Sex Pistols’ John Lydon recently chatted with BBC Radio Scotland where he discussed the time he wore a t-shirt in 1976 that read ‘I hate Pink Floyd.’ When asked what he would think if someone walked up to him wearing a shirt that said ‘I hate the Sex Pistols, the singer replied:
“It wouldn’t mean the same, would it? No, the content and the placing of it historically, for me it was riveting, I loved being that cheeky.”
John went onto explain the status of Pink Floyd during that time by explaining:
“Pink Floyd was accepted as the royal family. They were sacrosanct no go-area, no criticism about them they were just magnificent. Well, yes some of their stuff is, particularly the earlier Syd Barrett angle.”
Johnny had previously talked about what he thought about Pink Floyd to The Quietus in 2010 where he said:
“What I didn’t like about them was the pretentiousness. There was an aura of ‘Oh, we’re so great there’s no room for anybody else.’ But you know, I’ve met members of the band and I get on alright with them because they’re not like that at all. There was kind of a misreading and a misrepresentation in the press…”
However, Lydon expressed to BBC Radio Scotland that his reason for wearing the t-shirt with the phrase ‘I hate Pink Floyd’ was to see the fan reactions. He said:
“I didn’t actually hate them but I knew that it would stir up anger in people and low and behold it did.”
It seems that David Gilmour didn’t think that Johnny really hated his band. When Q Magazine asked whether he hated the Sex Pistols after the shirt controversy the rocker replied:
“No, I thought the Sex Pistols were rather good. I’ve been on a show with Johnny Rotten. It was at Sadler’s Wells, and he said he never really hated Pink Floyd and actually, he was a bit of a fan. I confess to not having entirely believed it in the first place. I mean, who could hate us?”
You can listen to John Lydon’s interview with BBC Radio Scotland below.
