Like the mars bar quote about Marianne Faithful and a part of her anatomy rock'n'roll legend is often more preferable to fact.  What no one can deny is that Glen Matlock was bassist in the seminal and perhaps greatest rock n roll punk band the Sex Pistols.  That he wrote and arranged some of their best tunes including Anarchy and Pretty Vacant.

What noone can deny is that by February 1977 Glen was no longer part of the band.

On 28 February, McLaren sent a telegram to the NME confirming the split and claiming Matlock had been "thrown out...because he went on too long about Paul McCartney."

Whether you believe the above or as Steve Jones said it was because Glen didn't suit the image and washed his feet too much (!) or the below doesn't really matter too much.

Glen Matlock: I was sick of the band and they were sick of me...it was alright at first, we weren't playing Heavy Metal, which is what it became. NME 21.1.78

So Glen set about looking to put a new band together and he already had a name as his reaction to McLaren's telegram shows in the NME " I just wanna make my music, get a band together. Maybe we'll call it the Rich Kids." had. At the start there were some surprising names in the frame including Paul Weller and Mick Jones.

Glen Matlock: I was pissed one night so I asked him to join. I'd always liked the Jam...but by the time I started getting the Rick Kids together the Jam were taking off...so I guess that he didn't want to chuck all that away. NME 21.1.78

And Mick Jones of The Clash

Glen Matlock: He was pissed off with the way things were going....so he did some gigs with us and at one point I thought he was going to come with us and Rich Kids...but it didn't work out. NME 21.1.78

By May 1977 it was reported that Matlock had been joined in the band by Steve New on guitar and Rusty Egan and they were practising and recording.

Rusty Egan allegedly has been in The Clash though if this is correct it would have been one of the millions of drummer auditions that included Phil Rowland, Pablo Labritain, Philthy Animal Taylor and so on.

Steve New was known to Glen already from his Sex Pistol days .

Glen Matlock: What happened was Paul Cook was threatening to leave the Pistols unless we got s second guitarist to fill the gaps that Steve was leaving...and this flash 15 year old guitarist come along who wouldn't get his hair cut. NME 21.1.78

Steve New: One night I was walking home past the 100 Club and all of a sudden Matlock appears, goes ‘Alright Steve how ya doin?’. He’s wearing his fucking anarchy shirt on, he’s like ‘Why don’t you come down and see us we’re playing here tonight’. After that Glen gets kicked out of The Pistols and I bumped into Matlock again down King’s Road and he says ‘Yeah I’m putting a band together’. I think I said to him ‘Don’t worry, I’ll cut my hair’. And that was the start of the Rich Kids. http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/clean-on-the-dirty-an-interview-with-steve-new/

Matlock was now looking to complete the line up with a second guitarist. A Scottish guitarist Midge Ure had been invited down to look at the band. Ironically Ure had been approached by Rhodes and McLaren in 1975 to sing for a band (wonder who eh?)

Tony Parsons: Ure tells how we was walking out of a music shop in Glasgow circa mid-75 when he was approached by a short, devious looking character who asked if he wanted to be in abnd. Bernie Rhodes - for it wa she - then told him to go round a corner to where a curly redhead was waing for in parked car. Midge told Malcolm McLaren - for it was he - that he was already in band called Salvation. NME 21.1.78

Ure in fact went on to join the band Slik a kind of early version of the Bay City Rollers and who managed to record the inexcusable 'The Kids A Punk' their managers interpretation of Punk and no doubt cash in.

After Slik split Midge made a single with the band under the moniker PVC2 which was actually rather good. 'Put You In The Picture' was done on a borrowed Revox in an empty pub. The recording costs were exactly £3 and sold around 12,000 copies. The record was released on local label Zoom and released in August 1977. PVC2 morphed into the Zones.

On Glen's invitation Midge attended Rich Kids gigs at the Hope and Anchor in June and thought

'Jesus Christ, they were a shambles...they were young and enthusiastic about everything and they all played out of tune. It was terrible, but they had some great songs and loads of potential. Sounds 16.9.78

In August Mick Jones was guesting on second guitar.

29.08.77 - Vortex, London (Mick Jones on guitar)
30.08.77 - Brecknock, London (Mick Jones on guitar)

But by October Midge Ure was in the band and the band was already setting itself apart. It's ironic that the band were as confrontational and challenging as the Punk rock zeitgeist they had come from. From the name Rich Kids  as opposed to the slew of negative sounding bands like Dole Queue or Menace or Raped to the longer hair and glammier clothes to a band who looked like they were enjoying themselves. They were also proclaiming their own identity and making statements guaranteed to infuriate the audience who they would inevitably attract from their pedigree.

Rusty Egan: We don't want to be part of the so called new wave, we want to be part of the "new" "new" wave. Punk is old now and what we are doing is completely seperate from it. Zigzag October 1977

Rusty Egan:  I saw the bands from the beginning playing at the 100 Club but I didn't want to be a nsaty punk, so I didn't join any of them. Record Mirror 17.12.77

Steve New: I liked all the West Coast American bands "The Doors, Love, The Alpha Bnad and all that, all old stuff. NME 21.1.78

I've always been a jazz fan and listened to mainly albums. Gigs were always pretty irrelevant.

Glen Matlock: To me punk rock is dopey groups who wear plastic bags and have rusty safety pins through their heads. We aren't anything to do with that. Zigzag October 1977

The Rich Kids are - a splash of Technicolor after the grey, grey visuals of the punk movement. All neat and fresh faced and nattily dressed. The teeny mags will love e'm. Sheila Prophet. Record Mirror 17.1277

Also that month the band signs to, wait for it, the label that dumped the Sex Pistols... EMI and there was a growing sense of excitement around the band.

 Back To Top

05/07/2009