My Take
Sid Vicious barely played bass — and that's almost the whole point. He joined the Sex Pistols in 1977 more as a living prop for chaos than a musician, yet somehow that raw, can't-be-bothered energy perfectly completed the band's sneer at everything polished and polite. His cover of "My Way" is genuinely one of the most unhinged, weirdly brilliant things to come out of that era: a kid who couldn't really sing, demolishing a Sinatra standard with total conviction, and it works. He burned through 21 years like he had something to prove and no time to prove it, and the legend that followed him — flawed, tragic, magnetic — ended up outlasting plenty of musicians who actually knew what they were doing.
Overview
John Simon Ritchie (10 May 1957 – 2 February 1979), better known by his stage name Sid Vicious, was an English musician, best known as the second bassist for the punk rock band Sex Pistols. After his death in 1979 at the age of 21, he remained an icon of the punk subculture; one of his friends noted that he embodied "everything in punk that was dark, decadent and nihilistic".
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Sid Vicious
- Name (Japanese)
- シド・ヴィシャス
- Reading
- しど・ゔぃしゃす
- Born
- May 10, 1957 – February 2, 1979
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Taurus / Rooster
- Origin
- Lewisham, United Kingdom
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- musician / bass guitarist
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Hackney College
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.