Lydon is sceptical of the new wave of punk bands. “You could be influenced by my earlier work, but please don’t show any signs of imitating it,” he says. “You have to have your own ideas.” He finds Bob Vylan, the group who chanted, “Death to the IDF,” at Glastonbury, “rather sad and pointless. That’s just riding on the current wave of leftism, where you don’t have to think any more. You just react with the herd. Moo!” How about Kneecap, the politically charged hip-hop trio from Belfast? “They should follow their own advice [as per their band name].”
Kneecap campaign for a free Palestine, to which Lydon says: “In total agreement, so long as you free it from Hamas.” He has drawn flak for playing in Israel with PiL. Would he do so again? “Of course. There are human beings in Israel, aren’t there? My attitude about playing in pro-Muslim nations has always been the same too. Why won’t you let us?”…
Lydon was bullied for being Irish; did that give him an affinity with other victims of bigotry? “Yeah, but I’ve got news for you: everybody gets it. You get it for being English, Jamaican, Turkish or Greek. That’s childhood. And we learn how to survive.” Kids now are mollycoddled, he thinks, “to the detriment of us all”.
A TV project and book are in the pipeline; until then speaking tours pay the bills. “Apparently I’ve played to over a million and a half people just by going on stage alone and yacking,” he says. There have been hecklers: one time “I was talking about Nora and I was completely upset. Some woman decided to stand up and yell abuse at me. ‘This is not what I paid for.’ Well, I’ve no idea what you paid for, but this is what you f***ing get.”
Yes, he’s back.
Mick Hartley 
Leave a comment