About today's Corrie:

"I don't understand how all those people could live in a small street and all those people could go into a pub every single night and none of them have cars. I mean, can you name one street on the planet that you can go down now which isn't chock a block with cars?"

Do you need a label to put out an ?

"I'm old fashioned. I want to be institutionalised. I want to be behind the bars. I don't want to do anything, and I don't want to join a cottage industry and sell things from the back of a van." (2011)

"For the most part products are disposable, but just for that extra one that changes your direction in life, the importance of popular music just cannot be stressed enough. Music is the most important thing in the world.

"But because it's restrained by government or whatever it's passively sold as something that's not really that important. But it is and everybody knows it is, so we might as well all admit it!"

"I think there was quite a trend towards those ideals, but now people are starting to realise you don't get anywhere when you have that attitude.

"There's been lots of really wonderful people on independent labels who have failed and disappeared and that's a shame. I don't really understand what being an independent group means. I don't feel part of this little thing, whatever it is.

"Nothing in the past is important really. I was alive. That's all. If people really like - and we do have our disciples! - I don't think they're interested in whether I had a job once or Johnny owned a caravan!

"As long as we've been in existence we've used the flowers and it's interesting that in recent months quite a few groups have also begun to do exactly what I do. Like Echo and the Bunnymen and Big Country!

"The are personal - they're there to be discovered. The words are basic because I don't want anyone to miss what I'm saying. Lyrics that are intellectual or obscure are no use whatsoever.

About middle-age:

"That's a long time off and something I don't think about. But age shouldn't affect you. It's just like the size of your shoes - they don't determine how you live your life! You're either marvellous or you're boring, regardless of your age. And I'm sure you know what we are!" – , 1983 How does the new album differ from its predecessors?

Strangeways perfects every lyrical and musical notion The Smiths have ever had. It isn't dramatically, obsessively different in any way and I'm quite glad it isn't because I've been happy with the structure we've had until now. It's far and away the best record we've ever made.

What do you see as the high points?

There are so many I wouldn't know where to start. Anyway - isn't it your job to work those out?

If Strangeways is the perfect Smiths album, where do the band go from here?

I expect when the dust has settled after Strangeways there will have to be some degree of rethinking because we can't go on forever in our present form. Inevitably certain aspects of the band would become tarnished so a slight readjustment will have to be made - I think now is absolutely the right time to do it. When something becomes too easy and it's all laid out for you, one is robbed of the joy of achievement. When there's no need to fight any more, it'll be time to pull up the shutters on The Smiths. I don't think EMI have much to worry about - we're not planning anything drastic or supernatural - we'll still basically be people. It has crossed my mind to crystallise into a butterfly now and then but I don't think it's quite the right time at the moment.

Is it true that every record company in the land was queueing up to sign The Smiths? And why EMI?

As far as I know every record company wanted to TALK to us, but not really to offer us anything spectacular. EMI gave us a very concrete offer and at such times, when you just want to get the whole thing over with, one tends to lose a certain amount of rationale and the whole experience becomes very draining and emotional. EMI made us the best offer, so we signed. All this talk of f1 million signing-on fees is complete fabrication - it's a nice idea - in fact it's a VERY nice idea - but all complete fiction. I really can't tolerate the trite attitude that's surrounded The Smiths signing to EMI - the concept that it's like getting into bed with Hitler is pathetic. The indie scene in is very negative - groups within the indie movement come and go and you never even hear about them. They're never on TV, never on daytime radio - half the time I've no idea why movement bothers to exist. They seem to regard remaining isolated from the pop mainstream as being somehow morally virtuous - it's just so self-destructive. No one even knows about these ethically wonderful songs, made by these people with tremendous moral strength and willpower, so what's the point? I truly believe that to make any impact at all you have to get into the big, bad world of major record companies, ruffle a lot of feathers and kick a lot of bottoms. The record industry regards The Smiths as a private concern - we exist in our own world, selling records to "our" fans and no-one else. Frankly, we've always suspected the records are simply abandoned as soon as they start dropping down the charts.

As a writer and lyricist I think I improve hourly - a lot of people say the first surge of Smiths' records were the best but I really, really disagree. I make sure I write something every day and my flat is strewn with the debris of lyrics, finished and unfinished. I get ideas from almost everywhere but especially supermarket queues - I have a talent for eavesdropping and it's amazing what you learn while waiting to pay for your fruit juice. I go to the supermarket every day of my life and one time I was choosing some butter when this zoom lens appeared from nowhere and on the end of it was a Japanese tourist behaving like David Bailey. I nearly died on the spot - it's as near as I've ever come to chucking it all in and becoming a hermit. Another time I was shopping for some, shall we say, personal items - no I won't tell you which ones - when I was seized upon by two fans. You've got to be so careful - you never know who you might bump into in Boots.

I often wonder if we shouldn't explain ourselves more, especially as an astonishing number of people completely misunderstand The Smiths "humour". Take "Bigmouth" - I would call it a parody if THAT sounded less like self-celebration, which it definitely wasn't. It was just a really funny song - whenever I heard it on the radio it made me laugh and the same was true of at least half . The Smiths do tease people - making them laugh, then making them cry - operating at opposite ends of the emotional scale. What we're ultimately hoping to do is make them laugh and cry at the same time.

I wore NHS spectacles, which I still do so it wasn't a mantle or a badge - and suddenly I saw all these people who didn't need to wear spectacles doing so in imitation of The Smiths and bumping into an awful lot of walls. Other bands have tours sponsored by Levi's - maybe we should find a large firm of opticians. It was much the same with the earplugs - I never needed a hearing aid but recently I caught a serious ear infection and literally went deaf for about four weeks. Naturally I took this as retribution for wearing a hearing aid. It was hellish - four weeks of "pardon" jokes at my expense. Someone coined it as disability chic, through which The Smiths reached out to certain parts of the public who never felt they fit the perfect mould of "pop fan". There are lots of people who want to be a member of the audience, want to get involved in the music and the lifestyle but don't feel interested in the constant chase for fashion perfection that most bands inflict on their audience. Fashion has gone through periods of being completely redundant - mainly the fault of fashion magazines illustrating the things you can buy if you're dramatically, overbearingly rich, but are of no use at all to ordinary people living in humble places. I find with, for example, Comme Des Garcons clothes, their style of being quite basic but hellishly expensive is very interesting.

"Fame, fame, fatal fame, it can play hideous tricks on the brain" - what tricks has it played on yours?

I still find it difficult when people come up to me in public places because I tend to get approached in lots of different ways and learning how to cope with them is a nightmare. People can approach me and be very emotional or openly hostile and you're at a distinct disadvantage when they know everything about you and you know nothing about them - especially when I realise they don't like me very much. It's a very odd feeling - people come up to me and say the most unpleasant things - I'm not sure why they do it - the trick is to walk away - backwards and slowly.

Why don't you write songs for women?

I'd always believed, obviously erroneously, that I WAS singing and writing for everybody. But after the thousandth person came up and said, "why don't you write songs for women?" I had to confess I was wrong. I've always felt that I write in a universal language that's relevant to every sex, race and creed. Oh well, another myth strikes the dust.

Can you imagine any circumstances under which you might possibly consider trendsetting?

Good gracious, no. But then again, in doing what I do, it's almost unavoidable. I don't like anything new - I'm really not modern to any degree at all. Take houses - I like old, dark properties, Victorian or Georgian preferably, with very old furniture. I can't stand maisonettes. It's really nothing to do with coming from the north - southerners always regard having lived in the north as a strange medical phenomenon or the reason for having an unusual diet or peculiar haircut. But I was never aware of people in the north sharing my views on furniture or housing. I do not think taste is something you automatically acquire by virtue of being born south of Milton Keynes. "Style" is such a loose word - I tend to find that I'm chained somewhere in the middle of this century. Almost everything in the art world that appeals to me is not even post-war.

Are you a grim person?

(Guffawing with laughter): Yes, I suppose I am really, I think it's an attitude that should be encouraged. ...No, I don't really think so but people tend to look at my interviews and regard me as some kind of character from a Dickensian soup kitchen. There ARE plenty of things that do give me pleasure - although I can't actually think of any at the moment. I've been termed a manic depressive - usually by people who've never met me, but I am capable of looking on the bright side - I just don't do it very often. One of The Smiths' skills has been to take subjects which people might lazily presume are dark and morbid and make them interesting, or turn them into the subjects of interesting songs. I'm hardly some kind of crazed remnant of total monolithic depression. Am I? I do have taste above all, which is why I'm considered out of step with anything that could be regarded as slightly hip. And because I have taste, and I don't really blend in with the general colour of 1987, people think I'm some sort of monument from the last century.

You seem worried by the general level of bad taste pervading in life, the universe and everything? It's something I'm very, very concerned about - but it's such a huge, uncontrollable monster that I can't imagine tackling it successfully. Finding people with genuine, bona-fide taste is such a very rare thing nowadays. I believe that everything went downhill from the moment the McDonald's chain was given license to invade England - don't laugh, I'm serious - to me it was like the outbreak of war and I couldn't understand why English troops weren't retaliating. The Americanisation of England is such a terminal illness - I think England should be English and Americans should go home and spoil their own country. Shopping centres are the worst - they're a boil on the face of the Earth. I regard modern architecture as more dangerous than nuclear war - it'll absolutely slaughter the human race. And as for council houses - they can only be designed for the purpose of eliminating the working classes from the face of the Earth.

Are The Smiths the last conscience of England?

It's an interesting statement and I suspect if you bullied me I'd agree with it. We're always being advised to go abroad for 12 months to avoid all this awful, dreadful, nasty tax but I couldn't go anywhere for 12 weeks, let alone 12 months (which is why The Smiths have never done a world tour). I could never live anywhere else - I absolutely adore England, I really do. Not many people see what I see - so many romantic elements of English life buried beneath the corrosion. I'm the only person I know how can take a day-trip to Carlisle and get emotional about what he sees. I do object to the level of taxes I have to pay - every time I get a tax demand and I look at the figures, I literally drop 11 stone in weight. Which makes me a very light person. Other pop people have similar reactions - mostly they cry, openly cry in the middle of the street. It is truly a terrible sight for onlookers to behold. Coming from a Labour background I still vote for them but my affiliations are obviously more confused than they used to be, although no more compromised.

That's true of every aspect of my life even when I was unemployed and a hopeless medical case back in years ago. I would never attempt to obtain anything that wasn't exactly what I wanted. Whether it was a job, or books, or furniture, I could never make do. I find there are so many people who start out "making do" with certain things in their life and find out 30 years later they are still "making do" and waiting for their lives to begin. If you don't have very strong principles it's SO easy to fall into mediocrity. Neither Johnny nor I are compromisers which, plus the fact that we've never been prepared to do anything for money, means we've avoided many of the classic temptations of the "Whirlwind Of Pop". But because it's never meant anything to me, it's been relatively easy to sidestep all the glamour and gloss and the whole facetiousness of the pop industry. Obviously in some ways The Smiths have lost out, but in other, more effective ways, we've gained by remaining relatively secluded.

But the attaining of wealth must have made some impact on your personality?

Having money HAS changed me in some ways but the intrinsic parts of my character which go to make me so remarkably interesting haven't changed at all. I'm still very humble and foolishly grateful - it only changes you to the extent that you know you're not going to starve to death next week, but in the very serious ways it hasn't changed me at all. When it comes to ruffling feathers I think I'm doing pretty well, don't you? I'm certainly getting about - in fact there isn't really much left. That's another funcion of songwriting - if people double-cross me, I'll just sit down and write a nasty song about them.

Do you miss living in the north?

I do, but it's just not feasible to stay there at this time in my life. Old ladies still leave presents outside my house in Manchester - cards, fruit, flowers, fluffy toys - all of which are much appreciated. Why do they do it? They want to mother me I suppose. Yes, I am ready to be mothered - allcomers are welcome. All they need to do is make an appointment. The whole Gracie Fields, George Formby, Frank Randall (a well- known northern comedian) mentality is one I completely worship. I adore those old northern troupers and I'd love to be remembered as following in their tradition, but it seems doubtful I'll be remembered at all. When they bury me in church and chuck earth on my grave, I'd like the words "Well at least he tried" engraved on my tombstone.

What do you regard as the most upsetting experience of your life?

I don't drive because I cannot cope with the Highway Code. I took a test 10 years ago and failed on the Highway Code - isn't that ludicrous? I'd hate anyone to know that... although it's too late now of course. That was definitely the first major shock I ever had. What was the second one? I'll let you know when it happens.

– Morrissey, , September 26, 1987

- What are your strongest feelings?

"Music and fashion has become really bland. It doesn't mean anything anymore. Youth has no movement; everyone is just jumping on each other's bandwagon. I'd like to see that change." Johnny

- What does the word soul mean to you?

"Something that people are particularly afraid to expose. I don't know why; maybe they're afraid of intimacy — it's so private."

"And it effects those people not directly involved, like housewives. They may see a punk in Sainsburys and take no notice, whereas 5 years ago they'd have freaked out. Music dictates everything socially, and bands influence people in that society by what they say." Johnny

- Are you ever tempted by that power?

"We're obviously tempted, because it's so powerful, like films used to be. It effects people's lives so much and it's so tempting to change people's lives. That's true power because people's lives are so isolated in this modern age. I think the best power you could have is to get people to think about themselves with a reflective influence because people are so complacent about everything." Morrissey

"I feel sorry for the punters who fall for that stuff. Like most people wearing 'Exploited' on their jacket don't even know what the word means." Johnny (1983)

"I tremble at the power we have, that's how I feel about the Smiths. It's there and it's going to happen."

- Your finale tells that "(Love Is Just A) Miserable Lie". Do you believe it, that people are totally separate, even from an ultimate state of love?

"Yes. Unfortunately. But there's an optimism in admitting it... Explain? Oh I could tell you of years of celibacy when I just couldn't cope with physical commitment because it always failed. I suppose I'm unnatural in the general scheme of things, because I have these feelings."

"These are desperate times. But I don't think we should join in with the desperation. We should conquer it. I'm fed up with this depressive attitude people have."

Morrissey: "The British music press is an art form."

- Garry Bushell?

"There is always an exception to a rule."

"We want to make friends, we want to have people around us. Isn't that what everybody wants deep down? I'm sure when you were at school all you really cared about was being popular. All we really care about is being popular and that's why we try hard to please."

Johnny: Well, we were very conscious when we started of not being preconceived. Even that sounds preconceived! When me and Morrissey got together to write a catalogue of songs it became immediately apparent that the songs we were writing needed bass and drums to make them work - so the 'conventional' set up was completed.

Johnny: "You confound people by using gimmicks like having long unintelligible names and that's exactly what we're reacting against.

(1984)

- More arrogance from the man Morrissey? Perhaps. He's well aware of his reputation for lacking in modesty, but doesn't intend to change his ways.

"It's not really arrogance," he pleads, "If you're not dramatically shy in this business, you're an overbearing bore. It's all quite confusing. I feel that if you have something the world could benefit from, then you should put it in the front window with a red light above it."

"I really do expect the highest critical praise for the album," he says calmly. "I think it's a complete signal post in the history of popular music." (1984) Looking up from under his mop of hair, agrees with him. "I'd really hate it if we cut off our noses to spite our face like they do. We'd just be closing doors on ourselves, when really we want to be massive. We want to attain the highest position possible so we have the power to get our music across, and pollute people's homes with it."

"Well," says Morrissey, "when you see that the money is there, that somebody has to have it, and that most of the people who do have it are totally brainless, it gives you some incentive to say, well, I'm having the money. But there's this kind of underhanded slur about being a pop figure — that it's embarrassing in some way — but I feel that the kind of people that hold this position are entirely shallow creatures anyway."

"I think you can do almost anything in this business and walk away with the height of credibility. If you have enough faith in yourself, and there is enough depth in what you are doing, then nothing should crush you. You could appear on Crackerjack every night of the week and still be considered the most intellectual group imaginable."

As far as the press see it what I do lyrically can almost be interpreted as obscene, which of course it never can be. I think it's a sad reflection on modern journalism that this thing constantly comes up. To us it's just like asking about our verukas or something. Simply to concentrate on one small distasteful aspect really belittles everything else we do." (1984)

All the interviews were becoming completely predictable, because everybody was asking me the same questions. When it appeared in print, it seemed as though I was very boring and that I could only talk about a limited number of things. That wasn't true; it was just that I was answering the same questions. I needed to step back, so I've only done one in the last four months, which for me shows great restraint.

- Has all that introspective probing given you a better understanding of yourself, in a vague and general sense?

In a very vague and general sense... it's difficult to say. The other night, I went out for the first time in ages and somebody came up to me and said, "Do that funny dance that you do!" I felt completely repellent - as if I was some character off a situation comedy; some stand-up comic with a wooley hat and a tickling-stick. It seems, at times like that, as though everything has got completely out of hand. Certainly, in interviews, nobody asks me about music - only as the spokesman for a generation, which is quite appealing, but quite strangulating also. I'm absolutely responsible, I wouldn't deny that. I admit that it has become difficult to confront these overbearing issues twenty-four hours a day. Obviously, though, I'd never go back.

"We've done a lot of work this year and achieved a great deal, much more than we've been given credit for. It's been a most thrilling year and as four individuals, we are closer than ever. Although everything written in the press has been strong, it has become quite difficult to live with. I've been quite aware for a few months that many journalists were trying to prise Johnny and I apart in some way. We've weathered that and we've weathered the most difficult backlash, which occurred in the beginning of the summer. I feel we're quite impenetrable. For me, almost all the records have been absolutely perfect, but I can't deny that there are some that haven't aged so gracefully - "What Difference Does It Make?" ... I regret the production on that now. But that's the only regret, although I might seem like the kind of person that has many regrets."

- Have you realised that there's a limit to how far you can push the public face of Morrissey?

[smiles] "There are no limits and I intend to make full use of that fact. Lots of detractors have suggested that The Smiths have become too 'industry', too poppy. It always seems that, once you are accepted in artistic terms, then your records have no value. That's utter bosh to me. I know journalists who, one year ago, were madly dedicated - now, they make the most absurd, sweeping criticisms. When you to this industry, you see how it is orchestrated by utter apes. When you're a member of the audience, sitting in the stalls, the whole idea of making records is inexhaustibly wonderful. When you get into the thick of it, you realise that the whole thing is swamped by oafs."

"Thankfully, The Smiths became familiar through success, but I don't agree that we were exhausting any set formula. Even if we wanted to be that way, I don't think we could, because that's the type of people we are. This goes for every single member of the group, we are not pop stars and we're not in any traditional mould. I find it impossible to be flattered by pop success but I don't know why. Maybe, I just have very high standards and I don't think we've even begun to reach them, so it doesn't mean a thing to me when people come up and shout, "Phenomenal! Number 43!!!". It doesn't mean anything, although it is important to me that we've reached this scale of success. I'd think it was a waste of time if we were still in the position around the time of "". Then again, for the type of group that we are, I don't believe that our popularity reflects how big we are as a group."

"I remember for a long time feeling totally charmless and unhandsome and I know there are so many others who still feel the same way. It's time that all those people moved in on this whole shebang and if necessary pretend to have charm. For too long this sphere of entertainment has been dominated by the big mouths and the small minds."

" When your 'private' life is magnified in such a way, you know that nothing will happen to make you shirk and shrink. It's a massive trap, because I announced that I was celibate... so now, journalists telephone me day after day, to see if anything has changed. I can laugh about it now, but the laughter probably conceals a mass delirium. It's strange because eighteen months ago, nobody on the planet heard that I was alive. Now, to have your cuff- links the subject of massive national concern is quite curious."

- Have you ever resorted to lying to make something more interesting?

I believe in that idea but I've never found it necessary. But I'll certainly consider it for the future [laughs]! I think of myself and marvel at the fact that there is someone in popular music who is not mute. I read other people's interviews and I'm fast asleep before I reach the end of the first paragraph - people making records are so dramatically dull; the people who are considered to be the heart of the music industry and the final saviours of pop are so remarkably dim. I feel it is quite irregular and virtually immoral for someone in my place to be able to get from one sentence to another, regardless of what I'm talking about. Recently, I've been out to see groups - considered to be the pulse of modern popular music - and I've come away laughing hysterically. I feel sad that so many bland creatures could be the centre of such intellectual probing. - What's been your favourite moment this year?

There's been so many colourful moments and so many disastrous ones - so many nightmares. I'm pushed to tears very often, usually by our own performances. On the last few dates that we did, the crowd were singing so loud, louder than myself, I was drowned out to the extent that there was no point in me singing at all. I was physically moved to tears because of that. When people feel such tremendous, overblown emotion that they want to shout the words, hurl their bodies forward and leap on the stage - to me, that is the height of human emotion.

- Do you think The Smiths, as a band, push themselves to the limit?

Totally. I see them as very extreme and in very positive ways. We never listen to everyone else. I think the only thing to do with advice is to ignore it because people will never understand the real you. They' re never there when your group begins - they're never in your room when you're writing lyrics. So, I don't presume that they're going to understand my music and they don't. When people say erroneous things that are positive, I don't mind. When they say erroneous things that are negative, I feel very strong about it.

There was all that fuss about '' in the newspapers, all these comments and opinions from people who knew nothing about the group and nothing about music. I felt very sad and angry about that, so much just being headlines. Nobody had approached me and there were long, inflated comments, "Morrissey says this..." and "Morrissey wrote it for this reason...". All of it was totally untrue and I couldn't understand why nobody had asked me. At one point, someone from The rang up, giving me the chance to give my side of the story. Of course, they weren't interested that I got on famously with the parents of the victims. So, they wouldn't print the story. Well, that really upset me.

Joining The Smiths was like a purging for me - it's been like a life-raft. Otherwise, nobody would have cared what I said about anything, which is quite sad. It means that, if you're an anonymous person, and you have very strong views, you're considered insane and you're closer to an asylum than a knighthood. But when you cross over and you become quite famous, everything you say is quite interesting to people, then you're never considered insane. If I had stood in the middle of a Manchester housing estate and announced, 'I'm celibate', I probably would have been shot. I find it very difficult to be complacent. When somebody says something nauseating, I'm ready to attack - I'm not incapable of violence and I'm not incapable of being undiplomatic. I'm not a delicate bloom by any means. I get angry when The Smiths are talked about in such short-sighted terms, the very fundamental, nonsensical things."

I don't do anything just to surprise people. I'm not thinking, "Now, what will fox them next?". It's not a circus and I'm not some trapeze artist. I think The Smiths are an irregular group, regardless of what we do.

- You've talked before though of losing your excitement for life. I mean... you're still very young. [I watch him smile.]

It's like what I mentioned before about things seeming so wonderful from a distance, but when you go to Rome, you're bored and you want to come straight back home to Scunthorpe. It's a bit like that. When you're doing television programmes every day, interviews every day, being whisked up and down the country, you begin to get a headache. You just want to sit at home and do nothing, and you're made to feel that when you lose your zest for these 'glamorous' activities, there's something wrong.

- Have you exhausted most of your ambitions this year?

No, because we still want to make lots of records and ultimately, that's the only thing that matters. Other things we can do without, they're not important.

- Do you never feel you've given it all away - exhausted all your passions?

I've given up a lot of my and some of that comes back to age, I regret to say. With almost everyone I've ever met in the music industry, they have music and success, but they also have their private lives - family or whatever. They can switch off, do something that is totally unrelated to music. But I've never done that, for me it's this way all the time, it's just music all the time. Besides that, I never think of my limitations, I just can't consider them because I can't consider failure.

I don't see that The Smiths have to change, it's just not necessary. People have got so used to modern artists changing so much that they expect it. To me, that just hints at massive insecurity. I have to say this again - I still feel that The Smiths have hardly begun, we've just scratched the surface. We'll last for a very long time. Because we entered the industry with such a furore, people thought it stank of hype and imagine we were a temporary attraction. I think people are beginning to come to terms with the fact that we will be around for a very long time.

Also, I must say that the material on the second official LP, which we're recording right now, is stronger than ever. We're still using the traditional, fundamental instruments and keeping it very basic. We still get such dramatically passionate feedback from Smiths' devotees and that makes me even more secure about the situation. I can't feel passionate about any one thing, besides The Smiths. It's like my most consistent fantasy throughout life - that we're of some value, feeling that we were here and we did something. Now, I'm pleased to say that I have. (1984)

As a small child, he says, "I was quite deliriously happy. We had no money, but they were naively pleasant times. But as a teenager, I could never stress how depressed I was."

"I lived a hopelessly isolated life," he remembers. "I literally never, ever met people. I wouldn't set foot outside of the house for three weeks on a run. The power of the written word really stung me, and I was also entirely immersed in popular music. I thought the marriage of both things was the absolute perfect."

"There's a certain spirit that people now crave because everybody is depressed. We're moving rapidly into a sphere that nobody wants to go into. Progress doesn't seem to be in any degree pleasant. Everything modern is quite foul."

(1984) - Do you regard success as a form of revenge, Morrissey?

"Oh absolutely and entirely a form of revenge, yes I do."

- And is it sweet?

"Remarkably sweet. I like the taste, yes. More, please!"

- Did you ever go in for sports, at all?

"Yes. I was quite classically good. I've got an array of impressive medals for various sports. Which is the last thing people expect me to say - they think I hid in the showers day after day. Which I certainly considered... I particularly liked running. But then, I had to be a good runner, for reasons I'll leave unstated! I ran ferociously, everywhere."

- Why can't you buy decently-cut men's trousers anywhere in the British Isles?

"It's so difficult. Trousers in England are a dreadful problem, I find. It's unfathomable." (1985)

- Are The Smiths past their best?

"Well everybody tells me that The Smiths have peaked. I don't believe it, and I'm the one who knows. You probably won't accept this, but really, if I felt there was a speck of truth in such a statement I would honestly admit it. There is no point just forcing your face on the British public.

"I quite sincerely believe that the best is yet to come."

What could you do outside The Smiths?

"It doesn't really matter. The important thing is knowing when your time is up, and getting out. Very few people do. I like to feel that I'll know. Some people would say that time is now (laughs), but I don't. I'm a mere child, really."

You could go solo, write books, make films...

"I want to do everything eventually, but not at once. Surely it would be more than the British public could stand if I took on another career!

"No. Civilised measures of Morrissey are quite enough for anybody..." (1985)

- How did the American crowd react to the Smiths?

"For me to say it was more fanatical than anything that's happened in England would seem somehow to decry or look down upon what happened here - which, of course, I never could. But it was certainly quite dramatic. And I really don't believe it happens to everyone.

"We went over there I think, with quite a humble nature and we didn't expect any fanatical fervour or uncontrollable hysteria. Therefore, when it happened I was rendered speechless for months. "Meeting the people there was an extraordinary eye opener because one is fed all these fixed impressions of the American music buying public and they didn't turn out to be that way. They turned out to be rational, incredibly sensitive poetic human beings." (1985)

- Are you willing to give yourselves over completely to the industry to attain this mega success then?

"Well, my belief now is that because we have such unusual control over the situation, all these things can be covered in a very skillful and artistic way," (eyes turning heavenward). "See how I got out of that one! Obviously, we've avoided video for all our career - and it's paid tremendous dividends and it's been somewhat of a blot on the face of the industry. I always said that we could become successful without a video and we have done, so the point has been proved," (pause). "I'm not leading up to saying we're about to make a video."

- If you'd written the song 'Reasons To Be Cheerful, Pt III', what would be in it?

"I think it would have been an instrumental."

- What if you'd been forced?

"I'm never forced. I'd rather walk the plank than submit to any pressure. So, no, it would have definitely been an instrumental."

(1985)

"I'm really chained to those iron bridges. I'm really chained to the pier. I'm persistently on some disused clearing in Wigan. I shall be buried there, I'm sure, and I shall be glad to go at that point." (Morrissey, Feb 1984)

"I'm not totally averse to violence. I think it's quite attractively necessary in some extremes. Violence on behalf of CND is absolutely necessary... obviously CND care about the people and that's why they do what they do. That's patriotism." (Morrissey, December 1984)

"Personally, I'm an incurably peaceable character. But where does it get you? Nowhere. You have to be violent." (Morrissey, March 1985)

Pops these days one had to be, by law, black. I think something political has happened and there has been a hefty pushing of all these black artists and all this discofied nonsense into the Top 40... In essence, this music doesn't say anything whatsoever." (Morrissey, September 1986)

"To those who took offence at ('Panic''s) 'Burn down the disco' line I'd say — please show me the black members of New Order! For me, personally, New Order make great disco music, but there's no black people in the group. You can't just interchange the words 'black' and 'disco'." (Johnny Marr, February 1987) "I believe that everything went downhill from the moment the McDonalds chain was given license to invade England — don't laugh, I'm serious. To me it was like the outbreak of war and I can't understand why English troops weren't retaliating. The Americanisation of England is such a terminal illness — I think England should be English, and Americans should go home and spoil their own country." (Morrissey, September 1987)

"Even the English language, I find, has been hoplessly mucked about with and everything is American or Australian. It's astonishing but it's so rife. But because is such a weak Prime Minister any influence American business wishes to have on England, it has. They've completely taken over Newcastle."

I thought that was the Japanese?

"Well, American/Japanese, they're all foreign... I don't mean that." (Morrissey, February 1989)

Do you pine for a mythical Britain?

"Perhaps. It's certainly . England doesn't only not rule the waves, it's actually sunk below them. And all that remains is debris. But in amongst the debris shine slits of positivity."

If you aren't a racist, are you a patriot?

"Yes, I am. I find travelling very hard. I miss England." (Morrissey, May 1991)

How accurate are your visualizations on the finished song? Is it trial and error?

To be honest, the parts that I think will work almost always do. But in the process of gluing one part over another, new parts spring to life. So there is a fair amount of trial and error. I'm into experimentation, but that only feels good once you know you've got a really good song cooking. I don't believe in doodling around, waiting for inspiration to drop through the ceiling. If I'm not hearing anything, I'll go for a walk for 15 minutes. Actually, I come up with my best melodies away from the , like when I'm in a taxi, or making tea in the studio, hearing the track from down the corridor. The ones I sing before I play them are always my favorites. (Johnny Marr, 1990)

I'm trying to be open to any ideas, so long as they're fairly melodic and they relate to what the singer is singing. I'll try any trick. With the Smiths, I'd take this really loud Telecaster of mine, lay it on top of a Reverb with the vibrato on, and tune it to an open chord. Then I'd drop a knife with a metal handle on it, hitting random strings. I used that on " If You Think You've Heard This One Before" [from Strangeways, Here We Come] for the big "doings" at the start. And I used it on "" [from The Smiths], buried beneath about 15 tracks of guitar. (Johnny Marr, 1990)

But in the beginning, it was good to be in a group that stood for and against certain things. We were against synthesizers, the Conservative government, groups with names like "Orchestral Manoeuvers In The Dark," the English monarchy, cock-rock guitar solos, and the American music scene at the time. We stood for the Englishness of the Kinks, T-Rex, and , the arty quirks that kept those groups from being huge in the U.S. We were into , the MC5, the Group, Oscar Wilde, [playwright] Shelagh Delaney, and certain actors. Some things were really important to us, and we made no secret of our obsessions. Morrissey and I wanted to be a modern-day Leiber and Stoller, writing bubblegum backing tracks with intense lyrics. We weren't minimalistic, but we wanted to sound very home-grown, not like a polished major-label group. I'm very proud of everything we did, musically, lyrically, and politically. It was a really great time, but only a fool doesn't know when it's time to stop. (Johnny Marr, 1990)

Very much the Englishman abroad, he is untouched by LA life. A handsome devil, he looks the picture of health. Charming, polite, eloquent and funny, with no trace of a Californian twang, he speaks in lyrical Northern whispers.

"It's fascinating to wake up and have no idea what's about to happen," he says. "I can't imagine standing at a bus stop at 10 to eight every morning. Tea, books, a sofa... that's a great way to live." (Morrissey, '97)

"It's the British way to punish people who won't play their games. If you're absent from Britain for any length of time, you arrive back at Heathrow and scan the headlines of all those British newspapers and get the general idea. (Morrissey, 1999)

What are the advantages of being rich?

None really. Which is why I find it sad to meet people who are totally geared toward finance. I know for a fact that it's quite meaningless. Of course, it's easy for me to say that as I lounge here. But it's true. You may be a billionaire, but if you contract cancer, you may as well live in a bedsit in Birmingham. (Morrissey, '95)

Do you work out? No, not at all. I don't do anything. I'd never feel confident in a gym. I wheel a trolley around Waitrose. (Morrissey, '95)

Girl afraid - "I had just got back from New York and was obsessed with . I just kept thinking, 'What'd sound like Little Richard on guitar?', which is how I came up with it.

"I started to think about melodies. For example, Girl Afraid, which is an extra track on the Knows single; I started off playing 'pidgin' piano in the studio one day and transferred it to guitar. When I wrote the song I was conscious that it should have a fast New Orleans piano part. It turned into a Kinks-style, real 60's erratic drum beat bop, which is fine but it started off as a piano part!" - Johnny Marr

Still Ill - "Looking back on the first album now I can say that I'm not as madly keen on it as I was. I think that a lot of the fire was missing on it and most of our supporters realise that as well. Although having said that, '' and 'Suffer Little Children' and 'Hand That Rocks' are all still great songs."

"'Still Ill' came to me on the train back from to Manchester around the time of Hand In Glove's ." - Johnny Marr

Hand In Glove - "When we did 'Hand In Glove,' that was brilliant because it was a fantastic piece of vinyl. But there was never a time when I put my feet up and said, 'Ah, I'm happy.'"

"That song came about when I was round my parents' house one Sunday evening. I started playing this riff on a crappy guitar I kept there. Angie - who's now my wife - was with me and she kept saying, 'That's really good!' I was panicking because I had nothing to record it on, so we decided to drive to Morrissey's, because he had a tape recorder. I sat in the back of the car playing the riff over and over so I wouldn't forget it. On the way, as is her want, Angie kept saying, 'Make it sound more like Iggy'. I was just hoping Morrissey would be in. Well, I knew he would be, he was always in. When we got there he was a bit taken aback, it hadn't been arranged and it was a Sunday night-unheard of! He let me in and I played the riff and he said, 'That's very good'. About five days later we were rehearsing and Morrissey wanted to play the song. When we heard the vocals to that we were all like,wow... From then on it was always going to be the first single." - Johnny Marr

What Difference Does It Make? - "It was all right. I didn't think it was a particularly strong one. A lot of people liked it and it got to No. 10. It followed 'This Charming Man' and was part of that peak. It was all right. It went down great live, and that's when I liked it.

Every song has to be worth doing every single night. There was one stage where I was playing 'What Difference Does It Make?' seven or eight gigs on the trot and I didn't like the feeling. I knew that not why I had got involved in a band in the first place." - Johnny Marr

"What 'William It Was Really Nothing' is about is... it occurred to me that within popular music if ever there were any records that discussed marriage they were always from the female's standpoint - female singers singing to women: whenever there were any songs saying 'do not marry, stay single, self-preservation, etc'. I thought it was about time there was a male voice speaking directly to another male saying that marriage was a waste of time... that, in fact, it was 'absolutely nothing'." - Morrissey

"Some [tracks] may have been sped up. I don't know whether 'Wiliiam' was though; I didn't think so, just because it was so fast when we played it, we can't have wanted it even faster!

This Charming Man

"Of all our singles I think I like 'This Charming Man' best, just because the rhythms are so infectious. Smiths music really moves me." -

"A couple of days before I wrote 'This Charming Man' I'd heard 'Walk Out To Winter' (by Aztec Camera) on Radio 1, and I felt a little jealous. My competitive urges kicked in. I felt that we needed something up-beat and in a major key for Rough Trade to get behind. That's why I wrote it in the key of G, which to this day I rarely do. I knew that 'This Charming Man' would be our next single. I did the whole thing in one go into this TEAC 3-track tape recorder that I used to write on. I came up with the basic chords and immediately overdubbed the top line and intro riff."

"I wrote This Charming Man for a session. I just leapt out of bed and wrote it. It was the culmination of trying to find a way of playing that was non-rock but still expressed my personality. I felt we needed something more upbeat in a different key and was miffed that Aztec Camera's was getting on the radio and we weren't. That's why it's got that sunny disposition; my usual default setting was Manchester in the rain. When we were recording it, Rough Trade's Geoff Travis came in and said: 'That's got to be the single.'"

"I remember writing it, it was in preparation for a John Peel single. I wrote it the same night as 'Pretty Girls Make Graves' and 'Still Ill'."

"I don't want to be playing 'This Charming Man' when I'm... 22." - Johnny Marr

How Soon Is Now? - "I had an impression of what Creedence were supposed to be about, partly because I had already gotten into The Gun Club and heard 'Run Through The Jungle' from their second album. It triggered off some echoes of what I'd heard of Creedence. So I made this demo, 'Swamp', trying to capture the same vibe. It didn't have the tremelo figure on it, but it had the slide part in regular concert tuning. It was quite a pretty figure, but only hinting at what it became. It was still quite passive, nowhere near as intense as it got. I remember us playing it for a while and me really hoping that we could make it sound like a Smiths track, because the chances were it might not have. We kicked it around until it did feel like us, but I could tell that it had something lacking. So I saw my opportunity to throw the tremelo part down that I'd been looking to use for quite a while."

"It was my boyhood love of 'Disco Stomp', Can's 'I Want More' and then tying the whole thing together with the Bo Diddley bow, as it were. That was the whole thing."

"I wanted an intro that was almost as potent as 'Layla.' When it plays in a club or a pub, everyone knows what it is."

"I've actually started using a digital delay line, just because for one song in particular I needed to use it. I just sent the effect straight through the Fender twin. The song is the 'B' side of the twelve-inch 'William, It Was Really Nothing' and it's called 'How Soon Is Now?' which is a 'Bo Diddley' thing, so I had to have the vibrato. I sent all the signal through the Fender twin and just put straight guitar through the Roland. I just stuck a slide on and it worked. I was a little bit worried because it was difficult to play. For the first time I'd done something really in the studio which I had to reproduce live. We've done lots of things which I'd never be able to reproduce live just because there are more important things going on. The songs have never suffered because I normally tend to play them the way they're written live and if an overdub turns out to be an essential part of the song maybe I'll switch to that. 'How Soon Is Now?' is quite a difficult one as there are two completely separate guitar parts that can't be played at the same time. What I do is change to a guitar which has the bottom four strings tuned conventionally, but the E string is tuned a third above the B. I play into the digital delay and put it on hold to play over it. I just take the hold off when we get to the other bits and I can play that with the bottom four strings and then the hold goes back on. I had to send the signal through the Fender twin because of the vibrato. The only difficulty with using vibrato all the way through a song is that you've got to really get it in time and Mike the drummer has got to ride the beat. I was really panicking before the gigs but it turned out OK. It doesn't sound exactly the same live as on the record but it is still as powerful and still as atmospheric so I'm happy with it." "'How Soon Is Now' was in F# tuning. I wanted a very swampy sound, a modern bayou song. It's a straight E riff, followed by open G and F#m7. The chorus uses open B, A, and D shapes with the top two strings ringing out. The vibrato sound is fucking incredible, and it took a long time. I put down the rhythm track on an Epiphone Casino through a Fender Twin Reverb without vibrato. Then we played the track back through four old Twins, one on each side. We had to keep all the amps vibratoing in time to the track and each other, so we had to keep stopping and starting the track, recording it in 10-second bursts. I wish I could remember exactly how we did the slide part -- not writing it down is one of the banes of my life! We did it in three passes through a harmonizer, set to some weird interval, like a sixth. There was a different harmonization for each pass. For the line in harmonics, I retuned the guitar so that I could play it all at the 12th fret with natural harmonics. It's doubled several times."

"In ‘How Soon Is Now’ the harmonic lick is from Lovebug Starski: that was me getting one up on the journalists, putting a lick from a hip-hop record into a Smiths song. "

"If you were to play 'How Soon Is Now?' on piano or acoustic guitar, it wouldn't have the same impact as the finished article – the power of the record has a lot to do with the sound and the instrumentation and not necessarily the words and . That's very satisfying for me because 'How Soon Is Now?' is built on the guitar – unlike poetry, sound is something that's beyond intellectual ideas, it's primal and otherworldly. But I was ecstatic when the words came on top of the music. They are actually quite brilliant. The contrast between the two worlds that Morrissey and I lived in worked especially well on 'How Soon Is Now?'. That's what made our songwriting partnership so interesting; the intellectual, self-conscious analysis, and the streetwise druggy exuberance."

"As a kid I was fascinated by Hamilton Bohannon's 'Disco Stomp' and 'New York Groove' by Hello, and I wanted to make something with that stomp. The first decent amp I got was the Fender Twin because the Patti Smith Group used it, and it had this amazing tremolo. Later when we'd had a few hits, a review of What Difference Does It Make said I'd written a riff that was instantly recognizable, which fascinated me. One night I was playing for my own pleasure and I suddenly got the riff. It all came together - the tremolo and the stomping groove - for what became How Soon Is Now, although my demo was titled Swamp. Because it was a groove track it originally appeared as an extra track on a 12-inch, but popular clamor forced its single release. I remember when Morrissey first sang: 'I am the son and the heir...' went, 'Ah great, the elements!' Morrissey continued, '...of a shyness that is criminally vulgar.' I knew he'd hit the bullseye there and then. - Johnny Marr

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now - "We went to America to play Danceteria on New Year's Eve and Mike got ill so we couldn't do the rest of the gigs, and 'Heaven Knows' was written in a hotel room while me and Morrissey were waiting to go home. And I wrote the music for 'Girl Afraid' the day I got back, so really we were more concerned with what came next. I don't really like 'Heaven Knows'. Well, I like it but less than the others. I don't like the tune and the backing track. I don't like the rhythm or anything."

"'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now' is a period piece to me. It's probably a lot of people's introduction to this strange band with the flowers or whatever, but as a musical experience I'm not that keen on it." - Johnny Marr Accept Yourself - "The fundamental request of Smithdom. Simply accept yourself, be yourself, relax, don't worry about anything as there's no point." – Morrissey

Back to the Old House - "‘Back To The Old House’ I wrote with my wife in mind." - Johnny Marr

Reel Around The Fountain - "'Reel Around The Fountain' was my interpretation of Jimmy Jones' version of 'Handy Man'. It came from one of mine and Joe Moss' marathon R&B record sessions one morning at Crazy Face. We went from listening to The Platters, which I wasn't really getting behind, to Jimmy Jones. I remerbered hearing the track from when I was a kid, 'cos one of me aunties or somebody used to play it. So I remembered the melody of 'Handy Man' but then when I tried to play it myself I got it all wrong, which was useful really. I was trying to do a classic melodic pop tune, and it had the worst kind of surface prettiness to it. But at the same time, was influencing everybody in England. That dark element -- it wasn't that I wanted to be like them, but they brought out something in the darkness of the overall track. In a sense, was one of the most influential and writers of the '80s. There would never have been a U2 or a Cure if it hadn't been for Joy Division." -Johnny Marr

The Headmaster Ritual - The nuts and bolts of The Headmaster Ritual came together during the first album, and I just carried on playing around with it. It started off as a very sublime sort of Joni Mitchell-esque chord figure; I played it to Morrissey but we never took it further. Then, as my life got more and more intense, so did the song. The bridge and the chorus part were originally for another song, but I put them together with the first part. That was unusual for me; normally I just hammer away at an idea until I've got a song. It's in open D turning, with a capo at the second fret. Again, it was heavily overdubbed. It was a very exciting period for me - realising I could hijack 16 tracks all for myself.

I wrote 'The Headmaster Ritual' on acoustic. It's in an open-D tuning with a capo at the 2nd fret. I fancied the idea of a strange Joni Mitchell tuning, and the actual progression is like what she would have done had she been an MC5 fan or a punk rocker. I knew pretty much what every guitar track would be before we started. There are two tracks of Martin D-28, and the main riff is two tracks of . I wasn't thinking specifically of ' 'Day Tripper' -- even though it sounds like it -- but I did think of it as a part. The Rickenbacker belonged to Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music; I'm told that it was originally owned by Roger McGuinn. All the are in open tuning, except for one of the chorus guitars, which is done on an Epiphone in Nashville tuning, capoed at the 2nd fret.

I've got an Epiphone Coronet with one pickup, and I string it with the high strings from a 12- string set. It's a really zingy, trebly guitar. I used that on a lot of things that people think are 12-string, like the end of 'The Headmaster Ritual'.

For my part, 'The Headmaster Ritual' came together over the longest period of time I've ever spent on a song. I first played the riff to Morrissey when we were working on the demos for our first album with . I nailed the rest of it when we moved to Earls Court. 'The Headmaster Ritual is one of my favorite guitar tracks.I wrote it over a period of two years, always looking for the next section I needed. I saw the version, yeah. I showed Ed O'Brien the chords, but maybe he was looking out the window! - Johnny Marr

Rusholme Ruffians - "Rusholme Ruffians came about because my parents used to play 'Marie's The Name' by Elvis Presley and I liked the chord change."

"That was blatantly done. Morrissey said to me, 'Let's do a song about the fair,' and for some reason my association with the fair was to pull out that Elvis riff. We tried, but we couldn't get away from it."- Johnny Marr

Nowhere Fast - "The album '' I still rate very highly but again stuff like 'Nowhere Fast' could have been done better."

"It's not stood up as well as 'Revolver' but there's some great songs on it. 'Nowhere Fast' is a great song." - Johnny Marr

That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore

"On Smiths songs such as "How Soon Is Now?" and "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore", I turned the 2" tape over and learned to play the parts backward."

"I played the part, turned the tape over and learned it backwards, played the backward part with the tape the right way round then turned the volume up and down. The intro is a Martin D-28 acoustic with Lexicon Reverb on."

"'That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore' was always one of my favorites. It just fell through the roof. It was one of those lovely times when the feeling just falls down on you from the ceiling somewhere and it almost plays itself. It gives an almost esoteric feeling."

"When you go out live you want to give people at least a general impression of the whole thing, but if you're on your own, you end up compromising a lot of the chord inversions and inflections that were there in the overdubs. You generally end up being reduced to playing that big-sounding first position chord. With my one-man band approach I managed that fairly successfully for a while, but other times it didn't really work. From a guitar point of view 'That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore' could have been absolutely incredible live, but in the end it was only good." -Johnny Marr

"'Well I Wonder' I really like as well. It's one of those things that a modern group could try and emulate but never get the spirit of. It's so simple." "I remember the start of the record because I moved back to Manchester very deliberately- to get the atmosphere right for the instrumental tracks I was writing. And that worked out immediately because 'Well I Wonder' came out of that, with the rain and everything. When we did it I knew it would be popular because it had that real sense of yearning in it."

"I think [the outro] is an A minor shape capo'd, I'd have to listen to it." -Johnny Marr

Meat Is Murder - "That was a riff I'd been playing around with for a few days before. Really nasty, in open D. I didn't know the lyrics but I knew the song was gonna be called 'Meat Is Murder' so it all just came together in the take."

"I think 'Meat Is Murder' is in open G tuning,or open D,it might have a capo on the second fret."- Johnny Marr

Barbarism Begins At Home - "I came up with the riff the day that Troy Tate came up to Manchester to meet with us. It was almost because our first proper producer was about to arrive that I thought we needed a new song, maybe, and it was a sunny afternoon. We played it in the daytime, which was unusual because there were these machinists working downstairs on the floor below, and we wouldn't want to be working stuff out at high volume. There was no drums there, it was just me and Andy jamming like we used to when we were 14 or 15. I know a lot of fuss has been made and Andy is, quite rightly, proud of that bassline, but, personally, harmonically I don't think it comes anywhere near Andy's other stuff. 'Nowhere Fast', 'That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore', 'The Headmaster Ritual', all tower above it. It was one of those things where it was a good idea at the time, but later, as we played it, I didn't think it really represented the band. The overall thing, all of it, was a little bit corny."

"Barbarism Begins At Home is a bit naff. I don't like the tune - there's no emotion in it."

"With 'Barbarism Begins At Home,' a lot's been made of the funky aspect of the bassline, but that track harks back to what I was doing with Andy before The Smiths. I guess it came out of this love of retro kind of James Brown records, and things like Rip Rig & Panic and The Pop Group. That period of anemic, underfed white . It's me and Andy being townies in Manchester, liking a bit of the American No-Wave thing. James Chance, I guess." -Johnny Marr

The Queen Is Dead

"I'd done the rhythm track for The Queen Is Dead, and left the guitar on the stand. The wah pedal just happened to be half open, and putting the guitar down made the guitar suddenly hit off this harmonic. We were back at the desk playing back the rhythm track and I could still hear this harmonic wailing away, so we put the tape back onto record while I crept back into the booth and started opening up the wah-wah, thinking 'Don't die, don't die!' Eventually I opened up the pedal, and 'Wooooohhhhhh!' Kept it going, too. Great accident. For the frenzied wah-wah section on 'The Queen Is Dead,' I was thinking '60s Detroit, like the MC5 and .

The album's title track was partly inspired by The MC5 and . A Velvets outtakes album called V.U. had just come out, and I loved 'I Can't Stand It', mostly because it had this swinging R&B guitar. I'd wanted to do something bombastic like that for a while, and 'The Queen Is Dead' was the right place to drop it.

I had The Queen Is Dead, the track, in my mind for a long time. I knew the song had the title, and I knew that was what the album was going to be called. To me, it was the MC5 playing 'I Can't Stand It'. I'd always felt let down by the MC5. When I was younger, people were going 'Oh, the Dolls, the MC5, the Stooges' -but when I first heard the MC5, it felt a little too gung- ho, too kind of testosterone-mad for me. I wanted to deliver what I imagined the MC5 to be - energy, coolness.

It was Morrissey's idea to include 'Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty' and he said, 'I want this on the track'. But he wasn't to know that I was going to lead into the feedback and drum rolls. It was just a piece of magic. I got the drum riff going and Andy got the bass line, which was one of his best ever and one that bass players still haven't matched. I went in there with all the lads watching and did the take and they just went, 'Wow'. I came out and I was shaking. When I suggested doing it again, they just said, 'No way! No way!' What happened with the feedback was I was setting my guitar up for the track and I put it onto a stand and it was really loud. Where it hit the stand, it made that note of feedback. I did the guitar track, put the guitar on the stand, and while we were talking, it was like, 'Wow, that sounded good'. So I said, 'Right - record that!' It was going through a wah-wah from the previous take, so I just started moving the wah-wah and it was getting all these different intervals, and it definitely added a real tension.

I loved Morrissey's singing on that, and the words. But it was very MC5. Morrissey has a real love for that music as well. I remember him playing the as much as he played .

The record company want to put out some rarities, so we’ve spoken about the longer versions of The Queen is Dead: the eight-minute one and another one where we played for 12 minutes. It sounds like Can or something.

The song 'The Queen Is Dead' I really like. I used to like the MC5 and The Stooges and it's as good if not better than anything The Stooges ever did. It's got energy and aggression in that kind of garagey way. – Johnny Marr

I Know It's Over - "I'll never forget when [Morrissey] did that. It's one of the highlights of my life. It was that good, that strong. Every line he was hinting at where he was going to go. I was thinking, 'Is he going to go there? Yes, he is!' It was just brilliant." - Johnny Marr Never Had No One Ever

"On The Queen Is Dead, 'Never Had No One Ever', there's a line that goes 'When you walk without ease/on these/the very streets where you were raised/I had a really bad dream/it lasted 20 years, seven months and 27 days/Never had no one ever'. It was the frustration that I felt at the age of 20 when I still didn't feel easy walking around the streets on which I'd been born, where all my family had lived - they're originally from Ireland but had been here since the Fifties. It was a constant confusion to me why I never really felt 'This is my patch. This is my home. I know these people. I can do what I like, because this is mine.' It never was. I could never walk easily." - Morrissey

"I can never divorce that song from the emotion that inspired it, which is totally personal. It goes back to what I was saying before about where the sadness comes from. It's me, being in my bedroom, living on a housing estate, on a dark night, surrounded by all that concrete and trying to find some beauty through and James Williamson. There's a certain kind of gothic beauty in 'I Need Somebody'. I wasn't looking to cop a riff; I was looking to cop a feeling. The atmosphere of 'Never Had No One Ever', and pretty much the whole LP, for everything that can be said about the pressure I was under at the time as Johnny in The Smiths in '85, really that music could have come out of my bedroom when I was 16." – Johnny Marr

The Boy With The Thorn In His Side - "After that I started getting turned on to Chic, The Fatback Band, The Ohio Players and War. If you listen to 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side', the rhythm part from verse two onwards - that chick-a-chick part - it's pure Nile Rogers.

That was the first time I used a Strat on a record. I got it because I wanted a twangy Hank Marvin sound, but it ended up sounding quite highlify.

Throughout the set, me and Johnny used two tunings: one in F sharp and one in E, 'cos of Morrissey's range. Out of four or five gigs, this guy got it right once. I'd say, Right — There Is A Light That Never Goes Out. Pass me the one in F sharp. He'd pass me the E bass, and I'd be a tone out." -Andy Rourke

"If we needed some songs fast, then Morrissey would come round to my place and I'd sit there with an acoustic guitar and a cassette recorder. 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' was done that way."

"Morrissey was sat on a coffee table, perched on the edge. I was sat with my guitar on a chair directly in front of him. He had A Sony Walkman recording, waiting to hear what I was gonna pull out. So I said, 'Well, I've got this one' and I started playing these chords. He just looked at me as I was playing. It was as if he daren't speak, in case the spell was broke."

"We recorded 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' in 10 minutes. I went on to add some flute overdub and strings and a couple of extra guitars, but really, the essence and the spirit of it was captured straight away, and that normally means that something's gone really, really right. I have a version of that take with just the three instruments and the voice on it – it absolutely holds up as a beautiful moment in time. The Smiths were all in love with the sound that we were making. We loved it as much as everyone else, but we were lucky enough to be the ones playing it."

"I didn't realise that 'There Is A Light' was going to be an anthem but when we first played it I thought it was the best song I'd ever heard. There's a little in-joke in there just to illustrate how intellectual I was getting. At the time everyone was into the Velvet Underground and they stole the intro to 'There She Goes' - da da da-da, da da-da-da, Dah Dah! - from the Rolling Stones version of 'Hitchhike,' the Marvin Gaye song. I just wanted to put that in to see whether the press would say, Oh it's the Velvet Underground! Cos I knew that I was smarter than that. I was listening to what The Velvet Underground was listening to." -Johnny Marr

Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others - "The song, as it was, just faded in, so i thought we had to do something a bit more interesting. Basically, I put all the reverb on the drums up so it sounded like it was coming in from some large hall, then faded it down really quickly. Then I took all the reverb back off and faded it up again. The effect was supposed to be like the musics in a hall somewhere, it goes away, then it comes back and it's nice and clean and dry. A bit like opening a door, closing it, then opening it again and walking in."-

"Other times, I'd drop off a cassette of some music at Morrissey's house. He lived about two miles away, and I'd ride round there on my Yamaha DT 175 and post them through his letterbox. 'Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others' was done that way. All the music for that came in one wave while I was watching telly with the sound down."

"Some things just drop out of the heavens, and 'Some Girls...' was one of them. It's a beautiful piece of music."- Johnny Marr

Girlfriend In A Coma - "Actually, [Strangeways] is my favourite Smiths album. We split after we recorded it and they were good sessions. One or two of the songs are acoustic-led, which I really liked - now that was an organic record."

"Over the last few years I've heard 'Girlfriend In A Coma' in shops and people's cars, and I'm always surprised by how good it sounds." - Johnny Marr

Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before - "I find a blue note whenever I can. I try to find the poignancy in any kind of lick. Not to get too poetic here, but I find a distinct lack of poignancy in most guitar playing I hear. It's as if people feel that by virtue of being a guitar player, they have to have this swashbuckling, gung-ho approach to music, an overblown, vulgar approach. I'd prefer a few notes played in the right place on one string. For example, I liked the melody at the end of "Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before," but it just felt a little too accomplished. I wanted it to sound like a punk player who couldn't play, so I fingered it on one string, right up and down the neck. I could have played it with harmonics or my teeth, or something clever, but the poignancy would have gone out of the melody." "The stuff that wasn't acoustic was mainly led by my 355 12-string; in fact, a lot of the songs - I Started Something..., Paint A Vulgar Picture and Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before - were written on that guitar. It gave a really big sound. I wanted to make sure my main guitar parts really counted and stayed on the record. Often, before, I had changed the main foundation at a later date, but that didn't happen with Strangeways."

"I'm trying to be open to any ideas, so long as they're fairly melodic and they relate to what the singer is singing. I'll try any trick. With the Smiths, I'd take this really loud Telecaster of mine, lay it on top of a Fender Twin Reverb with the vibrato on, and tune it to an open chord. Then I'd drop a knife with a metal handle on it, hitting random strings. I used that on 'Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before' for the big 'doings' at the start." -Johnny Marr

"'Strangeways' has its moments, like 'Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Love Me'. Last time I met Morrissey he said it was his favourite Smiths song. He might be right." - Johnny Marr

I Won't Share You - "There was this auto-harp lying around in the studio. I remember it sitting in one of the windowsills as you went down the stairs, and one day Johnny dusted it down. It had been sitting around for ages so he tuned it up and started playing these chords. It sounded absolutely beautiful so we recorded it there and then. A few days later Morrissey came in and put his vocal on top. It was one of those tracks that sent a little chill down your spine."- Stephen Street

"I didn't realise it was the same chords as 'Ask' at the time and I'm glad I didn't because I might not have done it. I was just making a tune that sort of resonated with the day."

"I just heard a really lovely tune first off. I was happy that we had another unusual little 'star in our galaxy' or whatever. That's what it was like, this other little thing that just beamed down. The lyrics were brought to my attention by somebody, even before we got out of the studio. There were raised eyebrows and, 'Whadya think of that then?'. But it was all in a days work for me really, still is. If I was bothered by it I'd say, 'Well I ain't anyone's to fucking share, me" but that's really the truth. If, in fact, that sentiment was directed towards me then quite rightly I feel quite good about it. It's nice."- Johnny Marr

Shoplifters Of The World Unite - "You can hear Nils Lofgren's influence on me in the solo on 'Shoplifters Of The World Unite'. That's all done with false harmonics, which is a steel player's technique: you touch the strings with a right-hand finger an octave higher than where you're fretting, and then pluck the string with your thumb."

"I think of them as guitar breaks. I like the one in 'Shoplifters' -- that was the first time I used harmonizing layering. People have said it sounds like Brian May, but I was thinking of stacked Roy Buchanans." "Also, you can leave [a wah pedal] on, opened slightly without even touching it -- that gives you a completely different tonal range. The 'Shoplifters' break was the first time that I really discovered that. And if the filter is open in just the right place, you can get a harmonic to sing like a bird." -Johnny Marr

Half A Person - "I remember Johnny and Craig were both playing acoustic guitars, which we set up separated with one in the left and one in the right speaker. That was put down together, very simply, with just a few overdubs on top."- Stephen Street

"One [1963 Stratocaster] I keep constantly high strung in Nashville tuning, which is the top two strings the same and bottom four like a 12-string set with the low strings taken off. It's a good tuning for coming up with new stuff 'cos you kind of feel like you're playing backwards. I used that on loads of Smiths stuff - You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby, Half A Person..."

"This is a 1962 Epiphone Coronet. Shortly after I got it I put it in 'Nashville Tuning', which means putting on an electric 12 string set (the bottom four strings are an octave higher than standard). It feels like your playing backwards because the higher strings are at the bottom. I used it to double a lot of the Rickenbacker arpeggios on Smiths records, most notably on 'William It Was Really Nothing', it's also the main guitar on 'Half A Person'."- Johnny Marr

Panic - "The influence of T-Rex is very profound on certain songs of The Smiths i.e. 'Panic' and 'Shoplifters'. Morrissey was himself also mad about Bolan. When we wrote "Panic" he was obsessed with 'Metal Guru' and wanted to sing in the same style. He didn't stop singing it in an attempt to modify the words of 'Panic' to fit the exact rhythm of "Metal Guru". He also exhorted me to use the same guitar break so that the two songs are the same!!!"

"'Panic' came about at the time of Chernobyl. Morrissey and myself were listening to a Newsbeat radio report about it. The stories of this shocking disaster comes to an end and then immediately we're off into Wham's 'I'm Your Man'. I remember actually saying 'what the fuck has this got to do with people's lives?' And so 'hang the blessed DJ'. I think it was a great lyric, important and applicable to anyone who lives in England. I mean, even the most ardent disco fan wouldn't want to be subject to that stuff would they?"- Johnny Marr

Oscillate Wildly

"Initially the very notion of instrumentals was motivated by me. I suggested that 'Oscillate Wildly' should be an instrumental; up until that point Johnny had very little interest in non- vocal tracks. There was never any political heave-hoing about should we-shouldn't we have an instrumental and it was never a battle of powers between Johnny and myself. The very assumption that a Smiths instrumental track left Morrissey upstairs in his bedroom stamping his feet and kicking the furniture was untrue! I totally approved but, obviously, I didn't physically contribute." - Morrissey

"Morrissey was very, very reluctant to use synthesizers or anything electronic. The only way Johnny and I could get around that was by trapping guitar notes into these extended infinite reverbs that would hold for a long, long time then use the fader to bring it in at the right moment. It sounds like a string-type effect but really it's just guitar notes. That's the way 'Oscillate Wildly' was built up. Johnny was still working with guitars but we were trying to stretch the possibilities and sounds of what we could do with it."- Stephen Street

"There was never any plan for it to have lyrics. It was always going to be an instrumental and Morrissey encouraged me all the way."

"We did it really quickly in just one evening, but it came together so beautifully."

"'Asleep' was another one worked out on the upright I inherited when I moved into to the house in Bowdon, the same piano I wrote 'Oscillate Wildly' on. It had a pleasingly eerie quality about it. You could only play certain things on it. Weird, doomy music, which suited us fine."

"'Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want', I did in a period of about four to five days when I was living in a flat in Earls Court. That was done when we needed a follow-up to 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now'."

"I think the mandolin was suggested by the producer John Porter, I had the tune and he thought the mandolin would be good. The music was written because I was thinking about my childhood in Green."

"There's a sad song by Del Shannon called 'The Answer To Everything' that my parents used to play, and it struck a chord in me because it sounded so familiar. That song was the inspiration for 'Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want'. I tried to capture the essence of that tune; its spookiness and sense of yearning." -Johnny Marr

Unloveable - "It was very deliberate. It was right when I got a white Strat. I used it on that and I used it on 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side'. But 'Unloveable' was the first time I deliberately used that Strat sound for a Smiths song. I remember scratching my chin and thinking, Hmmm ok, Can I get away with this? You can particularly tell on that end. I used it on the outro of 'Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others'. But 'Unloveable' was the first of that whole row of songs." -Johnny Marr Were you good at sport?

Miraculous. It was the only thing I was good at and I used to love it completely. The 100 metres was my raison d'etre. Yes, I won everything. I was a terrible bore when it came to athletics. I was just the type of person everyone despises so I've carried on in that tradition. - 1985

Are you in love?

If I said no, that would seem too stark. I have to be. I think everybody has to be otherwise where do you get the energy from to go on, in life, and strive for certain things? The things that stir me are schools and buildings and I'm quite immersed in the past and in the history of this country and how things have evolved and I get quite passionate about certain people in desperate situations.

15. Are you frightened of growing old?

No, not to any degree. I was never happy when I was young so I don't equate growing old with being hysterically unhappy. To me old age doesn't mean doom, despair and defeat. There are lots of people I know in considerably advanced years that I find fascinating.

Why did you join the Smiths?

Like Morrissey, I feel that my life was leading up to 'Hand In Glove,' and from then on things began to happen. My life began. That record set the standard. When Johnny played me their first demo tape, I thought it was the best thing I'd ever heard, both musically and lyrically. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and too good to miss, so I leapt at it as quickly as possible.MJ '84

How good do you think the Smiths are?

We are the best band in the world, there's nobody better. We have potentially vast amounts of status and we're getting better all the time. We are all very good at what we do. I've been plyaing guitar since I was nine, but when Johnny started getting good on it, I switched to bass and now I'm very good indeed. The Smiths are following their natural path... – AR, 1984

We have a very traditional line-up. It's nothing special but it's very special. We are four individuals; we just simply open our hearts and open our mouths. If that isn't enough, we might as well go home. We don't have any metaphysical plan - there is nothing gimmicky that we want to rope people in with. We are four individuals, naked before the world - people will either react, or not. - 1984 "I am quite pleased that we have become successful with Rough Trade, though, rather than any major record company -- it seems to increase the value of snubbing the industry. By not doing videos, by not paying for album promotion, by not taking advertising space... all that's rather unique." - 1984

With all these interviews and media attention, do you feel you've been overexposed?

"It seems I've been extremely overexposed because of the nature of the interviews. They get very personal, even if you do just one big interview where it gets embarrassingly personal, you seem entirely overexposed. It's a dilemma, I don't know quite what to do."

"I always found young people to be uncommonly satisfied and placid. If I ever got angry and dissatisfied as a child it was because there was never any angst from anybody. Personally I was very unhappy but in general, the reason I felt strange was because no-one else was saying, "I'm really miserable, I can't stand being nine years old, when are things going to change?" - 1984

How does your real mother feel when you talk about your unbearable childhood?

"She takes it very seriously and reads my interviews religiously. I know it upsets her sometimes but it's not something she doesn't already know about. We have ploughed through it several times, many years ago. But I really can't help it, if somebody asks me a question, I answer it, I can't lie." - 1984

Such as?

Oh, newspaper clippings like "Fish Eats Man". Probably the most important quote was from Goethe: "Art and Life are different, that's why one is called Art and one is called Life." But strangely, whenever I've returned to the house and the room I just couldn't make the remotest connection between how I felt, how I was and the room. It sounds dramatic, but at one point, I thought I could never possibly leave the room. It seems that everything I am was conceived in this room. Everything that makes me is in there. I used to have a horrible territorial complex. I would totally despise any creature that stepped across the threshhold and when somebody did, or looked at my books, or took out a record, I would seethe with anger. I was obsessive: everything was chronologically ordered - a place for everything, everything in its place. Total neurosis. My sister only ever popped her head around the door. But now, it's totally foreign. It's strange how things that seem to mean so much, ultimately don't matter." - 1984

Do the Smiths like their record company? I think we're mismanaged in many ways. We haven't had much record company assistance. We're not really in the traditional mold, and I think they find us slghtly problematical. Everything we've achieved we've done by ourselves.

"The Sandie project was a tremendous success. I felt, at that time, that what we were doing was the absolute envy of the entire industry. It was The Smiths, these relative newcomers, and Sandie Shaw at the other extreme. Just the way we came together, the combination was almost perfect; it had virtually never been done before in the history of music. I know that, if it had failed, the failure of the idea would have been given massive publicity, but it didn't fail. For that reason, I'm pleased." - 1984

You told me, last time, that you never wanted The Smiths to milk a formula dry. Weren't "Heaven" and "William" just ridiculously familiar?

"I don't think the format of the songs became too familiar. Thankfully, The Smiths became familiar through success, but I don't agree that we were exhausting any set formula. Even if we wanted to be that way, I don't think we could, because that's the type of people we are. This goes for every single member of the group, we are not pop stars and we're not in any traditional mould. I find it impossible to be flattered by pop success but I don't know why. Maybe, I just have very high standards and I don't think we've even begun to reach them, so it doesn't mean a thing to me when people come up and shout, "Phenomenal! Number 43!!!". It doesn't mean anything, although it is important to me that we've reached this scale of success." - 1984

"The lyrics I write are specifically genderless. I don't want to leave anybody out. Handsome is a word that people think is applied to males... but I know lots of handsome women. After all, there is such a thing as a pretty male." (Feb '84)

"I constantly spectate upon people who are entwined and frankly I'm looking upon souls in agony. I can't think of one relationship in the world which has been harmonious. It just doesn't happen." (Feb '84)

"Working with her has been an endless thrill. It's almost like meeting oneself in a former life. She's very down to earth, very humorous, there's a certain veil which she lowers at a certain time of the day..." (On Sandie Shaw, Feb '84)

- Do you not recognise a measure of obscurity in the songs, a kind of ambiguity?

I get very annoyed when the word 'obscure' is brought into the whole context. I feel that I go to great pains to be very direct and precise. I don't want to be misunderstood in anything I say. I think it has been a trend in recent years to be very obscure and very surreal. The Smiths must be understood on every level, in every way. - 1984 "It was more of a restoration rather than remastering, as such," Marr tells , explaining that he didn't add anything that didn't already exist – he just brought it all out. "I knew there was a lot of music hiding in there," says Marr. All eight remastered Smiths CDs have just been released by Rhino Records, including the first U.S. CD release of the band's 1987 U.K. compilation, The World Won't Listen.

Marr accepts responsibility for disbanding the Smiths, but – perhaps surprisingly – it appears he's not entirely opposed to reuniting with his former bandmates, including lead singer Morrissey. In an interview with Rolling Stone, the looks back fondly on the Smiths' celebrated career.

As you listened to the catalog for this project, did any new favorite songs emerge? Did any particular album surprise you in any way?

Since I've worked in the United States, in the last six or seven years, I've picked up on the fact that Meat is Murder was the record that was the introduction to the Smiths for a lot of people. Living in Portland meant that I would meet people who heard that record first. I know now that that record is more important to a lot of people than I realized. So I guess I kind of listened to it differently because a lot of my friends know that record best. I always have really liked "The Headmaster Ritual" off that record, and "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore."

I think that overall, during the mastering of it, I kind of connected with the songs that were the most emotional rather than necessarily the ones that are the most well known. So "Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me" and "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" and those things – "I Know It's Over" – yeah, they sounded quite powerful. When you hear anything in passing, you tend to hear just the radio ones, of course. So maybe there's that aspect to it, too.

At the time of the breakup, you blamed it on a lack of good management and a number of business problems. Do you still stand by those reasons?

Yeah, that's really it. I've said it before, but anybody that thinks that it was a good idea for the 23-year-old guitar player of a really big rock band to go back to being a manager of that band... - JM, 2012

JOHNNY MARR, MAY 2012 The A.V. Club: The Smiths have been rereleased before, but never in a package quite like this. How does it feel to have this music that you created when you were so young preserved in such a prestige format?

Johnny Marr: Well, this is the first time since the records were made that they sound right. There was one compilation that I liked a few years back called , but up until then, and when they’d been put out in the ’90s particularly, they’d been messed with and sounded terrible. It was a real source of frustration for me. Every time I would hear a CD in a store or something, I would start thinking, “Whoa, I’m sure it didn’t quite sound this thin,” or “Why is everything so bright and happy-sounding?” I fought a real battle for quite a few years to be able to get the opportunity to fix it, and what I did wasn’t so much remastering as—in my mind—restoring. Because I really didn’t put a lot of stuff on; I just took off all of the silly stuff that was put on during the ’90s.

So from that point of view, it’s been very, very gratifying. The process was a lot of work and was more concentrated than I expected, but it was worth it because there’s not one person that’s said it doesn’t sound like the old records. I didn’t put the music on steroids, so to speak. I didn’t jack anything up; I didn’t try to make it the loudest record on iTunes or anything like that. I just wanted it to sound like I remember it sounding in the studio. The facts are that when I got the original tapes and put them put them up on the machine, they really didn’t need very much done to them at all, so I knew I wasn’t that crazy. [Laughs.]

Packaging-wise, I have to be fair and say that I think the label’s done a really good job with the boxes, and really have stayed true to the original designs, not putting anything that doesn’t represent the group on the cover, which is another thing that happens.

AVC: Were there any discussions at any point of presenting the music in any other way than in the form of the original albums? Like, say, a “Complete Smiths” with all the songs in chronological order or anything like that?

JM: No, because the whole point was to be faithful. To represent the body of work with integrity. I’ve had no problem with shouting out and complaining for years about my right to have my records sound the way I made them, and when I started sitting there with Frank Arkwright, the mastering engineer, to go through the songs, the realization came to me clearly that I mustn’t mess this up. [Laughs.] It was quite a task, because I felt a responsibility to the other Smiths members, and a responsibility to the people who love the music.

Come to think of it, that was a lot like my experience of being in the band, and being who I am anyway: feeling a responsibility to the other members of the band, primarily, and then a responsibility to people who already love the music. About three or four songs in, I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, you’ve got to make every song right, and you can’t mess this thing up or else you’re be in big trouble.” My head was on the chopping block from all corners, really. So I’m super-pleased everybody seems to like it and understand why I wanted to do it.

AVC: Those first Smiths albums sounded very different from anything else coming from your part of the world at the time, and yet at least from what we heard about here in the U.S., the band seemed to be pretty well accepted from the beginning. Did you meet any resistance to your sound when you were first starting out?

JM: Oh yeah, sure. The first eight or nine months of the group’s life were just Morrissey and myself trying to find the right other two—which we did, eventually—and trying to find places to practice, and trying to find people who might know someone at a record company, and trying to get some demo time. Because we were really broke, and just had each other, and my then-girlfriend, who is now my wife. Oh, and also our manager, who is still my manager to this day. The few resources we had, we tried to work with, but as I say, we were pretty skint. Because the word in Manchester was that we were just too weird. [Laughs.] Our very early songs, like “Suffer Little Children,” “The Hand That Rocks The Cradle,” and “You’ve Got Everything Now,” which were represented on the first record, eventually, were pretty weird songs to start out with.

So yeah, there was some resistance. We didn’t have to battle for years like some groups do, though, because people saw the good in us essentially quite quickly—say, after a year of performing. Which could’ve been worse. What really happened was that our first set of songs went into an aborted version of our first record that never came out—which actually is a more faithful document of where the band really was. They were what we playing, and what were people’s introduction to us, in terms of people on the street and the people that would come see us opening up for other groups and all that. But when we signed to Rough Trade and got some support from people like John Peel after our first year, which is relatively soon, we quite quickly found our songwriting feet, and Morrissey and myself were able to sound like the band that people know. I guess we got slightly more listenable and more commercial.

AVC: You mentioned John Peel, and some of your recordings from John Peel’s show later made it on to your actual albums. Did you prepare for a John Peel session the same way you would for a regular recording session?

JM: Absolutely not, except for one occasion when we needed an extra song and I wrote “This Charming Man.” There was great pressure, and something really helpful came out of adversity. [Laughs.] I had no idea what a John Peel session even was when we did our first one, other than that we’d heard that the engineers were all these grumpy, old, stuffy engineers, and that turned out to be true. You’d get in there at 10 in the morning, so in our case we’d have to take off from Manchester at like 6 a.m. And you’d have to have four finished songs by 9 or 10 o’clock at night. Our first session was so popular that it got repeated quite quickly, and then we got invited back to do, I think, three more. So obviously it wasn’t so much of a surprise on our subsequent sessions. We just played what we were playing live.

I think the answer is that we were always working and always writing new songs, so we played whatever new songs we had at that time. Luckily for us, we seemed to always have new ones. But in the case of “This Charming Man,” we had a John Peel session at the end of a week, and I had a vague idea of what songs we were going to do, but I felt like we needed a cheery one and a kind of commercial one. So that just got me to do the hard work and get it together. I leapt out of bed one morning, and the kind of pressure of it made me come up with that riff. There was also a little bit of competition in the case of that moment, because Aztec Camera, who were also our labelmates at Rough Trade, were starting to get on the radio, and I wanted to get on the radio too, or at least give it a try. Luckily, I was feeling pretty chipper that day, and was coming through the window at 11:30 a.m. or whatever time it was, and I just put that riff down. But essentially, we needed a certain kind of song for the John Peel session, and that’s how that happened.

We never rehearsed for anything though, The Smiths. We never needed to because we were always playing. From when Morrissey and I first met to the last days of the group, we were The Smiths every day, all day, and didn’t need any reason to not be. I think Mike went on holidays, but aside from that, it never occurred to us to take a break because we were doing what we loved, you know? Every day.

AVC: What about the packaging of the band? Your records had a very distinctive look. Was that something you all agreed on as well?

JM: Same as with the above. We were all fans of what we were doing. Morrissey did all the artwork, and it was always a surprise, and a great sense of anticipation of what was going to happen next. I loved the sleeves, and I still do. Obviously you have your favorites or some you like over others, but I like them all. That was there from day one as well. Even when we were making little cassettes, Morrissey would do little photocopied ideas on the cassettes. Just like the music, it’s like, “This is what we’re going to do today, and here it is.” There wasn’t stuff laying around on the cutting room floor, musically or aesthetically. We didn’t try stuff that didn’t work. Everything we did, we put out. Every song, every sleeve.

AVC: You mentioned the early version of the first album that you scrapped. Did you consider including that in the box set? Or any other kind of rarities, like live tracks or alternate takes? JM: I would’ve liked to, but the label’s got some kind of legal issue there that I never want to talk about, so that’s unfortunate. There are monitor mixes and instrumental versions and slightly different versions of songs. When I said that nothing ended up on the cutting-room floor and nothing ever didn’t come out, I meant songs. There aren’t any songs that didn’t come out. There were versions of the songs, though, where I put keyboards on it, or before some strings went on, or extra guitars. I went through everything, and there were a lot of nice things, like unplugged kinds of things, that are valid and do have integrity and that I would like, at some point, to see the light of day. I think they’ve come out on some bootlegs over the last few years, and fans really like them and they’re good. But I can’t say why they won’t go out.

AVC: You mentioned earlier that radio kind of had to play you because you were already popular. Was there any hesitation, do you think, in the mainstream culture because of Morrissey’s sexuality? Was there sort of a homophobia of some kind, maybe?

JM: Oh, I wouldn’t know about that. I think we just weren’t Tears For Fears or Fine Young Cannibals.

AVC: You talked about your Rough Trade labelmates Aztec Camera. The UK pop scene has a reputation for bands being very competitive, much like you mentioned. Did you have colleagues in the scene that you were friends with? Or was it all sort of every man for himself?

JM: Well, I played on ’s records, and he came on tour with us and we had a respect for Billy, because he was a great and he was politically aligned with us. There was Kirsty MacColl of course, who I went on to write some songs with and had a very strong friendship with. We respected Kirsty. I personally liked a number of things that New Order did, even before The Smiths. They were like the new band around when I was a kid, or in my teens anyway, in Manchester. So I had a respect for New Order, and Bernard Sumner, which I guess was the main reason why I went on to work with him all through the ’90s. There was a band called James that we took out on the road with us. were around. I thought the Bunnymen made some good records. But I can only speak for myself.

We detected a slight feeling of resentment from The Fall when we started getting popular, I guess because we made the label very busy. [Laughs.] But you know, what’s new? Mark E. Smith has kind of made a career out of being resentful, so it didn’t bother us too much. It was a little bit of a shame for me because I was a fan of The Fall when I was a kid, so that kind of me at the time, I remember. But I don’t think there was too much competition. You know, we were bumping into bands on TV shows, and I liked just whoever was making good music. There were plenty of bands that were kind of dominating the airwaves and MTV who we didn’t like. The usual culprits, you know—the kind of major label, very, very straight groups.

AVC: What has been your take on the bands that have come after The Smiths that are very plainly inspired by The Smiths, like or Belle & Sebastian? Do you take that as an honor?

JM: Well of course it’s an honor—absolutely. There’s no bigger honor. Occasionally, though, there’s a sound from some of those groups that is, shall we say, quite fey. I’ve heard some records by bands that came after us who had their music been any more fey and lightweight, then I’d expect petals to come out of the speakers. [Laughs.] That’s kind of missing what we were about, because The Smiths were not all “Oscar Wilde at 3:30 in the afternoon” and feyness. The truth of it is, if you were to see any songs from any of our shows, we were, what I would say, quite heavy. Even the ballads were intense. We were a rock band, really, that played a type of , if I care to analyze it. I don’t know very much about The Wedding Present’s music, but what I’ve heard of Belle & Sebastian was often quite fey, and light in a very deliberate way. I think they have their own thing, which is absolutely fine. But I don’t actually think they sound like The Smiths.

AVC: There seems to be a lot of current American independent bands trying to recapture the sound of your first album. I keep thinking that they should listen to The Queen Is Dead or . Get a little more muscle into it, you know?

JM: [Laughs.] Yeah, yeah, that’s interesting. I wasn’t aware that bands were trying to sound like the first album. I became aware over the years that Meat Is Murder was the main introduction to The Smiths for many people in America, I guess because “How Soon Is Now?” is on the American release. And that’s quite gratifying, because we made that record without any singles on it as such. We didn’t care about singles on that record; we just made what we thought would be a great album, or as good an album as we could make. It’s not trying to be a radio-friendly record—though we were always fairly melodic. I’m really happy that most people’s introduction to this unusual group from England was actually called Meat Is Murder. [Laughs.] You know, I’ve been a vegetarian since then.

AVC: You mentioned the albums versus the singles, and you recorded lots of singles that were not ever released on a proper album, only on anthologies. How did you decide that, say, “The Boy With The Thorn In His Side” would go on The Queen Is Dead, but “Shakespeare’s Sister” would be a single?

JM: We were fans of the 45, and we always thought like fans. It didn’t occur to us that it would be much more profitable and business-savvy to wait to record these songs when we had another nine songs to sell off the back of it. It was really when we got to America that the label had to deal in those terms, because the 45 culture was even less in the States than it was even in England at that time—and it was fairly non-existent in England. When we got over there, they didn’t really know how to deal with us, because we had these very strong tracks that were very popular, but they just existed in isolation. And this was at the start of video culture, and the idea was you spend massive amounts of money on the one lead song that then sells your album. Well, we didn’t want to make videos, and we had these songs that weren’t even attached to the albums. [Laughs.] We just thought the 45 was really valid. It was just being led by our love of the culture, and being fans, and an acute disregard for business.

AVC: There’s a documentary about The Clash, made when Joe Strummer was alive, in which he talks about all the little things that led to the breakup of The Clash, and how he wishes he could go back to that person he was in his 20s and say, “None of this matters. The addictions don’t matter. The personality conflicts don’t matter. You are in one of the greatest bands of all time. Don’t fuck it up.” Do have a similar feeling about the end of The Smiths? What’s your take on how and why everything fell apart?

JM: Well, I don’t think anything was fucked up. I don’t have that kind of perspective at all. I think it’s sad that four guys who were so tight went through such bitterness, that was encouraged by the behavior of some members of the band. Obviously, it was very emotional. The band was incredibly dramatic, and I’m philosophical about that because I think without that dramatic element, some of the music wouldn’t sound the way it does. Not all, but some. I think the only regrettable thing is that as adults, only Andy and myself get together and give each other a hug and make fun of each other and like seeing each other. To be honest, it’s unfortunate that The Smiths don’t have the relationship where they can sit around and even get complaints out, or philosophize. That’s unfortunate for four adults who are always going to have a tie to each other. And unfortunately lots of water’s gone under the bridge, you know? But I can only speak for myself, and say that I don’t have any negative thoughts about back then or the times now, or the people in it. I just personally feel a sense of pride, and an incredible degree of luck. All I want to say about that, on behalf of the other three members of the group, is that we worked very, very hard and we really, really cared.

AVC: Once the band was over, you worked on a lot of different projects: Electronic, , . On a lot of those, you seemed to be purposefully not using your sort of Smiths-y guitar sound.

JM: Yeah, I think that’s right. One of the reasons why I wanted the band to end anyway was because I wanted to try to learn to be a different kind of guitar player, which I saw as progress. Because at 24, you really hope that you haven’t learned all you’re going to learn. I mean, that’s the way I feel even now. For someone like me, that would be very disappointing. So for me, that was the reason for the band ending. It wasn’t just all personal, or business. It was musical. Who wants to be put in a box at 25 years of age? Throughout my career, I’ve had an agenda not to rely on a “signature sound,” and to try not to repeat myself.

Things change somewhat when you get older. You get a slightly different perspective. By some weirdness, I’ve found myself in situations where I’ve played a Smiths song in front of an audience. That’s partly because plenty of other people have done it, and because the songs are mine. And as a more mature person, I’ve had the realization that when I play these songs in front of an audience, there’s a great feeling in the hall. Things have become much more simple, really. I don’t look at it any more deeply than that. If I play “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out,” and it’s a song that I feel okay singing, there’s a fantastic feeling in the room. That’s it.

But as a musician, I wouldn’t change a note that I’ve played, because I’d hate to think of just years and years of playing the same way. All I can say personally is that I feel like I’m a better musician through everything I’ve done. It’s been hard-fought, but worth it. And I think after a while, people started to understand what my motivation was and go with me on it. So people now know that I change when I do something like , or when I play with a band like . And then I’ll do something else. But really I was that way before I formed The Smiths anyway.

AVC: Do you have a favorite from the non-solo, non-Smiths projects that you’ve worked on?

JM: I really had a great time working with Modest Mouse, just because of the people. I loved writing songs with , and is probably my favorite musician that I’ve worked with. So that was really fantastic. And being in The The was a really, really great time in my life. I have a very close friendship with Bernard Sumner; he’s the coolest person I’ve ever met. And what I’ve just done with has been a reconnection with the person I was, and wanted to be when I was 18 or 19, that is to say: playing in a UK street group, making a run of singles. So I feel very fortunate.

AVC: Have you kept up with Morrissey’s solo career at all?

JM: Not really, but I don’t really keep up with anyone specific anyway. So the answer’s “no,” but it’s not really that big of a deal.

AVC: One last question, and I don’t know if this is something you care about, but would you like to see The Smiths in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame? JM: Uh… [Pause.] Not really, no. I mean, I don’t mean to be ungrateful, and if the opportunity came I would never be ungracious. I hope this doesn’t sound ungracious, but I don’t think awards mean dick. I’m a musician; I’m not in the television business.

Johnny, 1984

"One thing I wasn't expecting were the leeches diving in. People like my mum kept saying 'everybody will want to cash in on you if you make it big'. I didn't believe them but it's true. At the moment everybody we meet wants to be our manager! But we're just organising ourselves at the moment and not listening to anybody.

"The other thing that's weird is this phenomenon called fans. They keep saying to me 'Don't you get pissed off 'cos Morrissey's always in the papers'. I don't know why they think that because I never do but they expect the rest of us to be mad about the publicity Morrissey is getting."

Johnny is clearly only just getting used to the Smash Hits/Number One fan mentality. But is this really the first and last Smiths tour? "Well, it is, sort of. Because of our status and the new album we were expected to do this tour but then I started thinking that we're just doing what other bands do.

"We're proud of our records and sleeves because they're different from everybody else and it should be the same with the gigs too. But there's no way we're going to stop playing gigs. We're not going to do the bit! We'd like to play two dates a week or something but we're not that keen on doing traditional tours because it can become a bland circus. I'd hate to get sick of playing gigs but I'm worried that by this time next year we'll have played so many that we won't want to play again.

"I'm on a massive high again with the Smiths. Not that I was ever very low but there was a period after 'This Charming Man' came out and we played loads of gigs and appeared on and I started wondering 'well, there must be more to it than this.' And now I know there is so I'm back up again."

The rumours of them leaving Rough Trade are not true, but at least Johnny knows how that one got started.

"We didn't like the dance mix of 'This Charming Man' which they put out as a 12-inch and we told them so but we're certainly not going around saying 'Rough Trade have screwed us up'.

"I know we're at the stage where people are looking for the smallest blemish, any little differences between us and Rough Trade or between ourselves but I still think it's daft."

With the usual Smiths blushing modesty, Johnny thinks the album is "phenomenal". "All the elements of the Smiths are there. There's nothing lost, I'm sure of it. Our producer John Porter was the perfect studio technician for us. He got some amazing subtleties but at the same time we were putting some things down in just a couple of takes.

"We did some recording beforehand with Troy Tate but it didn't really work out. It meant so much to him, he's thought about it all so much that I felt really bad about saying 'no' to some of his suggestions, particularly as I'd got really friendly with him. But it was a weird period for us. We were going into the studio for a lengthy spell for the first time and we were a bit worried about what might happen to our sound.

"The new songs we've got are just as good as the old ones but I don't want the next album to be the first album part two, I want it to be unexpected.

He's not even phased when I suggest that the idea of being successful is perhaps too expected for the Smiths and maybe they should do something about that?

"We want to be universally successful but what's more important to me - and I realise it more as we get more popular - is that we are the people who have to live with our records. I'm into a Muddy Waters trip, which sounds really corny, but I want to be influential over the next few generations. Pop music is such a powerful force and I want to stand out in that force."

But is it still? Aren't kids buying video games rather than records these days? "Only because there has been nothing of any real significance lately. I don't like video games but if it was a choice between that and the new Visage LP I'd get the video game.

"We're just trying to get back to some of the original notions about what a group is really about."

"The pursuit of the beautiful track is what was going on 95 percent of the time without either of us discussing it. Probably the other five percent of the time is what we remember most, which was us trying to be innovative and new, not trying to be New Order or the Smiths, just trying to do something that had the spirit of our influences."

--Johnny Marr, BBC.com interview, 2006

"Well I still believe Johnny Marr is the greatest guitar player of our generation, of our time... I think he’s still burnin’. It still burns in him in a very profound way, and I’m glad that he’s following his own muse. He’s not out there, doing Smiths-lite like Morrissey, you know? So I respect that."

--Billy Bragg, 2006

"[Jansch's music] really sounded like a challenge to me. It was a yardstick for me by which to raise my game as a player... Bert’s stuff was the only music by a specific guitar player that I would try and work out. And like a lot of things when you’re influenced by people, you find your own way of doing it and it’s normally wrong but it helps you along your own road. And I ended up being lucky enough to play with Bert a few times and last year he and I were playing in my kitchen and when he’s two feet away from you, playing guitar, it’s more confusing when you’re looking at his fingers than listening to the records. Having played with him, I’m more confused than I ever was."

--Johnny Marr, Harp Magazine, 2002 what I realized pretty quickly was that people were asking me about other stuff rather than singing, so I took that as being a really good thing. People were listening to the record and talking about the sound of it, or the words or how it related to the old stuff I’ve done. No one was making a big deal of the singing, and that’s a good thing. It’s a real tricky one, because when you’re known for something else—especially singing, and me being a known guitar player—it’s a bit of a leap for people. It’s a bigger deal to everyone else than it is to me."

--Johnny Marr, Magnet Magazine, 2003

JM interview:

"I think there's a certain type of person who my music resonates with, and ultimately that's people like yourself," Marr continues, after I confess to having been a ridiculously, stupidly huge Smiths fan back in the '80s. "Most musicians, whether they realize it or not, are really making music for people who are like them. That's what you start out doing and, luckily for me, I've always been aware of it... so I kind of got it right," he laughs. "I've always assumed that there are people -- outside of my own country, outside of my own city -- wherever, who like a bit of passion. Also, with Boomslang, I made the assumption that people who like what I do aren't afraid of major chord changes and a bit of rock & roll as well."

I know you're a big Rolling Stones fan, what's your favorite Stones song?

Well, when I've been asked to name a favorite-ever record, it's always been "Gimme Shelter." I heard it [for the first time] when I was off school one day, goofing off with a couple of my friends. The first time I heard it, it wasn't actually on Let It Bleed, it was from a weird Decca cut pressed album called Gimmie Shelter -- which I've never seen since, but which I still own. Amazingly, for me, the song was the last track on one of the sides and therefore I was able to keep playing it continuously on my parents' record player, just by lifting up the tone arm. If I left the speed at 33 RPM, and left setting where the arm dropped for a 7", then it would drop right on the last track on that side, which was "Gimmie Shelter." When my parents went out, I would turn all the lights off, lay down in the dark on the floor and take the speakers from off the shelves and put them next to my ears -- like the world's biggest headphones. I'd press them up against my head and just leave the arm off the turn table so the record would play continuously until I just completely zoned out. That's transcendence for you, and no one's gonna tell me any different [laughs].

Oh yeah, I had a ritual like that with Led Zeppelin Four, where at Christmas time when I was a kid, I'd listen to it in the dark with headphones on and our Christmas tree all lit up. It was like magic. Like an acid trip before you even knew what acid was.

Wow, it's incredible isn't it? That kind of obsession and being drawn into that world, whether that was even intended by the people who made the records, it was so important to me, and people who are like me. It's something you can't get from anything else. You can't get it from religion, you can't get it from drugs and you can't get it from sex. You can get all sorts of other things from that stuff, but that escapism and that kind of visit to a kind of place that's mysterious, but yet familiar, can only happen through those kinds of records and those kinds of experiences, for me. That's what I'm trying to do myself, when I play, primarily, because ultimately now I know that when I had those moments [which are] rare in your own stuff, they do translate and people pick up on it and have the same sort of experiences.

The Smiths' song that would have had that kind of effect on me would be "How Soon Is Now." From the very first bit of the staccato guitar feedback through to the very last words Morrissey sings, that whole song just takes you on a kind of journey. It's just brilliant.

That song was kind of a bit of inspired luck, really. Although I know John Porter, who is the producer of that song, who I love, had said that he steered us towards this direction or that direction, I heard recently that he [claimed he] was trying to get us to play "That's Alright, Mama" by Elvis Presley. I totally disagree with that and somewhere I've got the demo that I brought in, when the song was called "Swamp." I did it on a Porta-studio and it was my idea of what I'd heard that Creedence [Clearwater Revival] was supposed to be about [laughs], hence the working title of "Swamp." It had that kind of swampy feel. So, I would argue with John, because I know he said recently that he'd suggested that we make it sound like "That's Alright, Mama." If that was the case then why does it sound nothing like it [laughs]? But it was very much a team effort and it was a magical night. There was myself and John Porter and the engineer, Kenny Jones left to our own devices, as usual.

Everyone else had gone and we just stayed up through the night doing the vibrato thing and then that slide feedback-y thing. That was where all the inspiration really came into it. I was able to reach back and pull out an idea that originally -- weirdly enough -- came from when I was about twelve or thirteen and I was absolutely crazy about "Disco Stomp" by Hamilton Bohannon. He was an American, late '60s/early '70s artist that pioneered the kind of four-on- the-floor thing. He had a big chart hit, which was an unusual sound in '75 for the UK, called "Disco Stomp." It went [sings call and response] "Everybody do the Disco Stomp/ Everybody do the Disco Stomp," and it had this overstated, choppy rhythm. It wasn't this vibrato as such, but I found the rhythm totally infectious and I was nuts about it. Then obviously, some time later I discovered Bo Diddley through my love of the Stones and John Lee Hooker.

I knew there was something that we needed on the track; I just adjusted the whole overstated vibrato thing. It was always something of a dream to be able to do a song that was recognizable within just a few seconds, because of the guitar riff. A lot of my heros and influences did that. I mean, you know it's "Brown Sugar" as soon as you hear it. You know it's "All The Young Dudes" as soon as you hear it. Luckily enough, that one floated by. I was really, really pleased with it, but there was a little bit of a battle with the label to put it out. They were just happy to have it as the extra track on the B Side of "William, It Was Really Nothing."

The first time I heard "William, It Was really Nothing," I was in a Woolworth's in , Scotland.

Really, wow. And it wasn't even the regular B Side, it was stuck on the 12".

Which I own.

Nowadays of course, the label is more than happy to pontificate about what it all meant at the time, but as I remember it, the record company didn't really like it very much.

Well, they're nuts. Yeah, they're totally nuts.

The Smiths career really took off right on the cusp of the compact disc's first introduction to the marketplace, so most of your recordings were also initially released on vinyl, but the first album and and The Queen is Dead were some of the first compact discs ever manufactured. Do you know if there are any Smiths records that are especially collectible because they are only available on vinyl?

Over the years, I've found quite a lot of promo things that I didn't even know existed. There are things like vinyl versions of "The Headmaster Ritual," which was a European single, not a British single. It was like a European Benelux single -- you know Benelux, they were distributors. And there's a really rare promo single of "Still Ill," which I imagine has never made it officially to CD. Of course the lines get very blurred now, with people being able to burn their own CDs. It's become a bit of a grey area. There are people who are far more qualified to talk about Smiths' rarities than I am. I don't even own all of our records [laughs]. There was this picture disc, some sort of horrendous French thing that was an interview interspersed with little bits and pieces from radio sessions, I think. I do seem to remember that, but I don't know if it was a photograph of just Morrissey, or Morrissey and myself. So it was either really horrendous or... just horrendous. Please put "laughs" in brackets after that. [Laughs] I'll be head-hunted for that one.

What kind of an impact did the Beatles have on your early musical development?

The first Beatles record I bought was the Red double (The Beatles 1962- 1966). You know, one was Red and one was Blue (The Beatles 1967-1970). It was quite unusual at the time to be buying music by groups who had ceased to be. The rest of my friends were buying music by bands like The Jam and Boomtown Rats and The Stranglers and all those crappy, so-called punky bands. That music seemed lame to me. I took my sister's lead, really, and started to troll backwards. Retro was new when I invented it [laughs]. Then this entire ocean of amazing music opened up. I then started to hunt down as many of the original Motown singles as I could. At the same time, I was reading Patti Smith interviews and I bought a bootleg where she did "Be My Baby" by the Ronnettes. I heard [Patti] talk about and the Rolling Stones so that just spurred me on to travel through the past, really. All that music was, to me, far more happening than the so-called British new wave, and "Turning Japanese" and all that kind of stuff. It's also kind of cool, when you're a teenager and you like stuff that no one else is into. There's a little bit of elitism in that. But lucky for me it was all about something good.

But to get back to your question, I remember "Love Me Do" from my parents playing it, and the on it. But my favorite Beatles record has got to be "." To me, it's Hieronymous Bosch and Salvador Dali set to music.

You're only the second person I've ever interviewed who's brought up the name Hieronymous Bosch in an interview.

Oh really? Who was the other? Do you know the band The Dandy Warhols?

Sure.

They're disciples of yours, I would venture to guess.

Well there's some talk of us going out and playing with them this year. So, he mentioned Hieronymous Bosch, did he?

Yeah, Courtney is really into his artwork.

Well, that's what "I Am The Walrus" sounds like to me. That is completely and utterly beyond what we think of as pop music. It could only have come out of popular culture. It's completely anarchic and beautiful. I very rarely would use the word 'genius' but it's a genius piece of work, and genuinely trippy, you know? I don't think anything's really quite surpassed it in terms of pop music. Not even "See Emily Play" or anything like that.

You're a fan, then?

Yeah! What you really hear in that sort of genre of music, even the American band's which were on a slightly different tip, it really doesn't get much better than Syd Barrett, for me anyway. I've got recordings of "Scream Thy Last Scream" and "Vegetable Man," which didn't come out, but were the last things that he recorded with . "Scream Thy Last Scream" is just insane. It's interesting because, if you compare Syd Barrett solo records to, say, Oar by Skip Spence, which is another album that I really like... Skip Spence was in Moby Grape and he famously went off and did this legendary album in two or three days in Nashville. There was a tribute album out a couple of years ago with all different acts doing versions of it. was on it. There's a track called "War In Peace" on it, you should check it out. It's incredible. But if you compare his solo record with Syd Barrett's, what's interesting is you've got two unhinged psyches there; both around the same age, with amazing talent. And you hear the difference between an unhinged American psyche and the unhinged British psyche. Syd Barrett's music is very claustrophobic and concrete and intense and, to me, Skip Spence's album is very open and, for all its confusion, it's very vast. It's the difference between Kensington and... Ohio [laughs]. It's just a very interesting difference between the American and British psychedelic psyche, I think.

What's your take on the claim that it's harder today to find good music -- quality that possesses that transcendent quality we've been discussing -- than it was 20 or more years ago?

It's not on the radio, but I wonder if it was ever on the radio. I'm often asked the rhetorical question about how I feel about the charts and modern radio, and there's a certain answer that's expected. But when I think about it, it's very easy for people who are idealists about music and the way the radio should be and [how] the charts are, and [there's a tendency] particularly for people in the media to take cultural snapshots. Life isn't like that. The '60s weren't all and Steve Marriott and the Beatles and The Stones and Pink Floyd. For every one of those bands, there were five Englebert Humperdinks. I personally have a very strong affection for the early '70s because that was the time when I was buying all of these gems. Therefore, to me, the charts were nothing but The Sparks, Roxy Music and , when in fact there were the New Seekers and Gordon Lightfoot or [Tony Orlando &] Dawn and the Osmonds -- "Crazy Horses" aside, which of course is a work of genius (laughs).

The charts were predominantly for 12 year olds, and 12 year olds with pretty bad taste, to boot. The function of the charts and the radio is probably not that much different, essentially, [than back then] except that, it being in line with the modern world -- and the modern world being even more corporate these days, with advertising rules -- everything is complete baby food. But it always was that way, to an extent. All I know is that if I talk to someone about Godspeed You Black Emperor, most people know who they are. And a lot of people know who Sigur Ros are -- and their last album didn't even have song titles! Maybe I can't be objective, but all I'm saying is it's the journalists and the musicians who are asking the rhetorical questions. I'm almost playing Devil's Advocate. We all know about Sigur Ros and Godspeed You Black Emperor and , so it can't be that bad. If anything, it goes back to making a difference. Another way of looking at it is that the underground is underground and the overground is way overground. That's better than the stuff we love being [slips into American accent] hijacked by "The Man."

I'll never forget seeing Anthrax play a small club in NYC about ten years ago and the singer saying "Remember that the underground is the best place to be."

Right, it's a beautiful thing when the underground infiltrates popular culture, there is nothing better. Whether it's The Rolling Stones or Roxy Music or The Smiths or New Order or . Getting onto national television and into suburban households with an obviously alternative agenda...[is amazing]. It's almost like when you have a breakthrough single. You know that, for instance, when The Smiths were on Top Of The Pops almost weekly, you know that those kids who sat there who were clued up, and were sussed, realize that you're not living a straight lifestyle. And they're in there watching it with their parents! For Brian Jones and people like him, and , to have loomed so large in straight suburbia -- particularly in the U.S. -- is a very powerful thing [laughs]. That's one of the great things about pop culture. The absence of that channel or opportunity is, obviously, a shame. You do have to go out and look for it. Once in awhile, somebody always breaks through. Kurt Cobain obviously comes to mind. They've got to have a good way with a tune and some charisma, though, to do it.

It does happen, obviously, but when you're inundated with so much dreck, it's harder to see.

Interestingly enough, I don't think I'm that untypical or dissimilar from a lot of people who are into what I do. All I know is that I purposefully set out a few years ago to create my own sort of filter. You start off with ignoring certain television news and then certain magazines -- because we are totally inundated. I think that overload of information, and essentially feeling like a target and part of a demographic -- which is what my album and a lot of my lyrics are about -- results in building up a certain kind of filter, if you like. Mine's becoming more and more reliable now. If I go into a news agent, my eyes go to one place, and if I go into a town, there's a certain record store that I'm looking for. On the Internet, there's a certain thing I'm looking for. All the other stuff, I just avoid. Ultimately, the good stuff just floats to the top. It's just riding that wave of technology and the things that you can do and whether that be the sounds that people make in the studio or the kinds of websites they go to or the way they use computers, or whatever journeys they're on. You kind of go, "Alright, this new thing is only good for this." I think the same can be said for a lot of magazines. It's just media overload now, so I just don't even bother reading most of it. If I want to know about the news I just find out what Noam Chomsky's up to at the moment.

[Warning: second wave of blatant ass-kissing approaching] I hate to be such a fanatic but I really want you to get how important your music is and how significant it has been in the lives of so many fans, and how important Boomslang is to people who really love what you, specifically, do.

Coming over here, I've been looking out for that message, and that's made the whole thing worth it, Gail. I really mean it, because it would be kind of easy for me to go out on stage and really have the comments that certain albeit-well-meaning journalists who have interviewed me ringing in my ears, hearing, "Do you think Smiths fans are going to like it? Do you think Smiths fans are going to like it? Are your old fans going to like it?" These people are actually talking about themselves. I've started now to ask them, when that comment's made, to explain exactly who are these people that they're describing who are afraid of a major chord change? Who are, at this moment, as we speak, standing on a bridge with their pockets full of rocks and clutching their journal, and ready to jump? They don't exist. They're talking about themselves. Because people who are into me, and what I do and interested in what I do, I assume are big enough and open-minded enough to like all kinds of music, and to have really gotten the celebratory and obsessive and humorous aspects of The Smiths down. That whole sort of stereotype is totally grubbing the shadow and missing the substance of what the band was about.

Honestly, a lot of Morrissey's solo stuff --with the exception of "" -- I just can't take, because I think, "Oh Jesus guy, get over yourself." You know what I mean?

Yeah, right.

But when it was in the context of The Smiths, I think it was a combination of him really, lyrically, putting his finger to the pulse of a certain angst and misery and sadness that no one was really addressing at the time, and then your musicianship -- and I'm talking about you, Mike and Andy -- just lifting it all up. The Smiths were such a special band. You should be so proud.

I am, I'm absolutely proud. I sometimes feel like the lone defender out of all four of us really, because unfortunately they appear to be bickering about issues that don't really matter. They should be defending what the band was really about and getting rid of this silly, stereotypical idea. But to get back to your comments, I don't have that agenda. Some people might expect that, oh, I'm trying to 'lay some rock on some delicate wallflowers.' The people in my audience have always been able to rock out and they know the world's a big enough place to like Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada and Electric Six and The Vines and whoever else there might be, and like me as well. - (JM, Healers era)

What got you into playing the guitar? What were you early experiences of it? What first attracted you to it? When I was really young, I think it was seeing people like Roy Orbinson and Johnny Cash and Glenn Campbell, all of which my dad listened to. That was my earliest memories of it. I just remember sorta big guitars and semi accoustics and stuff, from when I was really small. I mean, specifically, what got me into playing guitar was Johnny Marr. It’s just the truth. - , 2012

"I happened to be very good at certain sports. I was really quite a fine runner, for example. This in turn made me act in a somewhat cocky and outspoken way - simply as a reaction against the philistine nature of my surroundings. This the masters simply couldn't take. It was alright if you just curled up and underachieved your way into a stupor. That was pretty much what was expected really. Because if you're too smart, they hate and resent you and they will break you. When I found out that I wasn't being picked for the things I clearly excelled at, it became a slow but sure way of destroying my resilience. They succeeded in almost killing off all the self-confidence I had." – Morrissey, 1985

"When I first heard Johnny play, that was in a sense almost irrelevant. The awakening had occurred days earlier with the meeting. I'd reached a stage back then where I was so utterly impressed and infatuated that even if he couldn't have played it didn't matter somehow because the seeds were there and from those seeds anything could sprout.

"Johnny had grasped the thread of all that was relevant and yet he was - and remains - a very happy-go-lucky, optimistic person who was interested in doing it now. Not tomorrow, but right now!

"Now this was truly extraordinary because in a musical sense I'd only just met people who were total sluts, who'd rather sit around at home night after night talking about picking the guitar up instead of just grabbing it and saying 'What about this?' – Morrissey, 1985

„The thing that makes the Smiths so unique, is the fact that in certain territories we have reached a stadium level. And on reaching that level, the temptation to be respectable and just sail along is very great, and I don't think the Smiths have acknowledged that in any way.“ – Morrissey, 1987

„I suppose popular music is now engineered by careless people who never had the imagination to spot or desire the true nature of pop and why it could be so special. The wrong people, as far as I'm concerned, are in control. Lawyers and accountants have become too important. The right stuff is not being encouraged, and the wrong stuff is not being suitably condemned.“

You're saying that the resolution to do what you do is, under the circumstances, heroic?

„Yes. Very heroic. Very solitary. People are always looking at me sideways and saying, "Well, do you really want to do that? Don't you really want to that?... Are you really serious?" But also in a sense I do have the ability to laugh at myself, even though amongst the people who consider me overwrought this is also apparently sinful. I have always had to laugh at myself. If I hadn't found my social position when I was a teenager so amusing, I would have strangled myself. The fact I am doing it at all I find incredible.“ – Morrissey, 1988

You were forced to construct your own reality?

„Yes. This took me a long time. But more importantly, I think that when someone is not at all popular, for whatever reasons, one tends to develop certain forms of survival. A survival which excludes friends, which excludes social activities. That in a sense is how I organised my life. If you cannot impress people simply by being part of the great fat human race, then you really do have to develop other skills. And if you don't impress people you look, then you really do have to develop other skills. And if you are now going to ask is everything I did just a way to gain some form of attention, well that's not entirely true. It is in a small way, but that's in the very nature of being alive.“ – Morrissey, 1988

JOHNNY MARR, Q & A, 2002

The Smiths couldn’t have been less like the Stones in most ways—sound and attitude, for starters—but don’t fool yourself about the parallels between guitarists Johnny Marr and . Both are impossibly skinny men of few words (Mick or Morrissey never stopped yammering anyway) but verbose, rhythmically intense guitar playing. Vilified by the press when he abruptly ended the Smiths in 1987, Marr—who many predicted would flourish while Morrissey faded into obscurity—kept a low profile for the next 15 years and became the ultimate six-string sidekick, playing with the Pretenders, The The, Billy Bragg, and Beck. He also put out three albums as Electronic, a dancey superduo with New Order’s Bernard Sumner that never quite equaled the sum of its parts. With the Healers—drummer (Ringo’s son and current member of ) and bassist Alonza Bevan ()—the prodigal Mancunian returns to rock ‘n’ roll. Yes, he sings, with a voice that’s part Sumner and part , and his solo debut Boomslang feels like past and future Marr. His trademark 12-string peacefully coexists with backward-guitar leads and groovy percussion in psych-friendly, four-to-seven-minute tracks. While Boomslang may not be privy to the hyperliterate lyricism of Marr’s past vocal collaborators, it’s got a kind of (Northern) soul that words can’t manufacture.

MAGNET sent its Smiths superfan to meet Marr at a New York hotel. Upon spotting Marr in the lobby, superfan admits to hiding behind a potted plant for a moment to collect whatever cool he could muster.

MAGNET: The general reaction people have had to me telling them there’s a Johnny Marr album is, “Oh, he can sing?”

Marr: It’s only been the last week or so that I’ve started doing interviews and therefore getting feedback from people who don’t have a vested interest in telling me that it’s good—no, I’m joking. But what I realized pretty quickly was that people were asking me about other stuff rather than singing, so I took that as being a really good thing. People were listening to the record and talking about the sound of it, or the words or how it related to the old stuff I’ve done. No one was making a big deal of the singing, and that’s a good thing. It’s a real tricky one, because when you’re known for something else—especially singing, and me being a known guitar player—it’s a bit of a leap for people. It’s a bigger deal to everyone else than it is to me.

So you weren’t self-conscious or nervous about it?

Not once I started to get my sound together. The band convinced me that I should be doing it. I wrote the songs, I wanted to get the songs together and I didn’t want to hold anything up by going on this interminable search around the world for mister frontman.

Did you seek out vocalists?

I did, because I’ve been doing that since I was 15. I was doing it before the Smiths, you know? Because I was playing with Zak, the drummer, at that time, I had the words, I had the melodies, I just sang on the demos. Then I found a couple of guys who I had CDs of, given to me by friends, and I heard they were nice fellas and they had good hair. And I played it to the band and it was somewhat of a triumph that I found someone. Then they went off to a café whilst I stayed talking to the manager. They came back about an hour and a half later, somewhat conspiriatorially.

I think they may have been talking about you.

They certainly had, but they’d been saying good stuff. They said, ‘Look, we’ve got something to tell you. We think you’re wrong about getting a singer, we think it sounds good as it is.’ They convinced me that what I was doing was not just strong but fairly … odd. They knew that would be the word that would get me. If they’d said “soulful,” “beautiful” and all that …

“Johnny, we like your vocal stylings.”

[Laughs] Exactly, exactly. They used words like “ill” and “weird” and “odd” and “white,” and I was kind of like, “OK, I can do that.” Because I trust them. And I know their only agenda being in a band with me is because they believe we can do something to turn them on. They don’t need to be in a band with Johnny Marr for their lives to be complete.

And this is basically Zak and Alonza, you mean.

Right. They wouldn’t put me out on a wire without a net. I started singing the record proper and got a sense of what my sound was. Luckily, I found I wasn’t falling into any -isms of anybody else’s and it’s fairly right with the direction of the band. One of the reasons I formed the band in the first place as well was I had this idea for a rock band that was fairly all- encompassing in terms of the sound. And for the first time since being in my mid-teens, I was getting songs together where I probably would’ve ended up steering the singer in certain directions.

Instead of trying to work the marionette strings, you figured you’d do it yourself.

Yeah, yeah. It just seemed like unnecessary hard work and not the right approach. Then the penny dropped that the record we made could sound like the whole picture that I had without any other colors coming into it. In the past, I’ve loved those other colors, it was a nice surprise. I’d do a backing track, and that’d be 100 percent of my inspiration. The singer, whether it be Morrissey or Bernard Sumner or , they put their 100 percent and you end up with 300 percent, the sum being even greater than the parts sort of thing.

So it used to be that you’d lay down your guitar part, leave the studio, and when you came back there was a vocal there.

Yeah. To use an analogy, it was sort of like doing the background of a painting. You think there’s gonna be a house in the foreground, and instead it’s a child or a ship or whatever. I feel really lucky that I’ve done it with some sort of artistic success, but to hammer this metaphor into the ground, I was getting the whole picture.

Why do a solo album now? Was it about the songs you had, or were you not ready for something like this before?

Two years before I met Zak, I was subconsciously looking for a band and a sound that never came. And was never gonna come unless I did it myself, which was like a wide-awake rock, but without an agenda to be incredibly modern. Not to say I wanted to be traditional or bring back any cause for real rock, but just melodic rock ‘n’ roll, really, with a bit of esoteric, druggy spin on it.

There is a slightly psychedelic texture to the album that hasn’t been on a lot of stuff you’ve worked on before.

It was occurring to me that I was going to make a record that was gonna be not layered and straight ahead. When the band formed, I was listening to a lot of . Very sparse rock, really. Once the record started to develop, I realized that I had an agenda and I just fucking dropped it. Layering guitars might not be de rigeur, but it’s what I do, it’s what gives me a buzz and therefore it’s genuine. I had to tell myself, “C’mon, Johnny, make the assumption that your audience want you to sound like you. It’s been quite a long time.” And I started to listen to people like Bernard Sumner, who said, “What the fuck is wrong with sounding like you?” Making the Electronic records, I would play things and go, “Oh, that’s a bit Johnny Marr,” and he’d go, “Well, it’s supposed to be a bit Johnny Marr!” For a lot of reasons I felt like I was being boxed or pegged, because I did a lot when I was very young. Bernard would say, “Aw, Electronic’s records, they don’t have enough guitar on them, and everyone’s going to think it’s my fault.”

I think a lot of people did feel like you’d abandoned rock ‘n’ roll—the name Electronic was purposeful in that way, was meant to distance the group.

Yeah, but very simply, I was a 24-year-old guy living in a city that was just exploding with a new culture. And who wouldn’t want to be a part of that? I’d been waiting for my city to do that since punk, because I was too young for punk. Suddenly, the whole place was experiencing new music, new technology, new clubs, new drugs, new fashion.

You couldn’t very well bury your head in the sand.

I was an established musician with a certain place in pop music, but that shouldn’t exclude me from a movement in my own city that I wanted to be a part of, because I was just a young guy, you know? And also with a history of, before the Smiths, all kinds of music and an opportunity to work with someone who: a) I respected massively, and b) was probably the best, most innovative electronic musician in the pop field to come out of the U.K. So I’m very philosophical about the whole thing. It wasn’t about me turning my back on pop music, it was about me being a musician and wanting to make that music at that time.

I think you’re correct when you say that people want you to sound like you. Even the Electronic records, your fans did embrace the guitar-oriented tracks and listened for you in those records.

I think I was a little shy and not that confident. And why I say that is that a lot of the (Electronic) songs that people assume are Bernard’s songs were actually my songs. I did lots of dance songs. I just kind of went nuts with it once I learned how it worked, how the puzzle went together. I was crazy about S’Express in ‘89, you know? I wanted to just play “Superfly Guy” forever.

I’ve heard that the Healers gigs you’ve played so far have been, in a word, loud. Has that satisfied an urge for …

the rock demon in me? [Laughs] I got so tired of seeing bands in Manchester who were sub- Nirvana or sub-Oasis, and I started to think, “Are there no girls in music anymore?” I’m primarily around a lot of women, because most of my friends I work with, the guys in my studio, when we’ve got time away from each other, I hang out with my wife’s friends, you know? They’re frankly more fun, more so than the miserable bastards that are on my payroll. So anyway, I was very conscious of these girls going out to see bands. Are they gonna relate to these four guys pretending to be like very surly onstage? It was very boring. They don’t necessarily need to see women onstage to relate, but these guys were just not sexy, not playing sexy music. I thought, “That’s not right. Congas are in.” Also being a T.Rex fan I fancy the idea of having percussion in rock ‘n’ roll. Whatever synchronicity was at play led me to come across this great percussion player, Liz Bonney, so she came around. So it was the core of me, Zak and Alonza and then Liz, and then I wanted some technology involved as well so it wasn’t strictly guitar-based, and Liz introduced me to this wild guy, Lee Spencer. He plays keyboards. I did have an agenda of volume, electricity and rhythm, because I don’t have a natural desire to get up on a stage. That came to me late in my career. It’s unusual, most musicians assume that when you make a record, you then go onstage.

Well, for a lot of people, being onstage is the payoff, it’s being in the spotlight.

Everyone I know is like that. But with me, I grew up with this obsessive idea about the seven-inch 45, which I regarded as an almost mystical object. And the process by which those things are made has been magic and mysterious. I was so hung up on that thing and studios and what goes on in studios that there really wasn’t that much space for me to think, “Ain’t it great to go out on the road?” I don’t have any kind of problem with being onstage, I just have this overt attraction to recording studios and the process of orchestrating records and guitars and hanging out with players and so on. It’s also a refuge for me away from the bullshit.

Do you think that’s also you being a bit of a perfectionist? In the studio, you’re in a controlled environment, sound-wise, but onstage things can go wrong.

That hadn’t occurred to me but, yeah, I think that’s right.

I’m not trying to call you a control freak.

No, I think you’re right. Because I like things to sound absolutely great. It’s not enough that everyone’s getting their rocks off—I like it to have a good sound. About the live thing, I’ve found a way to make the prospects of going out onstage exciting. We went out and we’re very loud and we jammed very long and some people went, “What the fuck is that?” We took most of the songs that ended up on the record and extended them and made them heavier. We wouldn’t have gone out live had we not been invited, anyway. Oasis invited us and I just thought, “OK, now’s the time to sort of put my toe in the water.” And you’re about to go out in front of an audience who don’t know the material, don’t know who I am and about five minutes before a ripple of a rumor would go around these 5,000 or 13,000 people that it’s Johnny Marr’s new band. Of which probably 200 of them said “Really?” and the rest of them said “Who?” Half of the rest of them said, “Yeah, the guy’s in a band with one of Kula Shaker.” “Oh, right!” [Laughs] It was a young audience, you know? That was tough, but really good. It’s hard to go out in front of a very big audience waiting for their favorite long-haired Mancunians to come out.

The people who did know your work were probably expecting an army of 12-string jangling away. Funnily enough, I’ve started playing the 12-string Rickenbacker again. Someone passed me one in a shop and it just sounded like me. I went, “OK. Guilty.” Also playing with and Neil Finn brought that out.

Have you seen ?

I saw it very recently.

I was wondering what you thought of it.

Well, I was sent the script about two years ago and was asked to do a cameo in it. Before I read the script I said, “Oh, sounds good—only if I could be one of Joy Division’s roadies.” Being obsessive, I considered really getting into the role, like DeNiro, Raging Bull, eat pasta for breakfast. But then I read the script and went, “Oh, no. Forget that.” It was difficult for me to be objective about it because I was so close to it and it’s primarily about people I know and a scene I grew up around. I only saw it about six weeks ago because I’d made up my mind it was dire. When I saw it, I was pleasantly surprised because I thought it was quite sweet. Because to me, it’s about , Alan Erasmus and , who I knew very well. It’s got a bit of poignancy.

I thought it was very clever. Steve Coogan is a well-known comedian over in England, but we really hadn’t seen him before.

He’s really funny. His portrayal of Tony Wilson isn’t that far off the mark. Tony is that ridiculous. I thought the guy playing Bernard Sumner was a bit lazy in his research. It doesn’t take much to dye your hair black to be in Joy Division. Put a tie on, you know? Bernard in Joy Division is actually Bernard doing “The Perfect Kiss” in New Order from 1985 in terms of the way he looks.

How do you mean?

In the movie, when it was supposed to be Joy Division, it was actually Bernard five years hence. Bernard didn’t discover peroxide and long trousers until at least ‘84. Get it together, man. But that’s just me being too close to it.

The film was admittedly focused on Factory, but did you find it strange that the Smiths weren’t featured? Was the music scene in Manchester more intertwined than was portrayed?

I was around the Hacienda all the time. Without my involvement in the Hacienda, the Smiths wouldn’t have had a lot of the resources and insights that we had into what was going on, frankly. The scene that’s the very first night in the Hacienda essentially was right, because the point was that nobody came. It was essentially right, but it was nothing like that. I was there. It was dark, the floor was wet, it was different. But to answer your question, the Smiths very much peeled ourselves away from and consciously made the decision to sign with Rough Trade.

Which is London-based.

Yes. Mostly because the Fall was on Rough Trade; Morrissey was particularly a fan of the Fall and Monochrome Set. We didn’t want to be regarded in that family of Manchester bands. But I played on the record in 1983 with Bernard Sumner. Bernard was a mate and the guy I used to live with was a DJ there, and Tony Wilson came into my clothes shop the day they got the plans for the Hacienda and unfolded the plans on the counter of my shop. The blueprints for the building. It was really important for someone of my age, 17 or 18 in ‘80, ‘81 because it was the only place at the time to see bands. And there were a lot of bands at the time that sort of went into the melting pot. Birthday Party, Gun Club …

When you work at a magazine, you tend to compartmentalize things, and I was thinking that this year, and came back and did the Buzzkunst thing, and a Factory band called Crispy Ambulance reunited—

Really? [laughing, incredulous] They came back? No one’s said the words “ambulance” and “crispy” to me in the same sentence since 1983. Really? And there was Fire Engines and Josef K, I saw them at the Hacienda. That place was my formative years.

You’re still around Manchester recording bands, right?

My place could be anywhere in the world, really. I live a pretty insular life. I rarely go out, and don’t need to. I’ve got a real studio with a live room and high ceilings and an engineer. The studio could be anywhere in the world, but not London. The decision to move to Manchester was to follow where the music was. It wasn’t because that’s my home or that’s my roots or my family’s there or anything. I was in California after the Smiths split and was happy to be away from the British music scene. Friends were looking after my house and, as I remember it, I was speaking to them on the phone and they were saying, “Oh, we had an amazing night last night. Went down to the Hacienda and got in a few E’s and then we came back here and we listened to Donovan. Did you check out any Donovan? [Note: Marr is most likely talking about the /dancehall artist Donovan, not the ‘60s folk singer.] He’s really, really good. And we’re listening to (Detroit duo) Inner City.” And I’m just sitting in L.A. with MTV on with Poison keeping me company. Damn, sounds like a really good scene over there—in my house, you know? Had it been in Glasgow or Seattle or , I’d have gone there. It just happened to be in my hometown.

Do you have a certain status in Manchester, where other bands seek your advice and things like that?

Whenever I’m asked whether I give bands advice, I always feel uneasy about it. It seems like a very patronizing, pompous, self-elevating position to take. However, if you’re around your friends, you just pop ‘em straight: “The live sound sucks because the guitar player’s got a bad amp.” You just give them the amp. Which is what I did with Oasis in the early days. I had no idea that Oasis were gonna be as huge as they are, nor did they or anybody. It was phenomenal success. I just gave Noel a couple guitars and introduced him to my management. And let him live in my flat—because I like him. I thought he was a nice guy, you know? I’ve given a lot of people a lot of equipment because I don’t like waste. Not because I’m particularly an angel, but because I got helped out by a few nice people along the way. Maybe it’s karma or whatever, or just being polite. My parents—particularly because of the Oasis thing—still get tapes and CDs sent to their house. They’re often not very good, but if it just takes a phone call to give someone a little bit of encouragement, it’s not a difficult thing to do.

Mind if I rattle off a few names of people you’ve worked with?

We’re going to be here all night but, yeah, sure.

Bernard Sumner.

I knew you’d say that. Complicated and simple at the same time. Simple in the best possible sense. Almost Zen-like detachment. Great guy with a real sense of what’s important in life. He deserves everything that’s come to him because he put the work in. Had it not been for , Bernard would have been completely lost and constrained and stifled because of what punk rock was supposed to be like: freeing up people who were really imaginative and genuinely artistic. Bernard is a real punk. Invented his own thing, you know? Really overlooked. Electronic is one of the rare examples of a band that split up with no acrimony whatsoever. We were too smart and our friendship was too important to let that happen. I learned a lot about singing from Bernard. It’s the approach: leave your insecurities and neuroses at the door ‘cause we’ve got a job to do. Be subjective when you write a song and when you’re getting your melodies together be as emotional as you like, but then when you’re doing the thing, just drop the shit and do the job.

Matt Johnson.

Matt’s an amazing guy. Incredibly misunderstood. He’s very, very funny. A great example of the value of self-education over taught education, because he’s a very interesting guy and didn’t learn any of it in school. He became incredibly worldly against the odds. He’s a real fighter. Matt’s someone who will constantly be looking for the answers to things and will put himself through all kinds of difficult experiences in pursuit of it. Noble guy and a friend. He was the first person who told me I should do my own record and sing, and that was in ‘87.

Well, it just took you a while to get around to it.

Shows you how much stock I put in his opinion. [Laughs] Beck.

Beck reminded me of David Byrne in the best possible way. He can get on pretty much anyone’s sense of humor and sense of the absurd. A good listener, that’s what I find from Beck. A very perceptive person, and one of those guys who likes to hear people talk. I saw him play last night, it was really good. His new record’s great, I really rate it.

Sea Change was a risky thing for him to do.

I think he’s the real thing because he’s not afraid to go down some necessary sideroads rather than just take the main highway. When all’s said and done, I think he’ll be able to be discussed in the same way as . Obviously, Bob Dylan comes to mind, but Dylan is so mythical and legendary, but I can see Beck’s doing the same kind of thing in a way. And David Bowie.

Chrissie Hynde.

Chrissie’s a fascinating person. Incredibly complex. Really funny. And this amazing mixture of all things people assume that she is: ballsy, no-nonsense sort of balanced with this incredible femininity. She smells amazing. All the time. Chrissie is to England what I am to the States. It’s like she was born in the wrong place. Super attraction to England and English culture, as I did America and American culture. When she makes a pot of tea, it’s in a beautiful teapot with great cups and it’s all a bit of a ceremony. Whereas I just can’t wait to get to Denny’s. But for me, she was really important. One of the things that people don’t know about Chrissie and myself is that my part in the Pretenders is 10 percent about the band and the music and 90 percent about my relationship to that woman. I met her at a time when I was fairly battered by the Smiths split and the things going on in my world with the media. And the manipulation of the media by certain people to make me look like the bad guy. I suddenly found myself hanging out with this person and I’m going, “Oh, things are tough. I’m bruised. Oh, I left my band. Oh, it’s really raw.” And her vibe was, “Well, two of my fucking band died. And plus, I don’t even really know who your band are. Let’s go see some life.” It was an amazing thing to be around.

In the sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll equation, rock ‘n’ roll has always eclipsed the other two for you. And that applies to Morrissey as well.

I guess I’m being flowery about it, but as kids we both felt absolutely crazy until we discovered pop music, and we’re not alone in it. And I guess that’s why people can relate to us. People think that I’m the antithesis of Morrissey. If that’s the thing they relate to me for, well, they’re wrong. Maybe it’s just my aesthetic that they don’t truck with; and I’m cool with that, ‘cause I don’t truck with theirs, either. The thing that they get from him, he got from me as well, and I get from him. As people, I was probably as dysfunctional in my own way as he was until I immersed myself in pop culture. The thing about the two of us is we heard and saw things in records that weren’t even there.

To condense all that flowery shit and get to the point—it’s not your point, but whatever, right? —he’s got a great voice. He invented things in pop music. Brought things into pop music after 25 years of all kinds of stuff being there. Aesthetically, he’s a true innovator. What an innovator is, to me, is someone who can bring together what on the face of things seem like totally disparate elements, put them through their own funnel and then present the thing that is identifiably his in a new genre. And the Smiths sleeves are the perfect example. You see something that looks like a Smiths sleeve? It’s a Morrissey sleeve. You try to tell someone who can’t see what those elements are and they would think you were nuts. You’ve got film stars, sports stars, some kind of graphic. Those things should never work together, but they did. That’s what Miles Davis did.

Well, your role in the Smiths aesthetic was huge. If you don’t mind a bit of flattery, I think that the way you played guitar two decades ago—and a couple other people, as well—changed what people thought good guitar playing was. At the time, it was mostly about Eddie Van Halen, big solos. You brought it back to a level of…

Melody, rhythm and getting to the point. Emotive. There’s no musicality in technique for technique’s sake, as we all know. The thing about Smiths records and some other bands like us—some of the best Joy Division records and some of the real sad New Order records—is that they were emotive. I love playing guitar and I like guitar players, but I didn’t like anyone in particular because they, as just guitar players, weren’t saying as much to me as “All The Young Dudes” by Mott The Hoople.

You wouldn’t separate the guitar from the whole song.

I didn’t so much listen to these records as study them. When I was learning to play, I wouldn’t listen to the guitar player and then try to play the guitar part—I’d try to play the whole record. That was the thing that set me on fire. The didn’t set me on fire like a kickass chorus with some strings in it and some high backing vocals. I wanted to do things that hit me—those sections of records that would explode for me. That’s why I played super- melodic and quite dramatic and tried to get some sadness out of it. I purposely bought a Rickenbacker so I wouldn’t play like a blues player. Obviously I appreciate Jimmy Page, but that wasn’t what it was about. I wanted to hear a whole Phil Spector record when I played the guitar.

And there’s no better way to do that than with a 12-string guitar and 16th notes. It was a big sound. And it was only when the press started mentioning that I went and checked the Byrds out. It’s kind of nuts to talk about this stuff. I only know about these things because people have told me.

Well, you’ve probably had to analyze guitar playing to death. People probably think you have a giant guitar tattooed on your back.

It’s not on my back. [Laughs] [Morrissey and I] felt like we could make it magical at the time. We were both getting the buzz out of our records that we would get out of the records that touched us when we were kids. That’s a highly emotional state to be in. That’s hard on the nervous system. You know, when the Beatles talk about their experiences being hard on the nervous system, that’s obviously because they were stuck in a hotel with 10,000 people outside. But what was hard on me and Morrissey, and why there was a certain resentment from us toward the other members of the band, was they didn’t have that. We were trying to set ourselves on fire all the time in what we were doing. It really takes it out of you.

As the Smiths went on, did the pressure just continue to get greater to achieve things, musically?

We were in an incredibly emotional state all the time because of what we were doing in the studio. He’d be going, “Oh my god, I don’t believe this piece of music that he’s brought to me.” And then when he’d sing on it, I’d go, “Oh my god, I don’t believe what he’s just sung.” And before we knew it, we had another one. It was pretty good going, you know?

Here’s Johnny!

This article originally appeared in Upfront magazine – 2002.

Eighties jangly pop fans of the world reunite, ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr is back, and back at his best, working with the likes of Oasis and the Pet Shop Boys. Not only that, in true once-was-famous-in-a-supporting role fashion, he’s now also fronting his his own rock outfit, The Healers. SEAN HANNAM grabs a rare audience with the secretive godfather of indie.

This year, it’ll be difficult to avoid Johnny Marr. The former Smiths guitar hero has contributed to Oasis’ newly released album, , Pet Shop Boys’ Release, and folky comedown queen Beth Orton’s latest long-player, Daybreaker. He’s also produced the debut album from up-and-coming, moody indie act Haven, and found the time to front his own back-to-basics rock ‘n’ roll band, The Healers.

In fact, Marr’s work can be heard all over Pet Shop Boys’ Release, which heralds a new, guitar-oriented direction for the traditionally camp, HI-NRG dance duo. “Yeah, I’ve done their new album and I’ve recorded some stuff with Liam from Oasis, so I think a couple of my guitar parts have ended up on their record,” he says.

Does he ever get sick of being a gun-slinging, guitarist-for-hire? “I’ve never sat down and planned collaborations,” he says. “They’ve always come about from having something in common – a friendship.

“I’ve just stopped saying ‘I’m not going to do it’. I said in the States I was going to stop collaborating but then a couple of days later I got a call from Beck, asking if I’d work with him. While working with Beck, I met Beth Orton, and discovered we were staying in the same hotel. One night, we got back at four in the morning, with the sun coming up over LA, and the next thing you know we’re hanging out on a balcony and we’ve written six songs together! I was definitely Graham Nash to her Joni Mitchell!”

Greasy groove

Last year, Johnny unleashed the debut single from his new band, The Healers. It was the first time he’d written, played and sung one of his own songs.

The Last Ride saw him shelving his tried and trusted, jangly sound for a heads-down, greasy Led Zep groove. It was also miles away from the hedonistic House and Euro disco territory he’d explored with New Order’s Bernard Sumner in the duo Electronic.

Aided by musicians including former Kula Shaker bassist, Alonza Bevan, and sprog, Zak Starkey, on drums, Johnny created an enormous, filthy drone-rock boogie, built on an FX-heavy wall of sound, with some blissed-out vocals reminiscent of Ray Davies.

“I was really interested in getting back to the thing that was in me when I was in my early teens,” says Marr. ” I don’t want to be retro, but I want to rock. I want to get back to the notion of energy. I started to listen again to the music that had some balls to it – T Rex, The Stooges, early David Bowie. I have a massive respect for old records, but I don’t wish it was 1969 again. I just find that there’s a primal thing which you get from some records by The Rolling Stones, Peter Green and The Stooges that shows up today’s music industry for what it is – just soap-powder.

“I was brought up on classic rock, but I don’t want to look back. I want to make something that’s for the times. I’m not trying to make a classic record – I’ve done that with The Smiths.”

Tragic and comical

Ah, The Smiths; one of the biggest successes of the Eighties. Marr and flouncy frontman Stephen Patrick Morrissey will be remembered as one of the greatest songwriting partnerships of all time – Marr penning intricate guitar melodies to accompany Morrissey’s sometimes tragic, sometimes comical lyrics of sexual frustration, inadequacy and alienation. Between 1982 and 1987, The Smiths recorded four brilliant, ground-breaking studio albums which became the soundtrack to student bedsits everywhere and paved the way for a whole legion of indie guitar acts, including Oasis and Blur.

“When we made those albums, we weren’t trying to be classic,” says Marr. “Had The Smiths sat down and said ‘this is going to be a classic,’ it wouldn’t have happened.”

The Smiths split in 1987, when Marr grew disenchanted with the band’s musical direction, and his relationship with Morrissey disintegrated, ending in bitterness. However, their legacy still lives on and often returns to haunt Marr.

In 1996, former Smiths drummer, , took him and Morrissey to court over unpaid royalties – a situation Marr now describes as ‘very ugly’.

Last year, record company Warner Bros upset him when they released yet another Smiths Best Of compilation album, with an unfortunate cover shot featuring camp Carry On star Charles Hawtrey.

“The Smiths’ back catalogue has been spectacularly tarnished by Warner Bros,” says Marr. “They mastered the album really badly, they misspelt song titles, got the producer’s name wrong, chopped off one of the intros and put on an unbelievable sleeve.

“I felt that The Smiths’ stuff could have been re-mastered. It could have been a valid release that wouldn’t have been ripping people off. I’ve got loads of video stuff from making the albums that we could have put out on a DVD – given some people value for money. What is really irksome is that the guys at Warner Bros can’t do their jobs as well as I can. That sucks, but the rest of The Smiths have done a pretty good job of tarnishing the legacy as well!”

Johnny is now surprisingly open about his time in the band. For a long time he refused to talk about what had actually happened between him and the other band members.

“I’m no angel, but I didn’t speak about The Smiths for years because I didn’t want to bring anything negative up,” he says. “I once talked about them, on a BBC TV programme, and then in a big magazine. I did four hour interviews and I swear that for three-and-a-half hours I talked about the strength of The Smiths’ friendship, the magic of the music, our influences, how great Morrissey was as a live performer and our relationship with the fans. It was all positive stuff, but the 20 minutes of complaints that I had became the theme of the articles. I don’t take it personally, but it shifts papers. The journalists who write those kind of things are a long way away from the classic writers of the late Seventies and the early Eighties, who they’re trying to emulate.”

Demise

Following the demise of The Smiths, Marr became a guitar-for-hire, lending his services to a long list of artists. Throughout his post-Smiths career he’s worked with acts including The Pretenders, , The The, Billy Bragg, Kirsty MacColl, Beck, Neil Finn and Echo & The Bunnmen’s Ian McCulloch. “I’ve got a strong friendship with everyone I’ve worked with – apart from one obvious exception – which shows you just how dysfunctional The Smiths were,” he says.

Marr was actually a fully paid-up member of The The for three-and-a-half-years, appearing on both the and Dusk albums.

“The The was as much of a band as a band could be,” he says. “Dusk is my favourite album I’ve ever worked on – without exception. It’s the only album I’ve made that I could sit down and listen to.”

Over the years, Marr had been approached on several occasions to record a solo album, but he’d resisted, believing the time wasn’t right. However, something clicked when he met Zak Starkey. “It would have been easy for me to just bang something out, but I have to be passionate about what I’m doing,” he says.

“I met Zak in New York a few years ago and we hit it off straight away – we were kindred spirits. When we got back to England we started jamming together, just for the fun of it. I’d written some songs that I couldn’t see anyone that I knew recording, so we got them together and decided to make up a group. It was a real instinctive thing.”

So was he reluctant to t

ake up the role of frontman, after standing on the sidelines for so long? “As far as fronting the group goes, it wasn’t really my call,” he explains. “It was down to the rest of the band. I had found a singer in Manchester with a pretty good classic rock voice, but the band conspired and said that I should sing because my voice was more unusual. It took me about a week to get my head round it, but I trusted them. It then started to make sense, as there seemed little point in me giving someone else my music to sing. I had pretty strong ideas about what I wanted The Healers to be, so bringing anyone else in would have diluted it.”

Marr is keen to stress that The Healers are a group – not just him and his backing band. “The idea behind The Healers and our shows is not about coming along and adoring me – I don’t need to be loved.”

We all need to be loved, don’t we? “Not me, I’m getting it!”

So, he’s not a frustrated frontman, then? There was never a time when he looked at Morrissey and thought “that could be me up there?”

“Never. Not in the slightest. I was more than happy to carve out the path that I did. I haven’t got any aspirations to be different from the way that I am.”

Off the mark

The Healers are currently working on their debut album and plan to release it some time later this year. “It’s going really well,” says Johnny. “I want to put it out on my own label. I met up with a couple of record companies last year, but they wanted me to walk around a square in Barcelona, wearing a white suit, like a guitar-playing Richard Ashcroft!”

He’s also looking for someone to produce his new material. “At some point I’d like to work with somebody, but the problem is finding someone who has made as many records as I have! Me and Bernard, in Electronic, were always looking for a producer, but everyone we met wanted to make Blue Monday or How Soon Is Now. We were like ‘hang on a minute’.”

Looking at the future, Marr has high hopes for The Healers, which he views as a long-term project. “Hand on heart, I’d like to make six true Healers albums without any kind of commercial consideration or compromise,” he says. “It seems like a test of idealism whether I can do it, but I know I can do it in terms of inspiration or will. It’s a case of trying to not let your idealism get knocked out of you by commercial and financial concerns. I’m just gonna carry on the way I’m going.”

So, we won’t be queuing up for any Smiths reunion gigs just yet, then?

“Never.”

22 March, 2013

Music legend Johnny Marr is painting CityLife a vivid picture of childhood.

It’s one that explains where his passion for the six string began – outside a corner shop, aged five. “A little guitar was my first ever toy,” he recalls. “I carried this guitar round – which was bought from a place that sold mops and brooms and buckets – like other little boys carry round fire engines and guns.

“My parents said I was like a dog on a lead that won’t move every time I saw that guitar in the shop. I didn’t even know what it was. And it was unplayable. But very quickly I painted it with household paint and stuck bottle caps on to make it look like an electric.

“Having it had absolutely nothing to do with fame and fortune, although it might have been about girls,” he laughs. “I just had a compulsion to have this instrument.”

He grew up in Ardwick and in a family of “record freaks”, and religiously consumed live music shows on TV. But finding that guitar has made him a life-long believer in destiny. As has the fact that, had he had enough money in his pocket for a train to London, he’d have formed The The with teenage friend Matt Johnson instead of meeting Morrissey and forming The Smiths.

“With the life I’ve had, you have to have some respect for the esoteric,” Johnny says. “I’ve too much respect for science to be completely esoteric, but of course that stuff makes me believe in destiny.

“Matt and I sat up night after night plotting how The The was gonna make records. When The Smiths broke up and I joined The The, most people were scratching their heads but they didn’t know the half of it.”

Almost 45 years after Johnny Marr picked up his first guitar, then – plus one wedding to childhood sweetheart, Angie, and two kids later – he’s put out his solo debut record.

The 49-year-old hasn’t been idle in-between, of course. The Smiths made his reputation as a guitarist and songwriter, but his relentless pursuit of new challenges has seen him temporarily work with The The, Modest Mouse, The Cribs, and The Pretenders, as well as co-found Electronic and The Healers and write a movie soundtrack for blockbuster Inception.

His history is something Marr has always been proud to talk about, but never to repeat. And as he takes to the road under his own name for the first time, with two nights this weekend at Manchester’s Ritz, his vision is just as tunnelled towards progress.

His debut LP, The Messenger, is the first of “at least three solo albums” he’ll release and its 12 defiant, elegant and critical pop rock tracks came to him over a year and, unusually, lyrics first then melodies.

He wrote 27 songs – three short of the goal he set himself – and they sound inescapably Marr: “I think it’s right for every artist to want to break out of stereotyping and clichés. But at the same time, fans now know that I do a lot of different things, so this time I thought I’d surprise everybody by doing the normal thing!” he laughs.

And perhaps that’s also because the album brought him home to Manchester from Oregan, USA, to studios in Cheshire, Salford (Blueprint) and Berlin. “I wanted it to have the same energy as bands I liked when I was starting out – that’s the main reason I came back, there was a certain attitude I wanted in the music.

“I am a Manchester musician, it’s part of my sound and who I am. I had to make it here. Without wanting to hammer the point home, I’ve always thought of myself as Mancunian- Irish, and the city I come from is a big part of my personality and ideology, but at the same time because my family moved there I always looked at it with an outsider’s eye.

“I think it is the function of any artist to question and make observations and comments about a society, because if those creative people don’t, who will? You don’t want to make that a complaint and bring the music down, but I do think it’s importaant that my band play music about the country we live in.”

Of course, he also returns to Manchester having been crowned Godlike Genius and greatest rock guitarist by the NME. And he’s doing it with his chest puffed right out. “I think they should change the name of that award now,” he chuckles. “Maybe they should change it to the ‘Would-be Godlike Genius If Johnny Marr Hadn’t Got It’ – yeah? That’s got a nice ring to it.”

12 March, 2013

After years as a sideman, the former Smiths guitarist - who plays a sold-out show at Cambridge Junction on March 12 - is taking centre stage with his debut solo album The Messenger. He tells Andy Welch why the time was finally right, and why it's all about philosophy

It's been a long time coming, but some things really are worth the wait.

After leaving The Smiths in 1987, Johnny Marr has been something of a wanderer, a roaming guitar-slinger for hire. Now, at the grand old age of 49, he's ready to release his debut solo album, The Messenger.

"It's late in the day to be making my debut album," he admits. "But it feels like early days again, which people might be surprised to hear. That's one of the advantages of making your first record under your own name after having made so many with other people, it's all fresh again."

After leaving The Smiths - his departure led to the band's break-up weeks later - Marr seemed intent on working with as many artists as he could. He briefly joined Pretenders and The The, and formed Electronic with New Order's Bernard Sumner. Subsequent years would see him turn producer with the likes of early Noughties hopefuls Haven, form his band Johnny Marr + The Healers, team up with 's Neil Finn on his 7 Worlds Collide project, and become a fully fledged member of American indie stars Modest Mouse and 's finest The Cribs.

"I just reached a point where I didn't want to be in another band - or someone else's band - anymore," he says. "The ideas for the record started to haunt me, in a good way. I'm always led by my musical hunches, that then become strong ideas and concepts that sometimes lead to being in someone else's band, but this time led to my own songs."

He says he never had the inclination to make a solo album before, and the timing wouldn't have been right. The Messenger is a result of working with so many others and drawing different things from each set up. Marr also realised over the years that, with each project he was involved in, he had his own fans following him.

"I'd say that's been 80% of the motivation for making this album, to play music to people who like what I do. It sounds like such an obvious thing, but it was an incredible revelation to me," he says.

That a former member of The Smiths, a band with one of the most devoted and obsessive fan bases, would be surprised people were prepared to attend gigs especially to see him, says something about Marr. He's unlike most rock stars, seemingly devoid of ego and uninterested in the trappings of his work environment.

"I prefer philosophy, really," he says. "Mostly German. Pretentious, maybe. So shoot me. I want to read about interesting things about the human condition. And as much as I love rock'n'roll, I stopped reading rock biographies in my 20s when they became less crazy than my own life. Since then it's been poetry, books about art, and philosophy. Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche are my rock stars, which I think is pretty amusing."

Otherwise, Marr draws inspiration from cities. Growing up in Manchester, he says he's long been fascinated by metropolitan centres, what the architecture says about a place.

"I guess it's called psycho-geography," he says. "The most important thing for me is to get out into the world and get the wind in my hair." Having left behind The Smiths and - later rather than sooner - going solo, it could be said Marr is following in the footsteps of Paul Weller and . They were respectively part of bands that helped define the Seventies and Nineties before going it alone. Is it now time for Marr to step into the spotlight in a similar way?

"I can absolutely relate to Paul and Noel for obvious reasons, but it's good not to analyse these things too much," he says, cautiously. "When I was starting out I might've analysed the hell out of that comparison, but I know when to leave well alone now.

"With the greatest respect to the profession, I can't start thinking like a journalist - it's not very good for making music. There are many considerations when making a record and the c- word pops up - career. I've learned over the years from some great people - Bernard Sumner and being just two of them - that there are things that other people would dwell on, but you shouldn't consider them.

"Comparing yourself to another is one of those things, and how inspiration strikes is the other. Follow Picasso's dictum, that inspiration does exist but it has to find you working, and leave it at that. Bernard Sumner always says that when the sun is shining, you shouldn't look it, you just have to accept that it is."

The Messenger, written and recorded in a Salford barn, is a melodic, guitar-centric album that manages to pull from each facet of Marr's career. There's the unmistakable, jangly guitar playing first heard with The Smiths, the brat-ish energy, particularly on I Want The Heartbeat and Generate! Generate! of The Cribs, and, on the title track, a floating quality not a million miles from his work with Electronic. Crucially, however, none of it could be by anybody else, and there's an immediacy to the album. These songs sound fresh and new, but also instantly familiar.

"It's nice to have made a record and not hear people say it's a grower," he says. "It's very important to me that the songs had energy. I can't wait for the first live shows.

"It's not been easy being a fan of mine, with me going in different directions. This record is for the fans. Well, if not for them, it's for us, me and them together. It's most definitely time to get into a venue, big or small, and for us all to just enjoy ourselves and have fun." May 25, 2013

Around half an hour into my conversation with Johnny Marr, things take a distinctly awkward turn. Up until this point, the hallowed ex-Smiths guitarist-turned-serial collaborator-turned- solo artist has been warm, chatty, full of sunshine and bonhomie. As we are introduced, I mention that we met once before about 10 years ago and Marr – looking sharp in dark jeans, Crombie-style coat, his hair sculpted into the customary Mod cut – does a valiant job of pretending to remember.

We are in where he is due to play a show. For the first time in months, the sun has come out. As we sit down in the bar at his hotel overlooking the sea, he chats happily about his recent move back to Manchester after five years living in Portland, Oregon; his occasional forays into teaching (in 2007 he was given an honorary degree at Salford University, since when he has been a visiting professor) and the joys of good health (this morning the teetotal, vegan Marr went for a six-mile run).

He orders a cup of hot water and then pulls a large, transparent bag of herbal tea from his pocket – "I'm very particular about tea," he smiles – and we both chuckle at how dodgy it looks. Everything is going swimmingly, which I'm pleased about as he's a proper hero of mine (I have never worshipped any band like I worship The Smiths). Soon, I'm pretty sure, he'll be inviting me round to meet the family.

But then I go and throw a spanner in the works, one so heavy that it causes Marr's face to darken and his hands to curl into angry fists. His expression tells me he would like to drag me over the road to Brighton Pier and dropkick me off the end of it. The spanner? That would be Morrissey.

It's no secret that Marr has spent 26 years trying to, if not entirely shrug off, move beyond The Smiths and their immense legacy. Marr was 18 years old when he and Morrissey first formed the band, and 23 when, to the despair of Morrissey and their legions of fans, he called it quits. He has since busied himself with assorted collaborations – initially with The Pretenders, The The and Electronic (with New Order's Bernard Sumner) and latterly with the American indie band Modest Mouse and 's The Cribs.

In between times there has been session work with Paul McCartney, Pet Shop Boys, Talking Heads and Beck. He has worked alongside on the soundtrack to the movie Inception, for which they were nominated for an Oscar, and has fronted his own band Johnny Marr's Healers. Earlier this year, at the age of 49, he released his first proper solo album, The Messenger, which had critics rhapsodising about his chiming guitars that hark back to the old days of The Smiths, while being merely polite about his singing. And yet, as Marr forges determinedly forwards, the clamour surrounding The Smiths has never quietened. If anything, it has got louder. Long-term admirers continue to emerge from the woodwork, the latest being David Cameron who, in choosingf "This Charming Man" as one of his Desert Island Discs, joins Russell Brand, Noel Gallagher, JK Rowling and Douglas Coupland among the ever-growing club of celebrity Smiths fans.

Meanwhile, rumours about an imminent Smiths reunion have circulated almost as frequently as books have been written and re-issued albums churned out.

Five years ago it was alleged that Marr and Morrissey were offered $120m (£76m) to tour the US, which both flatly turned down. More recently, though, there has been a softening in their language on the subject; last year Marr told Rolling Stone, "I don't know about the possibility [of a reunion] but what I do know is that I understand how great it would be to make so many people happy" – prompting further speculation that a tour was on the cards.

So I feel duty-bound to ask the question: will it ever happen?

Marr looks at me stonily. "It's an impossible thing," he says blankly. "It's impossible for that group to re-form. That's it. That's my answer."

Hmmm. I decide to press on. Is he in contact with Morrissey?

The silence continues and Marr stares furiously out of the window. Eventually he asks: "Are people really interested in this?"

Well I am, I say, and I don't think I'm alone, given the 'will-they, won't-they' debates that bubble away online.

"I think journalists are interested," he says. "You're just interested in asking the question, and really you shouldn't be. Because who cares about some emails that we send to each other every few years, that aren't particularly in-depth. I mean, is that interesting for people to read about? I don't think it is really. It's not as interesting as my new songs, and why some songs are called what they are. If you want to know about me and Morrissey, just Google it." I'm sorry the question has annoyed you, I say, but Google isn't the most reliable source of…

"Listen, I'm not ruffled by this," he interrupts, sounding distinctly ruffled. "The difficulty here is that the answer is very boring. And I don't want to be boring. There have been emails. Just emails. That's it. That's all I can say."

OK, I reply. Perhaps we should move on.

"Yeah, let's do that."

The enduring problem for Marr is that, for the die-hard Smiths fan (and I'm not alone here; there are zillions), the dynamic that existed between him and Morrissey has remained endlessly fascinating. Like McCartney and Lennon, Jagger and Richards, Bacharach and David, they are among popular music's greatest pairings, a duo blessed with a rare alchemy. But then they fell out and Morrissey, aggrieved by Marr's sudden exit, made it clear their friendship was over.

Their only public reunion since The Smiths' split in 1987 has been a High Court appearance when the pair were sued by drummer Mike Joyce over unpaid royalties. Joyce won. Months later in an interview, Morrissey remarked: "The Smiths were a beautiful thing and Johnny left it, and Mike has destroyed it."

Since then, as Morrissey's post-Smiths stock has fluctuated – a situation not improved by recent intemperate pronouncements on the 2011 Norwegian terrorist attacks, the Duchess of Cambridge and Ukip – Marr has never been more popular, and has settled with ease into the role of indie elder statesman. This February he was given a 'Godlike Genius' gong by the NME at its annual awards party.

Which, of course, makes this a perfect time to be releasing his solo album. Still in combative mood, Marr wants it to be known that "just because I'm here now fronting my own band doesn't mean that what I've done in the past has been done with anything other than 100 per cent conviction. You ask any member of The The or Electronic what it's like to be in a band with me and they'll tell you it's fucking intense. I don't want anyone to imply that everything I've been doing in the past 25 years since The Smiths has been building up to this, because it hasn't." Marr moved back to Manchester in 2010 from the United States in order to "write the kind of music I want to write. It's what I've done all my life. I go straight to the place that's going to be best for what I do".

Your wife must be very patient, I say.

"She is," replies Marr. "Neither of us have known any other way. Creativity always comes first."

Marr first met Angie when she was 14 and he 15. In a touching divergence from the usual rock-star narrative of debauchery and divorce, they have been together ever since. "Well I kind of arrived in Angie's life fully-formed,"f he explains. "I was a guy who was in bands. Tomorrow night I was going to get on a train and go to rehearsal and Saturday night I was going to blag some studio time and she was, like, 'That sounds good, I'll do that too'."

So why did they feel the need to come back to Manchester?

"I wanted to get a bit narky," he says.

Really, I say? Given the awkwardness of the last 10 minutes, I wonder if he's joking.

"It's too mellow in Portland," he continues. "As British people, being narky is part of our psyche. I needed to be bugged by traffic wardens and annoyed by newscasters and get a little bit of that attitude into my music. That said, all the songs on the album are commentaries and not complaints. [The song] 'Right Think Right' is a commentary on being a target of market forces and crass commercialism; 'Upstarts' is a jubilant celebration of defiance. None of these new songs are complaints because by nature I'm optimistic, even idealistic, and I think it's in our interest to try and make things better. I've always felt that way, even when I started out."

As a child, music was forever playing in Marr's head, an internal jukebox pumping out Sixties soul music and Seventies glam-rock. "I was wearing invisible headphones on a day-to-day basis, from before I went to school to when I went to bed," he reflects. "It got me through the day. I knew I wanted to make great records, which is something that's never changed. Then people started saying that I played guitar in a way they'd never heard before, I realised I had something distinctive. I understood my function completely." It was May 1982 when the Wythenshawe-raised Marr – who was born Johnny Maher – famously knocked on 23-year-old Steven Morrissey's door to see if he wanted to work on some songs. The chemistry was instant: while Morrissey was channelling the spirits of Oscar Wilde and Joe Orton, Marr fed off the sounds of Phil Spector, and Chic. Having initiated the working relationship, Marr continued to be the band's galvanising force.

"In many respects," he says, "I've run all the bands I've been in. A great front man needs that other person. It's not enough to have a guy with a cute face standing behind a microphone. I see it like the classicf romantic relationships with men and women, where the woman lets the man think he's running it. It's a classic matriarchal trait, and that's always been part of my personality."

Marr says the situation hasn't changed much, even now he's the focus of this latest project. "Through age and experience there's a practical aspect to doing it and a responsibility to your band. But I don't have to change who I am to do it. My real apprenticeship started at 14 when I was in bands with much older people, and it was terrifying then. Now I know how it works and, thankfully, there's a lot of love for me. When we play, people are up for a celebratory night. Which is nice."

It must be great to feel such goodwill from fans, though I wonder again what it must be like to be lauded for something you did nearly 30 years ago.

When I interviewed Marr 10 years ago he was sweet and indulgent of my fandom. "I'm the biggest Smiths fan in the world," he said kindly, as I babbled on about hearing "This Charming Man" for the first time. Today, I'd resolved to be more restrained, though clearly for Marr, true restraint now means not dropping the M-bomb.

I ask him if he's ever felt about a band the way people seem to feel about The Smiths. "Of course," he replies, smiling at last. "I felt that way about Patti Smith as a teenager. I love that that can happen about art. I'm a really big fan of David Hockney, and I'm really excited when he does something new. I'm a big fan of . I love thinking like a fan.

With The Smiths, I try to take it in the spirit that it's nearly always intended, which is with great affection. But I do feel that the people who are talking to me – and, to be fair, to Morrissey, too – purely on that basis are probably missing out on some stuff. I think they should take at least one blinker off and listen to a Modest Mouse record." Marr's children – son Nile and daughter Sonny – are now embarking on musical careers. Their dad is at once proud and alarmed. "When your kids gets involved in the arts – and specifically rock music – you can see a lot of sleeping on couches and dealing with certain, shall we say, problems," he notes. "They've grown up with it and they know it's not easy. They know it's not limousines and expensive clothes; it's getting in a van and driving for five hours to the next gig. I like to think that I've taught them that it's not all about fame and money. It's about being great at something, purely for the sake of being great at it. When I look back at what I've done, that's what makes me feel good."

Feb 22, 2013

A quarter-century after leaving The Smiths, arguably one of Britain’s most seminal pop bands, Johnny Marr has at long last released a solo album. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that the guitar great finally got around to it.

First came years of collaborating with acts as disparate as Talking Heads, The The, Electronic, Bryan Ferry, Beck and Modest Mouse. He even contributed to Hans Zimmer’s acclaimed Inception score. But before those, of course, was Marr’s most famous alliance: with Morrissey. Together they crafted enduring anthems of alienation and heartbreak, such as “How Soon Is Now?” and “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out.”

To make The Messenger (out now) -- a collection that harkens back to his roots: the guitar jangles and shimmers, the songs are often wistful and romantic -- the Englishman left Portland, his home since 2005, and decamped to his native Manchester, a city that owes him a huge musical debt. (On Wednesday, Marr is set to receive the NME Godlike Genius Award, the long-established British music paper’s highest honor, for his influence on generations of artists, including last year’s winner, Noel Gallagher.)

“I came back to see if I could connect with some of the notions that I had about music and bands when I was starting out,” Marr, 49, tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Not that I was looking to be nostalgic, but I think you can be someone who sounds like your environment. I mean, could only come out of Dusseldorf, and the Beach Boys could only come out of California, you know?”

But Marr’s Messenger is far sunnier than the rain-soaked streets of his northern industrial city -- or the Smiths’ catalog, for that matter.

“The album is surprisingly upbeat,” says Marr, who sings on every track (his unaffected voice often calls to mind his Electronic mate Bernard Sumner of New Order). “I’m surprised myself that pretty much all the tempos are really up, and the songs are quite short and happy.” PHOTOS: The 25 Biggest Tours of 2012: Year in Review

Though Marr left the Smiths in 1987 after they released just four studio albums, the band’s impact has been immeasurable. Even without a single hit stateside, the Smiths, along with and (both of whom were selling out stadiums by that decade’s end), are alternative-rock deities -- college radio’s holy trinity. Their songs are more popular now than ever and are the go-to soundtrack for anyone who seeks to wallow in romantic disappointment. Witness: Independent Sprit Awards winner Perks Of A Wallflower, wherein the film’s lonely teen protagonist cites The Smiths as his favorite band.

Meanwhile, Morrissey keeps their legacy alive by crooning Smiths songs in his tour’s set. (After a weeks-long hiatus to undergo treatment for a concussion, a bleeding ulcer and Barrett’s esophagus, the world's most famous vegetarian will perform Tuesday on Jimmy Kimmel Live and Friday at a much-publicized -- and meatless -- gig at LA’s Staples Center.)

And this spring, fans can hear Marr’s particular interpretation of the songs he co-wrote. After spending March touring the U.K. and Ireland, he commences his 18-date North American trek in support of The Messenger April 11 at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. For that show, as well as the one April 18 at the Santa Barbara Bowl, the guitarist will share the bill with New Order. On April 12, Marr is set to take the stage at Coachella for the first of the fest's two-weekend bow.

While there has been much speculation over the years about a Smiths reunion, fans probably shouldn’t hold their breath. Still, after a long and at times reportedly acrimonious rift, Marr and Morrissey are said to be on cordial terms. The two corresponded via email when Marr spearheaded the remastering work for the band’s 2011 box set, Complete.

Marr recently spoke with THR about how he’s finally able to embrace his signature sound, why it’s taken so long for him to stand alone in the spotlight, and more.

The Hollywood Reporter: There are moments on The Messenger that immediately call to mind The Smiths. Was that intentional?

Johnny Marr: For the longest time when I did that, I would erase it. What I did with The Smiths is still so loved, but as a young man trying not to be stuck in a box, I went through many periods where it was very important to me to do things other than that. No one wants to have a tag put on them at the age of 24. At the same time, you get to a point where you’re just really happy to have something that people love. So now, when a riff comes up, and people in the control room start smiling, and [you] have a feeling that someone is gonna love it, you just drop your agenda -- you record it, and you just look up and thank the god of inspiration and don’t overthink it. That’s the difference, really, with where I’m at now. It’s good to have those considerations and attitudes at a certain point in your life, but at other times you just drop the shit, you know?

THR: Did you have some very definite thoughts about what you wanted to do on your first solo album?

Marr: Sound-wise, I didn’t try to conceptualize it too much, and lyrically, pretty much the same thing. I wanted to be able to take inspiration from my environment. It’s important that I made a record that would be good live. Other considerations were that I wanted it to have energy, and I didn’t necessarily want to sing particularly too much about my feelings, but more about my thoughts. There’s already too many people singing about their feelings; I’d rather more people sing about their minds. I’m kind of joking about that, but also there’s plenty of other people who can do that better than me. I like Brian Eno’s early solo records, and I like and Wire. I’ve tried to not get too sentimental or emotional. And then right at the end of the record, just before it was all done, I felt that I succeeded too much in doing that. So, at the eleventh hour, I wrote the song “New Town Velocity,” because I wanted to put something emotional [and] autobiographical in there.

THR: What’s the story behind that track?

Marr: It’s about the day that I decided to leave school and never go back. It was a beautiful start of a summer’s morning, and it was one of those moments in time, if you’re lucky enough to have one, where you feel like you can bring the world to you. I felt like I could shape my own destiny. I’ve had many, many times like that throughout my life and still do now -- a particular sense of freedom that you don’t necessarily have to lose because you’re not a kid anymore. I felt that was the one thing on the record that needed to be noted. When I got the music together, I wanted the lyrics to match that mood, and the mood reminded me of that day. So I wrote about that day. My then-girlfriend and my best friend just decided to take off and walk around the city all day being free, you know?

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THR: Did making this album in Manchester made you nostalgic? Marr: Well, what made me think about that specific day was that the track had that same feeling in it, a wistful kind of optimism. It wasn’t just that I went home to Manchester. I’m not particularly a roots-y person. I worked out of Manchester because it’s a great environment for a rock musician, and that’s where I feel I can relate to people. It’s a creative kind of place in much the same way that Portland is. It doesn’t matter that I came from [Manchester]. I’m not at all a nostalgic person; I don’t really look back that much. But Manchester is a good place to be a rock musician.

I also went to Berlin because I didn’t want the record to be all U.K.-centric. I feel like British people are missing out if they don’t feel like Europeans. With being so close, and Barcelona being so close, and Pablo Picasso being in Paris and Salvador Dali and just the great tradition of regular, ordinary Europeans citizens with centuries of bravery and crossing borders -- hence the song, “European Me.”

THR: So why did it take so long for you to make your first true solo record?

Marr: The reason it happened now is because the record came really quick. I didn’t need or want anyone to collaborate on these songs. The thing I love about collaboration is the element of surprise when you work on something, then you hand it over and somebody else turns it upside-down and puts their mark on it. That’s something I love and have been very privileged to have done with so many great people. But in this case, I didn’t want to hand over the tunes. I wanted to keep them for myself, and I wanted to put my words on them. A few weeks into making demos, my friend who co-produces with me just put it to me that I should put it under my own name since I had the whole big picture, so to speak. So I didn’t decide to do a solo record and then start writing the songs; I started making the record and it was obvious it was a solo record.

THR: Were you initially nervous about being the frontman?

Marr: No, I like it. I went around the world a couple of times with The Healers and learned how to do it. I didn’t really like playing gigs or touring until the late nineties. All the way through the eighties and early nineties I didn’t like touring, but now I do. I don’t feel any sort of special weight or expectation; I just think it’s going to be a lot of fun ... For the longest time, I’ve wondered whether what I do is entertaining or art. Now I understand that for me, anyway, it’s both. Feb 25, 2013

One thing that’s typically true of any generation of rock guitarists is that they usually enjoy basking in the spotlight of their greatness. Not Johnny Marr. While certainly not shy about his praise, he is someone who has always taken it in his stride and has chosen a near consistent role as being the perpetual sideman. His most famous work will always be his five years as the heart and soul of The Smiths, but he’s had a prosperous career doing session work with everyone from Beck to Hans Zimmer, as well becoming a full-time member (albeit temporary) member of high profile bands like The The, Modest Mouse, and The Cribs as well as being one half of Bernard Sumner’s New Order vacation side project Electronic.

While Marr gave a stab at being the face in front of his work with “Boomslang,” the only album billed as Johnny Marr and the Healers, today marks the release of his first true solo album, “The Messenger.” Filled with the jangly hooks and the energetic charisma that made “Hand in Glove” such an electrifying debut single 30 years ago, it’s an album that any fan of Marr’s one-of-a-kind guitar-work has been waiting for from the man since he departed with The Smiths in 1987. Sifting through his collaborations over the years has always been a rewarding scavenger hunt, but the fact that Marr has never had a record to call his own for all these years has always been a frustrating missed opportunity. With “The Messenger,” we finally hear the artist in his purest and most direct form and the results are great.

When Johnny Marr gave us a ring from his hometown of Manchester, his trademark amicableness was in full effect. Aside from some inside info on his process for going about this big step in his career, we also dug into his past, such as his never-completed record with Echo and the Bunnymen frontman Ian McCulloch, his appearance at Dinosaur Jr’s “You’re Living All Over Me” anniversary show, “Portlandia,” and how his work ethic often outruns the bands he’s played in.

It’s been 10 years since the release of the Healers album. How does “The Messenger” differ from “Boomslang”?

It was very different actually. I kind of had it all mapped out in my mind before doing this record — not necessarily written but I had a very strong picture of how I wanted people to feel once they heard it and how it would be to play it live. The way we made “The Messenger” was different also because I’ve been touring nonstop for five years, and before that I had been a studio-rat for the previous decade almost. I was very much a live musician going back in the studio so I was very conscious, almost in an instinctive way about singing and playing live.

When did you start writing the material for this record? I started writing them at the start of 2011 and kind of finished writing them a few months after that. I went out and did a few little shows to test them which was a really useful thing to do and that made me go back into recording properly with a lot more confidence because all the songs we played live went down very well. I wrote about 30 songs so it wasn’t a laborious process I just kept writing and writing and got on a roll.

How do you feel about writing lyrics? Is it a different approach than writing music?

Writing lyrics was pretty much the same as writing music — it kind of falls into a couple of categories. Some are inspired and come very easily and some other stuff you have to craft and spend more time with but that’s fun too. It’s not like this torturous process. In fact I’m kind of looking forward to writing more.

Your home is in Portland but you chose to cut “The Messenger” in Manchester. How important do you feel location is to making music?

This album sounds closer to your roots in The Smiths than anything you’ve done for some time. Did remastering their back catalogue in 2011 have any bearing on your approach to these songs?

It’s a nice idea but it had nothing to do with anything really. I think I made [the soundtrack to] “Inception” after I did that so I feel like it would have more to do with that. I’d been in an American group I really enjoyed with Modest Mouse, and then was in a British group that I really enjoyed with The Cribs. And then I did a film soundtrack, which I really liked so I think those things had much more of a bearing. The reason why the new record might sound like echoes of some of the stuff I’ve done in the past is because it’s me making it.

Do you feel like your time spent as a full-time member of different bands has any effect on your guitar playing?

It probably has although when I was doing it at the time I felt like I was bringing my world into theirs more so. I feel like a song on the record like “Sun & Moon” reminds me of a band I was in when I was about 16. I was in a lot of different bands as a teenager. To analyze it, I feel like there there’s a few things that came out in this record that were similar to my work with those bands. Some of the stuff I was doing with Modest Mouse was really an opportunity for me to dig into things that I had never done before. I was working out on myself in the studio and I think that’s not what people were expecting from me which is one of the reasons why I enjoyed that group so much.

I feel like the sound of “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank” does creep in a bit on “The Messenger.” There are these guitar squalls on “Upstarts” that remind me of Isaac Brock and “Word Starts Attack”’s overall sound feels like it could have been an outtake from that record.

Maybe it could yeah. I think we really got into a certain thing with the guitars on the “We Were Dead” record. We really pushed each other along a certain road. It was real shoulder to shoulder and loud. Real 3 in the afternoon jamming rather than 3 am jamming although there was plenty of that going on as well.

What time slot do you feel “The Messenger” fits into?

I really think we successfully made music that sounds really great in the afternoon [on “The Messenger”]. I wanted this record to sound good when you’re on the train going to work or on your way to school. Kicking around the house in the afternoon playing really loud. It’s a given that uptempo guitar music should sound good at 8pm on a Saturday night when you’re getting ready to go out but I think anything but 2 am I’m fine with. I didn’t want to make music for kicking back after you’ve been partying all night.

Before this record you had been in and out of two previously established bands. When you joined Modest Mouse and later The Cribs, did you have a game plan of how much time you intended to stay with them?

No. My game plan is always to get tight with the people I’m with and get tight with the audience and get tight with the aesthetics of the band. But I always want to make another record. So if the group I’m with is taking a break or wanting to work at a different speed and I got possessed by an idea, I go with where the idea takes me so I’m always entirely committed with. I got together with Modest Mouse and started writing songs. You get tight with the band members as friends and then you make this work together. It was too damn strange to quit. I always want to make a commitment to the work and a commitment to the guys and that’s what we did. I’ve been very lucky because I love everybody [in Modest Mouse and The Cribs] and am still super tight with them to this day. They’re all like family to me but I move very fast and I have a lot of energy and I like to get on with things with the band I’m in but if that doesn’t click with the band then I need to follow the idea. I’ve been that way since I was 15.

Did you have a favorite Modest Mouse song before you joined the band?

It was probably “Teeth Like God’s Shoeshine.” I played that one a few times. I also thought “Cowboy Dan” was an amazing track.

Recently you played “The Wagon” and “The Boy with the Thorn in His Side” at Dinosaur Jr’s “You’re Living All Over Me” anniversary party at Terminal 5. How did your appearance there come about?

J [Mascis] and I first met in about five years ago and I watched him play and I liked his songs. I always thought he was super melodic and I liked his lyrical approach. I think he’s very smart. He says very smart things very succinctly. I always keep an eye on what he’s doing. So he invited me to do the show in New York and I was really happy to accept. I hope I get a chance to do something [with him] again.

Yeah I mean I was pretty devastated I missed that show. Everyone awesome ever seemed to show up.

[Laughs] Yeah! My friend Kevin Drew was there he sang great and Kim Gordon was really fantastic. And Frank Black is always amazing. It was a really great weekend.

How did your recent cameo on “Portlandia” come about?

Fred [Armisen] and Carrie [Brownstein] contacted me and invited me to do it. I had been trying to not fall over laughing every fifteen seconds and ruin it for everybody. I really didn’t want to be that guy [laughs].

Were you able to keep it together for the most part? I did lose the plot a few times. They are so good at what they do and you just don’t know what they’re going to say next. It was a really fun time. I did have a few guys shout “that’s not my bike!” to me since then so now I’ve got a catchphrase.

This is a little left-field but I’m curious – I had read that you had written and partially recorded an album with Ian McCulloch from Echo and the Bunnymen in 1993 that never saw the light of day. Can you tell me exactly what happened?

We wrote a bunch of songs and recorded them and looking back now they were very elaborate demos. The record needed vocals to really get finished up and it didn’t quite get there at the 11th hour. There was certainly plenty of music there but they were not entirely finished from [Ian’s] point of view. The crazy thing was though that I shipped the tapes to Ian’s house in and on the way they got hijacked.

No way! Really?

Yeah! The van got stolen and the tapes with it. Somehow it sort of seemed like a fitting end to it. But some of the songs saw the light of day. That song “Nothing Lasts Forever” by Echo & the Bunnymen. That was a song we worked on where I helped them out.

Wow, I didn’t know that. That song was a big comeback hit for them.

Yeah I was happy that they got back together and had some success with that.

Feb 22, 2013 (2nd)

What took so long? Twenty-five years after he left the Smiths, perhaps the most influential British pop band of the 1980s, the guitarist Johnny Marr has finally made a solo album.

On “The Messenger” (Sire), due out on Tuesday, Mr. Marr has written not just the music, as he did in the Smiths, but also the lyrics for all 12 songs, and stepped forward to be the singer too. Every song opens with a guitar intro, and there are even some blazing guitar solos — all big departures for a musician who has always prided himself on his collegiality, rather than seeking the spotlight. “This record is a little bit of thinking and a whole lot of instinct,” Mr. Marr, 49, said in a recent interview in New York. “From the time I was 13 or 14 I’ve been thinking like part of a group. But in this case I didn’t need to enable anybody else — or be enabled by anybody else.” He added, “To do what I’m doing now I need not to be receptive to collaborations.”

It’s not that Mr. Marr hasn’t been active since the Smiths broke up, in the summer of 1987. If anything, he’s been a wandering spirit, recording, writing for or touring with the Pretenders, Electronic, the The, Modest Mouse, Bryan Ferry, the Pet Shop Boys, Beck and most recently the Cribs. He has also written film scores and in 2010 played on the soundtrack of “Inception.”

“The idea of looking at the same musicians year in and year out to me is weird if you don’t need to do that,” he said when asked about his restlessness. “I understand the dynamic, but if you don’t need to do it, why would you? I feel like I’ve been able to do what I want, the way I want. I would join a band, learn from that band and be committed and passionate and bring my thing to the band. Then, when I felt like we were going to repeat ourselves, and I needed to learn more, I would go somewhere else.”

The Smiths, of course, were famous for the intensely personal, even lugubrious lyrics that Morrissey, the group’s lead singer, ripped from his diaries and notebooks. On “The Messenger,” in contrast, most of Mr. Marr’s lyrics tend toward the abstract or enigmatic — dystopian fantasies that address issues like the disconnect between man and technology.

“I didn’t want to sing about my feelings,” said Mr. Marr, slim, affable, soft-spoken and well dressed, his hair cut in classic British rock star style. “There’s this weird paradigm that has crept into all music, but particularly pop music, that unless one is singing from the very very depths of your soul, as loudly as possible, using every note in your limited range, then it’s not authentic. That made me want all the more to sing from my mind, my analytical mind. I thought: Well what’s wrong with singing from the brain? It doesn’t make it any less authentic.”

But Mr. Marr’s guitar playing, lyrical and melodic, is an entirely different matter. A student of the instrument, he has always enjoyed a reputation as one of the premier craftsmen of his generation, with a distinctively restrained sound and style that seems descended more from the tasteful chording of , Nile Rodgers or Keith Richards than the solo pyrotechnics of an Eric Clapton or .

In December Mr. Marr performed with Dinosaur Jr. in New York, playing the Smiths anthem “The Boy With the Thorn in His Side” as a guest at a live show. A few days later J. Mascis, that band’s leader, offered this explanation for the invitation: Though he initially found the Smiths “too wimpy” when he saw them on MTV, and didn’t much care for the fact that “all you’d see and hear was Morrissey, Morrissey, Morrissey,” he found Mr. Marr’s guitar playing to be “very cool, English and new.”

“It’s just the sound he made,” Mr. Mascis explained. “He came up with interesting parts, and they were all so clean, which made it seem like they would be hard to play. Distortion makes it easy to play, so the cleaner a part, the more difficult it seems, and his parts were so intricate. And they are all there for the song, all part of the music, not solos sticking out and drawing attention to themselves: Look what I can play on guitar.”