As Glen Matlock and Clem Burke gear up for their upcoming ‘Lust For Life’ Tour in 2024, they found time to sit down and have a chat with Classic Rock. During the interview, while they talked about Blondie and Sex Pistols’ music styles, Matlock avoided labeling his former group as a ‘punk band.’
When asked about the ‘early days and longevity’ of punk, Burke claimed that their bands didn’t identify themselves as ‘punk’ during its rise. Confirming the drummer’s statement, the bassist added:
“As for my band, we weren’t punks; we were the Sex Pistols. To me, punks were the bands who came along after on our coattails. But a name sticks. In England, it was Sounds’ Jonh Ingham and Melody Maker’s Caroline Coon who came up with the term. We’d never heard it before. It just appeared in the Melody Maker, and people adopted it.”
According to Matlock, punk turned into a movement following Sex Pistols’ rise in the UK music scene. In a previous interview with Cryptic Rock in April, he explained this view by saying:
“There was no movement until we did, and the movement came afterwards. I am now fortunate enough to travel all around the world to some quite outlandish places, and Punk has become a byword for people whose music is maybe a little bit clever, reads between the lines a bit more, and won’t kowtow, be told and do exactly what is expected of them. So, that isn’t a bad thing. There is loads of music, but I think the spirit or intention behind it is the important thing.”
You can check out Glen Matlock and Clem Burke’s recent interview here.