Reality TV > Johnny Rotten speaks on reality TV, John Cleese
September 3, 2007
Written by John Lichman
Wired spoke with former Sex Pistol now reality TV judge John Lyndon, neé Johnny Rotten, about his role on Fuse's Bodog Battle of the Bands and the upcoming season finale.
Wired News: What have you been looking for in these bands while judging the show?
John Lydon: Originality, humor and people that can actually cope with pressure. Not at all note-perfect musicality and perfection, but the ability to write a song and believe it and live it. In other words, genuine honesty, and isn't that a shock in the music business? There are three judges, and we all have very different opinions. A couple of bands were voted out very early that I felt shouldn't have been, even though they were young and possibly musically ill-equipped. That's exactly where I began, and I've never looked back.
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WN: Here's a question from one of our readers, who said, "Nowadays, to express your feelings in public is common. It is crazy to be arrested (for criticizing) the queen."
Lydon: I like the royal family. I think it could be a fun institution. The trouble was, for a few years there, we had a Union Jack stolen from us. Nazism crept into Great Britain. We managed to kick that on its head, and the royal family made some stupid decisions about people like me. They turned their back on the working class, which, frankly, is their bread and butter. We're the true supporters of their institution, and were treated as though we didn't belong. Several statements were made to that end by the royal family, and it all ended a negative way.
In fact, to give you an example, I once did some charity work -- or tried to -- for the Prince Charles trust fund thingy, and the attitude I got off his people was revolting. They just looked down their noses at me. And I was really angry at a man whose work I've really loved and respected, John Cleese. Fawlty Towers was a masterpiece. But when he looked straight at me and had the nerve to ask some (inaudible) next to him, "What's that sort of person doing here?" That's when my stomach turns, do you know what I mean? Like, I'm not good enough even for charity. I've done no harm to no one. In fact, I think I've improved the world. I've opened things up into a lively open debate, which is what they should be, but oddly enough now it's taken me some 30 solid years of work to have to prove that open debate is not negative, it's actually a positive force. I'm misunderstood. I'm not criticizing just to be a cunt -- a vacant, at that. (Lydon sings, "We're so pretty....")
WN: In that spirit of open debate, another reader writes, "Johnny, don't you feel that the type of people who would enter a talent contest in the first place don't really have any talent? All they want is to be famous for fame's sake." What do you make of that?
Lydon: There was every possibility that that's the way this show would end up, in which case I'm the man to stop it! But no, some of these bands are genuinely enjoyable. You've got to be very wary of an audience out there that's jealous as fuck of any of them, of anyone who is on the TV for any reason at all. At least they entered a competition. What do the rest of these sad sacks who sit around criticizing at home do? When you can't join them, and you can't beat them, don't complain about them.
