Savage: 'Sex Pistols weren't political'

Jon Savage has said that the Sex Pistols were never specific enough to be a political band.

The author of the award-winning England's Dreaming told The Quietus that the punk movement changed over time as it was critiqued by the media.

Savage said: "It was more emotional when it started. It only became politicised once people started writing about it and when The Clash started singing about tower blocks.

"The Sex Pistols were never so specific. They were stage-managed, but that doesn't mean they weren't real."

He added: "There's a lot bad class faith in popular culture and music, and a lot people try and drop down their class by a notch, which is a bit pathetic. You are who you are - get on with it."

Savage recently published The England's Dreaming Tapes, a compendium of the interview transcripts that formed the backbone of his 1991 punk history.