The Sex Pistols released one studio album. 1977’s Never Mind the Bullocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols reached number 1 in the UK and set a standard for punk rock. The origins of the group go back to a London band called The Stand, which claimed to be playing with instruments they had stolen.
John Lydon, or Johnny Rotten was added to the group after he was spotted in a Pink Floyd t-shirt that he had modified to add ‘I Hate’. Lydon describes the formation of the band like this “Early Seventies Britain was a very depressing place. It was completely run-down, there was trash on the streets, total unemployment—just about everybody was on strike. Everybody was brought up with an education system that told you point blank that if you came from the wrong side of the tracks…then you had no hope in hell and no career prospects at all. Out of that came pretentious moi and the Sex Pistols and then a whole bunch of copycat wankers after us”.
The Sex Pistols behavior and music brought them attention. Anarchy in the UK was one of the first punk singles, and presented a strong political opinion in the music. A last minute live TV interview, in place of Queen resulted in a profane exchange between host Bill Grundy and Steve Jones after Grundy made inappropriate comments to Siouxsie Sue.
Their following Anarchy Tour brought protests throughout the UK resulting in only seven of the twenty shows scheduled to actually occur.. The self described ‘ultimate Sex Pistols fan’ Sid Vicious joined the group in 1977. Already a notorious UK punk drummer, Vicious quickly spiraled out of control while with the group.
Meeting new girlfriend Nancy Spungen introduced Vicious to heroin, an addiction that killed him in 1979 after his arrest for allegedly murdering Spungen.
