Sex Pistols’ Glen Matlock to play bass on new Blondie album
"It's just the band and Glen playing on it. He's fitted right in"
nme.com – 5th September 2022
By Arusa Qureshi
The bassist previously stepped in for Leigh Foxx on Blondie’s April 2022 UK and US tour after Foxx suffered a back injury. Now, the musician has been announced to play bass on the band’s follow-up to 2017’s ‘Pollinator’ while Foxx recuperates.
Speaking to Classic Pop magazine, guitarist Chris Stein said: “Glen has just been great. Unlike ‘Pollinator’, we’re mostly keeping this album in-house: it’s just the band and Glen playing on it. He’s fitted right in.”
The iconic New York City band’s follow-up to 2014 album ‘Ghosts Of Download’ featured songwriting collaborations with TV On The Radio’s Dave Sitek, Charli XCX, Sia, Dev Hynes and Johnny Marr.
Further details of the band’s upcoming album are still to be announced.
In August, Blondie released a rediscovered home recording of a song called ‘Mr Sightseer’.
The unearthed home recording from 1978 had previously never made it out of the band’s bedroom but has now been newly mastered by Michael Graves for the band’s first ever authorised and in-depth box set archive, ‘Blondie: Against The Odds 1974-1982’.
The release, which Blondie announced in June, boasts 124 tracks – 36 of which were previously unreleased – alongside remasters of original analog tapes that were cut to vinyl at London’s famous Abbey Road Studios.
“I am hopeful that this project will provide a glimpse into the ‘process’ and some of the journey that the songs took from idea to final form,” Stein said of the boxset. “Some of this stuff is like early sketches; the old tape machines are like primitive notebooks. The trickiest thing for me was always about getting the melodies out of my head into reality and the changes that would happen along the way.”
Elsewhere, members of the Sex Pistols, Blondie and Melvins covered the Small Faces’ ‘Song Of A Baker’.
The rendition is by Cabbage ‘N Mash, a project featuring Melvins‘ Dale Crover and director Bob Hannam, who enlisted Blondie drummer Clem Burke, Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock and Melvins producer/engineer Toshi Kasai (on keyboards).
