Pod Insights Here's The Thing with Alec Baldwin From the Archives: Steve Jones: From Sex Pistol to Lonely Boy About this episode Coming from a challenging, working class upbringing in the United Kingdom, Steve Jones discovered his outlet in music - as founding guitarist of the groundbreaking punk rock band the Sex Pistols. Despite the release of only one album,”Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols,” the band changed the course of music and history - vocalizing issues of class in songs like “Anarchy in the U. K.” – and influencing fashion, art and society. Since then, Jones has continued to play music (both solo and with bands The Professionals and Neurotic Outsiders) and was the host of the popular, long-running radio show, “Jonesy’s Jukebox.” In 2022, his insightful memoir, “Lonely Boy,” was adapted into the FX television series, the Danny Boyle-directed “Pistol.” Steve Jones talks to host Alec Baldwin about the roots of punk rock, coming up alongside Vivienne Westwood and Chrissie Hynde, and the road to getting clean – and beginning life anew.
Originally aired May 14, 2024
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Transcript 7,390 words · 16 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:06 Alec Baldwin? This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing from iHeart Radio.
1:15 Speaker 00 I am an anti-coaster. I am an anarcoaster. Don't know what I want, but I know how to get it. I wanna destroy, boss a biker.
1:31 Alec Baldwin? That is, of course, the Sex Pistols with Anarchy in the UK off their 1977 album, Never Mind the Bollocks. Here's the Sex Pistols.
1:46 Alec Baldwin? The song and the album feature my guest today, guitarist and musician Steve Jones.
1:54 Alec Baldwin? While many have laid claim to inventing punk rock, Jones and the band are the actual creators of the genre, although the name was given to them by their friend, designer Vivian Westwood. Jones is nothing if not surprising. He overcame a challenging, lower-class upbringing in Britain to become a founding member of one of the most influential bands in music. Although the Sex Pistols' 1977 debut would be their only release, the band left an indelible mark on music and culture. After the Pistols' breakup, Jones went on to perform in the bands The Professionals and Neurotic Outsiders.
2:37 Alec Baldwin? He also released his own solo work. And Steve Jones' career continued to evolve. He hosted a daily radio show, Jonesy's Jukebox, for almost two decades, and his memoir Lonely Boy was developed into the popular FX series Pistol, directed by filmmaker Danny Boyle. And the most surprising part, Jones is also one of my favorite performers on social media. He's known for playing heartfelt and beautiful songs in his shower, showcasing the softer side of the legendary punk rock star. I wanted to get his take on building a musical genre
3:20 Alec Baldwin? and what was really behind the punk rock movement.
3:24 Speaker 04 Well, we didn't form a band and say, "Let's be punk rock." It was a word that came after us forming, actually. It was a word that this American lady who lived in London called Caroline Coon. I think she was the first one to write it in the Melody Maker, "punk rock." It just was a word that came up. But as far as what does it mean? I mean, it's the same thing as Little Richard or Jerry Lee Lewis. You know, to me, it's just rock and roll. There was a lot of fashion slung in there with Vivian Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, and it was the right time.
4:05 Speaker 04 And we were just the next generation of young people who didn't like old people. You know, we just wanted... Something different. It's what it's what it's what happens. It's like every generation should be doing that, you know?
4:21 Alec Baldwin? Has their own means of expressing how much they hate their parents.
4:25 Speaker 04 Yeah, that and and everything else, even if it's just nonsense, you know, rebelling. What's the famous line in the movie? What are you rebelling against? What you got?
4:35 Alec Baldwin? What do you got?
4:36 Speaker 04 You know, it's the same. It's the same stuff. Nothing's new.
4:40 Alec Baldwin? There's a documentary I watched, Sex Pistols documentary.
4:44 Speaker 04 Filth and the Fury?
4:45 Alec Baldwin? Yes, The Filth and the Fury. There you go. Thank you. The Filth and the Fury comes, and I love that film. I loved it. They really take their time and lay the context in there of how horrible it was in England and in London at that time. The poverty and the joblessness and the inflation and everything. Was that a part of it too? Was it just you? You you? Did you hate it there and just dream of getting the hell out of there?
5:11 Speaker 04 I didn't. I didn't really pay attention to what was going on around me, to be honest with you. I just it was just growing up. I didn't feel like I was poor. I had a crappy upbringing. My stepfather, it was abusive. My mother wasn't really. Looking back now, I think she was a little bit crazy, like really crazy. And we were dirt poor, you know, but all I wanted to do when I was like really young, like ten, eleven, was just to go up the West End and around Piccadilly and just walk around looking for excitement.
5:49 Speaker 04 That was it. I didn't. I mean, I did notice some trash bags here and there, but I I really didn't care about any any of that stuff, you know? John Lydon, he was a lot sharper, you know what I mean? I I was pretty simple. I just wanted to do what most teenagers want to do is get laid, have a laugh and get drunk.
6:09 Alec Baldwin? Yeah.
6:10 Speaker 04 That was that was pretty much it. I'm not one of them. The Clash was more political than the Sex Pistols, I think. I think we didn't take ourselves serious, like the Clash. The Clash seemed very serious.
6:26 Speaker 04 But I'm not taking away what we concocted, which was just a fluke. You know, it's four guys who just got together. It just happened to be that the four guys. This was before Sid, when we had Glenn Matlock as the bass player. And it was just magic for two years and then it kind of started fizzling away.
6:49 Alec Baldwin? So home was tough. Your stepfather was abusive. You write all of this in your book Lonely Boy. Your dad disappeared. You reconnected with your real dad when you were fifty, correct?
7:00 Speaker 04 Who I never knew, but my friend kind of pushed me to look him up and I did. And so I, it was in two thousand and eight and we were touring Sex Pistols. We did like thirty shows, did a bunch of festivals in Europe. And I'd spoken to him one time. He kind of put two and two together, what was happening. And he agreed to meet me and I, I went up to Nottingham. He lived in Nottingham. He, he got married after he left my mum. He has three kids my age and I met him and that was bizarre.
7:35 Alec Baldwin? How so?
7:36 Speaker 04 Well, his voice is exactly the same and he, and he really, he really does look like me. And he was a truck driver most of his life and he was an amateur boxer. And I met him and we went in this caf round the corner from the station in Nottingham. And he was just, he, he wouldn't shut up. He was so guilt ridden.
7:55 Alec Baldwin? Right.
7:55 Speaker 04 He just, he just wouldn't be quiet. I'm like, I don't care. Shut up. I just want you to see if you had hair or not. You know, I liked him. I actually liked him. They were young when they had me, you know?
8:08 Alec Baldwin? Yeah. You think, would you, would you be capable of doing the same thing, you know?
8:12 Speaker 04 Easy. Yeah.
8:14 Alec Baldwin? Yeah.
8:14 Speaker 04 So I've got no, no crimes with him. He's dead now. My mum died around, they were like eighty-two. They both kind of died the same time, even though they. Never spoke or anything since he left.
8:31 Alec Baldwin? Really, they never communicated? When you saw him, did you either forgive him or have the impulse to forgive him?
8:38 Speaker 04 Yeah, I made it clear. I didn't like a formal, you know, I just said, look, it's all good. You know, you don't have to keep going on about this, that and the other. I really wanted to see you. And I'm glad it turned out the way it did. My biggest fear was when I called him and he was gonna say, I don't want nothing to do with you.
9:00 Alec Baldwin? Right.
9:00 Speaker 04 And that was it. So I think it turned out pretty good. We spoke a couple of times after that. And he sent me a letter and that was it. It just fizzled out. I had no desire to wanna, you know, hang out with him and all that. It was, that was long gone.
9:16 Alec Baldwin? Now, when you, I mean, we're gonna meander here, but when you, after your heyday with the band and that white hot period, had you visited Los Angeles or when you first go to Los Angeles? And are you like a lot of Brits I know where they walk out there and they're like, this is it, man. I'm moving here. The sunshine and blah, blah, blah.
9:36 Speaker 04 Pretty much. I mean, not at first. The first time I came to LA is when The Pistols played.
9:41 Alec Baldwin? Right.
9:41 Speaker 04 We actually didn't play in LA, but we did like 12 shows or whatever it was in, in January nineteen seventy-eight.
9:50 Alec Baldwin? Right.
9:51 Speaker 04 January seventy-eight. And we ended in San Francisco. And we broke up and me and Cookie, the drummer, and the manager Malcolm, we came to LA for a few days. I didn't really get it at the time. I remember we went in the Palm Restaurant that was on Little Santa Monica at the time. And Malcolm's like, yeah, go on, do something. Throw some lobsters around.
10:19 Speaker 04 And we did it like idiots. And then the next day, we went to Brazil. So I didn't really get the whole thing, but I did get the whole thing in Hollywood. I mean, you know, Los Angeles, whatever, Beverly Hills. A couple of years later, when I went back there and produced this band called The Avengers in San Francisco, they were one of the bands that opened up for us on our last show at the Winterland. And I produced this little EP. I didn't know what I was doing. I was stoned out of my mind on weed. Then I came to LA and I hung out for a couple of weeks.
10:58 Speaker 04 And that's when I fell in love with Los Angeles. There was no traffic, big roads, big cars.
11:05 Alec Baldwin? Privacy.
11:06 Speaker 04 It was just, you know, night and day coming from Shepherd's Bush in London. It was like Dickens, you know, like the Dickens to Fantasy Island, you know.
11:15 Alec Baldwin? You're going to Miss Havisham's house.
11:19 Speaker 04 I put it in my book. There was one moment, there was this lady who I met. She had a big convertible. She had the convertible down, a big massive Cadillac, whatever it was. And she lived on Beverly Glen. And she goes, do you want to go to see a movie? And we went to see a drive-in movie. And I'm smoking a joint, the top's down, we're just cruising along. And I'm like, I love this place. It just all clicked, coming from Dickens to that, you know? Hollywood, you know, it was the best.
11:55 Alec Baldwin? Very seductive, yeah.
11:57 Speaker 04 Oh, man. Yeah.
11:59 Alec Baldwin? Describe to me that concert at Winterland, because that's when, that's when all the wheels fall off, correct?
12:05 Speaker 04 They were falling off before that, but that was, that was the end. That was like, it didn't look like it was going any further.
12:11 Alec Baldwin? Because the show sucked? What was the show like?
12:14 Speaker 04 No, the show, well, I had the flu. It was just, um, it was getting sloppy. We was not communicating with each other. Everyone's egos were going in different directions. And we were twenty. Years old, you know, twenty one, and it was just all this bomb basket stuff that happened to us really quick. And I couldn't handle it. I don't know about the rest of the guys. I was relieved when we broke up.
12:45 Alec Baldwin? You were.
12:46 Speaker 04 I decided I've had enough of this. I just, I don't see a future in it, you know? And, and that was it. And I think it was manipulated a bit by Malcolm McLaren, the manager.
12:58 Alec Baldwin? Manipulated for it to end.
12:59 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's right up his alley, just doing stuff like that, just, you know, he wanted to be a star, you know?
13:06 Alec Baldwin? He wanted the band to end?
13:08 Speaker 04 I think so. That's just his, his nature. I think the, the fad ended. He, he don't like normalcy, you know? He likes the chaos.
13:19 Alec Baldwin? And maybe he thought you guys were gonna go much further. If everybody's so self-destructive back then, and you're the manager, you think McLaren thought you guys were, you know, reaching the end anyway?
13:29 Speaker 04 I think he's a narcissist, or he was a narcissist, and I don't think he thought that deep about other people.
13:37 Alec Baldwin? Right.
13:38 Speaker 04 I think he was more about just keeping that. He was great at, you know, publicity. He, he was excellent as that, you know, some of, some of the things that he came up with were great. I love Malcolm, even though, you know, we got turned over financially, I still love McLaren. He, he was a big part of my growing up.
13:58 Alec Baldwin? Now, when you mention that turned over financially, was McLaren, was he the partner of Westwood? Were they together as a couple or no?
14:06 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
14:07 Alec Baldwin? Oh, they were. I don't know that. I mean, I know her name, but I don't know about their relationship. They were a couple.
14:12 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah, for sure.
14:13 Alec Baldwin? And you first met them where?
14:15 Speaker 04 I met them in the shop they had down King's Road, and it went through various names, but it was all, first it was Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die, then it changed selling like teddy boy clothes. I don't know if that term teddy boy is, is known in America.
14:32 Alec Baldwin? Yes, by people like me who know British music, yeah.
14:35 Speaker 04 Yeah, and that, it fifties, fifties music, but it wasn't the fifties, but they would sell stuff like that. And then it was, uh, then it was Let It Rock, and then it was Seditionaries, that's when the punk thing, and it was all the bondage and all the MPs would go in there and try on rubber knickers and, and play with themselves.
14:56 Alec Baldwin? You couldn't get elected if you didn't do that. I mean, come on.
15:01 Speaker 04 It was a great time and now it's it's called World's End. It's still Vivienne Westwood now.
15:07 Alec Baldwin? Now, when you say you got tossed financially at various points, let's say when you're recording and you're making this epic album and beyond, who owns the rights? Who owns that music?
15:19 Speaker 04 Well, we do now.
15:21 Alec Baldwin? You do.
15:21 Speaker 04 You know, and whoever the publisher is for the songwriting, but it's all it has all come back to us. Only because John Lydon wanted to sue him a few years later.
15:35 Alec Baldwin? Want to sue Malcolm?
15:36 Speaker 04 Yeah, and he did. And otherwise, it would have all went to Malcolm. We had the worst deal. We had one lawyer. It was Malcolm's lawyer and we just signed pieces of paper. We didn't even.
15:48 Alec Baldwin? He's your Alan Klein.
15:50 Speaker 04 Exactly. We didn't know what was going on. Not that it ain't the first time that happens.
15:54 Alec Baldwin? No, no, no, no, no.
15:56 Speaker 04 And it will keep happening. It will keep happening because when you're young, you don't know. You just want to get out there and, you know, get on a stage.
16:04 Alec Baldwin? So when the original series is launched, the idea comes to you or anybody for that matter to do Pistol? A six-part dramatic series about you guys. You've got to give them the rights to the music, correct?
16:17 Speaker 04 Yeah, and we had a problem with John. He didn't want to allow it. He didn't want the series to happen.
16:24 Alec Baldwin? Did he say why?
16:26 Speaker 04 Well, I can only think that it wasn't his book they were doing a thing on. It was mine.
16:32 Alec Baldwin? Right.
16:33 Speaker 04 That could have played a part. I'm not sure. But I was thrilled that Danny Boyle wanted to do that.
16:42 Alec Baldwin? Great director, yeah.
16:43 Speaker 04 Yeah, and he did a good job. Ninety percent. I loved it. Yeah. It was really good.
16:48 Alec Baldwin? What did you like about it?
16:50 Speaker 04 I think like you said about the Filth and the Fury, how it captured a time. I think he really captured the time.
16:57 Alec Baldwin? Yeah.
16:58 Speaker 04 With all the sets and whatnot. I just thought it was great. I just wish they would have had more of me in it.
17:06 Alec Baldwin? What was it like for you to see, because when you do a narrative piece that's six episodes or five, or a movie that's a couple of hours, there's an idea about Steve Jones in Pistol that they want to get across. The person themselves is a suggestion. The piece isn't about your life, you know, verbatim and in real time. It's not. It can't be. What did you think of the guy that played you? What did you, when you're watching that guy, you're saying, yeah, that's me?
17:33 Speaker 04 I think he did a good job. He's Australian.
17:35 Alec Baldwin? Right.
17:36 Speaker 04 So he had to kind of change his accent. He ain't as good-looking as me.
17:40 Alec Baldwin? Right, for sure. That goes without saying.
17:42 Speaker 04 Yeah, no one. They couldn't find anyone. I couldn't absorb it, to be honest with you. When I'd see, when I'd see.
17:48 Alec Baldwin? It's possible, yeah.
17:49 Speaker 04 You know, an episode put together in a rough stage, I'm looking at it, I'm like, I'm not in that. I'm not in it. It's like, that ain't me.
17:58 Alec Baldwin? Yeah.
17:59 Speaker 04 Even though he's playing me, I couldn't, I couldn't absorb it. It was the weirdest feeling. I fall down in shit and I always come up smelling of roses, you know. God's good to me.
18:13 Alec Baldwin? Musician Steve Jones. If you enjoy conversations with some of music's greatest guitarists, check out my episode with Peter Frampton.
18:23 Speaker 05 Sound is very inspirational to me. I remember the reason that I wanted to learn guitar was because I heard the sounds of all these people on TV and on the radio, electric guitar, very young. I have a very acute sense of sound and I've always had that. If I don't have a good sound, I can't play very well.
18:47 Alec Baldwin? Hear more of my conversation with Peter Frampton at hearsthething.org. After the break, Steve Jones shares how the Sex Pistols lineup came to be.
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19:39 Speaker 07 Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by breakout singer-songwriter Alex Warren.
20:00 Speaker 08 I'm like a kid when I play music and I make music and I'm constantly asking questions, you know, whether it's an instrument I haven't played or it's a melody that seems foreign, you know, this every night you play a show and it's the same set, but it's not the same show. At a certain point, your brain kind of goes on autopilot. When I'm in the studio or if I'm making music, that's where that curiosity kind of comes back, you know? I haven't lost it yet, but I'm also on my sophomore album, so, and you, you obviously are an expert here.
20:26 Speaker 07 Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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20:48 Speaker 10 The moment that there is a compound that someone in a lab thinks it would be effective to treat a certain disease, it takes about 10 to 13 years from that moment to when that drug is on a shelf for a patient. A big part of that gap could be computationally solved. Better simulation of compounds, designing drug trails that are more efficient, that would finish faster. That was the motivation to bring computational tools and technology closer to biomedical researchers.
21:22 Speaker 09 Learn more about how Cleveland Clinic and IBM are using AI and quantum computing to revolutionize biomedical research at ibm.com/smarttalks.
21:36 Alec Baldwin? I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Steve Jones and the Sex Pistols cracked open issues of class and culture in Great Britain in the 1970s. Songs like "God Save the Queen" and "Anarchy in the UK" helped them become both a symbol of political turmoil and an international sensation. I wanted to know if, growing up, Steve Jones ever thought he would become a world-famous musician?
22:05 Speaker 04 No, you never...I never thought that. You know, when I'd watch Top of the Pops, I thought these bands and that, they fell from Mars. I didn't know it was possible to do anything like that, you know? And, and the next thing you know, here I am. You know, I steal all this musical equipment. I was good at, you know, being a tea leaf. I always had the desire to want to do it because I loved music, you know, at an early age. And it was just one of them things. It seemed totally natural to become popular and famous and a big band. I didn't realize that most musicians, that doesn't happen, you know?
22:50 Alec Baldwin? Now, you start off as a singer. You're singing and you pass that baton quick. Why?
22:56 Speaker 04 I couldn't handle it. I got on the stage once and I just freaked out. It was way too much for me. I was not ready for that. This is when Malcolm came up with the name "Q E Jones and the Sex Pistols." And it was me, I was singing, this other guy, Wally Nyangale, and Glenn Matlock, the original bass player. And we was rehearsing, rehearsing, rehearsing. And Eli got us this gig. And we were doing a lot of covers. I think we had one original. We played this Salters Cafe down King's Road. I was terrified. I was absolutely terrified and I couldn't even tell you what happened.
23:41 Speaker 04 It wasn't for me. My self-esteem weren't good.
23:45 Alec Baldwin? Did it just so happen that you've had a competent vocalist near you? Or did you tell him he had to become a vocalist the way you became a guitarist? Did he have to work at it?
23:54 Speaker 04 Well, after that failure show, we auditioned for a singer. And this when John used to come into Malcolm's shop and then we auditioned him in the shop. Now, this, when I heard this guy, I'm like, who is this clown? He can't sing. We don't, we don't want it. And we want someone like Rod Stewart, you know? But that was it, you know? It was it. It was this magic and it took, you know, a little while and then we like, wow, this is.
24:22 Alec Baldwin? This is rotten. This is rotten.
24:24 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah. And it was complete. Then it was complete, you know?
24:28 Alec Baldwin? Obviously, you write about, and much is written about you, that you didn't play the guitar early on as a, as a, as a child and so forth. And then you flash ahead and you're on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest guitarists in history. How did that happen?
24:45 Speaker 04 Well, I, I used to do a lot of speed.
24:49 Alec Baldwin? Really?
24:50 Speaker 04 That gave me the focus, you know? I have that thing what kids have now, ADT or whatever it is.
24:56 Alec Baldwin? ADHD?
24:57 Speaker 04 Yeah, I definitely had that. I, I had no attention span. I, I didn't, I went to school. I just sat in the back and just didn't even learn anything. I couldn't even read and write, which I sorted out later in years after getting clean. So I actually had a tutor to help me read and write. I couldn't even sign a cheque.
25:18 Alec Baldwin? But you dug down and you learned how to play. I read where you said you'd take a chord and play that chord for like five hours until you got that down. You did it step by step.
25:28 Speaker 04 The Black Beauty way of learning guitar.
25:32 Alec Baldwin? The Black Beauty School.
25:34 Speaker 04 Yeah.
25:34 Alec Baldwin? I love it. Now, speaking of black beauties, two weeks ago, this past Friday, on the 23rd of February, I had my 39th anniversary at AA.
25:45 Speaker 04 Oh, beautiful.
25:47 Alec Baldwin? Now, I don't talk about sobriety that much on the show, but if I find it's worthwhile, I will. And for you, when did you realize something had to change? And how quickly thereafter, did you change it?
26:00 Speaker 04 Well, I'm 33 years.
26:02 Alec Baldwin? Right.
26:03 Speaker 04 Cleveland sober.
26:04 Alec Baldwin? That's where I met you, out there.
26:06 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I drifted out to California, not the time when I fell in love with it, later. I was in this, the band broke up, we went to England, I started this other band called The Professionals, and we did a tour. I ended up in New York, I didn't get on the plane, I stayed in New York for about a year, I sold my passport, and then I got this other band together. Or a band was a, we played at the Petrol Mint Lounge, it was like a showcase with Michael DeBaz, and two of the guys from Blondie, and it was great, but they were all based in LA, and then I drifted out to LA. I detoxed,
26:48 Speaker 04 I went to some methadone place, a high-end methadone place in Century City, and I got clean, and I started living with Michael DeBaz. But I wasn't ready to be sober, and so I'd hung out with him, you know, I lived with him for a while. And then I did start to be aware of Alcoholics Anonymous, but it took me another six years of being homeless, slept on someone's couch who was sober, and then I would get 30 days, 60 days, you know,
27:27 Speaker 04 I started going, I liked it, I liked the attention, it was, felt like a safe place, but I had no clue of what was going on. And it took me, you know, a few more years. When the coin dropped and I'm like, I'm done. I mean, obviously, it's the best thing that's ever happened to me. You know, prior, there's two lives, there's before sobriety and now sobriety. I'm like a completely different person. I didn't know, I didn't know that this was gonna be in my journey at all. But I re- I was living up, I was making money at this point and I was living up in the canyon.
28:07 Alec Baldwin? Making money, how?
28:08 Speaker 04 Doing solo stuff. I started working with Iggy Pop and Andy Taylor from Duran Duran.
28:15 Alec Baldwin? Playing guitar, sessions?
28:16 Speaker 04 Yeah, and writing. I couldn't get arrested prior to that. I had the worst reputation because I couldn't keep my hands in my pockets. Everything disappeared. And, and I was just, you know, a junkie. No one wants to really hang out. So, yeah, it took a long time. But I remember the last relapse that I had, I, I um, bet some guy in the valley. And I was buying balloons off him. It wasn't working. And I went back, I, I took a victim, a new bar, we, we, we were shooting up. And um, I'm like, you know what, I ne- I need to go back and get my shit together.
28:58 Speaker 04 And so I got a bunch of uh, Quaaludes and some other painkillers. And I was gonna, I was gonna get sober and sneak back in to the rooms. And no one would know. And I lasted about two hours. And that's when the coin literally dropped. And I'm like, I'm done. I, I just can't do this anymore. And it wasn't financial or anything like that. It was emotional. And that was it. It was just, it, it, all of a sudden, after going to AA for about six or seven years, in and out, in and out. That was when the, the coin dropped and, and that's when it all changed.
29:36 Alec Baldwin? The book is filled with these brilliant phrases like incomprehensible demoralization. That phrase just was tattooed on my forehead. I was incomprehensibly demoralized. When you got sober and you stayed sober for quite some time, how did that change your life in terms of friends? Did you maintain some of the old friends and people who weren't so- sober? Or did all your friends become sober people?
30:00 Speaker 04 I really didn't have a lot of friends. They didn't want to be my friend because I wasn't a good friend. There was a few. I was so desperate, you know, I was so desperate when I got sober for real. That e- everyone I hung out with was in the rooms. Right, that's what I did. That was it. I I didn't wanna hang out with other people. I had a friend of mine visit me once from England who was a a I went to school with. His name was Jimmy Mackin. He was a really, really bad drunk. I mean, he was one of them guy. He loved to fight when he was at a couple of drinks. Anyway.
30:40 Speaker 04 He he was dry as a bone and he came vi- visit me and I couldn't wait for him to leave. I- his energy was so bad, I was so uncomfortable around him. He he he was like a time bomb. Yeah. You know, dry as a bone. And he finally left after a few days and he went back and committed suicide. He he was in Chiswick Park and put a in a car and he put the old exhaust pipe in into the thing and and killed himself. And, you know, my point is, is that it's so different when you surrender.
31:19 Speaker 04 You know, it's so different when you get to that point. I have no idea why I'm one of the lucky ones. That I'm still sober. I have no idea, because I don't really do anything different than anyone else. I've de- I was definitely a lot more desperate. It was tough at first, you know, changing and and it basically starting from scratch for me. Like I said, I was illiterate. I didn't know how to behave. It was all about me. What can I get? It was all about doing something nice for someone because there's gonna be something in it for me. It was I I was so self-absorbed.
31:58 Speaker 04 And me, me, me, me, me, you know, and when that changed after many years, it didn't just happen when I walked in to the rooms. And it was that process, that long process. And I'm just so grateful, you know, I still go to about four meetings a week in person. You do? Yeah, I just love it. I I love it, you know, I love being of service. I I don't like getting old. I will say that.
32:30 Alec Baldwin? Steve Jones. If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on the iHeart Radio app, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. After the break, Steve Jones shares the meaning behind the title of his memoir, Lonely Boy.
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33:24 Speaker 07 Hey, it's Niall Rogers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by my friend, John Ledge. What still makes you just sit down at the piano?
33:46 Speaker 12 If you sat down at 9:00 a.m. and then at noon, you had a full song that you recorded and put in your voice recorder or you recorded at your studio. You just created something brand new that didn't exist when you woke up. What a beautiful feeling it is. I'm always excited to write something new. I've been writing for Broadway, which has been a new challenge with new collaborators and these amazing performers who are triple threats, who can sing and dance and act and do all these amazing things. And I want to keep feeling that. And so that means not resting on my laurels, going out there and continuing to create something new.
34:21 Speaker 07 Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
34:31 Speaker 09 Hello, hello, I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I spoke with IBM's Ana Paula Assis about what digital sovereignty actually means in the age of AI.
34:42 Speaker 13 AI now moves from somebody operating a system to the technology actually making decisions. So you have to have a much better visibility of What AI is touching data it is accessing and where?
34:58 Speaker 09 Hear the full conversation wherever you get your podcasts.
35:04 Alec Baldwin? I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Steve Jones and the members of the Sex Pistols embodied the 1970s punk scene in the United Kingdom. It also had them rubbing elbows with other up and coming artists, designers and musicians like Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders.
35:25 Speaker 04 Chrissie, she used to work in the shop that Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood shop and I met her there. And she was great, man. She was, she was something else, a real badass, you know? And the band started, she used to come to the shows, she wanted to be in a band. I didn't take her seriously. She used to stay with me sometimes. We'd, we'd hang out. We had a great time. And then she got a band together and then sold more records than the Sex Pistols. You know, and a great songwriter, a great voice. I love Chrissie. I see her all the time. She's in the series. She's in the show.
36:05 Speaker 04 She come, when she saw it, she's like, what am I, I'm, I'm in this more than you guys. What's going on? And I'm like, I know, I don't, I don't understand. I mean, I think it was the, you know, the political correct thing to have more women's stuff, you know? And the girl who played Chrissie was great and man, I got not a bad word to say for Chrissie. I always see her when I go over there. But the bottom line was I was incapable of relationships. All I wanted to do was get laid with different people. Once I got to know someone a little bit, the old hamster just wouldn't stand up. You know what I mean?
36:45 Alec Baldwin? We're done. We're done.
36:46 Speaker 04 Yeah.
36:47 Alec Baldwin? The thing about Chrissy that I always remember is she had so much respect from people. People, you know, Chrissy's interesting and she's beautiful and she's a very exotic, you know, in her whole package, but people really, really admire her. They think that she's a great fucking musician. They think she's a really at the top of the heap, you know?
37:04 Speaker 04 She is. You know what's weird about her? When she started recording, we had, she had the same producer who produced in Nevermind the Bollocks, Chris Thomas. She couldn't have anyone in the studio when she was singing. She was so insecure about her voice. She just couldn't do it.
37:22 Alec Baldwin? I believe.
37:22 Speaker 04 She's all right now, but for a few years, a few albums, she couldn't have anyone around when she was singing.
37:30 Alec Baldwin? So, speaking of your sexual appetite, of course, it's no surprise to any of us that you end up on Californication.
37:37 Speaker 04 Yeah.
37:38 Alec Baldwin? In your acting career. Now, when you were on Californication, what did you play?
37:42 Speaker 04 I played a tour manager.
37:46 Alec Baldwin? And what happened on the show with you and Duchovny? Do you have scenes with Duchovny?
37:50 Speaker 04 Yeah, I had a few. I went on it and it was, I was only meant to do one episode. And they liked me and I ended up doing two seasons.
38:00 Alec Baldwin? Yeah.
38:00 Speaker 04 I just said, I don't mind acting, just don't give me a lot of lines.
38:03 Alec Baldwin? Right, to remember.
38:04 Speaker 04 I'm terrible at remembering. I'm terrible at remembering.
38:07 Alec Baldwin? Your book is called Lonely Boy, and that's a very powerful thing to say because when you have that feeling about your childhood, why did you choose that title? Why?
38:18 Speaker 04 Because I'm always alone.
38:20 Alec Baldwin? Even now?
38:21 Speaker 04 Even now. Even now. Even with 33 years of sobriety, there's still that part of me that just is always got that empty feeling of being alone. I don't think that, I don't think that's ever gonna go, you know, and I'm not-
38:37 Alec Baldwin? You prefer it?
38:39 Speaker 04 No, I mean, I've never had a relationship, really, you know. I'm hard work, man. I'm hard work to be around sometimes, you know. Especially with, in a relationship. I've tried it. I actually tried it last year for about a year and it just, it just fizzled out. I just can't do it.
38:59 Alec Baldwin? Right, right.
39:00 Speaker 04 I just cannot do it. I mean, I'm, I'm damaged goods, mate. It's not that I don't want to, but I really don't have the choice to have it or not. I just don't have the choice.
39:11 Alec Baldwin? You're wired that way.
39:13 Speaker 04 Yeah, I just am not, you know, various things happened when I was a kid.
39:18 Alec Baldwin? Have you been able to overcome that to some degree or is it still as vivid in your mind from time to time as it was back then? What you had to go through with your, as a child, as a boy?
39:29 Speaker 04 No, I've, I've definitely overcome it. I'm just left with, there's, there's some things I think you just can't change. It don't matter how much work you do on it, on something, you know. He, he, he molested me once, the stepfather, when I was like ten. He made me jerk him off, you know, when my mum was in hospital. But that was enough, just to throw me off, because I'm a sensitive, I'm a real sensitive. And that, and that was it. Coupled with that, and my mother not really being on the ball, not a nurturing person.
40:06 Alec Baldwin? Not protecting you.
40:07 Speaker 04 Not protecting me. He came before me. I was, I was second fiddle. We used to have a tin, I had therapy once, right, and I'm in the therapy office and I'm trying to explain to the, the therapist. And I, and I was explaining it to her, not for what was going on, but to explain how poor he was. We used to have a tin bath and we would fill it up with a kettle, right? And my mum would go first.
40:35 Speaker 04 Then my stepdad, then I would get in last. And the therapist says, "It's funny that you were, they put you in last and not first." Most normal parents, loving parents would let their kids-
40:49 Alec Baldwin? The children is cared for first.
40:51 Speaker 04 Yeah.
40:51 Alec Baldwin? The child-
40:52 Speaker 04 And it hit me like a ton of bricks and I started crying my eyes out. It was like a moment and I never even saw it, you know, prior to that.
41:02 Alec Baldwin? Well, whatever you've been through and whatever trouble you've had to face and pain you've had to face, when that guy, you in that shower with the guitar, you play songs and the tears are rolling down my face because of your musical ability. In spite of everything you've had happen to you, in spite of all the shit you've had to put up with, in spite of what you put yourself through as well, you get in there and you play those songs and the beauty of your musicianship and who you are in your soul as a result of everything you went through, I'm telling you, it's, it's, it makes me cry every time. You have no idea what that means to people because you're so fucking talented
41:47 Alec Baldwin? and you reach people that way, you reach them. The guy in the shower is one of the greatest musicians ever.
41:54 Speaker 04 Well, I was actually, I was actually gonna do one today, a new one. Some of them, I really appreciate that Ben, honestly, you almost got me teared up because I don't think I'm a good musician.
42:08 Alec Baldwin? You are a great, you're a great musician, man. People love you. They love your musicianship, your guitar playing, your crazy youth. And now people can watch you, you think it's like a little amuse-bouche you're floating out there to people. Let me tell you something, I look forward to those. You're blessed. You're blessed from God, don't forget that, okay?
42:29 Speaker 04 Alright mate, thanks a lot.
42:30 Alec Baldwin? My love to you and thank you for doing this.
42:32 Speaker 04 Thank you, I had fun.
42:37 Alec Baldwin? My thanks to Steve Jones. If, like me, you can't get enough of Steve Jones singing in the shower, visit his Instagram page, @jonesysjukebox. That's @j-o-n-e-s-y-s-jukebox. I'll leave you with No Feelings, off of the 1977 album Nevermind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing is brought to you by iHeart Media.
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