

The guy who engineered it is Mario McNulty who did Bowie’s album before last. And Earl Slick who played with David Bowie and John Lennon, it’s quite high calibre. On my (new) album most of the tracks have got Slim Jim Phantom of the Stray Cats on, he’s got a very innovative style. But I’d rather do newer stuff within my idiom. I know if I went to see David Bowie and he didn’t play ‘Heroes I’d have been disappointed so it is a bit of a juggling act. Glen: That’s the last thing I want to be, I know if I do a gig people want to hear a couple of songs, and I enjoy playing them but not everything. (((o))): So he has allowed himself to get trapped…

There is a bloke I know, he is a really nice bloke and a good drummer and he was in the tailend of the Ramones but he goes out with a pick up van pretending he was the Ramones almost, and I just think that’s wrong. If you try and copy that you’re either going to fail miserably or you’re going to be dishonest, pretending you’re something you’re not. Glen: Well yeah, but also the Sex Pistols were the Sex Pistols and it was the sum of the people that were in it, once you step outside of that and you’ve got different people it’s a different thing. (((o))): I’ve been doing a bit of reading up and the thing that’s struck me is that you are constantly evolving, constantly trying new things, not defined by the Sex Pistols, was that a deliberate decision you made to continually be trying new things? On an atrocious phone line from London (hence the proliferation of ‘…’) we had a chat about his musical past and present and the making of the new album. Never content to be defined by his Sex Pistols involvement this year Glen has a new album out in September called Good To Go which reaches back to pre punk music for inspiration. Over the last 40 years Glen has constantly been on the move, trying new things and collaborating with a variety of musicians. Subsequently he has played with Iggy Pop, The Faces, Primal Scream and The Damned, toured with Dead Men Walking, had his own band, Glen Matlock and The Philistines, and been involved with various other projects (1)! That same year he formed Rich Kids with Midge Ure, Steve New and Rusty Egan, the band releasing Ghosts of Princes in Towers the following year (2). Original bass player with the Sex Pistols, Glen Matlock was co-writer of 10 of the 12 tracks on Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols before leaving the band in 1977 (1).
