Johnny Rotten - now John Lydon - lives in the US

"The good thing about the Pistols now is that they can really play," he said.

The controversial band released their anti-royal single, God Save The Queen, in June 1977, shortly before she celebrated her silver jubilee.

Radio stations were banned from playing the record - which offically reached number two in the pop charts.

Conspiracy theorists at the time claimed sales figures had been massaged in order to prevent the single reaching the number one spot in time for the jubilee.

On 3 June 1977, the band - Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Sid Vicious - were arrested after they performed on a boat on the river Thames in London.

The Pistols' jubilee river trip was a fiasco - but it is remembered as one of the seminal events of the punk era.

The band's manager, Malcolm McLaren, and his then wife, Vivienne Westwood, now one of the world's most famous fashion designers, were among those arrested.