John Lydon tells fans who still want Nevermind The Boll*s Part 2: "Fk off!"

7 March 2025, 13:57

Sex Pistols' Nevermind The Bollocks album artwork — Sex Pistols' Nevermind The Boll***s album artwork. Picture: Press/Jamie Reid

By Jenny Mensah

The former Sex Pistols frontman has shared his distain for demanding audiences and their fixation what artists should and shouldn't be creating.

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John Lydon doesn't understand why anyone would "still expect" a follow-up to Nevermind The Boll***s: Here's The Sex Pistols album.

Despite the punk icons releasing one and only record in 1977, its impact on music given them a fanbase spanning generations.

However, the Public Image Ltd rocker and former frontman of the band can't stand when fans want him to create another album like the first, because his taste was always eclectic and he was always going to move on.

"Yeah, an audience is a very demanding thing," he told the latest issue of Blitzed magazine. "They'll grab hold of you, and they won't let go of that vision of you."

The 69-year-old rocker, who was best known as Johnny Rotten, went on: "You can't live your life according to somebody else's illusions about you. You just can't. You've got to be true to yourself. For me, I've always declared I had a vast, vast record collection of music, so I was influenced in many different directions and some of them completely contradictory to each other.

"That was always going to shine through in any records l've put out. And so I'd say to those that were still expecting 'Never Mind the B******* Part 2', "F*** O** you idiot. What are you not listening to?"

Lydon went on to forge a successful career with after the Pistols split up and he noted how at first his two different audiences were separate, but they have blended together as time has gone on.

The Order Of Death singer added: "No, I'm not one for staying on the first rung of the ladder. For a while there were two different audiences, but they kind of amalgamated, you know, in time. The hardcore softened their prejudices, and the softcore was warm and welcoming."

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Meanwhile, PiL are preparing to embark on UK & Ireland dates this year.

The Rise legends will kick off their run at the O2 Academy Bristol on 22nd May and bring their dates to a close in Belfast at Stiff Little Fingers' Putting The Fast In Belfast festival on 16th August 2025.

The shows will support the band's most recent album End of World, which was released in 2023 and included the lead single Hawaii - a tribute to Lydon's late wide Nora Forster, which formed the band's bid to represent Ireland at Eurovision.