Misfits’ Jerry Only Talks About Being Present The Night Sid Vicious Died

Sometimes being a witness to history is a sad experience In the case of Jerry Only, the legendary founding member of the Misfits wound up being present at the scene the night iconoclastic Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious died.

According to sources, Jerry was introduced to Sid at a Greenwich Village party after the Sex Pistols had broken up. Earlier in the day, Vicious was released on bail after he was arrested on suspicion of the October 1978 stabbing murder of his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, at the Chelsea Hotel.

Only told Classic Rock: “I was one of the first people at the party, so I ended up making bolognese sauce with his mom, Anne Beverly. Then a bunch of his buddies rolled in and all they did was get high.

“When you went into New York, everybody was shootin’ dope. It was a heavy narcotic scene. I wasn’t about that. That’s why we came up with the horror thing. We loved horror films, sci-fi, B-movies. We weren’t drug-shootin’ beatnik Bowery Boys.” 

Jerry then went on to talk about witnessing Sid begin to nod out from the heroin, adding:

“I had to smack Sid round a couple of times. I said, ‘This is ridiculous,’ and his mom said, ‘Well, it happens all the time.’ I said, ‘It shouldn’t happen at all!’ I got outta there and left them to it.

“I couldn’t believe it. I was the only person in New York who had a car – my mom’s old brown station wagon – and I was like the undertaker for the kid. I drove his mom to the coroner, took her to the cemetery where Nancy was, helped her put Sid’s ashes on her grave.

“At first people thought he’d killed himself, but the drugs were just too pure – the coroner had never seen anything like it. It was such a waste – he had all the potential in the world.

“Sid was outgrowing the Sex Pistols… he had just done ‘My Way’ – he could’ve been the new Frank Sinatra if he’d just stayed alive.”