The guitar tones of Steve Jones on Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols

RandallFlagg

Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistol. What a record, a stunner that for me has stood the test of time and sounds as fresh today as it did the first time I heard it.

I think my favourite guitar tones of all time are Steve Jone's on NMTB. It's a great record, I love Johnny Rotten's lively animated vocals, spat out with anger and disdain, every word, every ad lib and grunt. Paul Cook's drums sound like Panzer tanks, loud, solid and his timing is perfect. Overall the album has a nice warm mid-rangey tone, like all the best 70s records.

I love the final vocal lines of 'New York' - "well kiss this....tatty bye"

Recorded at Wessex Studios through the spring/summer of 1977. Glen Matlock is reported to have played on Anarchy In The UK but everything else was Steve Jones as Sid Vicious was mostly out of action ill.

Steve Jones: "It was all [recorded] on a Fender Twin as far as I remember. It was a special Twin that had Gauss speakers in there that made it very middy and not so trebly. I had a couple of Gibson Les Pauls as well: there was a black [1954] Les Paul [Custom] and my white [1974] Les Paul.”

I'm not convinced that the Black Les Paul Custom was a genuine 1954, I think it's more likely that it was a early '70s reissue of the '54. To my ears you can hear the difference in the 2 guitars on the album. The white LP Custom with humbuckers features on most of the tracks but you can hear a difference in tone that sounds like the Black LP Custom with the bridge P90 on Bodies and EMI, plus various overdubs on a few songs here and there. I think Holiday's In The Sun may have the Black LPC playing the main riff.

Bodies is my favourite tone on the album, clearly to my ears using the Black '54 Les Paul Custom, the tone clearly has that snarly, throaty P90 roar, different from the humbucker custom:



Steve was seen playing several other guitars, a LP Jr, LP Special, Flying V, Firebird, even a Fender Tele but the 2 Les Paul Customs are the ones I associate with him the most.

The Fender Twin Steve used was one of the early 70s master volume models with pre-amp volume on 10 and played loud. His NMTB tone has never really been matched on record by anyone, not even his self with the the same ferocity of playing, pick slides, feedback and venom.

A track by track run down by Steve: https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-guitar-stories-behind-never-mind-the-bollocks-by-steve-jones

Another of my fave tones is Belsen Was A Gas live from San Francisco Winterland Ballroom on 14th January 1978 using the Black '54 Les Paul Custom (reissue) through what looks like 70s master volume Fender and maybe Musicman amps.



And I like his tone on the "Something Else" single, agains maybe the Black LPC, who knows.

Incidentally, Queen were recording their album News Of The World at the same time and there were a few occasions when the bands rubbed against each other: 

"The meeting of minds between Freddie Mercury, harlequin peacock in Queen, and Sid Vicious, scuffed guttersnipe in the Sex Pistols, took place in Wessex Studios in 1977. Roadie Peter Hince, in his book Queen Unseen, records the exchange as follows: "Sid Vicious stumbled in, the worse for wear, and addressed Fred: 'Have you succeeded in bringing ballet to the masses yet?' Fred casually got up, walked over to him and quipped: 'Aren't you Stanley Ferocious or something?', took him by the collar and threw him out." 

Later, Queen's producer had a word with the Pistols' engineer over an interruption by an awestruck Johnny Rotten, saying, "One of the band members just crawled on all fours across our studio up to the side of the piano, said, 'Hello Freddie,' and left on all fours. Could you make sure he doesn't do it again?"

Freddie recalled it all slightly differently in a later TV interview, saying, "I called him Simon Ferocious or something, and he didn't like it at all. I said, 'What are you going to do about it?' He was very well marked. I said, 'Make sure you scratch yourself in the mirror properly today, and tomorrow you're going to get something else.' He hated the fact that I could even speak like that. I think we survived that test."

From Classic Albums:



Some pics:

mbe

^ Great post

SlopeSoarer

Great album IMO: )

Grocer_Jack

Great post - thank you. I’m going to have to find the time to go through this in detail! Never seen that picture of Steve with a Tele before. The Pistols/Heartbreakers/Clash was my first proper gig (aged 14) on the Anarchy tour on 1976, so they always have a place in my heart, even though i’ve moved on musically to some extent. It’s always good to come back to this stuff though as it never disappoints. Side note a) a friend of mine has a Gretsch that Johnny Thunders left with him for safe keeping after the tour.  He still has it!  Side note b) I have played with one original Pistol and supported another. Neither was S Jones!

breakstuff

Definitely one of my all time favourite albums. Certainly in my top ten and absolutely my number one favourite recorded guitar tone.Nothing else, to this day comes close. Brutal but still melodic.

It's only recently, I think, that Steve Jones is getting the recognition that he richly deserves.Most of the songs are easy to play technically, hell, even I can play most of them to a pretty recognisable degree, but try to play them with the swagger of Jones and most people will fall short. 

A great player and one of my heroes. 

RandallFlagg

breakstuff said:

Definitely one of my all time favourite albums. Certainly in my top ten and absolutely my number one favourite recorded guitar tone.Nothing else, to this day comes close. Brutal but still melodic.

It's only recently, I think, that Steve Jones is getting the recognition that he richly deserves.Most of the songs are easy to play technically, hell, even I can play most of them to a pretty recognisable degree, but try to play them with the swagger of Jones and most people will fall short. 

A great player and one of my heroes. 

Agreed, some of his little lead flourishes can be tricky to figure out though, and his string bending is so recognisable as him.

RandallFlagg

Grocer_Jack said:

Great post - thank you. I’m going to have to find the time to go through this in detail! Never seen that picture of Steve with a Tele before. The Pistols/Heartbreakers/Clash was my first proper gig (aged 14) on the Anarchy tour on 1976, so they always have a place in my heart, even though i’ve moved on musically to some extent. It’s always good to come back to this stuff though as it never disappoints. Side note a) a friend of mine has a Gretsch that Johnny Thunders left with him for safe keeping after the tour.  He still has it!  Side note b) I have played with one original Pistol and supported another. Neither was S Jones!

Wow'd!

tone1

Apologies if it’s been said but I think he used an MXR distortion + with the Fender

DeeTee

I don't even like the Pistols, and this is still a great post.

HarrySeven

Definitely gets the H7 seal of approval.

PhilW1

RandallFlagg .

great post, enjoyed it that much had to give you a lol, a wow and a wiz, 
I was 14 when NMTB came out ,still playing most weeks and still trying to learn it !, got Pretty vacant as a ring tone.
I go through stages of loving different tracks, it’s Submission at the mo’ 
its in my top 5 of albums that you keep going back to from a time/age when music meant so much and you had time to actually listen.
Just in case your interested, in no particular order-
Never Mind the Bollocks
Overkill
Quo live 
Live and Dangerous
And any of Sabbath !

RandallFlagg

tone1 said:

Apologies if it’s been said but I think he used an MXR distortion + with the Fender

I've read that many times but I don't think he did, I've read quotes from Steve where he stated that he only ever used 1 effect, a MXR Phase 90 phaser on Anarchy In The UK.

His tone was cleaner and brighter on early live recordings, and became more mid rangey when he changed out the Twins speaker to Gauss speakers. His '77/78 live tone was much thicker than the '76 tone.

The fizzy overdriven tone on 'I Wanna Be Me' was achieved by overdriving the desk like The Beatles on their track 'Revolution'. i I read the Pistols were really happy with that tone that Dave Goodman got so selected that demo track version as the B-Side to Anarchy In The UK.

ICBM

RandallFlagg said:

I've read quotes from Steve where he stated that he only ever used 1 effect, a MXR Phase 90 phaser on Anarchy In The UK

Phase 45.

He used a Distortion+ live, there's video of it here, visible at about 2'24" even with the poor video resolution.

PhilW1

Apology in advance, not meaning to hijack your thread,but can I pick your brains,?
I,m trying to get Steve’s tone thru my Katana , so far I’m using the clean twin from sneaky amps,,would ‘this be the amp mentioned Earlier? with distortion and a bit of reverb 
It sounds ok but you know when you think it was too easy?
Am I missing anything?

impmann

It’s a shame that when they reformed Jonesy used Marshalls.... wrong sound altogether. He still sounded good but nowhere near as snarling as with the Twin.

RandallFlagg

ICBM said:

RandallFlagg said:

I've read quotes from Steve where he stated that he only ever used 1 effect, a MXR Phase 90 phaser on Anarchy In The UK

Phase 45.

He used a Distortion+ live, there's video of it here, visible at about 2'24" even with the poor video resolution.

Phase 45? how do you know that?

Phase 90 in Steve Jones own words below, I cannot see a MXR Distortion in the video, he switches the Phaser on at 0.13 after the "Flower of Romance" intro, and appears to only have 1 pedal on the floor.

Anarchy In The UK

“We banged it out in rehearsal while John was in the corner figuring out the words. I like the fact that it has two guitar solos. Out of all of the Pistols singles, that was the slowest. If you wanted to attach ‘punk’ to it, it’s not a fast track; it’s laid-back, almost like Booker T & The MGs. There are loads of [guitar] tracks on that – I don’t even remember how many. I used one of those MXR Phase 90s on one of the rhythms as well. At the time, [producer] Chris Thomas kept telling me to tune up and it drove me mad, but looking back I’m glad he did and I’m glad we spent that time on it. I think that’s what makes the Pistols album different from The Clash or The Damned. We didn’t just go in and crash, bang, wallop.”

RandallFlagg

PhilW1 said:

Apology in advance, not meaning to hijack your thread,but can I pick your brains,?
I,m trying to get Steve’s tone thru my Katana , so far I’m using the clean twin from sneaky amps,,would ‘this be the amp mentioned Earlier? with distortion and a bit of reverb 
It sounds ok but you know when you think it was too easy?
Am I missing anything?

Don't bother trying to get Steve Jones tone with a model of a Twin, most models are of the 60s Blackface Twins, a very different sounding amp to what Steve Jones used.

Try a Marshall model. Middle up bass down.

Kittyfrisk

Great call. NMTB is an all time fave album of mine, although The Damned's "New Rose' was my wake up call 
"Steve was seen playing several other guitars, a LP Jr, LP Special, Flying V, Firebird, even a Fender Tele but the 2 Les Paul Customs are the ones I associate with him the most."
And yet, despite using all these different guitars, he always sounds broadly (distinctively) the same.
Funny old game, life innit?   

Grocer_Jack

I might be able to find out some of these details  - leave it with me. It WAS a long time ago though - just sayin’

ICBM

PhilW1 said:

Apology in advance, not meaning to hijack your thread,but can I pick your brains,?
I,m trying to get Steve’s tone thru my Katana , so far I’m using the clean twin from sneaky amps,,would ‘this be the amp mentioned Earlier? with distortion and a bit of reverb 
It sounds ok but you know when you think it was too easy?
Am I missing anything?

Volume. You won't get that sound with a clean amp and a distortion pedal in front, it needs to be pushed hard enough for the power stage to break up. If the model allows you to do that and then turn the final volume down with the power control it might get you close, depending on whether the full-power breakup is modelled as part of the clean sound.

RandallFlagg said:

Phase 45? how do you know that?

Also in Steve Jones' own words here:

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/interviews/the_classic_albums_never_mind_the_bollocks_heres_the_sex_pistols.html

Whichever it was, it's an orange pedal - in fact, the 45 is slightly darker coloured than the 90. The one in the video is a khaki MXR, which is the Distortion+. (Not yellow like modern ones.)

RandallFlagg

Steve with a V: