Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones recently opened up about his transition from aspiring vocalist to guitarist, sharing insights about his musical journey in an interview with Marshall.
Jones explained how his brief attempt at singing led him to discover his true calling on guitar. He described the rapid transformation that occurred before the band’s debut performance.
“I’ve always been attracted to music, at an early age. I attempted to sing at first, and I realized that ain’t for me,” Jones said. “We did one gig, and it was terrible. I couldn’t stand being the main focus. And then I kind of got pushed onto guitar through Malcolm McLaren. I’d thought, ‘I gotta do this’.”
The guitarist revealed how he acquired his iconic white Les Paul guitar through an unexpected connection to the New York Dolls.
“That guitar came through [the New York Dolls’] Sylvain Sylvain. I don’t know how it happened, but Sylvain Sylvain had the white Les Paul, and Malcolm brought it back,” he continued. “I don’t know if it was for payment or something, I don’t know. But he goes, ‘Here you are, here is the guitar’.”
Jones described his self-taught approach to learning the instrument. He emphasized the simplicity of his early technique.
“And I was lucky because I love [how] Les Pauls sound. It’s a classic sound: Marshall and the Les Paul. So I would play along to records for hours and hours, just didn’t know what I was doing,” he said. “I knew a couple of basic chords: A, D, and an E. And I could spend hours doing that, and that’s how I first started.”
The musician detailed his influences and rapid progression during those formative months.
“I was playing to the New York Dolls first album [‘New York Dolls’], The Stooges with James Williamson [‘Raw Power’], I thought he was a great guitar player. And I’m just kind of doing one note, just picking it up,” Jones explained. “That was it. It was like a crash course, really. And then the next thing I know, three months later, we’re doing our first show at Saint Martins College [on November 6, 1975].”
Jones’s musical awakening can be traced back to a pivotal moment in 1967 that would shape his entire approach to guitar playing.
Sunny News Daily reported that Jones first picked up the guitar in 1967 after hearing Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze.” The song captivated him with its catchy power and syncopation. This single moment of musical revelation would prove to be the foundation for his later punk rock style. It demonstrated how a three-minute song could completely alter someone’s musical trajectory.
Jones mentioned his admiration for James Williamson and the New York Dolls in his recent interview. However, his primary guitar influence came from an unexpected source in the glam rock world. KEXP revealed that Mick Ronson from David Bowie’s glam era albums like “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust” served as Jones’s top guitarist influence and blueprint for playing. This connection to Bowie’s guitarist helps explain the theatrical edge that would later define the Sex Pistols’ stage presence.
Jones’s guitar influences extended beyond individual players to encompass entire bands that shaped his musical identity. Naperville Music noted that Pete Townshend was definitely an influence, but not as much as Mick Ronson and Ronnie Wood. The Faces served as his ideal band model. This diverse range of influences, from Hendrix’s psychedelic innovation to The Faces’ raw rock energy, would eventually coalesce into the distinctive sound that helped define punk rock.
The self-taught nature of Jones’s guitar education became a defining characteristic of his playing style and the broader punk movement. His approach of learning basic chords and playing along to records for hours represented a departure from formal musical training. This embodied the DIY ethos that would become central to punk rock culture. This rapid transformation from failed vocalist to guitarist would prove instrumental in shaping the Sex Pistols’ distinctive sound and influence countless musicians who followed.
