by Lydon, John
It was very hard for them when Ari’s out there living her Rastafarian dream, being a woman warrior, ‘save the dolphins’ and all of that, but showing a complete neglect for her own children. She just didn’t have the time for them – as a single parent with a libido. That’s very difficult, that aspect of life. ‘Meet your new dad.’ – ‘No, I won’t!’
For so many reasons, being a single mum was too much for her. She found Pablo and Pedro to be uncontrollable. For instance, she’d put their hair in dreadlocks. ‘Mummy, I can’t live with this hairdo, I’m getting bullied at school.’ Ari could be quite dictatorial in that way, and very unforgiving and rigid.
It’s very difficult with children; you’ve got to let them find themselves. You can’t be inflicting dreadlocks on a fifteen-year-old. It’s just not going to work, unless they’re fully regimed in that particular religious dictate, which of course they’re completely not. They’re so non-religion! It’s one of the things I’m extremely proud of in them.
I’d be saying, ‘Come on, Ari, Rastafarianism is a religion that doesn’t accept equality for women!’ All this time, Ari was living off Nora. All this, ‘I’m free!’ Oh, yeah? Somebody’s always paying for that kind of freedom, and unfortunately that person was Nora, this constant financial drain on her.
The twins’ names were some ridiculousness that Ari came up with. She didn’t want a name from the Bible, so she found Pedro and Pablo, which is indeed Spanish for Peter and Paul. Aaaargh! Hippie-minded liberal parents can cause such problems to their kids. It’s been very difficult for them, because they’re not actually Mexican or Hispanic, and living in Los Angeles, that’s a real problem, because it’s automatically presumed that they can speak Spanish. Nooo! They’d come out with Jamaican patois as an answer, and it didn’t go down well. But Ari wasn’t to know that problem would arise.
We quickly got them into school, and it was very difficult for them to catch up, because they were basically illiterate, really way behind. Ari had this attitude that education was ‘Babylon system’. That’s all well and fine, but you’ve got to be educated enough to know that. In many ways, taking away a child’s opportunity for education is absolutely corrupting them into ‘Babylon system’, making them unemployable. And, in fact, anti-social.
It was very hard for them when they went to school here. They still had dreadlocks at that time, because Mummy insisted on it. It was hell on earth for them, with Jamaican accents in a Los Angeles school, with a high rate of Mexican immigrant kids . . . Confusion.
Nora and I differed severely with Ari on the dreadlocks. One of the first things the twins wanted to do when they came to live with us was cut them off. They were very upset with what they had to endure at school with that, because it labelled them, and it made them stand out for something they couldn’t quite justify. It wasn’t their own belief system. It was also extremely uncomfortable in the heat to carry a bag of hair dragging down the backside of your head. I think all religious aspects in any human being should be self-determined, and so we gave them that freedom. We gave them permission to snip ’em off! It was the happiest day of their lives, not having to be dressed up like Victorian dollies, according to Ari’s whims.
Of course, that drove Ariane nuts-crazy-bonkers. She was furious. I’d be the big bad bunny in all of this but, you know, you’ve got to free yourself up from the dictates of parents at a certain point. You know, it’s their life. At sixteen they had the right to determine these things, and self-image is very important. It’s where you start declaring yourself as a human being. Of course they’re going to make foolish mistakes, and look like daft twots, but that’s the privilege of youth and you can’t take that away. You can’t treat your children like they belong in a monastery. They’re not property, they’re actually human beings of self-determination, if they’re lucky enough to get good guidance.
Poor things, they went through hell there, but they gave us hell in return. It was very hard for them to adjust to the kind of solidarity that Nora and me were offering them. It left them feeling very confined, when they were used to running in the world, left to their own devices. The reminder came from us: ‘Well, we’re not paying for that, so that ain’t gonna happen.’ What they needed was boundaries, as do all kids.
We soon moved out to Malibu for a better school, just to help them catch up. Up until that point in their lives, Pablo and Pedro had mostly been in free schools, and Montessoris, which run along the hippie guidelines of, ‘Oh, you know, they’ll work at their own pace, one day they’ll just want to learn . . .’ That – does – not – happen. It doesn’t teach a sense of independence and drive – quite the opposite.
So, ugh, I did my best. I spent quite a while trying to do maths with them. Me, of all people! I also did sentence structure, which is more my thing. Then, as that progressed with them in school, they started to learn things that I didn’t know, and that helped them a lot. ‘Wha’? Ya don’ know dat? Bu’ I know dat!’ I’d be like, ‘God, you’re so much cleverer than me!’ Then the self-esteem would creep in. Mainly, it was just about teaching them a respect for others.
One time when Nora was away, I had to go to a parent-teacher association meeting. Haha, the argument I had with the English teacher, who told me sentence structure didn’t matter! ‘What? You’re telling that to a songwriter?’
So the twins have been with us all through the 2000s, and they’re still wrapped around us one way or another. They’ve all gone different ways, and they’re all now different people and not yet fully realized, I don’t think. They were still in a complete state of ruin for many a year, to my mind, and it’s a problem that they’re still to this day trying to work out.
Also what happened was that Ari’s younger boy, Wilton, came to live with us. He also doesn’t understand what the guidelines are, because there’s never been any. ‘That’s what I want!’ ‘Well, what about the rest of us? Why should we suffer because of what you want?’ We’ve been trying to introduce that sense of empathy with other people.
You have to know that I was never being spiteful or resentful or jealous towards Ari. She may have been an inspiring stage persona for many people, but it’s what goes on when you get back home that really matters. It’s hard to get people to understand that, but such is the simplistic nonsense of pop music. It’s a beast of our own making, all of us that are involved. It’s our own fault that we don’t show a more open side, but it’s very difficult because you’re judged every time you walk on a stage, you’re judged in every interview, in every public representation of yourself. You need time out, and that only comes when you get home and, unless you do a Kardashian on it and have cameras following you about morning, noon and night, you’re never really going to understand what the full experience is. Indeed, then the cameras become your reality and that is in turn a non-reality. Again, Kardashians.
Ari and I always had a deep respect for each other, always. She said many things over the years, but who cares? It was very important that I went to see her in the hospital in 2010, the day before the cancer finally got her and she died. What a fantastic, amazing reunion it was – we sang together. The staff were very generous with us, because we’ve both got big mouths, so the songs we were singing together were loud! ‘Four Enclosed Walls’ was the major feature, with the ‘Aaallaahhh!’ I was trying to get to grips with where the notes were, but Ari was a very good singer and a very good musician. She got it bang-on, even then.
As a life pursuit for the two of us, parenting for Ari’s kids was almost depressingly educational: you have to realize that they come first. That’s very draining on the creative selfishness of being artistic. Because there is an element of selfishness in writing songs, the luxury of saying whatever you please. You have to get a little more in tune with the domesticity situations, and understand that you might not be quite bang on the money in that department. When I’m ranting and raving, there are other aspects to consider, and consider them I have.
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�m much more thoughtful now when I put a song together. I love hurting institutions but I don’t want to actually hurt people. Yes, now there is some forethought, some perspective. Whoooaaarrr! How do you say, ‘I’m a very nice person’, without dying of laughter? Quite frankly, if I wait for others to say it, it’s never going to be heard. There’ll always be that element out there imagining I’m just the world’s nastiest bastard. And why not? I suppose there must be that element to me, somewhat, and thank God for it, because it’s him what did it, Officer. Not me – blame God. That’s a double-barrelled gun, you see, that whole thing of ‘God made me, I’m an act of nature’. ‘Thank you! Then blame God, it’s him what did it . . .’
The house was certainly cosy with the kids around. I loved that time, because it gave me that sense of family. I love kids around. I’m one of those people – not always, but mostly – who doesn’t mind the screaming and the shouting and the squealing and the yelling, so long as it’s happy sounds I’m hearing.
However, the situation with Martin’s family living in the outhouse in Venice Beach did get unbearable after a while. Sometimes, trying to live with family members is a waste of time. Because you all end up at each other’s throats and the over-familiarity can lead to all manner of problems. There’s no hate in this, it’s just that when Martin developed his family around us, and then the twins arrived – the whole thing just piled up into a zoo-like atmosphere. You try concentrating in that. Having a recording studio built into the room between the kitchen and the front room is like trying to make a record on a subway station.
So things fell apart in that way and, at the same time, the necessity to make records in my own living room became less and less interesting. It becomes too much of an infringement on your personal life. You have no escape from it. There’s moments when you’ve run out of ideas and you need the pressure lightened. A moment of reprieve which you don’t get when the equipment’s all wrapped around you. There’s nowhere to turn, so it’s not a good idea, home recording. Not unless you’ve got a shed at the end of the garden – something not attached to the place you actually live in. Maybe get an allotment. Because it turns you off the very thing that got you involved in it in the first place – the love. The love becomes cumbersome, and that’s not right.
Martin’s got two children, and they’re both now working here in Los Angeles. Martin himself just does odd jobs here and there. Very early on, he got American citizenship. He decided he never wanted to go back to London. There was nothing there for him. You know, ‘No future’. Quite literally, just no jobs. Nothing. No interest. There’s no way out of the trap. The tedium of council flat existence – it’s an incredibly unfair universe, Britain. You’re led into a life of crime, accidentally, against your wishes. It’s the only way to make the money.
So Martin’s seen no reason to go back, and never did. He’s happy here, and he turned out to be a really marvellous father. It’s wonderful to watch. As for the eldest of my three brothers, Jimmy: as madcap as he is, he’s a wonderful dad too, and so is Bobby, the middle one. These days, Jimmy’s painting and decorating, any old job that a working-class lad can get up to. Bobby’s moved to Northern Ireland. He married a Northern Irish girl – out there, he repairs burglar alarms, he did a bit of plumbing, he’s a bit of an electrician – a very technically minded and quiet person, if prone to the killer one-liner. Wit does run in the Lydons.
Like Martin, Jimmy and Bobby both raised kids really well. Smart kids, not one of them is a duffer. I’m really proud that my family endures and brings forth very good people. That bodes well for humanity in the future.
Me and Nora, we couldn’t have children after problems when we were young. Nora had a very difficult childbirth with Ari and, to cut a long story short, it hasn’t been possible since. Looking back, our lives wouldn’t have allowed it, anyway. I was constantly touring in them days with PiL, just constantly too active to give the proper attention to what a child would need, to be in this world. It’s 100 per cent, a kid.
Rambo never saw himself as management material. I always pushed for him to step up to that role. He started out just wanting to do security, but eventually, round about the year 2000, he moved up. As situations developed, the opportunities were there, and I’d keep pushing him because I know he’s got what it takes. Anyone who can organize a coachload of football scoundrels can do anything. To keep that well in order, that’s a skill in itself.
In the past, before he came on board, situations would arise where I’d just go, ‘I can’t cope!’ and just sit around for years. I got very tired with everything being done in a business-like way. I find that if it’s done by the book, it doesn’t work. This kind of industry is not the place for set rules. Problems can shape-shift on you instantly and you have to be able to react to that and not just be pedantic. That’s not slagging anybody off, just me myself – I can’t work with a strict businessman, it slows the process down an enormous amount. It becomes very tedious.
Rambo’s a stickler; it’s one of the greatest things of working with him. I can tend to fob it off with an ill-phrased expression. With me, the paddy can lurk in there and I’ll hum over the details. That can lead to confusion. Sometimes, what I see as relevant is actually not. When you work with a bloke like Rambo, it’s got to be 100 per cent. His stamina and commitment are irrepressible. He holds himself fully accountable, and that’s an amazing concept.
Doing my security, he was the best. He taught me a lot. Like, you don’t want to leave yourself open 360 degrees, so you narrow it down. When I was on Skinner and Baddiel’s Fantasy Football League on British TV in 1998, it all got messy. I weren’t gonna toe the line with those pompous stuck-up alleged comedians, mocking old England players, turning football into the farce that it’s become. In the press the next day they even started accusing me of attacking a producer.
What really went on was that I wouldn’t play by their rules – they didn’t like me outsmarting the presenters. When I went off during the break they locked the doors and wouldn’t let me back on the show, so they brought in their security which involved all these lumps trying to come and smack my head. Rambo quickly took charge of the situation – in the corridor there was a right turn, so we went in the corner, and they couldn’t get at us, all these professional lumps. We stood our ground and held firm. There was only one way to us and that was full-frontal into us, and they couldn’t do it, they couldn’t risk it – wouldn’t risk it. It’s football-crowd skills, but you can apply that mentally. That’s a physical reality that you have to deal with, and that’s a very useful way of lowering the odds of getting hurt. We slowly marched out the building with our heads held high – with a ‘good night and a good evening’ to the security.
Rambo’s a difficult fella for you to get around and understand, but I’ll tell you what, once you do, you will love him forever. He’s a fucking diamond, a man as good as his word. There ain’t nothing wrong going on in him, and he’s the most hardcore fuck there is. He knows me not as Johnny Rotten, he knows me as John the human being. A small amount of people would just have him down as a thug ambassador, but he’s not, he’s much, much more than that. He’s John, the Rambo.
Around the time that Rambo took over, I was getting more into the world of film and TV – far more than I ever did, ironically, when we were talking so much about it in early PiL days. I got this offer to do my own programme from VH1, which was like an MTV for older viewers. Given the chance, I obviously jumped straight in.
Immediately it came down to scripting. The stuff that was put in front of me – ha! I kept some of it because it was so silly, but I look back at it and think, ‘Thank God I avoided that!’ So basically I approached the head office, in a big board meeting, with the idea that there’d be no scripts. Scripts are not my thing, they’re too limiting. I don’t mind a rough idea, but as for writing dialogue and expecting me to verbiage that back at a camera? That’s never going to happen. It doesn’t work like that with me.
The lee
way they gave me was this: okay, do what you want, but we’re not paying so much for it. ‘Okay, that’s fine with me’ – I can make an excellent, low-budget work. I loved the challenge. I also liked the people I had lined up to work on it with me: a guy called Rob Barnett was very good fun, and a fella, Jay Blumenfield, who’s gone on to become quite a big producer and director. Together, we just had fun with it.
The most difficult part was putting together the presentation reel. That was a pretentious lack of fun, limited to this studio-type warehouse place which had a big multi-purpose screen at the back. I was expected to walk across in front of different images projected on it, waffling lyrically about why this was a must-see programme, with no actual programmes already made. It was like advancing the theory before you even have the theory. I understand that for people forking out money, you’re not gonna be stupidly risk-taking willy-nilly, so I’m not moaning about it. I kind of like budget restraints, I can work very well in that, but I cannot work under content restraint. That I will never accept.
Again, it came down to problems about my dialogue. ‘Here is a list of words you cannot use!’ It was all the usual ones: ‘fuck, damn, cunt, bastard’. ‘Twot’ is a big word not to use on American TV. To me it’s a casual expression: ‘Oh, shut up, you silly twot!’ Here in the States it means a vagina. I suppose it does in Britain, too, but not to the same degree of, ‘I’ve never been so mortally offended.’ The level of angst the Americans place on that word is ridiculous.
In the first proper episode, I sat in a tank and exploded a blowup doll covered in priceless Sex Pistols memorabilia. That was one of the best things. I’ve always wanted to be in a tank. I used a wonderful Alan Stivell theme tune for the show – I love Alan Stivell’s music; it’s Breton Celtic, very old traditional folkie stuff, but with electric guitars – used in a bad way, sometimes, but mostly very interesting. It can be quite cinematic. And it blended well with a bloody great big tank, let me tell you. Ploughing up a field with all manner of armoured vehicles was just a dream come true. We picked out targets, and of course it would be blasts from the past, like some of the no-no’s of the Sex Pistols – like Sid’s alleged suicide note. Why not throw bombs at all that? If anyone can, I can.