Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio GA, I Stop.
Speaker 2: Stop, Don't Wanna want that.
Speaker 1: Guest pass by Canza. That is, of course, the sex Pistols,
Speaker 1: with Anarchy in the UK off their nineteen seventy seven
Speaker 1: album never Mind the Bollocks. Here's the sex Pistols. The
Speaker 1: song and the album feature My Guest Today guitarist and
Speaker 1: musician Steve Jones. While many have laid claim to inventing
Speaker 1: punk rock, Jones and the band are the actual creators
Speaker 1: of the genre. Although the name was given to them
Speaker 1: by the Friend designer Vivian Westwood. Jones is nothing if
Speaker 1: not surprising. He overcame a challenging lower class upbringing in
Speaker 1: Britain to become a founding member of one of the
Speaker 1: most influential bands in music. Although The sex Pistol's nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven debut would be their only release, the band
Speaker 1: left an indelible mark on music and culture. After The
Speaker 1: Pistol's breakup, Jones went on to perform in the bands
Speaker 1: The Professionals and Neurotic Outsiders. He also released his own
Speaker 1: solo work and Steve Jones' career continued to evolve. He
Speaker 1: hosted a daily radio show, Jonesy's Jukebox for almost two decades,
Speaker 1: and his memoir Lonely Boy was developed into the popular
Speaker 1: FX series Pistol, directed by filmmaker Danny Boyle and the
Speaker 1: most surprising part. Jones is also one of my favorite
Speaker 1: performers on social media. He's known for playing heartfelt and
Speaker 1: beautiful songs in his shower showcasing the softer side of
Speaker 1: the legendary punk rock star. I wanted to get his
Speaker 1: take on building a musical genre and what was really
Speaker 1: behind the punk rock movement.
Speaker 3: Well, we didn't form a band and say let's be
Speaker 3: punk rock. It was a word that came after us forming. Actually,
Speaker 3: it was a word that this American lady who lived
Speaker 3: in London called Caroline Coon. I think she was the
Speaker 3: first one to write it in the Melody Maker punk rock.
Speaker 3: It just was a word that came up. But as
Speaker 3: far as what does it mean, I mean, it's the
Speaker 3: same thing as or Richard or Jerry Lee Lewis. You know,
Speaker 3: to me, it's just rock and roll. There was a
Speaker 3: lot of fashion slung in there with Vivian west With
Speaker 3: and Malcolm McLaren and it was the right time and
Speaker 3: we were just the next generation of young people who
Speaker 3: didn't like old people. You know, he just wanted something different.
Speaker 3: It's what, it's what, that's what happens. It's like every
Speaker 3: generation should be doing that, you know.
Speaker 1: It's their own means of expressing how much they hate
Speaker 1: their parents.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that and everything else, even if it's just nonsense,
Speaker 3: you know, rebelling. What's the famous line in the movie
Speaker 3: in what you're rebelling against? Where you're going? You got
Speaker 3: you know, it's the same. It's the same stuff. Nothing's new.
Speaker 1: There's a documentary. I watched Sex Pistols documentary, Filth and
Speaker 1: the Fury. Yes, the Filth and the Fury. There you
Speaker 1: go things the Filth and the Fury comes and I
Speaker 1: love that film. I loved it because they really take
Speaker 1: their time and lay the context in there of how
Speaker 1: horrible it was in England and in London at that time.
Speaker 1: The poverty and the job was this, and the inflation
Speaker 1: and everything was that a part of it too? Was
Speaker 1: it just you?
Speaker 3: You?
Speaker 1: You did? You hate it there and just dream of
Speaker 1: getting the hell out of there.
Speaker 3: I didn't. I didn't really pay attention to what was
Speaker 3: going on. Around me. To be honest with you, I
Speaker 3: just it was just growing up. I didn't feel like
Speaker 3: I was poor. I had a crappy upbringing by my stepfather.
Speaker 3: It was abusive. My mother wasn't really looking back there.
Speaker 3: I think she was a little bit crazy, like really crazy,
Speaker 3: and we were dirt poor, you know. But all I
Speaker 3: wanted to do when I was like really young, like
Speaker 3: ten to eleven, was just to go up the West
Speaker 3: End and around Piccadilly and just walk around looking for excitement.
Speaker 3: That was it. I didn't. I mean I did notice
Speaker 3: some trash bags here and there, but I really didn't
Speaker 3: care about any any of that stuff. You know, John Lyon,
Speaker 3: he was a lot sharper, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I was pretty simple. I just wanted to do what
Speaker 3: most teenagers want to do is get laid, have a laugh,
Speaker 3: and get drunk.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That was pretty much. Yeah, I'm not one of them.
Speaker 3: The clash was more political than the sex pistols. I
Speaker 3: think I think we didn't take ourselves serious. Like the
Speaker 3: clash the class seemed very serious. But I'm not taking
Speaker 3: away what we concocted, which was just a fluke. You know,
Speaker 3: It's four guys. You just got together. It just happened
Speaker 3: to be that the four guys. This was before Sid
Speaker 3: when we had Glenn Matlock as the bass player, and
Speaker 3: it was just magic for two years and then it
Speaker 3: kind of started fizzling away.
Speaker 1: So home was tough. Your stepfather was abusive. You write
Speaker 1: all of this in your book Lonely Boy. Your dad disappeared.
Speaker 1: You're reconnected with your real dad when you were fifty correct.
Speaker 3: Oh, I never knew, but my friend kind of pushed
Speaker 3: me to to look him up and I did. And
Speaker 3: so it was in two thousand and eight and we
Speaker 3: were touring sex pistols. We did like thirty shows, did
Speaker 3: a bunch of festivals in Europe, and I'd spoken to
Speaker 3: him one time. He kind of put two and two
Speaker 3: together what was happening, and he agreed to meet me,
Speaker 3: and I went up to Nottingham. He lived in Nottingham.
Speaker 3: He got married after he left my mum. He has
Speaker 3: three kids my age and I met him and that
Speaker 3: was bizarre. How so Well, his voice is exactly the same,
Speaker 3: and he really does look like me. And he was
Speaker 3: a truck driver most of his life and he was
Speaker 3: an amateur boxer. And I met him and we went
Speaker 3: in this caf around a corner from the station in Nottingham,
Speaker 3: and he was just he wouldn't shut up. He was
Speaker 3: so guilt ridden, he just wouldn't be quiet. I'm like,
Speaker 3: I don't care, shut up. I just want to receive
Speaker 3: if you had hair or not. You know, I liked him,
Speaker 3: actually liked him. They were young when they had me.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you think you would you be capable of doing
Speaker 1: the same thing, you know, easy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I've got no qualms with him. He's dead now.
Speaker 3: My mom died around they were like eighty two. They
Speaker 3: both kind of died the same time. Even though they
Speaker 3: never spoke or anything since he left.
Speaker 1: Really they never communicated. When you saw him, did you
Speaker 1: either forgive him or have the impulse to forgive him?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I made it clear I didn't like a form more.
Speaker 3: You know, I just said, look, it's all good, you know,
Speaker 3: you don't have to keep going on about this, that
Speaker 3: and the other. I really wanted to see you, and
Speaker 3: I'm glad it turned out the way it did. My
Speaker 3: biggest fear was when I called him and he was
Speaker 3: going to say, I don't want nothing to do with you,
Speaker 3: and that was it. So I think it turned out
Speaker 3: pretty good a couple of times after that, and he
Speaker 3: sent me a let and then that was it. It
Speaker 3: just fizzled out. I had no desire to want to,
Speaker 3: you know, hang out with him and all that was
Speaker 3: that was long gone.
Speaker 1: Now when you, I mean, we're going to meander here.
Speaker 1: But when you after your heyday with the band and
Speaker 1: that white hot period, had you visited Los Angeles? So
Speaker 1: when did you first go to Los Angeles? And are
Speaker 1: you like a lot of brits Ie now where they
Speaker 1: walk out there and they're like, this is it, man,
Speaker 1: I'm moving here the sunshine and blah blah.
Speaker 3: Blah pretty much? I mean not at first. The first
Speaker 3: time I came to LA is when the Pistols played.
Speaker 3: We actually didn't play in LA but we did like
Speaker 3: twelve shows or whatever. It was in January nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 3: January seventy eight, and we ended in San Francisco and
Speaker 3: we broke up, and me and Cookie the drama and
Speaker 3: the manager, Malcolm, we came to LA for a few days.
Speaker 3: I didn't really get it at the time. I remember
Speaker 3: we went in the Palm restaurant that was on Little
Speaker 3: Santa Monica at the time and Malcolm's like, yeah, go on,
Speaker 3: do something, throw some lobsters around, and we did it
Speaker 3: like idiots. And then the next day we went to Brazil.
Speaker 3: So I didn't really get the whole thing, but I
Speaker 3: did get the whole thing in Hollywood, I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: Los Angeles, whatever, Beverly Hills. A couple of years later,
Speaker 3: when I went back there and produced this band called
Speaker 3: The Avengers in San Francisco. They were one of the
Speaker 3: bands that opened up for us on our last show
Speaker 3: at the winter Land, and I produced this little weep.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what I was doing. I was stoning
Speaker 3: out of my mind on weed. Then I came to
Speaker 3: LA and I hung out for a couple of weeks,
Speaker 3: and that's when I fell in love with Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: There was no traffic, big roads, big privacy. It was
Speaker 3: just you know, night and day. Coming from Shepherd's Bush
Speaker 3: in London, it was like Dickens, you know, like the
Speaker 3: Dickens to Fantasy Island, you.
Speaker 1: Know, Saversham's House.
Speaker 3: I put it in my book. There was one moment
Speaker 3: there was this lady who I met. She had a
Speaker 3: big convertible. She had the convertible down a big, massive
Speaker 3: Cadillac whatever it was. And she lived on Beverly Glen
Speaker 3: and she goes, you want to go to see a movie?
Speaker 3: And we went to see a drive in movie and
Speaker 3: I'm smoking a joint. The tops down were just cruising
Speaker 3: along and I'm like, I love this place. It just
Speaker 3: all clicked, coming from Dickens to that, you know, Hollywood.
Speaker 3: You know, it was the best.
Speaker 1: Oh Man, Yeah, described to me that concert at winter Land,
Speaker 1: because that's when that's when all the wheels fall off.
Speaker 3: Correct, they were falling off before that, but that was
Speaker 3: that was the end. That was like, it didn't look
Speaker 3: like it was going any further.
Speaker 1: Because the show sucked. What was the show?
Speaker 3: Like? No, the show, well, I had the flu. It
Speaker 3: was just it was getting sloppy. Were not communicating with
Speaker 3: each other. Everyone's egos were going in different directions. And
Speaker 3: we were twenty years old, you know, twenty one, and
Speaker 3: it was just all this bombasket stuff that happened to
Speaker 3: us really quick, and I couldn't handle it. I don't
Speaker 3: know about the rest of the guys. I was relieved
Speaker 3: when we broke up. They were I decided I've had
Speaker 3: enough of this. I just I don't see a future
Speaker 3: in it, you know, and that was it. And I
Speaker 3: think it was manipulated a bit by Malcolm McClaren, the
Speaker 3: manager attend. Yeah, that's right up his alley. That just
Speaker 3: doing stuff like that, just you know, he wanted to
Speaker 3: be a star, you.
Speaker 1: Know, he wanted the band to end.
Speaker 3: I think so that's just his nature. I think the
Speaker 3: fad ended. He don't like normalcy, you know, he likes
Speaker 3: the chaos.
Speaker 1: And maybe he thought you guys were going to go
Speaker 1: much further. If everybody's so self destructive back then and
Speaker 1: you're the manager, you think McLaren thought you guys were,
Speaker 1: you know, reaching the end.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I think he's a narcissist or he was a narcissist.
Speaker 3: And I didn't think he fought that deep about other people, right.
Speaker 3: I think he was more about just keeping that. He
Speaker 3: was great at you know, publicity. He was excellent as that.
Speaker 3: You know, some of the things that he came up
Speaker 3: with were great. I love Malcolm. Even though you know
Speaker 3: we got turned over financially, I still love McLaren. He
Speaker 3: was a big part of my growing up.
Speaker 1: Now when you mentioned that turned over financially, was McLaren
Speaker 1: Was he the partner Westward? Were they together as a
Speaker 1: couple or no, oh yeah, think were I don't know that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know her name, but I don't know,
Speaker 1: but they were. They were a.
Speaker 3: Couple, Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: And you first met them where.
Speaker 3: I met them in the shop they had down King's Road.
Speaker 3: And it went through various names, but it was all
Speaker 3: First it was too fast to live, too young to die.
Speaker 3: Then it changed selling like teddy boy clothes. I don't
Speaker 3: know if that term teddy boys is known in America.
Speaker 1: Yes, of people like me who know British music.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, fifties music, but it wasn't the fifties, but
Speaker 3: they would sell stuff like that, and then it was
Speaker 3: then it was lead it rock, and then it was seditionaries.
Speaker 3: That's when the punk thing, and it was all the
Speaker 3: bondage and all the MPs would go in there and
Speaker 3: try on rob and nickers and play with themselves.
Speaker 1: They couldn't get elected if you didn't do that, and
Speaker 1: you come out.
Speaker 3: It was a great time and now it's the world's end.
Speaker 3: It's still viving westward now.
Speaker 1: Now when you say you got tossed financially at various points,
Speaker 1: let's say when you're recording and you're making this epic
Speaker 1: album and beyond who owns the rights? Who owns that music?
Speaker 3: Well, we do now you do you know? And whoever
Speaker 3: the publisher is for the songwriting. But it has all
Speaker 3: come back to us only because John Wright and wanted
Speaker 3: to sue him a few years later Malcolm. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: he did, and otherwise it would have all went to Malcolm.
Speaker 3: We had the worst deal. We had one lawyer, it
Speaker 3: was Malcolm's lawyer, and we just signed pieces of paper.
Speaker 3: We didn't even exactly, We didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 3: Not that it ain't the first time that happens, and
Speaker 3: it will keep happening. It will keep happening because when
Speaker 3: you're young, you don't know. You just want to get
Speaker 3: out there and you know, get on the stage.
Speaker 1: So when the original series is launched, the idea comes
Speaker 1: to you or anybody for that matter, to do Pistol. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a sixth part dramatic series about you guys. You've got
Speaker 1: to give them the rights to the music, correct. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we had a problem with John. He didn't want
Speaker 1: to allow it. He didn't want the series to happen.
Speaker 3: Did he say why, Well, I can only think that
Speaker 3: it wasn't his book. They were doing a thing on
Speaker 3: it was mine right, that could have played a part.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure, but I was thrilled that Danny Boyle
Speaker 3: wanted to do that.
Speaker 1: Great director.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and he did a good job. I loved it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was really good.
Speaker 1: What did you like about it?
Speaker 3: I think, like you said about the filth and the fury,
Speaker 3: how it captured a time. I think he really captured
Speaker 3: the time with all the sets and whatnot. I just
Speaker 3: thought it was great. I just wish they had had
Speaker 3: more on me in it.
Speaker 1: Well, what's it like for you to see? Because when
Speaker 1: you do a narrative piece that six episodes or five,
Speaker 1: or a movie that's a couple of hours, there's an
Speaker 1: idea about Steve Jones and Pistol that they want to
Speaker 1: get across the person themselves is a suggestion. The piece
Speaker 1: isn't about your life, you know, verbatim, and in real
Speaker 1: time it's not. It can't be. What do you think
Speaker 1: of the guy that played you? What did you When
Speaker 1: you're watching that guy, you're saying, yeah, that's me.
Speaker 3: I think he did a good job. He's Australian, right,
Speaker 3: so he had to kind of change his accent. He
Speaker 3: ain't as good looking as me before. That's because of
Speaker 3: that saying, yeah, no one, they couldn't find anyone. I
Speaker 3: couldn't absorb it. To be honest, if you when i'd
Speaker 3: see when I see, you know, an episode put together
Speaker 3: in a rough stage, I'm looking at it. I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm not in that. I'm not in it. It's like
Speaker 3: that ain't me, even though he's playing me. I couldn't.
Speaker 3: I couldn't absorb it. It was the weirdest feeling. I
Speaker 3: fall down in shit and I always come up smelling
Speaker 3: the roses. You know, God's good for me.
Speaker 1: Musician Steve Jones. If you enjoy conversations with some of
Speaker 1: music's greatest guitarists, check out my episode with Peter Frampton.
Speaker 2: Sound is very inspirational to me. I remember the reason
Speaker 2: that I wanted to learn guitar was because I heard
Speaker 2: the sounds of all these people on TV and on
Speaker 2: the radio electric guitar very young. I have a very
Speaker 2: acute sense of sound, and I've always had that if
Speaker 2: I don't have a good sound, I can't play very well.
Speaker 1: Hear more of my conversation with Peter Frampton at Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing dot Org. After the break, Steve Jones shares
Speaker 1: how the sex Pistols lineup came to be. I'm Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to here is the Thing. Steve
Speaker 1: Jones and the sex Pistols cracked open issues of class
Speaker 1: and culture in Great Britain in the nineteen seventies. Songs
Speaker 1: like God Save the Queen and Anarchy in the UK
Speaker 1: helped them become both a symbol of political turmoil and
Speaker 1: an international sensation. I wanted to know if growing up,
Speaker 1: Steve Jones ever thought he would become a world famous musician.
Speaker 3: No, you never. I never thought that, you know. When
Speaker 3: I'd watched Top of the Pops, I thought these bands
Speaker 3: and that they fell from mars. I didn't know it
Speaker 3: was possible to do anything like that, you know. And
Speaker 3: and next thing, you know, here I am. You know,
Speaker 3: I steal all this musical equipment. I was good at,
Speaker 3: you know, being a tea leaf. I always add these
Speaker 3: to want to do it because I love music, you know,
Speaker 3: at an early age, and it was just one of
Speaker 3: them things. It seemed totally natural to become popular and
Speaker 3: famous and a big band. I didn't realize that most
Speaker 3: musicians that doesn't happen, you.
Speaker 1: Know, now you started off as a singer. You're singing
Speaker 1: and you passed that baton quick Why?
Speaker 3: I couldn't handle it. I got on the stage once
Speaker 3: and I just freaked out. It was way too much
Speaker 3: for me. I was not ready for that. This is
Speaker 3: when Malcolm came up with the name Q E. Jones
Speaker 3: and the Sex Pistols. And it was me. I was
Speaker 3: singing this other guy, Wally Nightingale and Glenn Matlock, the
Speaker 3: original bass player, and we was rehearsing, rehearse in, rehearsing,
Speaker 3: and he like, got us this gig and we're doing
Speaker 3: a lot of covers. I think we had one original.
Speaker 3: We played this Salter's Cafe a down King's Road. I
Speaker 3: was terrified. I was absolutely terrified. And I couldn't even
Speaker 3: tell you what happened. It wasn't for me. My self
Speaker 3: esteem weren't good.
Speaker 1: Did it just so happen that you've had a confident
Speaker 1: vocalist near you or did you tell him he had
Speaker 1: to become a vocalist the way you became a guitarist.
Speaker 1: Did he have to work at it? Well?
Speaker 3: After that failure show, we auditioned for a singer. And
Speaker 3: this when John used to come into Malcolm's shop and
Speaker 3: then we auditioned him in the shop. Now this when
Speaker 3: when I heard this guy, I'm like, who is this clown?
Speaker 3: He can't sing? We don't we don't want it, and
Speaker 3: we want someone like Rod Stewart, you know. But that
Speaker 3: was it, you know, it was it. It was this magic
Speaker 3: and it took you know a little while, and then
Speaker 3: we were like, wow, this is this is rotten? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: and it was complete. Then it was complete. You know.
Speaker 1: Obviously you write about and much has written about you
Speaker 1: that you didn't play the guitar early on as a
Speaker 1: child and so forth, and then you flash ahead and
Speaker 1: you're on Rolling Stones list of the one hundred greatest
Speaker 1: guitarists in history. How did that happen?
Speaker 3: Well, I used to do a lot of speed.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 3: That gave me the focus. You know. I had that
Speaker 3: thing what kids have now ADT.
Speaker 1: Or whatever it is ADHD.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I definitely had that. I had no attention span.
Speaker 3: I didn't I went to school. I just sat in
Speaker 3: the back and just didn't even learn anything. I couldn't
Speaker 3: even read and write, which I sought it out later
Speaker 3: in years after getting clean, and so I actually had
Speaker 3: a tutor to help me read and write. I couldn't
Speaker 3: even sign a check.
Speaker 1: But you dug down and you learned how to play.
Speaker 1: I read where you said you take a chord and
Speaker 1: play that chord for like five hours until you got
Speaker 1: that down. You did it step by step.
Speaker 3: The Black Beauty Way of learning guitar, the Black Beauty School.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it now, speaking of Black Beauties. Two
Speaker 1: weeks ago, this past Friday, on the twenty third of February,
Speaker 1: I had my thirty ninth anniversary.
Speaker 3: At AA Oh Beautiful.
Speaker 1: Now. I don't talk about sobriety that much on the show,
Speaker 1: but if I find it's worthwhile, I will. And for you,
Speaker 1: when did you realize something had to change? And how
Speaker 1: quickly thereafter did you change it?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm thirty three years at Cleveland sober.
Speaker 1: That's where I met you. Out there, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I drifted out to California, not
Speaker 3: the time when I fell in love with it. Later
Speaker 3: I was in this the band broke up, we went
Speaker 3: to England. I started this other band called the Professionals,
Speaker 3: and we did a tour. I ended up in New York.
Speaker 3: I didn't get on the plane. I stayed in New
Speaker 3: York for about a year, I sold my passport and
Speaker 3: then I got this other band together, or a band
Speaker 3: was We played at the Pep Momint Lounge. It was
Speaker 3: like a showcase with Michael Debar's and two of the
Speaker 3: guys from Blondie and it was great. But they were
Speaker 3: all based in la And then I drifted out to La.
Speaker 3: I detoxed. I went to some methodone place in set
Speaker 3: a high end methodone place in Century City, and I
Speaker 3: got clean and I started living with Michael Debars, but
Speaker 3: I wasn't ready to be sober, and so i'd hung
Speaker 3: out with him when I lived with him for a while,
Speaker 3: and then I did start to be aware of alcoholics anonymous,
Speaker 3: but it shook me another six years of being homeless,
Speaker 3: slept on someone's couch who was sober, and then I
Speaker 3: would get thirty days, sixty days, you know. I started going.
Speaker 3: I liked it, the attention, it was felt like a
Speaker 3: safe place. But I had no clue of what was
Speaker 3: going on. And it took me, you know, a few
Speaker 3: more years when the coin dropped and I'm like, I'm done.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously, it's the best thing that's ever happened
Speaker 3: to me. You know, Prior at his two lives is
Speaker 3: before sobriety and now sobriety. I'm not a completely different person,
Speaker 3: and I didn't know. I didn't know that this was
Speaker 3: going to be in my journey at all. But I
Speaker 3: was living up. I was making money at this point,
Speaker 3: and I was living up in the canyon making money
Speaker 3: how doing solo stuff. I started working with Iggy Pop
Speaker 3: and Andy Taylor from Deuran Duran, playing guitar sessions, yeah,
Speaker 3: and riting. I couldn't get arrested. Prior to that, I
Speaker 3: had the worst reputation because I couldn't keep my hands
Speaker 3: in my pockets. Everything disappeared and I was just, you know,
Speaker 3: a junkie. No one wants to really hang out. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it took a long time. But I remember the last
Speaker 3: relapse that I had. I bet some guy in the
Speaker 3: valley and I was buying balloons off him. It wasn't working,
Speaker 3: and I went back. I took a victim a new bile.
Speaker 3: We were shooting up and I'm like, you know what,
Speaker 3: I need to go back and get my shit together.
Speaker 3: And so I got a bunch of kludes and some
Speaker 3: other painkillers and I was going to get sober and
Speaker 3: sneak back in to the rooms and no one would know.
Speaker 3: And I lasted about two hours and that's when the
Speaker 3: coin literally dropped, and I'm like, I'm done. I just
Speaker 3: can't do this anymore. And it wasn't financial or anything
Speaker 3: like that. It was emotional and that was it. It
Speaker 3: was just all of a sudden after going to AA
Speaker 3: for about six or seven years, in and out, in
Speaker 3: and out, that was when the coin dropped, and that's
Speaker 3: when it all changed.
Speaker 1: The book is filled with these brilliant phrases like incomprehensible demoralization.
Speaker 1: That phrase just was tattooed on my forehead. I was
Speaker 1: incomprehensibly demoralized. When you got sober and you stayed sober
Speaker 1: for quite some time, how did that change your life
Speaker 1: in terms of friends. Did you maintain some of the
Speaker 1: old friends and people who weren't sober, or did all
Speaker 1: your friends become sober people.
Speaker 3: I really didn't have a lot of friends. They didn't
Speaker 3: want to be my friend because I wasn't a good friend.
Speaker 3: There was a few. I was so desperate, you know,
Speaker 3: I was so desperate when I got sober for real
Speaker 3: that everyone I hung out with was in the rooms.
Speaker 1: But that's what I did.
Speaker 3: That was it. I didn't want to hang out with
Speaker 3: other people. I had a friend of mine visit me
Speaker 3: once from England who was a witness school with. His
Speaker 3: name was Jimmy Mackin. He was a really, really bad drunk.
Speaker 3: I mean, he was one of them guys. He loved
Speaker 3: to fight when he was at a couple of drinks. Anyway,
Speaker 3: he was dry as a bone. And he came to
Speaker 3: visit me and I couldn't wait for him to leave.
Speaker 3: His energy was so bad. I was so uncomfortable around him.
Speaker 3: He was like a time bomb. Yeah, you know, dry
Speaker 3: as a bone. And he finally left after a few days,
Speaker 3: and he went back and committed suicide. He was in
Speaker 3: Chiswick Park and put in a car and he put
Speaker 3: the old exhaust pipe into the thing and killed himself.
Speaker 3: And you know, my point is is that it's so
Speaker 3: different when you surrender, you know, it's so different when
Speaker 3: you get to that point. I have no idea why
Speaker 3: I'm one of the lucky ones that I'm still sober.
Speaker 3: I have no idea because I don't really do anything
Speaker 3: different than anyone else. I was definitely a lot more desperate.
Speaker 3: It was tough at first, you know, changing and basically
Speaker 3: starting from scratch. For me, like I said, I was illiterate.
Speaker 3: I didn't know how to behave. It was all about me.
Speaker 3: What can I get? It was all about doing something
Speaker 3: nice for someone because there's going to be something in it.
Speaker 3: For me, I was so self absorbed and me, me, me,
Speaker 3: me me, you know. And when that changed after many years,
Speaker 3: it didn't just that when I walked in to the rooms,
Speaker 3: and it was that process, that long process, and I'm
Speaker 3: just so grateful. You know. I still go to about
Speaker 3: four millions a week in person. Yeah, I just love it.
Speaker 3: I love it, you know. I love being of service.
Speaker 3: I don't like getting old. I will say that.
Speaker 1: Steve Jones. If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend
Speaker 1: and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. After
Speaker 1: the break, Steve Jones shares the meaning behind the title
Speaker 1: of his memoir Lonely Boy. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're
Speaker 1: listening to Here's the Thing. Steve Jones and the members
Speaker 1: of the Sex Pistols embodied the nineteen seventies punk scene
Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom. It also had them rubbing elbows
Speaker 1: with other up and coming artists, designers and musicians like
Speaker 1: Chrissy Hind of the Pretenders.
Speaker 3: Chrissy she used to work in the shop that Malcolm
Speaker 3: McLaren might Ivia Westwood shop, and I met her here
Speaker 3: and she was great, man, she was summing else, a
Speaker 3: real badass, you know. And the band started. She used
Speaker 3: to come to the shows. She wanted to be in
Speaker 3: a band. I didn't take her seriously. She used to
Speaker 3: stay with me sometimes we'd hang out. We had a
Speaker 3: great time. And then she got a band together and
Speaker 3: then sold more records than the sex Pistols, you know.
Speaker 3: And a great songwriter, a great voice. I love Christy.
Speaker 3: I see her all the time. She's in the series.
Speaker 3: She's in the show. She can't when she saw it,
Speaker 3: she's like, what I'm in this more than you guys.
Speaker 3: What's going on? And I'm like, I know, I don't understand.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it was the you know, the
Speaker 3: political correct thing to have more women stuff, you know.
Speaker 3: And the girl who played Chrissy was great, and man,
Speaker 3: I got not a bad word to say for Christy.
Speaker 3: I always see her when I go over there. But
Speaker 3: the bottom line was I was incapable of relationships. All
Speaker 3: I wanted to do was get laid with different people.
Speaker 3: Once I got to know someone a little bit, the
Speaker 3: old Hanson just wouldn't stand up, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: We're done, We're done. The thing about Chrissy that I
Speaker 1: always remember is she had so much respect from people. People.
Speaker 1: You know, Chrissy's interesting, and she's beautiful, and she's a
Speaker 1: very exotic, you know, in her whole package. But people
Speaker 1: really really admire her. And she's a great fucking musician.
Speaker 1: I think she's really at the top of the heap,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: She is. You know, it's weird about her. When she
Speaker 3: started recording, she had the same producer who produced in
Speaker 3: never Mind the Bollocks, Chris Thomas. She couldn't have anyone
Speaker 3: in the studio when she was singing. She was so
Speaker 3: insecure about her voice. She just couldn't do it. I mean,
Speaker 3: she's all right now, but for a few years, a
Speaker 3: few albums, she couldn't have anyone around when she was singing.
Speaker 1: So, speaking of your your sexual appetite, of course, there's
Speaker 1: no surprise to any of us that you end up
Speaker 1: on California. Yeah, in your acting career now, when you
Speaker 1: were on Californication. What did you play?
Speaker 3: I played a tour manager.
Speaker 1: And what happened on the show with you and Ducoveny.
Speaker 1: Do you have scenes with Dukeveney?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had a few. I went on it and
Speaker 3: it was I was only meant to do one episode,
Speaker 3: and they liked me and I ended up doing two seasons.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I just said, I don't mind an accent. Just don't
Speaker 3: give me a lot of lines. I'm terrible remember. I'm
Speaker 3: terrible at remembering.
Speaker 1: Your book is called Lonely Boy, and that's a very
Speaker 1: powerful thing to say, because when you have that feeling
Speaker 1: about your childhood, Why did you choose that title? Why?
Speaker 3: Because I'm always alone even now, even now, even now,
Speaker 3: even with thirty three years of sobriety, there's still that
Speaker 3: part of me that just is always got that empty
Speaker 3: feeling of being alone. I don't think that I don't
Speaker 3: think that's ever going to go, you know. And I'm
Speaker 3: not preferred, no, I mean, I've never had a relationship really,
Speaker 3: you know. I'm hard work, man, I'm hard work to
Speaker 3: be around sometimes, you know, especially with in a relationship.
Speaker 3: I've tried it. I actually tried it last year for
Speaker 3: about a year and it just it just fizzled out.
Speaker 3: I just can't do it right, I just cannot do it.
Speaker 3: I mean I'm damaged. Goods mate. It's not that I
Speaker 3: don't want to, but I really don't have the choice
Speaker 3: to have it or not. I just don't have the choice. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I just am not. You know, various things happened when
Speaker 3: I was a kid.
Speaker 1: Have you been able to overcome back to some degree
Speaker 1: or is it still as vivid in your mind from
Speaker 1: time to time as it was back then what you
Speaker 1: had to go through with your as a child, as
Speaker 1: a boy.
Speaker 3: No, I've definitely overcome it. I'm just left with there's
Speaker 3: some things I think you just can't change. It don't
Speaker 3: matter how much work you do on it, on something.
Speaker 3: You know. He e molested me once, the stepfather. I
Speaker 3: was like ten. He made me jerk him off, you know,
Speaker 3: when my mom was in hospital. But that was enough
Speaker 3: just to throw me off because I'm a sensitive I'm
Speaker 3: a real sensitive and that was it. Coupled with that
Speaker 3: and my mother not really being on the ball, not
Speaker 3: a nurturing person, not protecting you, not protecting me. He
Speaker 3: came before me. I was I was second fiddle. We
Speaker 3: used to have a tin had therapy once, right, And
Speaker 3: I'm in the therapy office and I'm trying to explain
Speaker 3: to the therapist, And I was explaining it to her,
Speaker 3: not for what was going on, but to explain how
Speaker 3: poor he was. We used to have a tin bath
Speaker 3: and we would fill it up with a kettle, right,
Speaker 3: and my mom would go first, then my stepdad, then
Speaker 3: I would get in last. And the therapist says, it's
Speaker 3: funny that they put you in last and not first.
Speaker 3: Most normal parents, loving parents.
Speaker 1: With the children, who's cared for first?
Speaker 3: Yeah, child, And it hit me like a sound of bricks,
Speaker 3: and I started crying my eyes out. It was like
Speaker 3: a moment and I never even saw it. You know,
Speaker 3: prior to that.
Speaker 1: Well, whatever you've been through and whatever trouble you've had
Speaker 1: to face and pain you've had to face. When that
Speaker 1: guy you in that shower with the guitar, you play
Speaker 1: songs and the tears are rolling down my face because
Speaker 1: of your musical ability, in spite of everything you've had
Speaker 1: happened to you, in spite of all the shit you've
Speaker 1: had to put up with, in spite of what you
Speaker 1: put yourself through as well, you get in there and
Speaker 1: you play those songs and the beauty of your musicianship
Speaker 1: and who you are in your soul as a result
Speaker 1: of everything you went through. I'm telling you, it makes
Speaker 1: me cry every time. Do you have no idea what
Speaker 1: that means to be? Because you're so fucking talented and
Speaker 1: you reach people that way, you reach them. The guy
Speaker 1: in the shower is one of the greatest musicians ever.
Speaker 3: Well, I was actually I was actually going to do
Speaker 3: one today, a new one, some of them. I really
Speaker 3: appreciate that. Ben. Honestly, you've almost got me to here
Speaker 3: that because I don't think I'm a good musician.
Speaker 1: You are a great You're a great musician.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: People love you. They love your musicianship, your guitar playing,
Speaker 1: your crazy youth and now people can watch you. You
Speaker 1: think it's like a little amuse boosh, you're floating out
Speaker 1: there to people. Let me tell you something, I look
Speaker 1: forward to those. You're blessed. You're blessed from God. Don't
Speaker 1: forget that. Okay, all right, mate? Thanks a lot, my
Speaker 1: love to you, and thank you for doing this.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I had fun.
Speaker 1: My thanks to Steve Jones. If like me, you can't
Speaker 1: get enough of Steve Jones singing in the shower. Visit
Speaker 1: his Instagram page at Jonesy's Jukebox. That's at j O
Speaker 1: n E s y S Jukebox. I'll Leave You with
Speaker 1: No Feelings off of the nineteen seventy seven album never
Speaker 1: Mind the Bollocks. Here's the sex Pistols. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing is. Brought to you by iHeart Radio Jones. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm putty w I go free.
Speaker 3: I Know, I Know, I