"The best night I've ever had was to be accused of being a bad Johnny Rotten in Kyoto," laughs John Lydon, frontman of punk pioneers The Sex Pistols and groundbreaking postpunk band Public Image Ltd. Speaking on the phone from his adopted home of Los Angeles, the 55-year-old Irish-born, London-raised icon is reminiscing on his "eight or nine" tours of Japan over his 30-odd-year career. (PiL were added Monday to the bill of this year's Summer Sonic festival.)
"I think this was the '96 tour," he continues. "Me and my current manager, Mr. Rambo, we found this crazy-arse punk club. It was the maddest house I've ever been to in my whole life, just young Japanese kids doing crazy punk karaoke in this club. I sang 'Anarchy in the U.K.' and of course they didn't know — or believe — who I was, but that made it better!"
It's about 20 minutes into our nearly-two-hour conversation before Lydon finally turns friendly. At first he's a little standoffish; I know it can't be something I said, because I can't get a word in edgewise. Then again, he has been conditioned through personal experience to be wary of journalists. Lydon has often been mistaken by media and mainstream alike for being a troublemaker, a mindless proponent of anarchy, an enemy of decency and worse.