John Lydon angered by Sex Pistols’ Frank Carter replacement: “They’re trying to trivialize the whole show into karaoke”

John Lydon has expressed his anger regarding the Sex Pistols reunion tour, where the band announced performances with Frank Carter as replacement vocalist.

In an interview with The I, the former Pistols frontman admits being angry about the arrangement, describing the new lineup as “karaoke.”

In 2024, the band’s remaining members Paul Cook, Glen Matlock, and Steve Jones collaborated with Carter for three intimate fundraising shows at Bush Hall to save the iconic West London venue. Following the success of these performances, the four-musician lineup embarked on a sold-out UK tour. They now have several performances scheduled for this year, including appearances at Download Festival, Glasgow Summer Sessions, Dreamland Margate, Rock For People, and the Royal Albert Hall for the Teenage Cancer Trust concert series.

Lydon was excluded due to strained relations with the band, following years of conflict and even a 2021 lawsuit, where his former bandmates sued him over his disapproval of Sex Pistols‘ music being used in Danny Boyle’s biographical series Pistol.

“When I first heard that the Sex Pistols were touring this year without me it pissed me off. It annoyed me,” Lydon says of the Pistols reunion. “I just thought, ‘they’re absolutely going to kill all that was good with the Pistols by eliminating the point and the purpose of it all.’ I didn’t write those words lightly.”

“They’re trying to trivialise the whole show to get away with karaoke but in the long term I think you’ll see who has the value and who doesn’t. I’ve never sold my soul to make a dollar. It’s the Catholic in me – that guilt I don’t want to trip.”

Lydon continues: “Like Nancy Reagan, I’ve always found it easy to just say ‘no’. If something challenges your heart and your soul and your mind and your sense of purity of what is right and wrong in the world, then just say no.”

“Which, according to the corporate thinking which riddles the music business, earns me the title of ‘difficult to work with’ – a title of which I’m very proud.”