In partnership with Disney+
From director Danny Boyle comes FX’s Pistol, now streaming on Disney+. The new original series explores the Sex Pistols’ formative years, their rise to fame and the punk explosion which rocked conservative ‘70s Britain.
To celebrate the series’ release, NME’s Claire Lim spoke to journalist Alan Jones, who covered the band many times for music magazine Melody Maker and was present at key moments in their history including the controversy surrounding single ‘God Save The Queen’, the infamous boat party during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, and their eventual demise. Big Joanie’s Chardine Taylor-Stone and Dream Wife’s Rakel Mjöll joined the conversation too, explaining how punk is represented and relevant in music today. You can watch the video interview in full above.
During the chat, Jones recalled the political climate and music scene as punk and the Sex Pistols began to emerge. At the time the future looked bleak for young people in the UK and the rock scene seemed staid and uninteresting, argued Jones: “It wasn’t very exciting musically… someone needed to break the monopoly of all those bands.”
Taylor-Stone said there’s a similar feeling of cultural malaise among the youth of today, noting that the current government has made it harder for creatives to break through. Mjöll identified the importance of community in art.
The Sex Pistols embodied an anarchic spirit, and Jones, Taylor-Stone and Mjöll have carried this on in their own work. Mjöll, purveyor of feminist punk anthems as part of Dream Wife, said that there’s nothing more anarchic in 2022 than “loud women”. “I just didn’t see loud women, there were none,” she said, “and I just really wanted to be loud and allowed to be loud so that is maybe anarchy in a way.”
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Taylor-Stone talked about how the punk scenes they inhabit now are much more “sophisticated”. “I actually feel like we’re much more around building community politically,” she said, “and actually trying to make some change in the world that goes beyond just ourselves.”
FX’s ‘Pistol’ is available to stream now on Disney+