Phil Lynott’s flatmate recalls mixing with rock’s elite bands

The Sex Pistols changed the look and the sound of music, and rocked society, but Armstrong remembers being at one of their first gigs, which was relatively low-key.

“We kind of enjoyed them for their punkiness and their lack of smoothness,” he said.

“John [Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten] had his attitude already baked in.

“At one stage some long-haired student chucked an empty beer can at him and he picked it up and chucked it back, and that was the height of the excitement.”

Armstrong remembers the infamous live television interview The Sex Pistols did with Bill Grundy in 1976 – sprinkled with four-letter words – as “what blew it up”.

“I knew Paul [Cook], the drummer from the Pistols, he was a nice guy,” he said.

“I knew Steve [Jones] a bit, I really knew Glen [Matlock] better than any of them.”

But in The Damned, Chiswick soon signed their own iconic punk band.

Armstrong produced their Machine Gun Etiquette album.

“Captain [Sensible] is an astonishing player, he really is an astonishing musician, he’s not like a two-chord merchant at all,” Armstrong said.