10 Most Devious Punk Rock Tricks And Hoaxes

The band’s manager Malcolm McLaren created a type of hoax of his own, working hard to create a narrative whereby every element of the Sex Pistols’ story, all their successes, and their cultural impact was all carefully designed and curated by him (without also taking responsibility for causing their premature implosion of course), and it is a story many still take as gospel truth to this day.

In reality, much of what happened during their stratospheric but incredibly brief initial career was largely unplanned, accidental, or simply lucky at best, while most of what really mattered in the long term lay with what the band members themselves created.

One factor McLaren did consciously encourage (not that he really needed to), was the band’s controversial behavior in public, which led to their first two international record labels A&M and EMI dumping them like a hot potato after various incidents involving drug misuse, bad language, violence, and disrespect for the British monarchy. This saw them legally entitled to pocket a £40,000 advance from EMI Records as well as £75,000 from the A&M label for doing almost nothing besides releasing the Anarchy In The UK single for EMI.

It may not seem so much today, but this would equate to around £560,000 ($665,000) today but at a time when the average house price was only around £19,000 and a pint of beer cost around 35p ($0.41).