John Lydon: I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right - 2024 Tour Interview

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Wed 01 May 2024 - Sat 29 Jun 2024

John Lydon is not a man who appreciates being censored. The legendary frontman and lyricist of the Sex Pistols and Public Image Ltd (PiL) has caused his fair share of political earthquakes during a unique and extraordinary career. The man they call Johnny Rotten has been dubbed many things. A revolutionary, an icon, a provocateur and an immortal, he became a poster boy for the cultural revolution which transformed music for good. And he’s not finished yet. This year he’s heading back on the road with his acclaimed spoken word show, I Could Be Wrong, I Could Be Right, which visits Tamworth Assembly Rooms on 12 May and Birmingham Town Hall on 9 June. He promises to ‘tell it how it is’ during the audience Q&A sessions when he promises that nothing will be off-limits.

“I think too many people tell me what I think, and not enough ask me,” he says. "I always find it’s far more fun just telling the truth than being a miserable bleedin’ philosopher. This is a format which suits me down to the ground, to be honest – because if there’s one thing you can guarantee, it’s that I’m never gonna run out of words! I’ve basically spent my whole life being censored. So this is me, honest and unscripted. It’s my thoughts, in my lingo, right or wrong, straight from the horse’s mouth.”



Lydon has lost two of the most important people in his life since the last leg of his spoken word tour - his beloved wife of more than 40 years, Nora, and his long-time tour manager Johnny ‘Rambo’ Stevens. “I just can’t get over the loss of Nora; I don’t think I ever will,” says Lydon, who cared full-time for his wife in her later years as she battled Alzheimer’s. “It’s hard at night, and I don’t want to throw myself into creating more music right now which would just be a series of ‘woe is me’ misery songs. That’s not the right thing to do.” It was due to Nora that he threw his hat into the Eurovision ring last year in a failed bid to represent Ireland. The poignant and personal song, 'Hawaii,' was inspired by one of the couple’s favourite holidays and was in his words ‘as close to accurately portraying the situation’ as he could get.

“I’m very glad I was able to perform the song on Irish TV so I could show it to Nora before she died. It might not have been chosen, but it did put a big smile on her face, and she was very proud of me. But I’ll never sing that song again, because it’s just too heart-breaking. I just can’t go there; it was so deeply personal. And then I lost Rambo, my all-time best mate and manager. There never has been, and never will be, anyone remotely like him. He lived life to the full, and enriched the lives of so many. It’s not just the people contributing musically, there are so many other areas that need taking care of. Rambo did all of that – now it’s all on my shoulders. I want to recognise the massive role which Rambo played for all those years.”



The son of working-class emigrants from Ireland and the eldest of four brothers, Lydon grew up in London regularly having to care for his siblings due to his mother’s ill health. He was kicked out of school at 15 for dying his hair green, and was soon on the scene of London nightclubs with the likes of Sid Vicious and Jah Wobble. By 1975, he was hanging around SEX, the fetish clothing shop launched by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, meeting the people who would go on to form the Sex Pistols. Lydon looks back on those times with great fondness but admits that the rift with his ‘sneaky rat’ former Pistols bandmates, which ended up in court in a bitter dispute over licensing of the back catalogue, can never be healed. He says: “My body and mind is the Sex Pistols but my heart and soul is PiL…”.

John Lydon remains a mischievous maverick who continues pushing back the boundaries, and who relishes the opportunity to challenge and thrive. “I make music because I love it. I’ve got an enormous record collection and every now and then recognise a gap in something I’d really like to hear – that will be the seed for the next album I’ll make. When I lose interest in music I will stop. I don’t force it. We’re well known taking long intervals between projects, but I think that benefits the work itself.” He adds: “I won’t just sit around and watch the world fall down around me. I have to be doing things that are useful. I’m still mentally collecting firewood.”

Which is why he’s relishing the chance to get back on stage for a show he describes as ‘unlike anything else I’ve done’.



“I do sometimes find the weight of live performance shockingly overwhelming. I’m a self-inflicted pain and misery kind of character with a smiley face. Every time I go on stage I’m terrified. I get physically ill before a PiL gig. Once I’m on, it’s different level – the real me comes out. But the fears and phobias are the very things that power me on to do what I do. This show is a little bit different though. Of course I’m still a bit fearful – after all I’m walking into a room and facing thousands of people I don’t know. But I like to think I’ve always been able to converse fluently in a down-to-earth way, not waxing lyrical with a load of toff talk. Once the ice is broken it paves the way for a bloody good chat, and a good time to be had by all. The thing I love about this show is that I don’t know exactly what I’m going to be doing from one venue to the next."

So this show is all speech and no music, then? “Well, not completely,” Lydon says. “I’ve been known to break out into a bit of karaoke on occasion and start an ABBA singalong, and no two nights turn out the same way. This time I’m thinking I might go down the Alvin Stardust route – I think some of his classics need dusting off, don’t you? Who doesn’t love a bit of My Coo-Ca-Choo?”

The 2024 tour runs from May 1 to June 29. For more information, visit: https://www.johnlydon.com

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