Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook still remembers the mayhem and fear that surrounded his band’s 1978 tour of the United States.
“It’s definitely all falling apart in front of our eyes on that American tour,” the drummer recalled during his recent appearance on The Rockonteurs podcast. “It was a disaster, to be honest.”
Sex Pistols, of course, were no strangers to controversy. The band happily embraced their role as anti-authoritarian leaders in the U.K., sparking riots at concerts and becoming the face of the punk movement. However, America was a different beast altogether, and the group’s January ’78 tour of the States proved the be the nail in Sex Pistols’ coffin.
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Part of the band’s problems could be attributed to the tour schedule. Rather than stopping in liberal, artistic hotbeds like Los Angeles and New York, the group’s manager Malcolm McLaren booked Sex Pistols in clubs throughout the Bible Belt.
“The thinking behind it was, well, we’re not going to play to all these trendies in New York, and let’s go and play in San Antonio and Dallas, Texas — you know, cowboy bars,” Cook noted.
McLaren anticipated – and even hoped for – a certain amount of confrontation, assuming it would also give the band some added publicity. Still, he and the Sex Pistols got much more than they bargained for.
Paul Cook Feared Someone Would Die During Sex Pistols’ U.S. Tour
“I thought somebody was going to get seriously damaged or die, really,” Cook admitted. “When we were playing, we had sheriffs on the side of the stage, with guns to each side of the stage just to make sure no one got out of all this, standing there as we were playing. And people were throwing all kinds of shit at us, you know, bottles, pig’s ears, everything.”
Compounding the issue further was the insatiable drug addiction of bassist Sid Vicious.
“We had all this tight security and Sid was trying to go and score all the time. And he was off his head,” Cook recalled. “It was totally falling apart, everything.’
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The final show of the tour was Sex Pistols’ lone West Coast date, a stop at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco.
“Everyone was beat by then, really. And we just wanted to get it over with and get out,” Cook confessed. Despite an energetic crowd of roughly 5,000 people, Sex Pistols’ anger and bitterness were evident. Frustrated by the exhausting tour and tired of intraband turmoil, the group broke up following the San Francisco show.
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“Me and Steve, we went back to the [hotel],” Cook remembered. “And we just said, ‘We want out of this. You know, we’ve had enough.’ John was at another hotel and Sid was around at someone’s house O.D.-ing somewhere in San Francisco.”
Even decades later – with occasional reunions and more public battles under their belts – the ‘78 U.S. tour lives on in Sex Pistols infamy.
“It was like carnage, it really was,” Cook declared. “I don’t know how we got through it.”
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Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci