Public Image Ltd (PIL)

Jah Wobble – Bass, Jim Walker – Drums, John Lydon -Vocals & Keith Levene – Guitar. Photo Credit – Dennis Morris

Public Image Limited (PIL) were a glorious attempt to destroy rock ‘n’ roll.  Bruised by being In the Sex Pistols and the machinations of the record industry, his own manager and the meat and potatoes rock n roll of his ex-band mates John Lydon/ Johnny Rotten wanted something different.

The something different was Public Image Ltd a band of equals formed as a limited company with its aim to destroy rock ‘n’ roll by removing the middlemen detritus of managers, producers, agents relentless touring schedules and having full artistic control over their product.

Kicking off in style with the single Public Image their first album was a patchy affair that resulted in original drummer Jim Walker leaving. The year that followed saw the band play barely five gigs but an immense time in multiple studios. There they spent their time recording, deconstructing and editing their music to heavy spatial low end dub bass lines courtesy of the prolific Jah Wobble and drums with Levene’s deconstructed abrasive treble guitar and synths along with Lydon’s brooding presences on vocals. The end result was the self-produced post punk masterpiece Metal Box and whose initial format was itself a work of design art courtesy of Dennis Morris.

They may not have succeeded in their lofty aim and whatever you think of Mr Rotten/Lydon he walked the walk and talked the talk with his bandmates and gave it a good go. At least for a while. And it was fucking glorious!


Fodderstompf – excellent PIL site but no longer updated | PIL Official

It was a bruised but happy Lydon who returned from a jaunt to Jamaica with Don Letts and photographed by friendly lensman Dennis Morris.

Having just left the most notorious punk rock band the Sex Pistols, Johnny Rotten was still in a state of paranoia about more physical attacks and his house being repeatedly busted by police.  Add to that a hatred of his manager Malcolm McLaren who had kept the band from playing live, diverted their money into his own pet project film and forced them into endless stunts for publicity to get more money. A band where his mate Sid Vicious had become a heroin addict while Jones & Cook were happy to become rock stars and recycle endless 4/4 rock riffs with anyone, including Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs, who would let them share a stage. Add to that a music press waiting with anticipation for his next move and in their best tradition ready to knock him down.

So in May that year what was to become known as Public Image Limited started to take shape around long time friends of Rotten. First of all guitarist Keith Levene who he’d known since his short stay in The Clash and soundman for The Slits. John Wardle, aka Jah Wobble, who was part of the 4 Johns, whom he’d known since college. Last in was Canadian Jim Walker who had played bass in punk band The Furies in Canada but had come over to England and had been stalking Lydon’s moves waiting for him to form a band and then audition which he duly did.

Determined to do things differently, the band was to be set up as a limited company, remove middlemen like gig promoters, the gig treadmill, producers and sound men and have control over their product and artwork. Vivienne Goldman described it as

Incidentally, Public Image Ltd were actually an incorporated company. This professionalism was a big fuck-off to punk’s chaos that had camouflaged how lead singer John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten, the former lead singer of the Sex Pistols) was being ripped off by the Pistols’ manager, Malcolm McLaren, financially and emotionally. PiL was to be a fresh concept, one based on trust, non-hierarchical, primed to supply the 360-degree needs of a music industry adjusting to videos and CDs. Pitchfork

All the band were directors and in addition to them the non playing Dave Crowe a mate of Lydon’s and Jeanette Lee, the co-manageress from Acme then Boy who worked with Don Letts and who did various promotional bits and pieces.

Johnny Rotten At last I’m not limited to the old ways of doing things. At last I find myself ins a situation that far surpasses my wildest dreams – I feel totally proud of being in the same band as this bunch of c****. Christ, it took me so long to realise that these people have always known what I was about. They’re old friends. Friends I’ve known much longer than the Pistols. “Public Image is a collection of friends.”

As much as people try to put me down at least I’ve done something. Something they’ll never do…Now I’m more involved in the way things should be rather than the way things are. This is not Johnny Rotten’s band. If anything, I’m probably the weakest link. Record Mirror, 4/11/1978

Jeanette Lee, John Lydon & Keith Levene

The fact that this ability to call some of the shots was down quite simply to the band featuring Rotten wasn’t lost on Levine but he saw it as something the band would surpass.

Keith Levene It remains to be seen whether this band will be all Rotten or just us. That it just happens to be the most important band to emerge in a long time is irrelevant. To me, it’s the only set up that has four personalities. Sure with John we’re gonna get a certain amount of  attention – but we’ll get over that. We’ll succeed because we are interesting. An interesting unit in an uninteresting climate. The only alternatives you have are Jimmy Pursey and Boney M. And they’re only alternatives because there are no alternatives. Record Mirror, 4/11/1978

The band certainly was a mixture. Wobble had never played a live gig but somehow inexplicably had landed a solo deal with Virgin but was a natural at the bass and brim-full of ideas. He was also highly volatile and prone to violence. Levine was a heroin addict, which is odd Lydon worked with him given what happened to John’s best mate Sid, but he was an anti-rock and talented guitarist and all three of them had a love of dub reggae and bands like Can. The odd one out was Jim Walker but he was just the drummer they needed at just the right time.

John Lydon Look, I want to change the music business right? I want to change all that…But it’ll take years. I’ll have to do it more skilfully this time. But It’ll be with a vengeance. And they won’t know. NME, 23/12/1978

The band gelled and songs came together quickly. The first single was released in October 1978 and was a stunning return for Rotten. The song utilised the video talents of Peter Clifton and the creativity of Dennis Morris erstwhile photographer and A&R man for Island records. It was his Reggae credentials that endeared him to Rotten and he accompanied the Sex Pistols on their last tour, Lydon to Jamaica and then came on board with creative ideas

Morris sought to capture this era by creating a strong visual identity for the band. His subsequent designs further aligned PiL with a style and attitude that announced a new chapter in music history.

For PiL’s debut single Public Image, Morris designed a record sleeve in the format of a single folded sheet of tabloid newspaper featuring fictional content about the band. Dennis Morris: PiL – First Issue to Metal Box

The song hit the top 10 in the UK single charts in October 1978 and was loved by most critics (see singles section for Julie Burchill’s hilarious deconstruction). Straight away they began work on an album.

Disaster struck when they lost producer Bill Price and assistant who had done the perfect top end /low end maximum EQ production on the first single due to an altercation with Jah Wobble. Rotten changed studios to Wessex and then they ran out of money for the album. The album cover itself only mentions 5 tracks and was explained in a Sounds news feature of 16/12/78 as because they hadn’t finished the album yet.

Part of the rush you have to assume was Lydon and the band getting in before his past and the Sex Pistols’ The Great Rock ‘N’ Roll Swindle which was slated for a January release. This would mean more focus by Virgin on his ex-band and more money going to McLaren.

As we’ve said drummer Jim Walker was the odd one. Very early on he decided he wanted out. In interviews, he claims the band atmosphere had already become toxic with drugs and alcohol.

Keith Levene Then there is the other PIL cliché, “four different band members on four different drugs” Bullshit. Most of the people in PIL were doing all kinds of diverse drugs it’s true, but we weren’t all on different drugs. And anyway, in the whole scene at the time, a lot of people were doing a lot of drugs! C’mon! We were punks for God’s sake, we weren’t fucking choir boys! We didn’t invent taking drugs; it came with the territory at that time. We were poor punks who couldn’t afford more than a cheap guitar between three people. Greg Whitfield, Punk77

Contracts had been signed that he believed were wholly in Rotten’s favour. With no manager or promoter there were no gigs lined up, so no income and with no gigs there were no rehearsals so in effect they weren’t a functioning band.

Two gigs were hurriedly put on by Jock McDonald, another friend of Rotten, who had previously put on small nights at the Roxy Club and elsewhere. Typically they were on Christmas and Boxing Day. A couple of European shows were added and by February Jim had left the band with unseemly haste.

By February Rotten’s friend Sid Vicious (and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen) was also dead and he had started legal proceedings against McLaren and his company Glitterbest over the band’s finances. His mother was also dying of cancer so it was an emotionally turbulent time for him.

But the band are writing new songs and find a new drummer in the shape of 19 year old David Humphries and go straight into the studio. He lasts a number of months and works on tracks like Albatross and Death Disco (he says his drumming is on the released single) but also strangely recalls doing some re-recording of First Issue tracks which was apparently going to be for the aborted US version of the album because Warners didn’t like the mix.

The version of ‘Fodderstompf’ we did came out on the b-side of the ‘Death Disco’ 12″ single, and I remember doing ‘Religion’ and the actual ‘Public Image’ track, recording that as well, plus maybe a few others. 

However unwise decisions to do Top Of the Pops appearances with Mike Oldfield and Sparks without telling the band means he is given the boot and from then on there are a number of drummers including Richard Dudanski and finally Martin Atkins. Levene and Wobble also do drums on a couple of tracks.


The album that would become Metal Box is recorded over a year in dribs and drabs and in multiple studios.

Jah Wobble We just record. It’s basically what you edit out that matters. We were just cutting sections out. It’s a real job. We must have another five or six hours solid, from the past year…to me it’s a natural way to record, and we’re not the first – look at Can. But it just seemed a very natural way to record. I just love taping everything. ZigZag

Live appearances are sporadic and can be counted on the fingers of one hand. It’s the TV appearances that cause controversy with the band and/or Rotten in suitably spiky form and both result in walk offs.

Above – Check it Out 1979. It’s a set up as PIL are featured split screen as Mond from the Angelic Upstarts is filmed slagging off Rotten.

Below – Juke Box Jury Rotten in dicky bow tie smoking fags and consuming beer while enduring DJ Alan Freeman comparing The Monks singing about buying drinks for a woman and not getting sex to the Sex Pistols!

July sees Death Disco come out and hit the charts and if anyone thought they were getting the first album take 2 or anything like the Sex Pistols they were quickly disabused. The only thing in common was it was as much a howl of rage and sentiment as Anarchy but this time about Rotten’s mum dying. The band’s appearance on the prime time TV music chart show is legendary. Another video is made.

One of the rare outings for the band is headlining the Futurama Festival in Leeds where the band come on at 1am to restless natives.  It’s not a great performance and Dudanski will leave the band following it and they will become even more reluctant to play live.

In October final sessions are done and Memories is released as the next single but doesn’t chart, reaching #60, and isn’t given any airplay.

In November Metal Box is released and is stunning and pretty much loved by the critics recognising its brilliance.

Conclusions: ‘The Metal Box’ is more complete, more convincing than the first album. As indicated above, Lydon is still the crustacean, all pink and squiggling flesh beneath the outer shell. But for one obvious reason and another, that’s his prerogative – for the time being at least. Nerves and tendons and frayed and twisted more often too; Lydon, Levene and Wobble all seem more … concerned, confident. In terms of impact and effect, ‘The Metal Box’ is pulverising; incredibly exactly. All this forward flow in twelve months – it’s almost frightening. PiL are miles out and miles ahead. Follow with care. Angus MacKinnon, NME 24/11/79

It becomes an instant post-punk classic and recognised as a key influential album. You can’t fail to compare The Clash and London Calling celebrating and recycling Americana and Rock ‘n’ roll and PIL trying to destroy it!

It’s also a stunning product housed in a metal canister and featuring three 45’s all designed by Dennis Morris. Virgin will charge back 1/3 of the band’s original advance to pay for this design.

The years is rounded off with a John Peel session.

Metal Box will be a difficult act to follow and at a later stage Wobble will leave the band and then Levene. At this point in time the band/company were at its peak. Did they destroy rock ‘ n’ roll and the apparatus supporting it? Of course not and the concept was full of contradictions. The biggest middle man was the record label and they held three important cards which was promotion, record pressing and advances. All of these were needed to keep the band going and to get the product to the listener. At this moment PIL’s public profile was high and they could surf on that. Later on when their profile diminished they would need to gig and conform but that’s another story.

Poptones and Careering, Live Studio (OGWT) Old Grey Whistle Test 12th February 1980

Jah Wobble presciently talking to Barry Cain talking about people (but applies to the record industry) and following their norm

– Let me try to break down their huge indescribable rubber wall. The one that everyone bounces off. See the rest of the band think they’re going to break it. I know they won’t. They’ll try, try, try, but they’ll fail because the wall is 360 degrees. Record Mirror, 4/11/1978

Public Image / The Cowboy Song
(Virgin October 1978)

Hereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees Johneee!

As a comeback single and an almighty smack around your critics faces this one simply delivers in every department. Rumbling deep bass, chiming guitars and Lydon with one of his best vocal deliveries.

While his old chums were knocking out The Biggest Blow and The Clash Tommy Gun the old originator himself was already 2 steps ahead.

Julie Burchill NME 14/10/78 (wasn’t far wrong though was she for once :))

Public Image have a lovely little sound, a long way from orthodox boring heavy rock with a punchy, light Sound above that great bass and stuff. But oh dear! What crummy Iyrics you’ve come up with, John Rotten, all whining about how your fans didn’t do you right and how you want to be let alone etcetera. Rotten performs autopsy on Dead Pistol, full of lines about making his exit and not being the same as when he began…

The record’s only charm is when you hear it while thinking about everything Rotten started and what he’s done and then its charm is considerable. It will get in the charts, but only on reputation.

It’s a shame, but Rotten will probably end up around I988 like Iggy Pop, being touted around by some businessman on the strength of the outrageous band he used to be with, making offbeat records that impress a certain section of art-groupies and trying to play it straight to young audiences who were too young to be touched when he was good and now just want to see him hurt himself with cigarettes. Never mind, thanks for the memories…

John Lydon “A lot hated it. Burchill condemned it to high hell. I thought that was really funny. She tore it to pieces. Well, not the record. She said the music was alright. It was just me – really bitchy. So funny. I thought ‘There’s more to this than meets the eye, that’s for sure’.” NME, 23/12/1978


Death Disco / No Birds Do Sing
(Virgin June 1979)

The first single post Public Image and boy we were caught unawares. A new sounding PIL who came sprinting out of the blocks with this surreal paean to Rotten’s dying mother. Funky, unsettling, totally original and still leaves you trying to catch your breath by the end.

To add to this the band release a 12″ extended disco/funk version some 2 years before The Clash knocked out the more commercial Radio Clash.

One of the most extraordinary performances on the BBC 1 Chart show Top Of The Pops. A headphone besuited Rotten sings live a song of screaming pain to his dying mother with his back to the audience while Wobble sits on a dentist chair smiling with one of his teeth blacked out and Levene rakes a trebly swan lake motif . Meanwhile the camera man attempts to apply a groovy seventies filter randomly. Fuck knows what the teenybop audience thought of this.


Memories / Another

(Virgin October 1979)

The last single before Metal Box was released and which didn’t chart making it only to number 60 which is odd as its very listenable to and danceable. Apparently Jeanette Lee and Rotten as bride and groom on the cover.

Single of the week in Sounds

‘Memories’ is PiL’s most aggressive record to date. A scandalous cut out section of rhythm and rock, streets ahead of any other’ 45 for months, I’ll be damned if this group are the no-hopers that public opinion is wont to rumour. And enough of this ‘confusing’ and ‘intriguing’ guff, too. The power beats hotter than most anywhere, it’s as plain as the nose on your face, and a dose on those who crib about his voice not crooning sweet for their ears. Here, Rotten slices through cleaner than at any previous time with this outfit.

Public Image (Virgin December 1978)

While the first single augured well the album itself actually turned out something different. Drummer Jim Walker in interviews claims it was a combination of a number of factors. The first was losing debut single producer Bill Price and assistant engineer after Wobble battered the latter after being goaded. The second was keeping changing studios and thirdly eventually running out of money for the album.

There’s also all sorts of other claims by Rotten at the time that Virgin remixed the album without the band’s consent removing the extreme treble and bass sound and then had to put it back. Virgin said it happened in the cutting process which they didn’t own.  Rotten also claimed Virgin had’nt supported it publicity wise which seems a little strange as they produced a number of full page adverts.

So with the cover in your hand what do you get? A very glossy deluxe full colour sleeve and inner depicting all four members of the band. Designed by Dennis Morris, its gloriously unpunk and imitated the look and feel of popular glossy magazines.

It’s a patchy affair. There are absolute classics on there like Annalisa and Theme that are full-sounding with Wobble’s bass and Levine’s glorious scratchy guitar and Rotten on fine form and then there are songs like Low Life and Attack that sound thin and weedy like demos. There’s also the once funny but twice getting duller Fodderstompf that fills up about a quarter of the album – a bit like The Cowboy Song on the singles b side. In short a band that needed to get something out and make a statement but not quite having enough material.

The music papers also took the opportunity to give it a good panning

Pete Silverton Sounds 9/12/1978 2.5 stars – just above dull

…I don’t even think Johnny Rotten and his cohorts we intending to deliberately cheat you of your four and a half quid when they put together this arrogantly think, shallowly free attempt of breaking free from Rotten’s past….If you’ve got the single, you’re the proud possessor of the only wholly worthwhile track on the album…its just morbid directionless sounds with Rotten’s poetry running just behind it.

Nick Kent was more positive in the New Musical Express

It’s here that the band seem to be functioning in musical territory that, given time and effort, will provide them with a strong and individual foundation for future focus and experimentation, Instrumentally these tracks possess a vigour, a completeness of sound  (cleverly straddled between the sparseness of the constituents and the audacious originality of the mix, that drags the listener towards it….at its most cogent, however Public Image, achieve a sound that could be defined as a new, radical form of rock’n’roll…Overall though one gets the feeling that the debut is premature. The ideas are there, but still in germination stage, the playing is tough and Rotten/Lydon is still nothing less than his own man – venomous and frightening.

Tim Lott though in Record Mirror lands a 2 foot tackle and give it one star which is classed as unbearable.

Whatever Lydon’s reasons were for making the album, the end result is the same, that is, a piece of crap…the band is musically inept, to put it mildly…it is in fact… nothing less than a sort of musical wanking, meaningless and faintly depressing…the entire album has the recording quality of a cheap demo. It is a monumental outtake, a lamentable mistake. If you buy it for anything, buy it for the narcissistic cover which you can stick on your wall and crucify.

Metal Box
(Virgin November 1979)

Whatever your view of the music, you have to say Metal Box as the first real product for Public Image Limited is simply breathtaking. The band had full artistic control and critical to this was long-time photographer, sleeve designer and Island A&R man Dennis Morris.

While the album’s title was conceived by Lydon, it was Morris who designed the cover—a metal 16mm celluloid film canister—embossed with the band’s new PiL logo reminiscent of a breakable medicine tablet. The album’s distinctive packaging was produced at the Metal Box Factory in Hackney, prior to its closure, revealing a bygone age of local manufacturing within London.

The tin was the first subversion of the established norm. The box housed three 45 rpm singles in it in the style of reggae dub plates and disco releases. There were some flaws in the design that added to the appeal. Getting the buggers out and in was fiddly and there was the faff of getting up and down to play them. The second subversion was that you hardly ever played them in the same order so there was no real enforced order – a kind of pre-mp3 shuffle! It says on the wiki entry for Public Image that Virgin charged the band 1/3 of their advance to cover costs though apparently in the end it cost the same as doing an album cover.

So if the product in your hand wasn’t startling enough the music inside certainly was. While the first album had been rushed, this was done PIL style over a year. Multiple drummers with even Levene and Wobble taking a song each, demos, working in pairs or alone, lots of versions and just recording everything before putting things together.

The Steel Leg collaboration between Wobble and Levene pointed the direction here with heavy dub inspired driven basslines and Levene’s trebly abrasive guitar sound. Add in some synth (Levene had acquired a Prophet 5 early synth and Rotten’s partly spoken, partly sung partly screamed depending on song vocals and you had what is now regarded as one of THE post punk albums. Picks include unlikely hit Death Disco and the sinister Pop Tones.

The definition of a ‘classic’ album exists only in the mind of the individual. But what can’t be doubted is the incredible influence of a select few LPs from the not-so-distant past, and Public Image Ltd’s Metal Box is among the most important

… Metal Box … [with its] explorations into dub and krautrock territories – is a bona-fide essential album for anyone with even a passing interest in the history of rock music. Listening to the landmark release today, in its twisted, wiry guitar lines, deep and wide bass and insistent percussion one can hear roots, of differing thicknesses, of Sonic Youth, Liars, Nirvana, Manic Street Preachers, Shellac, The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Elastica… basically next to every act that’s mattered since punk’s phenomenal rise in the mid-70s.

The shrillness of Keith Levene’s guitar (he played an aluminium Veleno model), the irrepressible energy – always tethered but never comfortably so – and the sheer ferocity of Lydon’s abstract lyricism tempered by the reassuringly warm bass tones of Jah Wobble: every ingredient in this alluring, exciting and otherworldly mix was both ahead of its time and completely out of step with the dictations of fashion and the gravity of pop culture. Metal Box inspired through invention, not part of any progress but the seed of it. From the opening discomfort of Albatross to the sweeping splendour of Radio 4, via Graveyard’s elastic dub and the clangourous howling of Poptones, it’s an adventure that few albums since have successfully emulated. Simply, it remains singularly special. Metal Box: Amazon.co.uk: CDs & Vinyl

Keith Levene remembers…

.. I spent a lot of my time talking to sound engineers at all the studios we recorded in — John Lydon didn’t get it, he used to say, “Why are you talking to these beardy weirdies Keith? What the fuck is it? Is it drugs? What is it?” The point is, it was nothing to do with drugs. These engineer geeks knew stuff years ahead of their time, and I used to learn so much from them. I loved talking with those guys. They really knew their stuff.

The track “Bad Baby” had an intensity — those lyrics are about me! Let me tell you about the guitar and keyboard patterns — there is a lot of anguish, a lot of longing in those sounds. A lot of real, real longing in those sounds, specifically in the coldness of the keyboard structures. I just wanted to record everything. Sometimes John didn’t know the tapes were rolling, and you can hear him saying, “Alright, stop”, but of course, I’d told the engineers to just let the tapes roll. You can’t believe how difficult it was to hold back on those tracks on ‘Metal Box’, to keep the sound sparse, to not crowd anything — it takes a real discipline to actually subtract from the spaces rather than add all the time.

I remember doing ‘Socialist’ — I’d just bought these cheap synths, so me and Wobble were really having fun fucking around with these things, whilst submerged in the mix was this huge soaring sound, rising upwards from the drum and the bass, like a whale’s cry. Richard Dudanksi (ex-101’ers drummer) was so nervous he was going to lose time, so I had to keep nodding to him to let him know he was keeping the groove ok. Later on I dubbed up the cymbals, so you have that spiralling metallic sound. Dubwise!

In a way, it was so excellent working with Wobble because he had no preconceptions of what music should be, preconceptions a trained musician would have — I just used to tune the bass for him, and we’d play. Plus he’d work really fast, and I liked that — if I didn’t like something, he’d just go, ‘yeah ok, how’s this then?’ and come up with another wicked bass line from the top of his head. It was great.

With ‘Radio Four’, I was just alone in the studio one night, and I was overwhelmed with the sense of space– I just took everything out of the studio, moved the drum kit out, and played everything myself, reproducing this sense of cold spaciousness I felt around me. That was me playing the bass — I played what I thought people would identify as a Wobble bass line, but it was my pattern.

On ‘The Suit’ whilst it fades out you can hear John fucking around on the piano. Could he play piano? No, of course not, he used to do it to annoy us, but the fact that he couldn’t play didn’t matter — it was the same on ‘Flowers of Romance’ when John plays sax; I knew I could use John’s sounds in an impressionistic sense to good effect, whether he could play or not. His sounds and noises became an art in their own right in a way, whether he was a musician or not. Grieg Whitfield, Punk77



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