John Lydon Dismisses New Sex Pistols Tour As ‘Karaoke’

Former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon has dismissed his bandmates’ decision to reform with Frank Carter on vocals, likening the whole endeavor to “karaoke”.

News of a tour from the Sex Pistols emerged in 2024 when it was first announced that the band – featuring original members Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and Glen Matlock – were to reunite for a two-night affair to benefit West London’s Bush Hall. 

The reunion did not, however, feature Lydon, who served as the vocalist of the band under his Johnny Rotten moniker. Instead, the group was to be fronted by Carter, who has previously fronted acts such as Gallows, Pure Love and Frank Carter And The Rattlesnakes.

The initial shows soon led to further dates around the U.K. and Europe, with the band billed as Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter. Further shows have since been announced for Australia, New Zealand, and other European countries throughout 2025. In January, Jones confirmed U.S. dates would follow, though specifics are yet to arrive.

Lydon, however, had remained largely quiet in regard to the nascent shows from the band. On Thursday (Feb. 13), he spoke to British publication The i Paper about the tour, explaining that he largely felt “annoyed” by the whole affair and feared it would tarnish the group’s legacy.

“When I first heard that the Sex Pistols were touring this year without me it pissed me off,” he explained. “It annoyed me. I just thought, ‘they’re absolutely going to kill all that was good with the Pistols by eliminating the point and the purpose of it all.’ I didn’t write those words lightly. They’re trying to trivialise the whole show to get away with karaoke but in the long term I think you’ll see who has the value and who doesn’t. I’ve never sold my soul to make a dollar. It’s the Catholic in me – that guilt I don’t want to trip.

“Like Nancy Reagan, I’ve always found it easy to just say ‘no,’” he continued. “If something challenges your heart and your soul and your mind and your sense of purity of what is right and wrong in the world, then just say no. Which, according to the corporate thinking which riddles the music business earns me the title of ‘difficult to work with’ – a title of which I’m very proud.”

The new tour is not the first time, however, that Sex Pistols members have performed songs with a different vocalist. In recent years, Jones and Cook teamed up with Billy Idol and Tony James of Generation X to form the supergroup Generation Sex. Though initially a one-off occurrence in 2018, the group would later embark on a European tour in 2023.

Lydon touched on both the nascent iteration of the Sex Pistols and the Generation Sex group in another recent interview with the Classic Album Review podcast, claiming it’s his presence that makes for the genuine article.

“I wrote the fucking songs, didn’t I? I gave them the image,” he explained. ”I was the frontman. I am the voice what made the whole world sing. And now [they’re] going out, as they did the year before with Billy Idol. It’s just karaoke, really.

“I would love to be embarrassed by high-quality songwriting from them,” he continued. “They’ve had long enough to get that together now, haven’t they? But no. They profess their hatred for me, but they can’t live without me. I am the punishment that goes on giving.”

The Sex Pistols initially existed from 1975 until 1978, releasing their sole studio album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols in 1977. Lauded as a pioneering punk outfit despite their short initial tenure, the band would later reform in 1996 for a world tour, and undertook sporadic tours until 2008.

Famously, the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, though refused to attend the ceremony, labeling the institution a “piss stain.”