pistols he was already a very tight guitar player. i love his riffs and catchy and fun solos and leads...
Bill Price (great sound engineer) says Jones was the tightest guitar player he ever worked with, and he worked many legendary musicians, he just plays up to the myth that band couldn't play, as Lydon says "nobody can not play the guitar as well as Jonesy"
He does a video where he breaks down most of the songs of Bollocks. He played power chords of course but the solos he came up with having no real knowledge of theory. McLaren said he could see something special in Steven when he was a wayward youth hanging around his shop.
@@matthewcohen7488 steve jones clearly had a great ear for guitar probably very naturally, his rhythm is great and yeah im sure he came up with those leads and solos by ear alone.....funny enough it sounds blues based though because steve was playing blues licks by ear probably because they just sounded cool. he loved to slide chords around too (half of punk sound was created by jones sliding power chords around fast, lol)and play those chuck berry licks....honestly jones style is very rock n roll!
What you see with Steve is what you get a true man, watching the sex pistols from a early age from 5 yrs old, I'm now 49 yrs old and still listen to the pistols, meant a great deal for me and got me to listening to the bands I listen to today,, thankyou to Steve and the pistols awesome Steve 👍👍
It was nice to see Steve ( pie mash ) jonesy...... he has some humility now and always honest, back in the day he was right Lairy , he liked to think he was slick and a bit of a bird puller as we all did back then but Steve actually was! ....along with a few other wren boys. As an old school mate ( white city boy) it's great to see Steve has got this far... surviving those times were not easy. Well done on getting it together 👍
Steve was sooo hot back in the day, and cool , I agree with everything you say he is very humble and real now. I still think he is a very handsome guy, been in love with him forever since 70s.
40 years listening to Bollocks and it never gets old. And Jonesy summed up music's current plight perfectly: there are lots of bands, but no new movement. I see lots of gifted musicians that have clearly mastered the past, but no new movement. Rock and roll has become an artifact.
...and Steve and Paul kept the Sex Pistols going after John left to form PIL, they went to Rio to pick up Ronald Biggs to sing on a couple of songs on The Great Rock N Roll Swindle, can't remember if it was Steve who sang on the title track but that was brill, right back to Pretty Vacant. No One Is Innocent was a great song by old Ron.
As an American teenager in 1977, at 16, the FIRST time I heard the single God Save the Queen I FREAKING LOVED IT. FIRST LISTEN. There is no question about that at all.
i feel like steve jones is one of those unsung heroes of punk/rock. He really did alot of work of NMBHCSP and his playing style has always been so solid and pure.
steve jones might have not been a great player wen he fitst started but he became one of thee great ruthuim player around. no one looks or plays cooler licks than jonesy !!! #underated
i would have liked Steve Jones to have talked like this years ago because he was always sold short as being less. sounds like a good bloke to me . All the best S.J.
I retract my original comment. The interviewer is a geek. And has not a clue about how good the album was. The music was great. First time I heard it I was blown away. It's in my top ten albums. EVER!!
I have been a fan ever since my brother introduced me to them. I was in love with Steve ever since. I read his book " lonely boy" brutal honesty. And it made me cry.... I bought it in london. (My son Phillip who is actually named after steve. Steves middle name is philip.) My son found the book: look mum i found someone you like.
That film the audience guy asks him about is actually about how football started. The original game was a way of letting off steam for a town or village in England and it's true that the only "goal" to the "game" was to get the ball from one end of the town to the other! Starting in the middle, the north v's south or east v's west (whatever). Basically a series of pitched battles that would take all day until the ball got to one end or everyone was dead! 😂 I love history!
I can't agree with the negative comments about the interviewer below - I think he gets a very interesting free-flowing conversation going and Steve helps by being very personable, articulate, and humorous - the knockers mustn't have seen many or any of the cringe-making strained interviews that I have...
@@ernestmostly8156 woody woodmansy i believe. Many yrs later steve offered him some money for the equipment. I think Steve interviewed him on his KLOS Jonesys jukebox.
I remember the impact the music,the sound, the energy, the look and artwork of the Sex Pistols had on me in 1977 when my older brother brought 3 of their singles home from England in 1977. I was 9 yrs, but was grown up on all the great stuff, thanks to my brother. Hendrix, CCR, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Bowie, Lou Reed, T. Rex, Queen, Alice Cooper (band), The Sweet, Slade, and of course the 60s great bands the Who, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. None of them, and i mean NONE of them had prepared me for this band and i just immediately knew, that i had found the first band that i could truly relate to. You either hated it or loved it! It was not punk, it was beyond that! And boy, even if they weren't supergroup musicians, what they did was worth 10 times more in terms of artistic value! This was pure Rock n' Roll, like the Rolling Stones, the Who and Hendrix had been in the 60's, and i think its perfect that they didn't do another album, cause i don't know how they possibly could ever improve on Never Mind the Bollocks!
the interesting thing about that list is that almost all the them are still highly regarded. Punk on the other hand appears to finally be getting some critical reappraisal and people are beginning to wonder if Crass, Sham 69, X-ray specs, The Slits were any good and the answer appears to be a firm "not really"! The Sex pistols only wrote four good tunes and even the Clash only made their fortune & critical reputation post 1977 (London Calling wasn't even a punk album!)
Thanks for loading this up. I put Steve in the Mick Ronson, Earl Slick and Gary Moore clique. He has his own most inimitable guitar style. Not flashy. I use to see him around London sometimes back in the seventies. Appeared a quiet reserved guy. I heard he had some of Bowie's equipment away (Ham. Odeon '73).
32:55 Jonesy has mentioned this before in many other interviews. Being a Yank, myself, and having been to both the UK and Australia, I can confidently say that Steve’s experience with American girls had less to do with the culture here and a lot more to do with the fact that he was a young foreign fella AND in a band on top of that. I’ve heard my English pals all complain about girls in their own country, but when I was single and travelling, I found a lot of English girls to be equally friendly and eager to please; perhaps even more so. It’s just how young gals are, no matter the country. I found Aussie girls to be even more eager to please and approachable. But if I had been a local, they more than likely would not have been so easy. Women, especially when they are younger, by and large, will always go after the guy with the accent who stands out a little more. Within reason, of course. Unless he’s extremely unsightly or annoying. And these girls all told me they typically found the standard TV American accents to be annoying. Still, it didn’t stop them from hooking up. If you stand out in a positive way, your market value increases. It’s just how it is.
Steve Jones' quote, "We're not into music, we're into chaos" appeared in one of the earliest reviews of a Sex Pistols gig in the NME in 1976. I remember reading it and being very impressed. I was the same age as the Pistols and was interested in what was generally known back then, if known at all, as rock music made by punks, though no-one called it Punk Rock. This interest had been engendered by writers at the NME, especially Nick Kent, who had written big article on Iggy Pop, and Charles Shaar Murray who was commenting on the New York punk scene. By the start of 1976 I already had Raw Power, The Ramones and Patti Smith's Horses. I remember thinking that the few pictures I had seen of Johnny Rotten looked promising, but the deal was sealed when I saw the band and some of the other early punks on a programme made by Janet Street-Porter on London Weekend Television. Steve struggles to answer the interviewers question regarding the bands success in terms of their impact and influence. The music that he and the rest of the band made was tough, hard rock. Not particularly original, as he attests, but certainly of a type thin on the ground by then. The clincher was the character, style and attitude of Johnny Rotten, he made all the difference.
After Ed Sanders of The Fugs ("Coca Cola Douche") used "punk rock" to describe his own first solo album and music writer Lester Bangs used "punk" to describe Iggy Pop in 1970, music writers such as Greg Shaw, Dave Marsh, Lenny Kaye, and Robert Hilburn used the expression "punk rock" in print during 1971-1974. That included Hilburn describing the New York Dolls, who Steve Jones, John Lydon, and Glen Matlock admired.
That may all be true, but no-one in the UK used the expression Punk Rock as a genre descriptive prior to the Sex Pistols. Iggy and the Dolls may have been described by American journalists, largely unread in the UK I have to say, as "punks" or as exhibiting the traits of a punk, meaning they were scuzzy, sneering, probably drug addled, street level losers whose music, pretty much ignored in the UK and, I'd wager, the US, was regarded as poorly played sub-Stones riffery, but there was no genre to which the description "Punk Rock" was applied. Nobody walked into record shops and asked to look through their punk rock section, at least not in the UK, pre 1977.
i always say that out of the thousands of bands that have been around there was just two bands who's sound alone blew me into next week before i had even really realized how great the songs were, that was Led Zeppelin and The Sex Pistols.
People underestimate how rough British working class life was, by the 1970's the image of the UK was Punk, Skinhead, Football Hooligans, failed brutalist, Soviet style architecture, casual violence and all quite justified for a majority of people. 2/3rds of England's cities looked like a Victorian version of Detroit in the late 90's and Clockwork orange was banned by Kubrick in the UK because it was being a bit to real...
This is great. As much as I love Lydon, I have a feeling Steve Jones' version of Sex Pistols history is a bit more accurate. He lacks the self-aggrandizement and hyperbolic tendencies that are Mr. Rotten's stock in trade.
I knew steve in the early 80s my room mate had a connection for him and we hung with him for awhile we went to the Lord's of the new church at Perkins palace Pasadena went back stage in the dressing room when
Steve was cool. He was not happy with the road he was taking and wanted to better himself and he put a lot of work into the Pistols. I am glad he did. If the Pistols had not worked who knows what would have happened to Steve? And we would not have one of the greatest rock and roll albums ever made. NMTB saved me. I suffered from depression in the 90s and I could not get out of bed without playing NMTB. I found the Pistols hugely therapeutic.
This man is a legend! I was only 8 years old when NMTB came out so the whole thing passed me by at the time,sadly.It's funny to see how history has remembered them versus how they were viewed at the time.Hated,reviled,banned,considered as subversive and even dangerous.It's recognised now of course as one of the most important and influential albums ever recorded.The blistering punch that the songs deliver is still as strong today,this was a band with a far deeper relevance and musical aptitude than people thought.Like I said,funny how things turn out....if you're not familiar with what The Sex Pistols did in the town of Huddersfield on Christmas Day 1977 I'd strongly recommend you to look it up and see just what this "dangerous and reviled" band were really about.Then contrast that with someone who was loved by all back in 1977,one Jimmy Savile......well we now know what he was really about too! I guess the truth of all things will out in the end.I'm just pleased that The Pistols are getting their recognition here in this life rather than any of them getting one of those insincere posthumous tributes.How the music industry could do with someone like them to shake it up again!
I'm glad all this stuff about Steve not being able to play when they first recorded is finally being corrected, seems to me he was a decent player and watching some of the live stuff seemed more than competent !!......
John articulate love his vocals steve and Glen both prolific sid was basic on bass paul a good heavy drummer amazing era and band only happens once in a lifetime
This only goes to prove that something as simple as The Sex Pistols story became so serious. And how actually, a few guys messing about became music so ahead of it's time.
Huge fan and collector 250 items seen them 6 times on reunion tour amazing never mind the hype sex pistol are legends.met glen and John nice guys I'm also n adam and the ants adam ant fan as well going to see him live in June uk 🇬🇧
If bands releasing a stream of albums through the years were creating a relationship of sorts with their fan base then Never Mind The Bollocks surely has to be the best one night stand album of all time😎👌
The best band....Ever!..The best fuckin` album...EVER!!! If you ain`t bought the 35th anniversary boxset...Do it now!! Well worth the price tag of £100..and I contributed to the NMTB Diaries...so there!!!
Interesting hearing from Steve, he's a good talker. The interviewer comes across like a bit of geeky, know it all, google executives' slave, but he provided a decent contrast and didn't constantly interrupt like so many nobs these days.
I was 13 and worked the school holidays for a local tomato grower to earn money for records. Bollocks was one of many first Punk albums I brought in 79. SLF, Dead Kenedys, UK Subs and many more. Jones guitar style stood out against most as real talent.
In 1978 I was the only punk at my university in Tennessee. It “was” hard to be a punk way back then. Ended up playing bass for a band in DC called Iron Cross. It was a great time, it was a tough time, I miss it.
The interviewer is TERRIBLE. Totally lacking in interpersonal skills. No sense of humor, none. He wouldn't know humor if it kicked his teeth out. All the blatant and not so blatant nuances went right over his head. Steve gave him so many juices information he could run with and this guy choose the most boring route, a big, blank rock. Steve is a goldmine. Brutally honest and funny.
I'm surprised that Steve didnt say 'Pretty vacant' or 'Problems' as 1st good song - these were in the Lesser Free trade hall gig thats mentioned ,ive got a bootleg lp of this gig - it's good .( it was released as 'No Fun - Rotten Quality' & later as 'the Good time music of the Sex Pistols')
Steve is the man. He is the #1 reason why I picked up a guitar. Im 21, now. When I was 14 or so, I heard NeverMind The Bollocks and it changed my life. Hes a great person. Thanks for this great interview!
And now you're 27.
happy 30!
I had ,the exact reaction, at the age,of 11 .then after listening, and getting into,Johnny Marr, and, after listening to how,he likes, laying different, souds,riffs,pics and enything else, on top of each other, upto 10. 12, different layers, for one Unique sound, that is when i realised! thats how Steve Jones, sounds so fucking, brilliant, in
Sorry for blabing on Tate, just really liked your reply, I'm 54, so nice to see that music hasn't, changed, just the format, for listening, which is probably for the better?,
John Ritchie was my inspiration to buy a bass, a fantastic influence, just a shame he followed smack after his mother. 😮
Me too mate. One of the top 5 players, hands down. Everyone hard rocker since 1980 has been influenced by Mr. Jones.
My heart sunk when the audience didn't spontaneously applaud when he mentioned his recovery from substance abuse of 20+ years. But when they also ignored his added accomplishment of being off cigarettes for nearly 12 years; which is even harder to kick than drugs and alcohol, imo; I was and am really pissed off! I've been clean for 13 years but I've yet to beat these stupid cigarettes. He's an inspiration to me for having stopped smoking, alone! Oh yeah, AND he also happens to be
1 of the 4 musicians in The
World-Changing Sex Pistols? Huh! This man is uniquely talented and special beyond even talented and special people! I haven't even mentioned how appealing his humble personality is; which reeks of authenticity, and is just more good stuff to add to the great man who seems to not know how really great he is!
I've been clean. using, clean, using blah, blah blah for over 40 years. In recovery doesn't need applause, tobacco is a lousy and easy to quit drug compared to class A's. Are you for real. U.K. punk was honest and angry, I've had my teeth kicked in. If my heart sank every time over triviality, I'd be a fake. Like you.
Steve is such a Great Man! An amazing guitar sound, perfect along with John's voice! First time I heard God Save the Queen in 1977 altered my life for the better. I was in my kitchen making a grill cheese or something and Steve's guitar entered the room thru my cheap little clock radio on top of the fridge and I stopped and went Holy Shit!
The audience was like a dead fish, so many jokes went right over their head. No clue. Just like the guy interviewing.
@@favoritebeautytips6316 Americans, don't know humour, look at those shitty shows they produce, Big Bang Theory, Freinds ugh
Babs Fitzpatrick Audiences don’t deserve to hear talented people, they’re all voyeurs and wannabes, like WC Fields used to say, “never smarten up a chump”.
19:51 "Sid is fumbling around underneath God save the queen and Bodies". Beautifully put
I like all the songs from "Never Mind the Bollocks" album, it's a Masterpiece.
Every single one is a gem 👍
It's an amazing work
Love listening to this guy the sincerity no bullshit so refreshing
No airs and graces ,nor trying to be anything ,clever ,smart ass,or portray an image
Are there any Americans like this
Hi chris, Just out of interest, are you speaking as a Brit or a yank?
Steve Jones asked to buy the chairs after the interview he loved the look and feel of them he also wrote the questions before the interview which he said was the most enjoyable of his career due to the comfort of said chairs and the amazing delivery of the questions
I love his brutal honesty, doesn't give two figs, take it or leave it, this is how it was and is.
Could listen to him all day, so interesting he didn't look nervous on stage and could play well. Great guitar sound ,great singles dominated the charts great to grow up with. 👍
Steve Jones was the mastermind behind the Pistols and modern music in general really from 76 on, it all came from him
it was glen jones and john
Do you have any shame? Don't think so. Steve and Paul were in it for the birds and the piss up.
@@wyrd7545 nope. He has nothing I repeat nothing to do with any of the music. At all. He helped finance and dress them up in clothing from his shops and Vivian Westwooda designs
@@matthewjdouglas6471 good shout. Malcolm saw the pistols as a way to sell more clothes, nothing more than that. no mastermind plan to change music
@Gordon Harrell correct, Steve himself said post Glen they only wrote two more songs
Jonesy's like a character out of a Dickens novel. Artful Dodger, kinda thing. You gotta love who he is!
Maxim Charles Working man?
You would be a pretentious prat. The idea of getting up early for work depressed Steve. He was a kleptomaniac.
nkmcfrln exactly
Definitely. My favourite sex pistols member by sure
An a great guitarist 😊
That's just a recycled version of a Malcom McLaren quote...
Steve Jones and John Lydon are the most honest about their experience in music, producers, bios, songs lyrics, lyrics that meant something. not just crap about promoting riches they didn't have. they actually said something! Music is a rare talent. not everyone has "IT". preteens, teens, twentysomethings should really learn where Punk started and why. There is no punk today!
"where Punk started" Well where it started was that music critics of the early '70s decided to label some '60s rock and roll, such as the Standells, "punk rock." So you had the Stooges for instance, and later the Modern Lovers for instance (e.g. "Pablo Picasso" -- they included Jerry Harrison btw), and later the Sex Pistols for instance.
@JezBollah 667 Zero stretch at all in my earlier post.
Been a fan since 79 -80, love this guy's honesty so much. Total respect to you Mr.Jones.
Came to it late?
I love listening to Steve, so bloody down the line. Reminds me of blokes like my mates and me except I never managed to play guitar on the greatest songs I've ever heard!
Agreed, Ant. I love to hear Steve talking about things. He has a nice speaking voice. His guitar playing is so special. When I crank up the live reunion performances, they are phenomenal.
this guy right here.....needs to be in any Hall of Fame !
pointnozzleaway He is lol, the Sex Pistols didn't show up to their induction but they are in it
@@Luke-xq6iu exactly as it's bullshit just like SteveMiller said
My Steve, such a charming guy.
Love you so much.♡☆
i love steve jones, he says he couldn't play back then but i think even during the sex pistols he was already a very tight guitar player. i love his riffs and catchy and fun solos and leads...
Bill Price (great sound engineer) says Jones was the tightest guitar player he ever worked with, and he worked many legendary musicians, he just plays up to the myth that band couldn't play, as Lydon says "nobody can not play the guitar as well as Jonesy"
He based his playing on The Faces and Small Faces. The best influence a kid in UK could have back then....
@Peaches Peaches nothing is hard if you do it poorly.having said that,Steve was quite competent at rock n roll guitar
He does a video where he breaks down most of the songs of Bollocks. He played power chords of course but the solos he came up with having no real knowledge of theory. McLaren said he could see something special in Steven when he was a wayward youth hanging around his shop.
@@matthewcohen7488 steve jones clearly had a great ear for guitar probably very naturally, his rhythm is great and yeah im sure he came up with those leads and solos by ear alone.....funny enough it sounds blues based though because steve was playing blues licks by ear probably because they just sounded cool. he loved to slide chords around too (half of punk sound was created by jones sliding power chords around fast, lol)and play those chuck berry licks....honestly jones style is very rock n roll!
What you see with Steve is what you get a true man, watching the sex pistols from a early age from 5 yrs old, I'm now 49 yrs old and still listen to the pistols, meant a great deal for me and got me to listening to the bands I listen to today,, thankyou to Steve and the pistols awesome Steve 👍👍
It was nice to see Steve ( pie mash ) jonesy...... he has some humility now and always honest, back in the day he was right Lairy , he liked to think he was slick and a bit of a bird puller as we all did back then but Steve actually was! ....along with a few other wren boys. As an old school mate ( white city boy) it's great to see Steve has got this far... surviving those times were not easy. Well done on getting it together 👍
Steve was sooo hot back in the day, and cool , I agree with everything you say he is very humble and real now. I still think he is a very handsome guy, been in love with him forever since 70s.
40 years listening to Bollocks and it never gets old. And Jonesy summed up music's current plight perfectly: there are lots of bands, but no new movement. I see lots of gifted musicians that have clearly mastered the past, but no new movement. Rock and roll has become an artifact.
Steve like John Lydon is refreshingly honest and does not take himself too seriously.
Your kidding, Lydon has his head up his ass.
*****
Even though America invented Punk ya arrogant limey fuck. Stooges... cough...Ramones,
TheArtfulLodger1
TheArtfulLodger1
I'd say that Steve is real & honest. Paul Cook too Glen Matlock ok but John portrays what's expected of him now.imo
steve jones likes journey. this guy has the best guitar sound ever. rock on!
Best Album Ever, because of John and Steve. First time I heard God Save the Queen on AM radio in Chicago changed my life forever. 1977 it was.
Excellent interviewer. He is correct at 24:46 when he says " we're adults." Honesty is best.
I really love Steve. He’s such a humble fella and has the best stories.
...and Steve and Paul kept the Sex Pistols going after John left to form PIL, they went to Rio to pick up Ronald Biggs to sing on a couple of songs on The Great Rock N Roll Swindle, can't remember if it was Steve who sang on the title track but that was brill, right back to Pretty Vacant. No One Is Innocent was a great song by old Ron.
As an American teenager in 1977, at 16, the FIRST time I heard the single God Save the Queen I FREAKING LOVED IT. FIRST LISTEN. There is no question about that at all.
i feel like steve jones is one of those unsung heroes of punk/rock. He really did alot of work of NMBHCSP and his playing style has always been so solid and pure.
Just Rock period. Punk is a label of liable. The word Punk is derogatory and implies that one performs fellatio or Snicker Bars behind Bars.:)
Not true
steve jones might have not been a great player wen he fitst started but he became one of thee great ruthuim player around. no one looks or plays cooler licks than jonesy !!! #underated
He's actually become a decent lead guitar player...
he played the shit out of the guitar in the studio for the bollocks
Have to admire Steve's honesty.
Immortal words by Steve Jones : ''You had to work hard to be a fan back then... which is lacking now, by the way''.
I really enjoyed this interview.
He's so proud of what he did in the Pistols and rightly so
i would have liked Steve Jones to have talked like this years ago because he was always sold short as being less. sounds like a good bloke to me . All the best S.J.
I retract my original comment. The interviewer is a geek. And has not a clue about how good the album was. The music was great. First time I heard it I was blown away. It's in my top ten albums. EVER!!
I have been a fan ever since my brother introduced me to them. I was in love with Steve ever since. I read his book " lonely boy" brutal honesty. And it made me cry.... I bought it in london. (My son Phillip who is actually named after steve. Steves middle name is philip.) My son found the book: look mum i found someone you like.
pure honesty and i think finally ok in his skin
Thank you for this amazing interview
That film the audience guy asks him about is actually about how football started. The original game was a way of letting off steam for a town or village in England and it's true that the only "goal" to the "game" was to get the ball from one end of the town to the other! Starting in the middle, the north v's south or east v's west (whatever). Basically a series of pitched battles that would take all day until the ball got to one end or everyone was dead! 😂 I love history!
Good Old Jonesy, He's a Allsome bloke
The man's a Legend 🎸👍
There we have it, Lead Guitar for the greatest recording act in human history and founder of Apple Inc. Steve Jones everybody!
I can't agree with the negative comments about the interviewer below - I think he gets a very interesting free-flowing conversation going and Steve helps by being very personable, articulate, and humorous - the knockers mustn't have seen many or any of the cringe-making strained interviews that I have...
He was good. Asked good questions and let Steve answer without any interruptions
Steve Jones rules!
"...I acquired some equipment..." ;)
The Fender Twin Reverb that he played through was Bob Marley's, originally. He knew the Hammersmith Odeon liked the back of his hand.
"Acquired"......that's a good way of saying it. lol 😅
@@nkmcfrln he stole David Bowie's band's equipment
@@ernestmostly8156 woody woodmansy i believe. Many yrs later steve offered him some money for the equipment. I think Steve interviewed him on his KLOS Jonesys jukebox.
I remember the impact the music,the sound, the energy, the look and artwork of the Sex Pistols had on me in 1977 when my older brother brought 3 of their singles home from England in 1977. I was 9 yrs, but was grown up on all the great stuff, thanks to my brother. Hendrix, CCR, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Bowie, Lou Reed, T. Rex, Queen, Alice Cooper (band), The Sweet, Slade, and of course the 60s great bands the Who, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. None of them, and i mean NONE of them had prepared me for this band and i just immediately knew, that i had found the first band that i could truly relate to. You either hated it or loved it! It was not punk, it was beyond that!
And boy, even if they weren't supergroup musicians, what they did was worth 10 times more in terms of artistic value!
This was pure Rock n' Roll, like the Rolling Stones, the Who and Hendrix had been in the 60's, and i think its perfect that they didn't do another album, cause i don't know how they possibly could ever improve on Never Mind the Bollocks!
the interesting thing about that list is that almost all the them are still highly regarded. Punk on the other hand appears to finally be getting some critical reappraisal and people are beginning to wonder if Crass, Sham 69, X-ray specs, The Slits were any good and the answer appears to be a firm "not really"! The Sex pistols only wrote four good tunes and even the Clash only made their fortune & critical reputation post 1977 (London Calling wasn't even a punk album!)
revol148 well, more like ten good tunes
Lars Melsted Thomsen nuff said there.
Bollocks doesnt have a bad song
Thanks for loading this up. I put Steve in the Mick Ronson, Earl Slick and Gary Moore clique. He has his own most inimitable guitar style. Not flashy. I use to see him around London sometimes back in the seventies. Appeared a quiet reserved guy. I heard he had some of Bowie's equipment away (Ham. Odeon '73).
What a nice bloke. Sir Steve.
..."you had to WORK HARDER to be a fan BACK THEN...which is LACKING now"
-Steve Jones
32:55
Jonesy has mentioned this before in many other interviews. Being a Yank, myself, and having been to both the UK and Australia, I can confidently say that Steve’s experience with American girls had less to do with the culture here and a lot more to do with the fact that he was a young foreign fella AND in a band on top of that. I’ve heard my English pals all complain about girls in their own country, but when I was single and travelling, I found a lot of English girls to be equally friendly and eager to please; perhaps even more so. It’s just how young gals are, no matter the country. I found Aussie girls to be even more eager to please and approachable. But if I had been a local, they more than likely would not have been so easy. Women, especially when they are younger, by and large, will always go after the guy with the accent who stands out a little more. Within reason, of course. Unless he’s extremely unsightly or annoying. And these girls all told me they typically found the standard TV American accents to be annoying. Still, it didn’t stop them from hooking up. If you stand out in a positive way, your market value increases. It’s just how it is.
12:14 'burp...pardon' classic jones!
cadaverdoggy 27.00 doesn't even know which queens jubilee the Pistols coincided with haha - also classic
Steve Jones' quote, "We're not into music, we're into chaos" appeared in one of the earliest reviews of a Sex Pistols gig in the NME in 1976. I remember reading it and being very impressed. I was the same age as the Pistols and was interested in what was generally known back then, if known at all, as rock music made by punks, though no-one called it Punk Rock. This interest had been engendered by writers at the NME, especially Nick Kent, who had written big article on Iggy Pop, and Charles Shaar Murray who was commenting on the New York punk scene. By the start of 1976 I already had Raw Power, The Ramones and Patti Smith's Horses. I remember thinking that the few pictures I had seen of Johnny Rotten looked promising, but the deal was sealed when I saw the band and some of the other early punks on a programme made by Janet Street-Porter on London Weekend Television. Steve struggles to answer the interviewers question regarding the bands success in terms of their impact and influence. The music that he and the rest of the band made was tough, hard rock. Not particularly original, as he attests, but certainly of a type thin on the ground by then. The clincher was the character, style and attitude of Johnny Rotten, he made all the difference.
After Ed Sanders of The Fugs ("Coca Cola Douche") used "punk rock" to describe his own first solo album and music writer Lester Bangs used "punk" to describe Iggy Pop in 1970, music writers such as Greg Shaw, Dave Marsh, Lenny Kaye, and Robert Hilburn used the expression "punk rock" in print during 1971-1974. That included Hilburn describing the New York Dolls, who Steve Jones, John Lydon, and Glen Matlock admired.
That may all be true, but no-one in the UK used the expression Punk Rock as a genre descriptive prior to the Sex Pistols. Iggy and the Dolls may have been described by American journalists, largely unread in the UK I have to say, as "punks" or as exhibiting the traits of a punk, meaning they were scuzzy, sneering, probably drug addled, street level losers whose music, pretty much ignored in the UK and, I'd wager, the US, was regarded as poorly played sub-Stones riffery, but there was no genre to which the description "Punk Rock" was applied. Nobody walked into record shops and asked to look through their punk rock section, at least not in the UK, pre 1977.
i always say that out of the thousands of bands that have been around there was just two bands who's sound alone blew me into next week before i had even really realized how great the songs were, that was Led Zeppelin and The Sex Pistols.
People underestimate how rough British working class life was, by the 1970's the image of the UK was Punk, Skinhead, Football Hooligans, failed brutalist, Soviet style architecture, casual violence and all quite justified for a majority of people. 2/3rds of England's cities looked like a Victorian version of Detroit in the late 90's and Clockwork orange was banned by Kubrick in the UK because it was being a bit to real...
This is great. As much as I love Lydon, I have a feeling Steve Jones' version of Sex Pistols history is a bit more accurate. He lacks the self-aggrandizement and hyperbolic tendencies that are Mr. Rotten's stock in trade.
You have to admit though, John does great hyperbole.
One of my most treasured possessions is my original Never mind the bollocks album.
His autobiography 'Lonely Boy' is hilarious, get it.
@ian Campbell true, his stepdad was a piece of shit
I knew steve in the early 80s my room mate had a connection for him and we hung with him for awhile we went to the Lord's of the new church at Perkins palace Pasadena went back stage in the dressing room when
Same, he was my roomate in late 80s. Great Lad.
Amazing he went from nothing to recording a seismic record so quickly. Certainly lived the life.
'I acquired' 😂👍I do love Steve's honesty
Top guy!
I saw Eddie and the Hot Rods in 1978 at Sheffield City Hall.
Great interview
Agreed. Shows how interesting Jonesy is. He's a great interview despite the interviewer.
Steve was cool. He was not happy with the road he was taking and wanted to better himself and he put a lot of work into the Pistols. I am glad he did. If the Pistols had not worked who knows what would have happened to Steve? And we would not have one of the greatest rock and roll albums ever made. NMTB saved me. I suffered from depression in the 90s and I could not get out of bed without playing NMTB. I found the Pistols hugely therapeutic.
This man is a legend! I was only 8 years old when NMTB came out so the whole thing passed me by at the time,sadly.It's funny to see how history has remembered them versus how they were viewed at the time.Hated,reviled,banned,considered as subversive and even dangerous.It's recognised now of course as one of the most important and influential albums ever recorded.The blistering punch that the songs deliver is still as strong today,this was a band with a far deeper relevance and musical aptitude than people thought.Like I said,funny how things turn out....if you're not familiar with what The Sex Pistols did in the town of Huddersfield on Christmas Day 1977 I'd strongly recommend you to look it up and see just what this "dangerous and reviled" band were really about.Then contrast that with someone who was loved by all back in 1977,one Jimmy Savile......well we now know what he was really about too! I guess the truth of all things will out in the end.I'm just pleased that The Pistols are getting their recognition here in this life rather than any of them getting one of those insincere posthumous tributes.How the music industry could do with someone like them to shake it up again!
Seen the pistols bk in the day it was a night to remember
sounds like 'shake appeal/tight pants' from 'raw power' by the stooges.100mph version of it jonesy style. 42:40.
Steve is soo ultra cool Down to Earth man
Do something in 1977 and you have to spend the rest of your life explaining it.
70,s britain takes some explaining
@You Tuber did you do it for the buzz?
IDIOT
Moron...
Easy money.....if you've paid your dues...
Outstanding ‼️. Love it but really nothing new.
I'm glad all this stuff about Steve not being able to play when they first recorded is finally being corrected, seems to me he was a decent player and watching some of the live stuff seemed more than competent !!......
John articulate love his vocals steve and Glen both prolific sid was basic on bass paul a good heavy drummer amazing era and band only happens once in a lifetime
classy guy
this is great....
The bible was written by 60 + different authors over 1500 yrs, and from beginning to end it comes together supernaturally
And?
This only goes to prove that something as simple as The Sex Pistols story became so serious. And how actually, a few guys messing about became music so ahead of it's time.
Honest Guy !
PROPPER LAD
Huge fan and collector 250 items seen them 6 times on reunion tour amazing never mind the hype sex pistol are legends.met glen and John nice guys I'm also n adam and the ants adam ant fan as well going to see him live in June uk 🇬🇧
Its great that Google got their hippest employee in to do this interview
If bands releasing a stream of albums through the years were creating a relationship of sorts with their fan base then Never Mind The Bollocks surely has to be the best one night stand album of all time😎👌
I’ve never heard it put so succinctly.
But you are absolutely spot on with your observation, sir.
The best band....Ever!..The best fuckin` album...EVER!!! If you ain`t bought the 35th anniversary boxset...Do it now!! Well worth the price tag of £100..and I contributed to the NMTB Diaries...so there!!!
Interesting hearing from Steve, he's a good talker. The interviewer comes across like a bit of geeky, know it all, google executives' slave, but he provided a decent contrast and didn't constantly interrupt like so many nobs these days.
Lonely Boy.If ya want to get sober or make some peace.A great read.And I still ain't no sober geezer.Yet,it is a suggestion.
Interesting interview with a great guitarplayer/ interesting person.
Seen them live and jonesy is a brilliant rhythm guitarist
I have all of Eddie & the Hot Rods cassette tapes.
I was 13 and worked the school holidays for a local tomato grower to earn money for records. Bollocks was one of many first Punk albums I brought in 79. SLF, Dead Kenedys, UK Subs and many more. Jones guitar style stood out against most as real talent.
Hey if ya talking about great guitar playing ya gotta mention East Bay Ray frm the Dead kennedys.. He was amazing too
Fantabulous stuff.
I always wondered what Google looks like. It's not at all what I imagined.
Long live Stevie Jones!
The interviewer is not responding at all to Jones' comments. There is no exchange. Too bad. Jonesy seems like such a likeable guy.
yeah, such a shame - Steve so funny and it just gets met with icy nothingness
In 1978 I was the only punk at my university in Tennessee. It “was” hard to be a punk way back then. Ended up playing bass for a band in DC called Iron Cross. It was a great time, it was a tough time, I miss it.
Were Iron Cross 1st or 2nd class?
Swindle album had some good grooves .Shame the Pistols didn't make some more albums because Bollocks was great
Better to remember than forget
Wow...mandi's
Haven't heard about those since teen years
those goodman demos were the best
The interviewer is TERRIBLE. Totally lacking in interpersonal skills. No sense of humor, none. He wouldn't know humor if it kicked his teeth out. All the blatant and not so blatant nuances went right over his head. Steve gave him so many juices information he could run with and this guy choose the most boring route, a big, blank rock. Steve is a goldmine. Brutally honest and funny.
Bless.
love jones.... google couldnt afford a soundman for this ?
Diamond Geezer!!
bass guitar of jonesy 20:17
I'm the wait Sir,...
❤❤❤❤🙏🙏🙏🙏🤝🤝🤝🤝👍👍👍👍
I'm surprised that Steve didnt say 'Pretty vacant' or 'Problems' as 1st good song - these were in the Lesser Free trade hall gig thats mentioned ,ive got a bootleg lp of this gig - it's good .( it was released as 'No Fun - Rotten Quality' & later as 'the Good time music of the Sex Pistols')
he picked up the knack of nicking things. the nick knack