I was born in London just after the war. My parents soon separated and my grandmother took charge of my upbringing. My grandmother had impressed on me at an early age that the English were a nation of liars and the royal family its symbol. England was a country whose survival, she thought, depended on how well they practised the culture of deception. "Nothing is what is seems," she would always say.
My parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were all involved in the fashion business, and my life ran in tandem with the birth of rock'n'roll. I soon became obsessed with the look of that music and the sound of that fashion.
By the dawn of the 70s, I had arrived on the King's Road in Chelsea, dressed in a blue lamé suit. I had left home, been thrown out of art school, lost my virginity, become an unwilling parent with zero prospects. I was searching for a way to break the rules, change life - and I was looking to turn art into action. I opened my first store, Let It Rock, with the sole purpose of smashing the English culture of deception. My intention was to fail in business, but to fail as brilliantly as possible. And only if I failed in a truly fabulous fashion would I ever have the chance of succeeding.
Art school had taught me it was far better to be a flamboyant failure than any kind of benign success. I began by digging deep into the ruins of a culture I cared about - the outlaw spirit of rock'n'roll. Armed with certain relics, I began to assemble an emporium where nothing in it would be for sale - a shop that would never open. This was to prove impossible to sustain, and so I persuaded my girlfriend, Vivienne Westwood, to give up teaching children and help me instead. She collaborated in ways I never dreamed possible. The new generation would soon enter my store and want to be part of it. These young, sexy assassins would help spread the word! They became my Sex Pistols: sexy, young, subversive and stylish boys. Anti-music, anti-everything. They would form my critique, help dress a new army of disaffected youth. I gathered my art school friends to help me plot the downfall of this tired and fake culture.
All I needed now was a record company. EMI became my label of choice. It was English through and through. The enemy was now firmly in my sights. The store, now renamed Sex, had changed from stocking rock'n'roll memorabilia to selling fetish wear, sex and rubberwear for the office, all in black. We designed our own military trousers. I put a strap between the legs, binding one knee to the other, and a zipper that went straight down on the crotch and wound its way up the ass. As you undid them, all your goolies fell out, calling to mind people doing stuff of the most obnoxious kind out in the streets. These trousers, our bondage trousers, were a declaration of war against repression.
While rehearsals were under way for the forthcoming Anarchy in the UK tour, the EMI press department called excitedly. "Queen, the pop group, have cancelled the Today show, so we have got your band the spot instead! It's going to be a blinder! We're sending a car immediately." The band were not in a great mood. They never were. They hated each other. Over at the Thames TV station, we all gathered in the green room and drank ourselves stupid. Finally, everyone was called into the studio, including some fans: Siouxsie Sue and the rest of the Bromley contingent. The record, Anarchy in the UK, needed to create an eruption. After all, it was just a record and somehow that didn't seem to be enough. I refused to put a pretty picture of a band on a cover. Instead, I instructed the marketing department to produce a plain black cover with no hole in the middle, no name, no title, no record label. Nothing. EMI were not happy. How, they asked, will anyone find the record? They didn't understand that I didn't want just anybody to find it. I wanted only those who cared.
The following day, after the infamous interview on the Today show, Leslie Hill, the managing director of EMI, called my home: I had to be in Manchester Square in minutes. There had been a meeting with EMI's senior management, a statement needed to be issued to the press and he wanted me there. On my arrival, I was ushered into an office where Hill was pacing the room. The morning's papers were strewn across his desk. What was I going to say? he asked. "Simply, boys will be boys," I replied. "Good! I think I might say that too." Perfect, I thought. The press are going to have a field day. I knew the moment the autocue lady threw up her hands and her bag, her makeup cascading through the air, that we had smashed the deception. It was live TV and the Sex Pistols were front page.
The media needed a name to describe this attitude. They labelled it "Punk". It stuck like glue. Then the tour dates started to fall out. I couldn't have been more pleased. We boarded our tour bus and drove up north. Instead of having the band play, I had them judge beauty contests. Town councillors were conducting press interviews. Whole towns and cities across the nation formed vigilante squads, not only to ban the group from playing but to prevent them from entering the city. Congregations were praying they just might self-destruct. The national debate was on. How long would it all last?
I had created a feeling that was both euphoric and hysterical. On that tour bus, you couldn't help but be aware of an enormous range of possibilities - that whatever was happening couldn't be predicted, that it was a movement towards a place unknown. We had the means now to start a revolution of everyday life.
As simple and harmless as it seems today, that interview was a pivotal moment that changed everything. Punk became the most important cultural phenomenon of the late 20th century. Its authenticity stands out against the karaoke ersatz culture of today, where everything and everyone is for sale. Punk's influence on music, movies, art, design and fashion is no longer in doubt. It is used as the measurement for what is cool. And we all know you cannot sell anything today if it is not cool. The only problem is that punk is not, and never was, for sale.
· Malcolm McLaren was the Sex Pistols' manager.