John Lydon’s grief over his late wife has been “applied” to his next Public Image Ltd album.
The 69-year-old rocker’s beloved spouse Nora Forster died from Alzheimer’s in Aprl 2023 and he admitted his has been using writing for PiL’s upcoming 12th LP as an outlet for his “sadness”.
Paraphrasing the group’s 1986 track ‘Rise’, he told NME: “Sadness is an energy. It can either be applied or you can let it eat you alive. The second option is not very interesting to me, so I choose the other way.”
Asked what the new tracks are sounding like, he laughed: “Oh, it’s great, it’s called ‘A Tragedy in 33 Parts’! It’s 72 hours long and the violins don’t stop screeching and wailing until the last ten minutes!”
But the veteran rocker explained the group are keen to go back-to-basics for the “raucous” new album.
He said: “It’s not going to be a dismal record. We’re going to take it back to the roots of a proper rock band, tearing the fucking building down. It’s going to be full on.”
John has found making the album to be a form of “shout therapy”, explaining he has been inspired by the work of Vanilla Fudge, a US group known for their heavy rock covers.
He said: “They do versions of The Doors’ ‘Break on Through (To The Other Side)’ and everything else you care to mention, but in a proper, raucous, smash-your-face-in style. Love it! And it’s a good starting point for us to get back into the raw anger and energy of it all.
“We all need that. And that will help me mentally no end. It’s like shout therapy.”
PiL will embark on their ‘This Is Not The Last Tour’ run of shows in May and John is “very much” looking forward to getting on the road.
He said: “I need to get out of the house. I’ve done enough wallowing, which of course you can’t avoid, even if you think, ‘No, be the bigger man’. You cannot stop it. You cannot stop the sadness when it comes on, but enough already.”