Glen Matlock: Never mind the beers, here’s the bus pass

THE Sex Pistols were the undisputed kings of punk. In the mid to late-1970s the band that symbolised youthful rebellion caused moral panic in polite society with their anarchic attitudes, controversial lyrics, violence-ridden gigs and, of course, a notorious swearing episode on an early evening TV show hosted by the irascible Bill Grundy. No one epitomised the band's ethos more than Sid Vicious, who died of a heroin overdose in 1979 four months after finding his girlfriend Nancy Spungen dead from a stab wound in the bathroom of their room at New York's Chelsea Hotel. But the life of the man Vicious replaced as Pistols bassist could not have taken a more different path.

Glen Matlock, who wrote or co-wrote all their hits including Anarchy In The UK, Pretty Vacant and God Save The Queen, cuts a sober figure and looks trim, dapper and healthy.

While he partook of his fair share of rock 'n' roll excess in his youth, Matlock was always more into drink than drugs and now says he hasn't touched a drop since the early 1990s. "I try to keep in shape but not really," he says. "But the main thing is I haven't drunk for 25 years. I got pickled at a very early age."

And that's not the only aspect of his life that is more bank manager than rock star these days. He has developed a taste for going on luxury cruises, sent his two sons to private school, loves the Queen's favourite quiz show Pointless and travels on public transport with the aid of a senior citizen's bus pass.

In fact, Matlock, who studied at the very middle-class St Martin's School of Art before joining the Pistols, claims he never considered himself to be a punk rocker. "I didn't set out to be a punk when I went into music. Back then punk didn't exist," he says. "It was just a label foisted on us later by other people after we had formed. It was an attitude and a social thing more than anything."

Matlock, still touring the world and with a new solo album out, started his association with punk when he was at grammar school in Hammersmith, west London. On Saturdays he worked at a fashion shop called Sex on Chelsea's King's Road that was owned by future Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren.

It was at Sex that he met Steve Jones and Paul Cook and was asked to join their band. "But really the most punk thing I ever did was bunking off paying on the London Underground when I was at art school," he laughs, speaking before a gig in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

"I still like the Tube now I can get a free Oyster card as I'm 61!" Matlock left the group in early 1977 at the height of its fame - or should that be notoriety. After all, he was in the studio the day they appeared on a London regional current affairs show and caused an outcry by repeatedly swearing on live TV after being goaded into action by Bill Grundy, whose career never recovered from the scandal.

Sound bite-loving manager McLaren claimed in the press that he had "thrown out" Matlock because the latter "liked The Beatles".

"Not true," says Matlock wearily. "That was just Malcolm being Malcolm, saying things. I didn't particularly like The Beatles more than anyone else. The real reason I left the Pistols was because John (lead singer Johnny Rotten aka John Lydon) and I weren't getting on and my position was becoming untenable. There was a lot of politics going on."

A thoughtful, laconic figure, Matlock made his peace with Lydon long ago - though one senses the pair will never be best mates - and they even played together in a reformed Pistols tour some 10 years ago.

Nor does he decry Lydon's participation in reality shows or his appearances in TV commercials as a spokesman for Country Life butter.

"John can do whatever he likes. Even old punks have to get on with their lives. I haven't seen John since 2008 but we got on great when the Pistols reformed. It helped we were travelling first class and staying in nice hotels. I have seen Steve Jones and Paul more recently and we had some laughs."

He recalls of their time together in The Pistols: "John Lydon had his moments but he was a good singer, good songwriter. I was 18 with my head full of ideas. There were quite a lot of tensions between me and him. It was Steve and Paul's band really. A lot of bands around the time of punk didn't really last. But they were my songs that were hits."

He does not even hold a grudge against Sid Vicious and ended up playing live with him at a one-off gig before Sid's untimely death. "Sid was a good singer and frontman," he concedes.

His favourite song from his time with the Pistols was, he says, Pretty Vacant, which was almost completely his own work, apart from a couple of lines rewritten by Lydon. It was that song that, for him, encompassed the band's ethos and the reasons behind punk. Both it and God Save The Queen were, ironically, not released as singles in 1977 until after Matlock departed.

"Pretty Vacant is the first song that we really did that was like our manifesto. It's not a love song, it's not about girls. It was our manifesto. That was the kind of thing we were getting away from, the kind of music that had been around since the 1960s. Yes, I'm proud of it. But I'm probably proudest of all of a couple of songs on my new album."

AFTER leaving The Sex Pistols in 1977, Matlock formed what many hoped would be a New Wave supergroup called The Rich Kids, formed of himself, Midge Ure (who had been first choice to be the Pistols' lead singer), Rusty Egan (who with Ure later formed Visage) and Steve New.

It fizzled out after one hit but Matlock has worked successfully in the music world ever since, combining over the years with figures such as Iggy Pop and his friend Slim Jim Phantom (aka James McDonnell) of the Stray Cats, who was his partner in his appearance on a celebrity edition of Pointless last November.

They went on to win a much sought-after Pointless trophy after answering tricky questions on topics such as Jean Paul Sartre and Shakespeare. "I'm a fan of the show, yes and I was pleased to win the trophy with Jim though we were disappointed we didn't win the jackpot for our charities," he says. The pair fell just two points short after beating fellow singers including Toyah Wilcox, Ralph McTell and Barbara Dickson.

Most incongruously of all Matlock recently became a correspondent for a cruising magazine after they sent him on a voyage to Norway - "I'd never been on cruise before and thought why not? I enjoyed it." He sent his two sons, now grown up and in the music business, to a £20,000-a-year private school and is unapologetic about it too.

It's all a far cry from his early Sex Pistol days when he and his bandmates used to pilfer bread and cheese from a passing milk float to stave off hunger.

He once said he lost millions by leaving the Sex Pistols just as they hit the big time but he's happy about his life now.

"It's all good, it's fun. I have a new album out that has got good reviews. I'm writing new songs all the time, I'm gigging in places like Sao Paulo, I enjoy it." He departed the Sex Pistols when he was only 21 but ruefully accepts that he will never shake off the label of being an ex-Pistol, something he didn't help by calling his autobiography I Was A Teenage Sex Pistol.

But he insists: "I don't like looking back at the past - it was over 40 years ago. The Pistols is a bit of an albatross around my neck. I've done lots in my career since but it's the one thing I'm not allowed to forget. But I've just done what I've wanted to do and pleased myself."

A dedicated member of the Musician's Union, he is interested in politics and recently went to watch Prime Minister's Questions in Parliament. "One of the ushers came up to me, rolled up his sleeves and showed me a tattoo on his arm. It said Sex Pistols.

He told me he had to hide it." Matlock may have mellowed but the Establishment never forgets.

Glen Matlock's solo album Good To Go is on Mighty Village Records. For more information and details of live dates, see glenmatlock.co.uk