John Lydon, the former Sex Pistol, would have "loved to be a painter", he says in one of a series of interviews with leading punk rockers to be aired in a BBC season entitled "Punk Britannia" next month.

The former Sex Pistol says 'cruel and tortuous' illness left him unaware who his parents were

The NME editor has made a grovelling apology for her campaign against singer Ed Sheeran. Nadia Khomami looks at spats between popsters and the press

I'm not a lover of musical theatre. By this, I'm not subtly trying to put an end to the scandalous rumours that I'm a homosexual. No, it's just the truth. Musicals are not for me. OK – I did once enjoy Evita when I was a kid. I even bought the album.

Punk's not dead – it's just having a nice cup of tea and a look round a stately home.

'Whispering' Bob Harris – 65 tomorrow and still DJ hip – talks to Matthew Bell

Before Sid Vicious joined the Sex Pistols, he claimed in an interview that he'd "only been in love with a beer bottle and a mirror".

I've received some pretty angry letters in my time, but even I was surprised by the negative attention I got after casually mentioning that I quite liked The Eagles. I'd simply said that while it was fashionable in the late Seventies to listen to Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols rather than any album by The Eagles, these days I almost never listen to any punk albums, but play One of These Nights and On the Border at least once a month. I've still got a Sex Pistols poster I ripped off the reception wall at the Roxy, but I honestly can't remember the last time I played "Bodies".

John Lydon has branded Jay-Z a "parody".

With her tumbling dreadlocks, mouthy righteousness and determined mission to mash down Babylon, Ari Up was the personification of 1977's Bob Marley song "Punky reggae party". Her later lifestyle was peripatetic, as she moved around the globe, but especially between London, Jamaica, Brooklyn and Los Angeles. Such journeying partially explains why Trapped Animal, the 2009 album by her group, the Slits, and the first since their 2006 reunion, should have been nominated in both the reggae and world-music sections for next year's Grammy awards.

Former Sex Pistols star John Lydon is mourning the death of his step-daughter Ari Up, herself a punk star.

As ITV remakes one of 1976’s lustiest TV sagas, Gerard Gilbert looks back on a year that broke every boundary

Jah Wobble has lived an eventful life: bass player in PiL, solo musician and influential figure in the popularisation of world music, as well as London Tube driver, warehouse manager, chronic alcoholic and book reviewer for the Independent on Sunday.

In 1975, the Sex Pistol’s lead singer was the angriest man in the UK. Now living in LA, John Lydon is still furious – and as entertaining as ever. He talks to Guy Adams about insulting Hollywood’s elite, why he’s chosen gardening over amphetamines, and the real reason he didn’t make Malcolm McLaren’s funeral