When the Sex Pistols Hated Pink Floyd

History tells that in 1976 Bernie Rhodesmember of Malcolm McLaren and future manager of the Clashafter seeing him walking along the King’s Road in London wearing a T-shirt that read “I hate Pink Floyd” approached him John Lydon and invited him to audition for the Sex Pistols. In the following weeks, both Steve Jones That Paul Cook they borrowed their new bandmate’s T-shirt so they could wear it on stage.

Years later, in 2014 to be exact, during an interview with the magazine Uncut Lydon said that he had no personal problems against the

Pink Floydeven going so far as to consider David Gilmour as a personal friend and returning to the infamous T-shirt said: “The whole ‘I Hate Pink Floyd’ thing was hilarious. Anyone who took it seriously needs to come clean. I happen to love the early Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett and some of the ’70s stuff too. I just hated the idea that they were holier than god and untouchable.”

Already four years earlier, as Classic Rock reports, in an interview with British music magazine The Stool Pigeon, Lydon had declared “you’d have to be an idiot to say you didn’t like Pink Floyd”, and admitted that the “pretentiousness” he attributed to the band didn’t match their personalities. “I’ve met the band members and I get along well with them because they’re not like that at all. There’s been a bit of a misreading and misrepresentation by the press.”

In a subsequent BBC radio interview, John Lydon revealed that he had given his friend John Beverley in art SidVicious the nickname “Sid” to pay homage Syd Barrett. And again, in 2017, speaking with Newsweek always on the subject of Pink Floyd He explained: “We’re all related, whether we like it or not. Don’t make an enemy where you don’t need one. You might not like their sounds or whatever, but they’re doing something important for all of us. They make us think, and anyone who thinks can never be my enemy.”

On the other side of the fence, the guitarist expressed his opinion about the T-shirt that caused such a stir David Gilmour. Asked in a chat with Q magazine in 1999 if the hatred was reciprocated, he replied lightheartedly: “No, I thought the Sex Pistols were pretty good. I went to a show with Johnny Rotten, at Sadler’s Wells, and he said he never really hated Pink Floyd, in fact he was a bit of a fan. I confess I didn’t entirely believe it at first. After all, who could hate us?”

That was not the first interview in which he was asked about David Gilmour of the alleged antipathy of the Sex Pistols towards them. In 1982, speaking to Musician magazine, he argued: “It scared a lot of people, not me. I like to be shocked. It’s good.” The good relationship between Gilmour and Lydon can best be told about the time the guitarist of Pink Floyd contacted Lydon to see if he would be interested in being a guest with the band playing in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out, with Lydon telling Uncut, “I would have done it, except I was doing a documentary for the Discovery Channel.”