In 1975 a man by the name of Malcolm McLaren, who wanted to promote his clothing store “Sex” quickly put together the band that we know today as “The Sex Pistols”. The band consisted of Johnny Rotten (John Lydon) as lead vocalist, Steve Jones as the guitarist, Paul Cook on the drums, and Glen Matlock as the bassist. Sid Vicious (John Simon Ritchie) was a later member of the band and played bass as well.

A few months after the Sex Pistols were founded they had developed an eager and loyal following. The band started strong, but then in December of 1976, they used profanity on live television. Using profound language on television at the time was frowned upon. In that same year, they released their first single “Anarchy in The U.K.” Once the Sex Pistols rose to infamy because of their crude behavior their record company, EMI, decided to drop them. Because of their bad publicity, they became very influential in the evolution of punk. ​​​​​​​

As soon as they could, they signed with Virgin Records and released their second single, “God Save The Queen”. This song was a play on the royal anthem. “Coincidentally” this song was released 11 days before Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee. Their manager Malcom MacLaren decided the best way to get back at the government was to rent a boat and drive past the house of parliament where the jubilee was taking place and start blasting music. ​​​​​​​

“God Save The Queen” was banned by the British media. But even after the extreme censoring, the song rose to number two on the charts. Politicians were not happy when that happened. Bernard Brook Partridge a London Councillor called the Sex Pistols “the antithesis of humankind” he also was reported saying that he hoped for their “sudden death”. No one liked that the punk rock movement had taken over. People from all backgrounds were acting out to prove a point. ​​​​​​​