After the Sex Pistols suddenly broke up after their final concert in
San Francisco on 14 January 1978, Cook and Jones initially worked on the soundtrack to
Julien Temple's film, ''
The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle.
The two also recorded a few songs using the Sex Pistols name, Cook singing lead on the album version of the song "Silly Thing". The pair then started a new band, the Professionals, with Andy Allan. Allan caused some legal problems; he played bass on "Silly Thing" and the first few Professionals recordings, but had no recording contract and had been neither credited nor paid. Consequently, the Virgin Records compilation album Cash Cows'', which featured the Professionals' track "Kick Down the Doors", was withdrawn. Cook and Jones played together on
Johnny Thunders' solo album,
So Alone. They released four singles, recorded a
self-titled LP that was shelved until 1990, and released ''
I Didn't See It Coming'' in November 1981. The band's American tour to promote the album was cut short when band members Cook, Paul Myers, and Ray McVeigh were injured in a car crash. While the Professionals did return to America in the Spring of 1982 after recovery, Jones and Myers' drug problems further hampered the band's prospects. They declined an opening spot offer on tour for
the Clash, and broke up. In the early 1980s, Cook, along with Jones, discovered the English
new wave girl-group
Bananarama. Cook helped the trio record their debut single, "
Aie a Mwana", and acted as a producer on their 1982 debut album
Deep Sea Skiving. In the late 1980s, Cook surfaced with the group
Chiefs of Relief with former
Bow Wow Wow guitarist
Matthew Ashman, and, after a period out of the music industry, played with
Phil Collen in the 1990s. He also played on the
Edwyn Collins song
A Girl Like You, beginning a longstanding association with Collins as a session musician. Cook reunited with the surviving Sex Pistols in 1996 for the
Filthy Lucre world tour. The Sex Pistols, including Paul Cook, played a gig for the 30th anniversary of
Never Mind The Bollocks at the
Brixton Academy on 8 November 2007. To meet demand, six further gigs were added, including two on 9 and 10 November. In 2008, the Sex Pistols appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival as the headlining act on the Saturday night, the Peace and Love Festival in Sweden, the Live at Loch Lomond Festival in Scotland, and the Summercase Festival in Madrid. Cook drummed with
Man-Raze, which also featured Phil Collen from
Def Leppard and their friend
Simon Laffy who used to play in Collen's pre-Leppard band, Girl. They released a debut album
Surreal in 2008, and toured throughout the UK in late 2009. In 2011, Cook joined
Vic Godard and
Subway Sect, and renewed his collaborations with Paul Myers from the Professionals. Cook has worked with Godard, on and off, for the past two decades. They toured throughout 2012 and, in March 2012, recorded
1978 Now with Collins. In celebration of the release of a three disc set (
The Complete Professionals) by
Universal Music Group for 16 October 2015, Cook, with
Tom Spencer filling in for Steve Jones, reunited with the Professionals for a concert at the
100 Club. In January 2016, the band announced a three show tour for 17 to 19 March. A joint headline show featuring
Rich Kids was announced at London's
O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire for 16 May, then rescheduled for 23 June at the Academy Islington, due to the ongoing structural work at the venue. On 30 October 2018, Cook and Steve Jones joined
Billy Idol and
Tony James, formerly of
Generation X, for a free entry performance at
The Roxy in Hollywood,
Los Angeles, under the name Generation Sex, playing a combined set of the two former bands' material. The band reunited in 2023 for a European tour that included several festival appearances. == Personal life ==