Glen Matlock is a true rock-n-roll star and a man who has played an important role in music over the last few decades. He is mostly known to the masses as one of the punk rock masterminds, the bass guitarist of the original Sex Pistols line-up and the co-author of their 10 most recognizable songs, including such punk classics such as “Anarchy in the UK”, “Pretty Vacant” and “God Save the Queen”.
The Sex Pistols were originally formed by Jonny Rotten, Glen Matlock, Paul Cook and Steve Jones. The guys were regular visitors of a store “Sex”, the epicenter of punk style that was led by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm Mclaren – who later became the band’s manager. In the walls of this historical shop, the band was born.
Some personal and musical tensions with other bands members and manager Malcolm Maclaren was the reason for Glen leaving the Sex Pistols right before their one and only album “Never mind the bollocks, here is Sex Pistols” and moments before their highlights of international fame with a long-lasting taste of a scandalous reputation. Being replaced in the band by Sid Vicious, who lately became a kind of pop-cultural man and an example of a short and tragic life full of self-destruction, was not a big loss for Glen.
While Sid Vicious (who had become the visual symbol of punk) could be hardly called a bassist as he almost couldn’t play, Glen was the true musical force of the band and his passion for music led him to many other great musical affairs after the Sex Pistols.
His career was full of unforgettable moments like playing bass for Iggy Pop and for the main musical heroes of his youth, The Faces, as well as having his own successful project, The Rich Kids, right after the Sex Pistols and taking part in many other bands, for example, Flying Padavans, The Philistines and London Cowboys. Starting in 1996, Glen took part in 3 of the Sex Pistols’ reunion tours.
Being super active in music as always, Glen Matlock has just released a new rockabilly-influenced album Good to Go, which he worked on with many great musicians like Stray Cats drummer, Sim Jim Phanton, and guitarist Earl Slick, who worked for many years with David Bowie. We found Glen in a nice mood and good shape in his home city London and he was up for finding time to talk about his new album and many other topics including his feelings about the Sex Pistols, his favorite collaborations, travels and views on coming to Andorra.
Interview: Dmitry Tolkunov
Hi Glen! Thank you for finding time to talk with us. So, you have a new album that just came out. Tell us more about this work.
Yes, it was released at the very end of September. I was working on it during the last two years and it took a while to come out because the music business now is different to the way it used to be. It all went digital and moved to the internet and for me, like many older artists, it takes time to learn this new way of doing things. But I took a decision to release it. I made a bunch of good songs that needed to be recorded and I worked on it in the studio with great musicians like Sim Jim Phanton from Stray Cats on drums, the guitarist of David Bowie – Earl Slick. And I’m really pleased with the result, the album sounds really fresh and straight-forward and it has a non-punk vibe that people are not used to hearing in my music, it’s more of a rockabilly sound.
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