John Lydon, the artist formerly known as the Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten, opened fire on Ramones drummer Marky Ramone in a war of words this week over which of the two bands was more punk.
Lydon’s astonishing attack came during a live panel discussion at SIR Rehearsal Studios in Los Angeles, where he and Marky were joined by Henry Rollins, Duff McKagan, Machine Gun Kelly, L7’s Donita Sparks and fashion designer John Varvatos to discuss the meaning of punk rock itself.
The all-star event was held to launch a new series called Punk which was co-produced by Varvatos and Iggy Pop and which will air on US cable channel Epix.
The conversation became heated when Lydon and Marky clashed over the empowering quality of punk.
“Punk music for me was positive, proof positive, that we could change our lives by music, meaning what we said. Attack the political systems. This daft cunt…" said Lydon, pointing at Ramone. “…is into fucking drugs!”
“You talked the talk but you didn’t do the walk,” countered Marky. “Just like The MC5.”
“Shut up! You tattooed twonk. Look at ya! You look like a heavy metal fucking reject!” stormed Lydon. “The MC5 were the harder band!”
“Sit the fuck down!” retorted Marky.
The entire extraordinary exchange was captured by Sum 41’s Dave Baksh, who posted a short film of it on his Instagram account: