Rotten defies ex-Pistols in bid to avoid ‘great TV deal swindle’

A legal battle is brewing between members of the groundbreaking 1970s punk band the Sex Pistols over use of the group’s songs in a TV drama series about their lives.

The Sex Pistols comprising Steve Jones, Paul Cook, Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten. Picture:

A legal battle between members of groundbreaking 1970s punk band the Sex Pistols over use of the group’s songs in a TV drama series about their lives began in London’s High Court on Thursday.

Former guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook are suing singer John Lydon – known to the world as the sneering, ginger-haired frontman, Johnny Rotten – for the use of the group’s back catalogue in the show.

The six-part series, Pistol, which is being developed by ­Disney and directed by Oscar-winning British director Danny Boyle, has reignited longstanding feuds among surviving members of the band, which formed in 1975 and formally disbanded three years later.

Though their time playing ­together was short-lived, with the exception of a series of sporadic reunions, the band had a huge ­impact on popular music over the succeeding decades, reinventing rock in their own indignant punk image with songs such as Anarchy in the UK and God Save the Queen.

Lydon has said he is not prepared to approve licences needed to use the music in the films – based on Jones’ memoir Lonely Boy: Tales From A Sex Pistol – ­unless ordered to by the court and feels he has been maligned by the other Sex Pistols.

In a Sunday Times article in April, Lydon said he had been put “in a corner like a rat” and was up against some “corporations that just want to take over”.

In court, Edmund Cullen, representing Jones and Cook, called the relationship between the former band members “bitter and fractious”, and explained efforts had been made to resolve similar disagreements through consensus in the past.

He argued that under the terms of a band agreement made in 1998, ­decisions regarding licensing ­requests could be determined on a “majority rules basis”, though Lydon has said licences cannot be granted without his consent.

Mr Cullen also said in written evidence Lydon was the only holdout over the use of the songs, with original band member Glen Matlock, who left in 1977, and the estate of Sid Vicious, who died in 1979, supporting the licensing.

AFP