Steve Jones Finally Brings the Sex Pistols to Austin

When the Sex Pistols tore through the American South in January 1978, the closest they got to Austin was San Antonio’s Randy’s Rodeo. On that infamous night, Sid Vicious took a beer can to his skull and swung his bass at the crowd in return, nearly hitting beloved Chronicle music journalist Margaret Moser in the process. 

Nearly every future Austin punk was in that room in San Antonio that night, a few months after Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols set the template for angry three-chord street-rock. Bands formed in cars driving back. Two weeks later, Raul’s hosted its first punk show. (Revisit our Austin Punk Chronicles installment about the epochal show here.) 

They didn’t perform in Austin, but the band did spend the day before that show cooling their heels here, unimpressed. Guitarist Steve Jones – a self-taught wall of noise who made a Les Paul sound more like a hydrogen bomb – told Chronicle predecessor the Austin Sun, “I’ve been to six bars, and this town sucks.” 

48 years on, the Sex Pistols finally play Austin itself. September 12, Emo’s – the first time England’s most definitive punk band actually sets foot on an Austin stage.

They arrive with a lineup nobody saw coming and, by Jones’ account, having more fun than they ever have. Jones, original pre-Sid bassist Glen Matlock, and drummer Paul Cook are now fronted by Frank Carter, late of Gallows and Rattlesnakes, standing in for John “Johnny Rotten” Lydon, who wants no part of this. The whole thing got its trial by fire with three shows at London’s Bush Hall two years ago. A benefit for a venue struggling to survive, the gigs became a proving ground for whether this version of the band could actually work.

“The minute we got onstage, it was like going back in time,” says Jones. “The crowd went absolutely nuts … We knew straight away it was happening.” Carter, he adds, “wasn’t up there longer than a minute before he’d already dived into the audience. Good for him, because I ain’t diving in nowhere.”

What’s striking watching the footage available since isn’t just that the songs hold up without Lydon. It’s that Jones, Cook, and Matlock look like they’re actually enjoying themselves, maybe for the first time. Jones agrees, comparing the vibe to one of his own favorite bands.

“It’s like going to see the Faces – good-time Charlies,” he says. “We’re having a blast, and people seem to love it, so I love it.” 

Crucially, Carter isn’t trying to be Johnny Rotten. “It would’ve been ridiculous if he’d tried to imitate John,” Jones says. “He’s honoring the songs from Never Mind the Bollocks. I think he sees that as his role.”

Whether a new Sex Pistols album happens is a separate question, one Jones has already answered: “When’s the last Rolling Stones album you heard that you actually liked?” he asks. Point taken. For now, it’s the songbook, played loud and for real, 48 years and one very overdue Austin date later.

Sex Pistols play Emo’s on Saturday, September 12.