The Sex Pistols' Paul Cook has offered his thoughts on the potentiality of the band reuniting in the future.
In a new interview with NME, the drummer reflects on previous reunions, recalling the band's stint in 1996 which "started off great. The timing was right, and it was a great opportunity to play live and do things properly with less chaos.
"But then a lot of old resentments came up between band members along the way, and it deteriorated slowly over the course of a year," he adds. "It wasn’t much fun towards the end. Everyone had a sense of humour bypass and it was all a bit uptight. I was glad when all that finished.”
The musician also notes how their 90s reconnection could have been the ideal time for the band to make a follow up album to their debut, Never Mind the Bollocks. Unfortunately, due to frontman John Lyndon's disinterest in the project, it never took off.
“One of my big regrets with the Pistols was not doing a second album. We could have made another great album, even with Glen [Matlock] gone [and] when Sid [Vicious] was in the band and all over the place," Cook offers.
“When we got back together in ’96, we should have tried it then. We did start coming up with some ideas, but John wasn’t enthusiastic about it and it didn’t come together. It’s a shame.”
In recent years, Lydon has become more and more estranged from the group, following a heated legal battle over the TV series Pistol, which saw the singer try and fail to get the programme cancelled. Cook explains that chances of another reunion taking place in the future are effectively non-existent.
“There’s absolutely no chance of that happening,” he says. “I wouldn’t want to do it anyway, especially after the Pistol court case last year, which was a shitshow.
"Being in the High Court was the last place I wanted to be, with guys in wigs grilling you. It was a horrible experience. I would have preferred to have worked it out down the pub with a couple of pints."
On top of their grievances with Lydon, Cook also thinks that the band are well past their prime. “I think we’re too old to be singing Anarchy in the U.K. at our age anyway. It wouldn’t feel right!” he laughs.
The singer distanced himself again from the band earlier this year following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, after he accused the band of trying to "cash-in" on the monarch's death with their iconic track God Save The Queen.
Posted on the Twitter account of Lydon's band Public Image Ltd, a statement read: "In John’s view, the timing for endorsing any Sex Pistols requests for commercial gain in connection with ‘God Save The Queen’ in particular is tasteless and disrespectful to the Queen and her family at this moment in time".
