Steve Jones formed and powered one of the most influential bands in music history.  That simple fact is enough for anyone's legacy, but the story of how he did it is a living cultural and musical history.

He was the driving force behind the Sex Pistols.  Not only did Steve, along with school mate Paul Cook, provide the thunderous rhythm section which drove the Pistols songs, but out of desperation he gave a 200% effort to make the Pistols move along. 

In his aptly named 2017 autobiography, ‘Lonely Boy’, Steve set out an astonishing life story.

Born in Hammersmith, West London, his first years were spent in a flat opposite the legendary music venue, Hammersmith Odeon.   Inspired by gigs and records by Roxy Music, Rod Stewart and The Faces and The New York Dolls, Steve became a true music original.

It’s appropriate that the series “Pistol", should be loosely based on his life and adventures.  His story also chronicles growing up in West London in the 1960s and provides a fascinating portrait of a working-class life now gone. He grew up without the guidance and supervision that most kids take for granted and was left to fend for himself.  He had to be strong to survive and adapt to the jungle of tough streets and unexpected trouble.  Steve more than survived, he prospered.  Ultimately his love of music always kept him on the straight and narrow, that was his passion throughout it all.  But there was another side to Steve, the vulnerability, at times his life was both scary and sad. 

A life of petty crime, featuring an Olympic streak of kleptomania, gave way to Rock n Roll, co-founding the band 'The Strand' with mates Paul Cook and Wally Nightingale in the early 1970s.  That morphed in The Sex Pistols by 1975, Steve and Paul replacing the departing Wally with John Lydon and Glen Matlock.  

In the band's manager, Malcolm McLaren and his partner and fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, Steve found parental figures.  The Sex Pistols were formed in their seminal shop 'SEX' in Chelsea, where Lydon performed an impromptu audition for the position of singer by performing Alice Cooper's 'l'm Eighteen'.  Steve nicknamed Lydon 'Johnny Rotten' due to the latter's teeth and another cultural phenomenon was born.

SEX attracted some extraordinary visitors including one country squire who arrived with a "good evening gentlemen" in a very posh voice.  Turned out it was The Who's Keith Moon, a very exciting moment for our aspiring rock star, "he was a real icon to me," says Steve, "he was a total loon."

Amazingly, Steve had self-taught himself to play guitar in 3 months after Wally left.  His visceral guitar style breathed the filth and fury into the Pistol's songs. Equipment was purloined from David Bowie, Steve using his unique skills to liberate the necessary items from Bowie's stage at Hammersmith Odeon before the famed, final Ziggy Stardust gig.  Steve is "happy even proud to admit to the Bowie heist." While he stole a lot of musical equipment, the guitar he ended up using was the famous Les Paul that Malcolm McLaren brought him back from New York, that belonged to the New York Dolls.

But Bowie's loss was our gain.  The Sex Pistols went on to change music, culture and society, rocking the establishment with God Save The Queen, Steve shocking the nation by swearing on Bill Grundy's TV chat show, with the jokey sign off, "what a fucking rotter."  

By the band's end they had recorded some the most incendiary music ever heard, 'Never Mind The Bollocks', a UK Number 1 album, is perhaps the most influential debut LP in history, just 35 minutes with Steve playing ferocious lead guitar and bass throughout - to cover for Sid Vicious' lack of skills (he had replaced Glen Matlock on bass).  Steve even named the album. Rolling Stone reviewer Paul Nelson described Steve's playing as "guitars wielded by Jack the Ripper."

While the album went on to sell over a million copies over the years, its legacy is the key.  Noel Gallagher calls it the "most influential album of all time" and "cannot be bettered."  Kurt Cobain named Nirvana's debut 'Nevermind' after it.

The band spawned a movement and inspired a new generation of music and visual artists, fashion designers and even entrepreneurs.  Steve Jones' most important legacy might perhaps be that working class kids can make it big too, transforming Britain's rigid class system forever.

After the Pistols imploded, old friends Steve and Paul Cook formed The Professionals and, over the years, Steve has played with everyone from Iggy Pop and Bob Dylan, released a solo album and formed The Neurotic Outsiders with Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum (Guns N' Roses) and John Taylor (Duran Duran).  

He has fought addiction too, but always returned to music. And so it was to be in later years that Steve flew the flag, not only for the Pistols, but new music through his radio show Jonesy's Jukebox which became a must attend for anyone involved in contemporary rock music. Stars who appeared on it included Eddie Vedder, Chrissie Hynde, Johnny Ramone, Billy Corgan, Brian Wilson, Pete Townshend, Iggy Pop, Robert Plant, even Cliff Richard.

The infamous radio program is now a weekly podcast. The only rule is doing whatever Jonesy wants. Expect music from his own personal collection to current topic discussions and celebrity interviews with a living room conversation vibe. The podcast is available everywhere you get your podcasts, with a new episode every Monday.

As a guitarist, he can claim to be up there as one of the most influential too.  He set the punk rock blueprint, and metal followed. Bands he directly influenced are a 'who's who' of the last 40 years - Nirvana, Joy Division, Green Day, Guns N' Roses and on and on.

Through his social media and radio show, Steve has remained strangely contemporary and has helped ensure that the Sex Pistols flame never went out.