John Lydon Slams ‘Dull’ Taylor Swift, Sex Pistols’ ‘Karaoke’ Reunion Tour in New Interview

Singer also talks failed Daft Punk collaboration, inspiring Heath Ledger’s Joker, and why he doesn’t like Lady Gaga “as a human being”

The always acerbic John Lydon slammed “dull” Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, and the “Johnny Rotten“-less Sex Pistols reunion tour in a new interview.

Speaking to NME, the singer was asked about a wide range of topics, including contemporary punk acts (“Not much point”), a Daft Punk collaboration that didn’t happen, an unreleased song he wrote Kate Bush, and more, but his trademark vitriol was reserved for Swift and Gaga.

“She’s incredibly dull,” Lydon said of Swift. “There’s a whole history of that kind of singer in America: the pop teenage trivia thing. What she’s grown into is too elaborate and she’s trapped by not meaning to annoy her fanbase – oh fuck off! No really, it’s just daft. She’s got no place to go, so it’s gone into swishy ballroom-gown vibe. She’s going to be another one of those that ends up in Vegas, because that’s the only place left and that’s no future at all, is it?”

As for Lady Gaga, whom Lydon previously said he was a fan of, the Public Image Ltd. frontman said that she has “turned into Bizarro World” in recent years. “Lady Gaga was a massively layered and textured presentation – very Bowie era and pop music at its finest,” Lydon said before adding that now “she’s acting in films, and I don’t like her as a human being. I don’t think she projects anything healthy. I don’t feel any soul. I don’t feel her heart in it. It seems a shame. She should have another side to her.”
Lydon’s former Sex Pistols band mates Steve Jones, Glen Matlock, and Paul Cook recently announced a semi-reunion tour, with Gallows’ singer Frank Carter substituting for Johnny Rotten. Lydon — who was embroiled in lawsuits with his ex-band mates over the Sex Pistols miniseries — predictably found the reunion tour comical, calling it a “karaoke presentation.”

““The poor sausage!” Lydon said of Carter replacing him. “Does he know what he’s walked into? Good on him, what a great fucking opportunity, but there’s something darker going on behind it. It’s almost malicious in its intent. And its karaoke – that’s all it will ever be. Bloody hell, The Three Stooges in that band have had how many years to write some new songs? That’s what I’d like to hear.”

Elsewhere in the NME interview, Lydon talked about inspiring Heath Ledger’s Joker performance in The Dark Knight, voicing a villain in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles spinoff, getting pranked by the Ramones and more.