It might be fair to say that the bassists are usually the silent forces in a band, backing away to let their bandmates enjoy the spotlight while building up to the rhythm and structure of the melodies. So, without the right bassist, it might all fall apart, or that’s what Glen Matlock believed when he chatted with the Times, discussing how Sid Vicious annoyed him and why Sid wasn’t the right bassist for the Sex Pistols.
Well, the ‘bassists being the silent forces and the introverted bandmate’ theory is not a modest theory of ours. From Queen bassist John Deacon to Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones to the Who’s John Entwistle, many bassists themselves embraced this theory and believed that their ability to take a step back and let their bandmates enjoy the spotlight was what kept the bands together.
However, there also have been not-so-introverted bassists who might very well debunk this theory, from Gene Simmons to Rush’s Geddy Lee, and last but not least, Sid Vicious. So this very fact was what Matlock pointed out while discussing why Sex Pistols had collapsed after his departure and why he had left in the first place.
“I thought, I’m getting all this sh*t from John [Lydon] and Malcolm [MacLaren], Steve [Jones] and Paul [Cook] weren’t backing me up; I heard they tried out Sid on bass, which annoyed me, and I only hung in there because I was getting my wages. So I left,” said Matlock, recalling the problematic period leading to his departure.
Still, after Glen left, MacLaren decided to do a bit dirty to Matlock by writing a telegram to NME, making fun of the former bassist for his fascination with the Beatles. The rocker recalled, “A week after that, Malcolm sent a telegram to the NME saying I was sacked because I liked the Beatles.”
In the end, Matlock managed to move on, but it seemed that Sex Pistols weren’t as lucky as MacLaren invited the bassist back into the band. Glen noted, “Two weeks after that, I’m in the Blue Posts, round the back of the 100 Club, and Malcolm comes in and says, ‘It’s not working out with Sid. Can you come back?’ So I replied, ‘The way you treated me, are you f*cking joking?’”
The rest, then, was history as Sex Pistols collapsed a year after Matlock’s leave which he pointed out by quoting the Who icon John Entwistle, “It reminded me of what John Entwistle once said of the Who, that if he was jumping around like Daltrey, Townshend, and Moon, the band would fall apart. There was a balance when I was in the Pistols. Sid Vicious wanted to be the lead guy, and the equilibrium went.”
So, Matlock believed that he was the silent driving force of the Sex Pistols, supergluing the band together by knowing when to take a step back and let the others stand out. However, with Sid’s arrival, the new bassist wanted to be the band’s new face, to become the lead figure, and this new balance led to their collapse.
