“It was pressure, on pressure, on pressure,” he says. During that period, Lydon has not only had to deal with Forster’s worsening condition, but also a high-profile court case involving his former Sex Pistols bandmates Paul Cook and Steve Jones (Lydon was successfully sued by the drummer and guitarist after he had attempted to prevent the band’s music appearing in Danny Boyle’s Disney-backed TV series, Pistol).

It was a great pity because he never had much time to reflect outside of the haze he was in.”Įnd of World has been in the works since 2019. “There were great moments when we were friends, but he really got into just too much.

“People will take this wrong, but the endurance you had to have to tolerate his drug habits was kind of overwhelming, and I can’t really separate that,” he says. Lydon had not seen Levene in “eons” and his memory of him is littered with the challenges that Levene had as an addict. Last November, Lydon also lost his former bandmate and PiL co-founder Keith Levene, also an original member of the Clash. It was that buildup to her death – and that’s what Hawaii is full of I shed more tears before she died than after. On the wall behind him are a Samurai sword and an Afghan dagger given to him by diehards when his band Public Image Ltd (PiL) played behind the iron curtain decades ago. It’s not about the monetary value, it’s the thought – that’s priceless.” His love for his fanbase feels completely genuine. The well-worn jumper was a gift from a fan “in either Bradford, Barnsley or Bolton one of them”, who asked for it to be passed on to his late wife, Nora Forster. Lydon, 67, is looking well, though, decked out in green specs and matching pullover, with his signature vertiginous hair teased into a quiff. “I am so fucked up with technology,” he laughs. “It sounds like something that has to be cut off at an early age.” The artist formerly known, in his Sex Pistols days, as Johnny Rotten is speaking from his California home and seems ecstatic that we can hear and see each other on our Zoom call. There’s a term for people that live in Malibu – they’re called Malubians,” claims a cackling John Lydon.

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