Sex Pistols’ John Lydon ‘wanted to go into the studio’ with Pink Floyd members to make an album

John Lydon had “wanted to go into the studio” with Pink Floyd after having been given an invite to join the band.

While it isn’t clear what the Sex Pistols‘ frontman would have been doing during his time with the band, he did confirm that Roger Waters offered him the chance to join the group. Lydon‘s thoughts on the band have ranged from praise to mockery, but his interest in the group remains clear. So much so that, despite turning down the offer to join Pink Floyd, he regretted it and had wanted to work with them in the studio. This never came to be, however, and Lydon would cite the pressure of performing to thousands of expectant fans as the reason why. It may be a wild pairing on paper, but Lydon says he would have been up for joining Pink Floyd had it been for studio sessions, not a live show.

Lydon told The Guardian: “I just don’t want to do it. But I wanted to do it. But just not when 20,000 people were there. I’d have gone to a studio and played around with it there. But not for the bigger picture. Privately, I’d love to go into the studio and do something with the album with them.”

The veteran frontman, who is still touring with Public Image Ltd., would confirm his love for the band in that same interview. He said: “You’d have to be daft as a brush to say you didn’t like Pink Floyd, they’ve done great stuff.” In that same interview, he maintained there was a “pretentiousness” to the group, which he found hard to stomach.

Lydon added: “There was an aura of ‘Oh, we’re so great there’s no room for anybody else. [And] they’ve done some rubbish too.” But when it came to performing, the band were furthest of all from pretentious, according to Lydon, who confirmed he had met with David Gilmour a few times.

He said the band are “not [pretentious] at all, there was kind of a misreading and a misrepresentation in the press and they’re not holier than thou… David Gilmour I’ve met a few times and I just think he’s an all right bloke.”

It’s hard to know how well the performance would have gone, but Lydon being on vocal duties for a cover of Money or The Great Gig in the Sky could have been quite the experience. Pink Floyd would play just once with their classic line-up after Waters left the group in 1985.

Their 2005 performance at Live 8 has gone down in history as a fan favourite moment from the group, who would never play together again. Both Waters and Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour maintain classic songs from the group in their solo shows.