Glen Matlock: 'Growing up we stayed in Butlin's or, if we were going upmarket, Pontins'

Everything is on hold at the moment

I should have been on tour in North America, but I’m glad it was cancelled. The thought of self-isolating in a cheap motel in North Pennsylvania isn’t appealing.

There’s always something going in in New York

It’s what I love most about the city. As soon as you step off the plane, you say: “Right, where’s the action?” London is like that too, but I guess I’m used to it.

I’ve thought of moving to Los Angeles

But I would hate having to drive everywhere. I like to be able to walk to the corner shop and buy a pint of milk.

I've met Spongebob

I got brownie points with the kids when I told them about who I met the last time I was in the States. I was having brunch with my friend Clem [Burke, the Blondie drummer] when a guy walked over and started chatting. After he left, I said: “I know that voice from somewhere,” and Clem said: “You were just talking to SpongeBob.”

I travel light

I generally get away with just taking a couple of shirts – I get sweaty on stage, but one shirt dries out while I wear the other. Nobody in the audience can tell if you’re a bit whiffy.

I played a gig in the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea

It was a strange place to play a gig. There’s farmland where people aren’t allowed to live and there are still landmines everywhere. But because there are no human beings, the wildlife is fantastic. You think you’ve got to look out for tanks, but you’ve actually got to look out for ibises.

I love going to Japan because it’s just so wacky

Everything there has a face on it, from trains to bags of chestnuts. There was even a face on a road sign about a low bridge. I once heard a commotion in Shibuya, Tokyo, and it was a dance troupe of life-size drinks cans doing a routine. You can’t make this stuff up.

A driver tried to impress me with bad rock music

It was on a long drive to Pinamar on the coast of Argentina and I said: “Haven’t you got any tango?” He put a song on about a rich man boasting to a tramp, and the poor man said: “Well it doesn’t matter because we’re all going to die anyway.” That struck a real chord.

My mum didn’t like flying

It was a bit of a drag as my dad was ex-Air Force. So growing up, we stayed in England: Butlin’s or, if we were going upmarket, Pontins. Happy memories. I remember asking my dad whether the barbed-wire fence was there to keep us in – he was adamant that it was to keep people out.

My biggest ‘pinch myself’ trip was the first time I went to New York

It was Halloween 1979 and I was playing with Iggy Pop at the Palladium to about 4,000 people. The whole audience was in Halloween gear, and backstage Debbie Harry gave me a peck on the cheek, dressed as a witch. That was pretty good.

I remember the water bed in a motel I once stayed in on tour

It had a button you could press to make it ripple. The bloody thing got stuck on all night and the room wasn’t big enough to kip on the floor. By the morning I felt seasick.

I live by the rule of “just in time”

I like to get to the airport just in time to have a quick cigarette before I check in, and then just in time to grab a sandwich before boarding.

I used to buy silly hats for my kids from wherever I went

In Red Square, I went looking for a Cossack hat and I kept seeing people and thinking: “Hang on, I recognise him.” Turned out the square was full of lookalikes for tourists to take pictures with – Stalin, Brezhnev, the last Tsar of Russia.

I’m not the best sailor in the world

But I went on a cruise to the Norwegian fjords. The west coast is one of the most underrated places in the world. It’s clean, the people are up for a laugh and it’s light until midnight.

I had a frightening experience on a jet with the Sex Pistols

All the alarms went off and the stewardess was running about because the cargo door had been left open. I was sitting next to [guitarist] Steve Jones, the worst flier in the world. It made me realise that no matter how plush the leather or how nice the gold fittings, the plane can still go down.

I'm longing to go back to India

I went there 18 months ago. Kim by Rudyard Kipling is one of my favourite books and it transports me there. I want to go to some of the places where it’s set, including the old colonial town of Shimla where the British cooled off in summer.

As soon as lockdown lifts I’ll be off to New York

I'll go to mix my new album. You can do quite a lot by email these days, but it’s nothing like sitting next to somebody in the studio.

Interview by Rosie Hopegood

Tickets for the Glen Matlock and Earl Slick autumn tour are on sale now. New tour dates for September can be found at seetickets.com.