John Lydon claims 'Never Mind The Bollocks' is underrated

John Lydon has said The Sex Pistols pioneering album 'Never Mind The Bollocks' is underrated and that he's always felt misunderstood as an artist.

Speaking to NME, Lydon claims that the band have been under-valued by the music press and that many have failed to recognise just how subversive the band were at the time.

The singer said: "It amazes me when I see these all-time top albums lists, and 'Never Mind The Bollocks' is hovering around Number 10, 15 or even 20," he said. "This is a band that pushed it so far we were discussed in Parliament under the Treason Act, you know?"

Clearly in reflective mood, the PiL frontman also disccuses his alias Johnny Rotten in the interview, stating that the character was a self-defence mechanism as a result of his vulnerability: "I can't help it – I'm in the public eye. I've built up a very good defence in Johnny Rotten over the years, but unfortunately that's been interpreted as arrogance, which of course it's not. It's a self-defence mechanism which I had to adopt because of those early years."

Lydon also revealed that he's got more than 2,000 pages of notes for the new PiL album, praising fellow band members as: "the best people I've ever worked with".

Lydon's third autobiography, 'Anger Is An Energy: My Life Uncensored' is out now.