Steve Jones

Stephen Philip Jones (born 3 September 1955) is an English guitarist, best known as a member of the punk band Sex Pistols.

Following the split of the Sex Pistols, he formed the Professionals with former bandmate Paul Cook.

He has released two solo albums, and worked with Johnny Thunders, Iggy Pop, Cheap Trick, Bob Dylan and Thin Lizzy.

Jones co-founded The Strand (named after a Roxy Music song) with Paul Cook and Wally Nightingale in the early 1970s but later changed its name to The Swankers.

After the band dropped Nightingale in August 1975 they reformed as the Sex Pistols with Jones, Cook, Glen Matlock, and John Lydon.

Jones was the oldest member of the band.

In October 1976, Jones was filmed as an extra in the movie The Squeeze, released in 1977.

Jones is a self-taught guitar player, primarily playing Gibson Les Paul electric guitars in his early years.

He had allegedly only been playing for three months before his first Sex Pistols gig, and has said that practising under the influence of black beauties helped him focus well on learning the instrument.

His usual guitar was a cream-coloured Gibson Les Paul Custom which Malcolm McLaren had acquired from Sylvain Sylvain of The New York Dolls.

According to the Sex Pistols documentary The Filth and the Fury, he had stolen equipment from a truck parked behind the Hammersmith Odeon where David Bowie was playing the Ziggy Farewell concerts, when he and some of his friends posed as road-crew members, stealing amplifiers and other equipment.

Bill Price, the engineer on Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, called Jones one of the tightest guitar players he has ever worked with; this is due to his "chuggy" playing in the studio as Price had described it with very little sustain and echo, which required overdubs to hide.

Due to bassist Sid Vicious's musical incompetence, Jones played the primary bass-guitar parts for "Bodies" and "Holidays in the Sun" on Never Mind the Bollocks (a part played by Vicious is buried in the mix on "Bodies" and Matlock appears on the other songs as they had previously been recorded as singles and B-sides).

When the Sex Pistols were interviewed by Bill Grundy on the Thames Television's local news Today programme on 1 December 1976, Jones swore at Grundy after being goaded to do so, assisting the notoriety of the band.

After the Sex Pistols broke up in 1978, Jones and drummer Paul Cook co-founded the Professionals.

Rehearsals took place in early 1980, and Jones recorded the guitars parts on three songs of the album Kaleidoscope.

The experience did not go further than a simple recording session.

Jones played with Thin Lizzy, Billy Idol, Joan Jett, Kraut, Adam Ant, Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop, Andy Taylor, the Dano Jones Band, Megadeth, Neurotic Outsiders, and had a solo career in the 1980s and early 1990s.

While the Professionals did return to America in the spring of 1982 after recovery, Jones's and Myers's drug problems further hampered the band's prospects.

They declined an opening spot offer on tour for The Clash, and broke up.

Jones was a member of Chequered Past (led by Michael Des Barres) from 1982 to 1985.

They released a self-titled album in 1984.

Jones performed alongside Sex Pistols bandmate Paul Cook on Johnny Thunders' solo album So Alone.

Siouxsie and the Banshees thought for a while to engage Jones after the departure of two of their original members.

"Pleasure and Pain", also from the album Mercy, was included in the 1986 film Sid and Nancy, a biopic of Jones's Sex Pistols bandmate Sid Vicious.

His song "Mercy", from the album of the same name, was used in a Miami Vice episode called "Stone's War" and was featured on the Miami Vice II soundtrack album and in the film Homeboy 1988.

They released four singles, recorded a self-titled LP that was shelved until 1990, and released I Didn't See It Coming in November 1981.

The band's American tour to promote the album was cut short when band members Paul Cook, Paul Myers, and Ray McVeigh were injured in a car accident.

In 1995, he formed the short-lived supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with members of Guns N' Roses and Duran Duran.

He played with Suicidal Tendencies frontman Mike Muir's Cyco Miko, which is still an ongoing project.

Jones was ranked #97 in Rolling Stone's 2015 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".

Jones was born in Shepherd's Bush, London, where he grew up with his young mother, who worked as a hairdresser, and his grandparents.

He first moved to Benbow Road in Shepherd's Bush and then to Nine Elms in Battersea.

Jones befriended future bandmate Paul Cook in his childhood.

He was an only child and his father, Don Jarvis, a professional boxer, left when he was two years old.

He revealed in his 2016 autobiography Lonely Boy that he was sexually abused by his stepfather, Ron Dambagella, which he blamed for his later sex addiction and inability to form lasting relationships.

He was a student at the Christopher Wren School, now Phoenix High School, London in White City Estate, Shepherd's Bush, though he rarely attended.

He revealed that he was functionally illiterate until he was in his 40s.

With 14 criminal convictions, he was the subject of a council-care order and spent a year in a remand centre, which he said was more enjoyable than being at home.

Jones has said that the Sex Pistols saved him from a life of crime.