John ‘Johnny Rotten’ Lydon will present a Radio 2 documentary on the career of Alice Cooper. "I know the words to every Alice Cooper song,” Lydon has told reporters, calling Cooper one of his ‘formative musical influences’.
“The fact is, if you can call what I have a musical career, it all started with me miming to ‘I'm Eighteen’ on a jukebox. I was in this pub and Malcolm McLaren asked me if I wanted to be in a band. I thought he must be joking. When the pub closed he asked me if I could mime or sing to a few songs. I could mime fine, but of course I couldn't sing a note. The only song on the jukebox I could cope with was ‘I'm Eighteen’. So I just gyrated like a belly dancer, and Malcolm thought, 'Yes, he's the one'. I got the job, and I've not looked back.”
Talking about Cooper’s musical influence he said: "I didn't want to imitate a genre that I thought was so excellent. You can be influenced by people that excel, but you should never copy. And that's why I made sure that the Pistols had a different approach."