John Lydon an enthusiast than an expert". He went to present two further programmes: "John Lydon Goes Ape", in which he searched for gorillas in Central Africa, and "John Lydon's Shark Attack", in which he swam with sharks off South Africa. In late 2008 Lydon appeared in an advertising campaign for "Country Life", a popular brand of butter, on British television. Lydon defended the move by stating that the main reason he accepted the offer was to raise money to reform Public Image Ltd without a record deal. The advertising campaign proved to be highly successful, with sales of the brand raising
Sex Pistols critical assessments of concert recordings, and testimonials by fellow musicians indicate that the Pistols had developed into a tight, ferocious live band. As Rotten tested out wild vocalisation styles, the instrumentalists experimented "with overload, feedback and distortion...pushing their equipment to the limit". On 8 October 1976, the major record label EMI signed the Sex Pistols to a two-year contract. In short order, the band was in the studio recording a full-dress session with Dave Goodman. As later described by Matlock, "The idea was to get the spirit of the live performance. We were pressurized to make it faster and faster."