He was a teenager when I met him. I didn’t notice him carrying a sack full of dreams around, but he was. Like all of us, he wanted to play guitar in a rock ’n’ roll band. But none of the bands out there fit.
We hung around Malcolm and Viv, and with them, the prog rock and Top of the Pops candy floss of the day seemed irrelevant. When he appeared onstage one night in a nihilistic little outfit, the Sex Pistols, only the girly decals on his Les Paul betrayed the pose.
Here was an Elvis fan. A dandy.
The girls had a soft spot for this shy West London thug and he took full advantage. (The crack of dawn wasn’t safe around him.) When it all fell apart with the band, he pulled a Lemmy and absconded to LA. Got a truck and a dog.
No one could have predicted that he’d become host to the best radio show in the state. But then, no one could have predicted Jonesy.
Chrissie Hynde, July 2016