Sex Pistols touring without John Lydon: Paul Cook on the “best of both worlds”
Paul Cook speaks to Misryoum about why the Sex Pistols keep touring with Frank Carter, and what the band’s legacy means now.
You can feel the street-level roots of the Sex Pistols before the conversation even starts. In West London, Misryoum follows Paul Cook into the kind of working-class spaces that helped anchor the band’s early identity, where music is part of everyday life, not a separate world.
They start near Uxbridge Road, stepping into a pub where a poster still points back to a Pistols gig from 1996.. Around the area, the story is also tied to local routine, including Cook’s memories of pie and mash at a favourite shop until it closed in 2015, and the band’s desire to protect other grassroots venues nearby.
In this context, Cook’s view of survival is practical: keep the momentum while staying close to the community that gave the band its original shape.
Misryoum then turns to the big change.. The Sex Pistols have continued touring with Frank Carter taking over vocals, while John “Johnny Rotten” Lydon has pursued his own path with Public Image Ltd.. Cook says the replacement was a major call, but insists it has worked, arguing the group can offer something familiar without trying to freeze the past.
Cook frames it as “the best of both worlds,” describing Carter as a seamless fit and highlighting that fans can choose whether to engage based on what they want from the band now.. Misryoum notes the wider point: the band’s challenge is not just performing the songs, but performing the feeling that made them land so hard.
This matters because it shows how legacy acts adapt without treating their history like a museum piece.
Cook also connects the band’s timing to milestones, including this November marking 50 years since the debut single “Anarchy in the U.K.” To mark it, he says the Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter will take a short tour beginning in Dublin, while keeping the dates deliberately limited.
He adds that the band’s relationship with Ireland has roots of its own, including how they hadn’t played there until later, despite earlier plans that didn’t go as expected.. Cook also points to his Irish family connection, noting that his grandmother was Irish, and says politics and unrest were never far from the band’s early instincts.
Cook argues that “Anarchy in the U.K.” captured where Britain was at the time, and he describes the era as violent and volatile, with tensions that spilled naturally into punk.. He also reflects on how mainstream outlets shaped what people could see, while suggesting the Pistols helped widen the cultural space that music could occupy.
By the end, Misryoum sees Cook returning to belonging as the engine of punk’s staying power, whether through sing-along energy, working-class solidarity, or the style and imagery that turned songs into statements.. The message is simple: the past doesn’t sit still, but it can still guide what comes next.