Almost 50 years after forming amongst the black threads at Sex, Malcolm McLaren’s historic London clothing boutique, the Sex Pistols are still going strong (though maybe slightly less anarchistic). The legendary punk rockers will spend the summer on stage at a variety of European festivals before touching down stateside for a 15-date tour. 

Their '25 tour will see original members Steve Jones, Paul Cook, and original bassist Glen Matlock reunite (John Lyndon will be replaced by former Gallows singer Frank Carter) before rapt audiences — some of whom may have seen the Pistols' first U.S. tour way back in 1978.

Part of that frenzied run is still immortalized at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

In the venue’s main office is a framed, excised piece of the green room wall with a rather large dent in it, its wooden base exposed beneath layers of cracked paint. This damage was caused by none other than the Sex Pistols’ infamous, deceased bassist, Sid Vicious. After the band’s turbulent performance (itself during the run of shows that led to their initial break-up), Vicious put his fist into the wall.

This destructive memorial is not just a commemoration of the band’s rebellious nature, but a reminder of the blighted nature of the entire tour. 

The gigs almost didn’t happen because the U.S. didn’t want to give guitarist Steve Jones a visa due to his criminal record related to multiple thefts. During the seven shows that they were able to play, members of the Sex Pistols were arrested, involved in rampant drug use, and assaulted the crowd (though the latter was typical for U.K. punk acts at the time). Said crowds responded in kind by pelting the band with whatever debris in the immediate vicinity could be used as projectiles.

"It was a bit of a nightmare, to be honest with you," Jones tells GRAMMY.com. "There's a famous picture where there's a guy with a broom and a mountain of cans that was slung at us. You're not really concentrating on how the music's going. Sid is not playing the bass. Me and Cook are trying to hold it together. It wasn't great."

Paul Cook, the Sex Pistols’ drummer, describes the '78 tour as "organized chaos." The chaos was furthered by the considerable media attention following the group's raucous antics in the U.K. — including swearing profusely on an episode of "Today," hosted by Bill Grundy. 

"It was quite a heavy and dark tour. All the bad publicity had preceded us, and everybody turned up to see a freak show and throw as much stuff at us as they could," Cook says.

Cook recalls being escorted, or rather, supervised, by a team of security guards assigned to them by their U.S. label, Warner Bros. Records. "We were caged, really. Making sure we didn't get out. We were trying to escape and have some fun, and they were trying to run around looking after us, and Sid was out of control. It was just surreal."

Decades on from that organized chaos, the Sex Pistols are amid their third reunion, though they have not released any new original music since 1978's Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols — their sole record, but a particularly iconic one. The Sex Pistols have, however, released a series of live albums from gigs on that nightmarish first tour. 

There is an album for Great South East Music Hall in Atlanta, Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas, and the final show, where they broke up the first time, at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom. Given their harsh memories of the tour, neither Cook nor Jones gives much weight to its audio preservation.

"I don't think they're great," Cook says of the new recordings. "They sort of capture the moment. The recording quality is not top-notch. It is what it is. It's hard to play when you get people throwing bottles and rats, and pigs, and any other s— they could find. But I think we've done all right."

Jones hasn’t even heard the new live recordings: "To be honest with you, I've got no interest in listening to them." 

Despite this aversion to that era, the Sex Pistols will return to the Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas to open their tour on Sept. 16. It will be the first time they have played there since that disastrous night all those years ago, and it was actually Jones’ idea to revisit the room.

"I wanted to go there. It's classic. It’s great," Jones says. "I hope they're not going to sling a load of s— at us this time around."

The upcoming U.S. run follows several recent series of shows throughout Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K. Nobody has been slinging anything, and according to Jones and Cook, these international crowds have embraced them quite fervently with Carter as their new singer.

It was actually Carter’s newly-minted association with the Sex Pistols that sparked the prospect of a world tour. Last year, Bush Hall in Shepard’s Bush, London (a local venue during the band's early years), was under threat of closure. Jones, Cook, and Matlock wanted to perform benefit shows to save it.

However, they needed a singer; performing with original lead singer John Lyndon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten) wasn't consideration following a legal battle over the rights to use Sex Pistols songs in Danny Boyle’s biographical miniseries, "Pistol."

"I didn't want nothing to do with John at that point. That was stupid, that whole thing. I didn't even think about it. ‘Well, let's do it with John.’ It didn't even come up," Jones says. "I'm not taking anything away from John in the slightest from when we originally did the record. He was a huge part of the pistols. In the day, he was sharp. He wrote amazing lyrics for a 19 or 20-year-old. So, I've only got respect for that. But we've just gone different ways."

With this essential slot available, the band was open to ideas of who could stand in. It was Glen Matlock’s son who suggested Carter. He had been on Jones' radio show, "Jonesy's Jukebox" (though Jones didn’t remember that), and Cook was familiar with Carter’s other projects. They agreed to work with him for three benefit shows at Bush Hall, and according to Jones, "It just worked straight away.

"We knew we were on to something, and then it just went from there," Jones continues. Before Carter’s gigs, the band had no intentions for another tour, but they were all so happy with the dynamic that they decided to take this iteration around the world, playing their sole album from front to back. 

With this dose of youth injected into the band, they can bring the classic Sex Pistols sound to the younger generation. Both Cook and Jones laud Carter for presenting his own interpretation of the songs.

"We're all almost 70, and there's no jumping around for me anymore. Frank is a ringmaster. He's unbelievable," Jones says. The energy and the way he gets the crowd going, it just leaves it for me, Paul, and Glenn to focus on really making it sound like Never Mind The Bollocks."

"Frank’s filled big shoes admirably and great. He gets it. He's the real deal, and he's his own man as well. He's no imitator. So it's worked out brilliantly," Cook says. "We're not trying to replace John Lyndon. You can never do that."

One aspect that Lyndon brought to the band that neither Cook nor Jones has any intention of replacing is the political defiance. Back in 1978, protest songs like "God Save the Queen" and "Anarchy in the U.K.," sparked their international attention, but Lyndon was the one who wrote the lyrics. Besides, with no original music since then, both Cook and Jones are content to leave that part of their history as it is.

"We had a fantastic mouthpiece in John. Up front. He was an iconic figurehead," Cook says, going on to share that there’s no need to try and mimic Lydon’s brand of preaching during these new shows.

"We're not getting up on our soapbox. We said what we had to say back in the day, and I think people know where we stand on everything. So we don't have to get up and scream and shout. We'll leave that to the younger kids," Cook says. "We are out there having to have a raucous time, and hopefully people will listen to the songs and tap into where we came from. I think people are intelligent enough to listen to the album and tap into it, and make their own minds up."

Jones’ approach to politics is much simpler: "I couldn't give a s—. This is all about people coming and forgetting about all the bulls— that's going on in the world." 

This ethos applies to Jones and the rest of the band as well, who have had a great time playing the album at their recent shows. Much better than they did back in 1978.

"The concept for it at the beginning was let's do Never Mind The Bollocks in its entirety, and let's have fun. If it ain't fun. I ain't doing it," Jones says. "We just want to have fun, and we do. We have a blast. We all get along. There's no weirdness. There's no mind f—ery, it's just great. I’m too old for nonsense."

"Nonsense" is one way to describe Sid Vicious putting his fist into a wall after a gig. That nonsense has lived on for almost 50 years, but Jones, Cook, Matlock, and their new singer Frank Carter are here to ensure the music of the Sex Pistols lives on even longer.