Just like the punk movement he led back in the 1970s with his short-lived but seminal band the Sex Pistols, Steve Jones’ life has often been chaotic, rebellious and at times tragic as he’s dealt with child abuse, neglect and drug addiction.
Yet through all the angst, debauchery and life-threatening addictions, the English guitarist has always had music to hang on to as his “lifeline.”
“I wasn’t going down a good road. I would probably be in jail or something. I don’t know, who knows, but it wouldn’t be good I don’t think,” said the 61-year-old punk pioneer who will talk all about his life and influential genre-defining career with the Sex Pistols at the Grammy Museum onTuesday.
“It was just the right time, the right bunch of guys getting together at the right time,” he said of the band’s chaotic rise and lasting influence on music.
Jones’ appearance at the museum is part of the Grammy’s busy lineup of public programs that features conversations with artists at the 200-seat Clive Davis Theater. It will be moderated by Grammy Foundation Vice President Scott Goldman and it happens on the same day of the release of Jones’ autobiography “Lonely Boy: Tales of a Sex Pistol,” on Da Capo Press.
The 320-page memoir is filled with brutally honest accounts of his life.
“When it comes to what defines me as a person, a lot of the best things in my life have come about because of the worst things, which is a weird one when you try and think about divine intervention and all that bollocks. It would be a pretty twisted kind of God who would say ‘Let’s abuse that child so he can go off the rails and form a band.’ But looking back, I do feel like someone or something — God, destiny, whatever you want to call it — definitely threw me a lifeline in giving me music to hang onto,” Jones writes in the book.
“I’m a lot happier where I am now then when I was 20 years old,” Jones added during a recent interview.
The book release and Grammy talk will coincide with the 40th anniversary of the band’s platinum debut album, “Never Mind the Bollocks,” released in 1977.
“We’ll talk about the book because the book covers a lot about his life, including the music,” Goldman said. “Obviously we’re the Grammy Museum so we’re going to focus on his musical work but it’s interesting to talk to an artist and get into their back story a little bit and connect the dots in terms of who they are as a person to who they are as musicians.”
Jones, whose voice can still be heard daily on the radio as the host of Jonesy’s Jukebox on KLOS-FM (95.5), co-founded QT Jones and the Sex Pistols with drummer Paul Cook. The band eventually became the Sex Pistols in 1975.
They were only together for three years, but in that time the band’s chaotic career in many ways reinvigorated and changed the way people thought about rock ‘n’ roll, although back then that wasn’t immediately obvious to Jones.
“We didn’t know what we were doing, I guess that was the beauty of it. When you’re young you just dive in and there’s no idea that we would still be talking about this 40 years later,” he said. “I’m definitely proud of it. To be part of something that made a shift in music, that was kind of revolutionary. It’s not everyday you get do that.”
The Sex Pistols included lead singer Johnny Rotten and later bassist Sid Vicious, who became a punk icon for his uncontrollably wild and ultimately destructive lifestyle that lead to his arrest for the alleged murder of his girlfriend and eventually his death in 1979 at the age of 21.
“I thought he was a star when I first saw him. He was one of them guys who stood out, you were drawn to him. He could have been a big star Sid, if he could have turned it all around,” Jones said.
And when he first met Rotten, Jones was impressed with his style.
“I liked the way John looked when I first saw him. I don’t know, it was just star quality,” he said.
Jones’ talk at the Grammy is the latest in a busy series of public programs that has included about 500 events since the museum opened in 2008.
“We go a long way towards kind of breaking down the barrier between artist and audience in these conversations,” Goldman said.
Jones’ book, meanwhile, is the latest in a number of memoirs penned by punk pioneers that coincide with the 40 years since the genre emerged from London via the Sex Pistols and The Clash, from New York thanks to the Ramones and in L.A. with bands like X.
Earlier this year, X bass player John Doe released “Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk,” which was just nominated for a Grammy in the spoken word category.
Keith Morris, the former Black Flag and Circle Jerks lead singer, also recently released his autobiography, “My Damage: The Story of a Punk Rock Survivor.”
While in September the Grammy opened an exhibit called “Hey! Ho! Let’s Go: Ramones and the Birth of Punk.”
“It’s an exciting time to be looking back (at punk music),” Goldman noted.
Although the Sex Pistols reformed in 1996 for a world tour and again in 2007 and 2008, a reunion to mark four decades of punk music is unlikely.
“We’re not interested,” Jones declared.
And as far as what he wants people to think about him and the Sex Pistols after reading his book, in true punk fashion Jones doesn’t really give a damn.
“I don’t care, whatever. Take it or leave it. Enjoy it or don’t, it’s all good,” he said.
