Post-punk rockers Public Image Ltd are back in the studio for the first time in almost 20 years, reports Gibson.
The group is currently "in the outskirts of nowhere" writing and recording new music, frontman John Lydon – also known as Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols – told The Quietus on Friday (July 1).
The band’s last studio album, That What is Not, came out in 1992. PiL broke up less than a year later, going on indefinite hiatus until 2009, when they reunited for a short U.K. concert tour. The concerts were financed by Lydon himself using money he earned filming a British commercial for Country Life butter.
According to Lydon, the reunion tour wasn’t just about indulging nostalgia – PiL also used it as a way to raise funds for studio time.
"We’ve got no backing – no record company, no sponsors, nothing like that. The only way we can make money is the touring, and then we can make a new album," he explained to Billboard in an interview last year.
"It’s sort of like the old days of PiL, when the Pistols went kaput; I had to scrimp and scrape out of my own pocket. Not much has changed."
Lydon says that he has "piles" of new songs written and ready to record, inspired by everything from Shakespeare to an evening stroll.