Sid Speaks

a 1978 phone interview by Roberta Bayley,
reprinted from the Sid Vicious section at www.sex-pistols.net

The Sex Pistols American tour ended at Winterland in San Francisco, January14, 1978. Two days later the band had officially broken up. On January 20, Sid Vicious boarded a plane for London via New York. He passed out en route, an apparent drug overdose, and was taken unconscious to Jamaica Hospital in Queens, New York. The biggest blizzard of the year had immobilized New York, so we spoke to Sid that night over the phone. He sounded very weak, but anxious to talk. He was lonely and bored.

Sid: Hello.
Roberta: Hello, Sid?
Sid: Hello.
Roberta: Sid?
Sid: Yeah?
Roberta: This is Roberta.
Sid: Oh yeah, I remember... will you come visit me in Hospital?
Roberta: I would but it's snowing.
Sid: Oh.
Roberta: I don't have a car and you can't go on the trains.
Sid: I'm lonely.
Roberta: We're gonna come tomorrow. Do you think you'll still be in tomorrow?
Sid: I'm supposed to be going back to London tomorrow.
Roberta: How are you feeling?
Sid: Weak.
Roberta: Nobody's been up to see you or anything?
Sid: No.

Roberta: It's so miserable outside. I guess you can see it on television.
Sid: Yeah, I'm just sitting here on my own.
Roberta: How long you been in there - just last night?
Sid: Umm, yeah.
Roberta: What happened to everybody else? Who was on the plane with you?
Sid: Boogie (soundman for the Sex Pistols). What happened was, I done 80 milligrams of methadone, right? And when you get - and about 6 or 7 valiums -- and when you get high in the air it has a much greater effect on you than it does when you're on the ground. You know you get pissed a lot quicker in the air.
Roberta: Yeah, you get drunk faster.
Sid: So, that's what happened...I wouldn't expect anyone to go on a train all this way just to see me anyway.

Roberta: Do you have a TV at least?
Sid: Yeah. What I could do with would be something to read.
Roberta: Yeah, magazines or something, huh?
Sid: What I really want is like a very very large pile of Marvel comics.
Roberta: I've got some great comic books.
Sid: Yeah, so do I, but Boogie's got them, the asshole.
Roberta: You don't have any way to get in touch with him?
Sid: No. He said he'd call me later today, but he hasn't bothered. And he won't be bothering either. He's a cunt.
Roberta: Well, what happened with this group of yours anyway?
Sid: I left them.
Roberta: Yeah, it seems like everybody left them.
Sid: Well. I don't think anybody really wanted to continue, but no one had the guts to actually say it. So I just phoned John up and told him what I thought of him and where I thought he was at and ummm... I mean I still think I'm pretty good. I think I was better than any of the others.
Roberta: But what do Steve and Paul want to do?
Sid: I don't know. They'll probably try and get another band together and fail. John's completely finished.
Roberta: That seems to be the general consensus.
Sid: (Cheerfully) Does it?
Roberta: Well, everybody's just saying well what can he do now and nobody can figure out anything that he can do.
Sid: Yeah, right and he's finished as a person as well. He's just not what he used to be.

Roberta: Well, maybe this will shake him up a little bit?
Sid: Yeah, that's what I'm hoping. That it'll shake him up and then he'll be able to do something, that'd be goad if he could do that, but otherwise if it doesn't shake him up and get him out of it, then as a person, not only will he not do anything, but also nobody will even want to know him. They'll say, oh didn't you used to be Johnny Rotten?
Roberta: Yeah, I guess in England everybody's gonna be really upset about this. How do you feel about it?
Sid: I'm glad that it's over now because it was like...I feel like I was the only one still putting any real energy into it. Did you see our show at Frisco? I mean John wasn't doing very much was he?
Roberta: The shows got worse instead of better.
Sid: Yeah. I think the one we did in Dallas or something was....
Roberta: San Antonio. I thought that was best.
Sid: (Excited) What, was that the one when I got butted in the face?
Roberta: No, that was Dallas. But I liked the one when you hit the guy with the guitar. (Randy's Rodeo)
Sid: Was that the one when I was going really nuts?
Roberta: Yeah, and John was jumping around a lot and the people were throwing lots of beer cans (at the band). That was a really exciting one. If the planes go out in the morning will you go back to London tomorrow?
Sid: Well, I said I would go. Sophie'll have booked the ticket.
Roberta: But they may not be letting the planes go....
Sid: I hope they don't in a way 'cause I wanna like stay in New York for at least one day.
Roberta: Yeah, you should. All kinds of people want to see you and everything. You've never been here before. You could have a good time. I mean you're healthy enough to do it.
Sid: I don't know whether I am. I can't drink. I can't like...The doctor said that if I drank anything like vaguely remotely like the way I've been drinking for the past...however long, that I've got about six months at the absolute outside to live, and like the drugs as well, so I more or less can't do anything so if I went out anywhere I'd just like...sit there. If I went out anywhere I wouldn't be able to resist the temptation - that'd be the trouble. Like I'd end up just boozing myself out.
Roberta: Well, what're you going to do? If you go back to London, it's just the same thing.
Sid: Yeah. I probably will die in six months, actually.
Roberta: You have to straighten out for a while.
Sid: I can't straighten up. I just can't be straight.
Roberta: You could. Just as an experiment.
Sid: I suppose I just have to. I haven't figured out yet quite how I'm gonna do it 'cause I haven't been straight in like four years. I had hepatitis and when I got out of hospital I just really fucked myself up as badly as I could. I don't know why, but everybody said you can't do it, so I just went ahead and done it. It's my basic nature.
Roberta: Well, your basic nature's gonna get you in a lot of trouble.
Sid: My basic nature's gonna kill me in six months.