In the past few weeks, John Lydon the gentle, demure former TV host has been replaced by his brash, opinionated alter ego, the man appropriately called Johnny Rotten. The first of the Sex Pistols' chief rabble-rouser's Rotten pronouncements was to determine that Rudy Giuliani was "scary to high hell" in a roundup of presidential candidates he recently gave to Spinner, sparing none of the other 2008 White House aspirants in the process.

Now, on the heels of an announced one-off reunion of his notorious '70s punk band to commemorate the 30th anniversary of its only album, 'Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols,' he has taken potshots at the also recently reconstituted Police. When asked to compare the Police, who are in the midst of a yearlong international reunion tour, to the reconvened Pistols, Lydon instead decided to compare the late-'70s/early-'80s multiplatinum trio to "soggy old dead carcasses."

In an interview that aired on Virgin Radio in the U.K., Lydon, referring to Police frontman Sting, also expounded, "You know, listening to Stink [sic] try to squeak through 'Roxanne' one more time, that's not fun. It's like letting air out of a balloon."

His Rottenness then went on to compare the substance-abuse woes of Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty to that of his late bandmate Sid Vicious. "They obviously don't enjoy what they're doing," he said. "And that's why you turn to drugs. And that's what happened with Sid, he wasn't happy about what he couldn't do. It's a slow suicide," Lydon continued, "and it's a cry for help because they're in pain, they're in mental pain. And this is a disgusting industry because people just cut you dead."