40 Fun Facts About Sid Vicious

John Lydon's pet Sid, whose bite gave Sid Vicious his stage name, was what kind of animal?

A hamster called Sid, itself named after Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett, sank its teeth into him, and the nickname stuck for life.

Which actor played Sid Vicious in the 1986 film Sid and Nancy, a role he twice turned down?

Gary Oldman later dismissed his own performance, yet Premiere magazine ranked it among the 100 greatest of all time.

Which singer called Sid Vicious 'Simon Ferocious' before throwing him out of a studio in 1977?

Freddie Mercury was recording with Queen at Wessex Sound Studios when Sid wandered in to mock him about ballet, and was marched out by the lapels.

Sid Vicious recorded a snarling punk cover of which Frank Sinatra song in April 1978?

My Way, Sinatra's signature song, became Sid's too: he changed many of the words, and lyricist Paul Anka later said he felt Sid was sincere about it.

Which future Hollywood star made his stage debut in Vicious, a 1986 play about Sid Vicious?

George Clooney played a drug-dealing hustler in the Los Angeles production, eight years before the hospital drama ER made him famous.

Sid Vicious's trademark chain necklace, later lent by his mother to a film, was fastened with what?

A padlock on a heavy metal chain was his signature look, and his mother lent the real one for the lead actor to wear in the 1986 biopic.

Nancy Spungen was found dead in October 1978 in the room she and Sid Vicious shared at which hotel?

The Chelsea later split the couple's room into two units so that it could not be turned into a shrine.

Sid Vicious claimed he invented which punk dance at London gigs in 1976, partly to mock outsiders?

Pogoing, in Shane MacGowan's telling, came about because a leather poncho Sid wore to gigs left him unable to dance any other way.

Sid Vicious joined the Sex Pistols in early 1977 in place of which original bassist and songwriter?

Glen Matlock co-wrote most of the band's songs; their manager claimed he was sacked for liking the Beatles, while Matlock says he quit.

Sid Vicious's cover of a Sinatra standard plays over the end credits of which Martin Scorsese film?

Goodfellas, released in 1990, rolls its end credits to Sid's sneering vocal, eleven years after his death.

Which singer paid Sid Vicious £2 to marry her for a UK work permit, only to find the office closed?

Chrissie Hynde, later of the Pretenders, needed a husband to stay in Britain; John Lydon had already turned her down.

Sid Vicious died in New York in February 1979, a day after leaving jail on bail, from what cause?

A heroin overdose killed him at 21, at his new girlfriend's apartment on the night of his release, before his case could reach trial.

Which album, the only studio LP by the Sex Pistols, hit number one with Sid Vicious in the band?

Never Mind the Bollocks topped the UK chart despite sales bans at major retailers, yet Sid is barely on it, having missed most of the sessions.

Sid Vicious's father, a part-time jazz musician, was also a guardsman at which royal residence?

Buckingham Palace was the day job; by night he played trombone on the London jazz circuit, and he dropped out of Sid's life early on.

Sid Vicious reportedly learned bass by playing along for three nights to which band's debut album?

Ramones' 1976 debut gave him a simple up-tempo pattern that he went on to use for most of his own playing.

A 2009 play has the ghost of Sid Vicious visiting which rock star on the last day of his life?

Kurt Cobain is visited in his greenhouse by Sid's ghost in Roy Smiles's West End play, which earned four stars from The Daily Telegraph.

Which animated series retold the story of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen for Valentine's Day 2008?

The Simpsons cast Nelson as Sid and Lisa as Nancy, swapping the couple's drug habit for an addiction to chocolate.

Which punk-era manager said Johnny Rotten was the voice of punk and Sid Vicious the attitude?

Malcolm McLaren, the Sex Pistols' manager, prized chaos as a creative tool and admitted planning to have Nancy Spungen abducted and put on a plane back to America.

Which instrument did Sid Vicious play at the first-ever Siouxsie and the Banshees gig in 1976?

Drums were his job for one night only at London's 100 Club: the borrowed line-up improvised for 20 minutes around the Lord's Prayer.

After a nightclub fight in December 1978, Sid Vicious spent two months in which New York jail?

Rikers Island held him after he broke his bail terms by attacking Todd Smith, brother of singer Patti Smith, at the Hurrah club.

With Sid Vicious barely able to play, who recorded most of the bass on the Sex Pistols' album?

Steve Jones, the band's guitarist, simply doubled up, and in 1996 he bought Sid's white Fender bass from Sid's mother for £2,000.

The teenage Sid Vicious hung around SEX, a King's Road boutique co-run by which fashion designer?

Vivienne Westwood later visited Sid in a remand centre, and her shop's clothes went on to define the look of the punk movement.

Sid Vicious played his last Sex Pistols show at the Winterland Ballroom in which American city?

San Francisco closed a chaotic US tour routed mostly through the South and cut short after seven shows, and the band broke up straight afterwards.

Sid Vicious covered Something Else and C'mon Everybody, both first recorded by which 1950s rocker?

Eddie Cochran died at 21 after a 1960 taxi crash in England, the same age Sid was when he died nineteen years later.

Which stage name did Sid Vicious give his friend John Wardle, later the bassist of Public Image Ltd?

Jah Wobble was how a drunken Sid mumbled Wardle's real name, and Wardle kept it because people would never forget it.

Which British director made Pistol, the 2022 miniseries in which Sid Vicious is a main character?

Danny Boyle directed all six episodes, and John Lydon went to court in a failed attempt to keep the band's music out of them.

The surviving Sex Pistols boycotted the 2006 ceremony inducting the band, Sid Vicious included, into which institution?

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted five members, Sid posthumously, but the living ones stayed away and John Lydon insulted the museum.

In June 1977 the Sex Pistols, with Sid Vicious on bass, played a gig on a boat on which river?

The Thames trip was staged to mock the Queen's Silver Jubilee river procession, and ended when police launches forced the boat to dock.

After Nancy Spungen's death in October 1978, New York police charged Sid Vicious with which crime?

Second-degree murder was the charge, but the case never reached a courtroom: Sid died less than four months later while out on bail.

Sid Vicious was considered as singer for which London punk band but missed the audition?

The Damned gave the job to Dave Vanian, the other name on the shortlist for the role.

Sid Vicious spent his earliest years on which Spanish island, where his mother moved in 1958?

Ibiza was meant to be a family fresh start, but his father never followed or sent money, and mother and son came home in 1961.

Rumour said Mick Jagger paid Sid Vicious's bail, but which record label really met his legal bills?

Virgin Records, the Sex Pistols' label, funded a defence arranged through the firm of celebrity lawyer F. Lee Bailey.

Sid Vicious played all of his American solo gigs in 1978 at which New York nightclub?

Max's Kansas City recordings from September 1978 make up most of Sid Sings, the live album released after his death.

Nancy Spungen, the American girlfriend of Sid Vicious, was born in which US city?

Philadelphia's suburbs were home until she left at 17 for New York, and she flew on to London in December 1976 at the height of punk.

Which illness put Sid Vicious in hospital in 1977, keeping him from most Sex Pistols recording?

Hepatitis kept him on a ward while a bandmate covered his parts, which is why the group's credited bassist is barely heard on its only album.

Before joining the Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious belonged to which 1976 band that never played a gig?

The Flowers of Romance never released a record either, but its ranks held Keith Levene and Viv Albertine, later of Public Image Ltd and the Slits.

Which track on the Sex Pistols' only studio album did Sid Vicious record bass for in August 1977?

Bodies was written after he joined the group, and even there a bandmate later overdubbed a bass part of his own.

Which young actor played Sid Vicious in Pistol, the 2022 miniseries about the Sex Pistols?

Louis Partridge was already known from the Enola Holmes films; he was born in 2003, 24 years after Sid died.

Which future rock star, who auditioned as Nancy Spungen, has a bit part in the film Sid and Nancy?

Courtney Love impressed the director, but investors wanted an experienced lead, so he wrote her the part of Gretchen instead.

Sid Vicious was born in south London in 1957 under which family name, years before the punk alias?

Ritchie was his father's surname; as a teenager he also went by John Beverley, borrowing the name of his late stepfather.