Johnny Marr Interview

[MORRIZSEY]

Johnny Marr Interviews

The best Marr interview I've read for a while.
After the first few paragraphs you'll find some good questions and answers on The Smiths

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/inte...signature_guitar_it_was_such_a_privilege.html



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And another Johnny interview here. This one's specifically on guitars, from mi-pro....

http://www.mi-pro.co.uk/news/read/interview-johnny-marr/016212

 

[kissmyshadestoo]

Nice find, thanks for sharing.

 

[Amy]

Nice interview. "It was all about trying to be Bert Jansch through the equipment of the Patti Smith Group"

 

[Guernie]

Thanks for posting this MORRIZSEY !!! Love reading about the "old days" back with The Smiths . Always learn something new when Johnny starts shairing stories...... Like I never knew ' A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours' didn't have any guitar in it . Marr is priceless !

 

[Amy]

Thanks for posting this MORRIZSEY !!! Love reading about the "old days" back with The Smiths . Always learn something new when Johnny starts shairing stories...... Like I never knew ' A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours' didn't have any guitar in it . Marr is priceless !

Lol . I liked the interview but I can't help feeling that Marr is shooting himself in the foot every time he talks about the past. He complains every time a journalist mentions The Smiths - it's an old, tired topic, "that was 200 years ago" etc - but days later he'll have a four-page spread in the NME which focuses on nothing but The Smiths. If he wants a solo career, he needs to shut up about 1985 - we've heard it all before.

 

[egosheep]

Lol . I liked the interview but I can't help feeling that Marr is shooting himself in the foot every time he talks about the past. He complains every time a journalist mentions The Smiths - it's an old, tired topic, "that was 200 years ago" etc - but days later he'll have a four-page spread in the NME which focuses on nothing but The Smiths. If he wants a solo career, he needs to shut up about 1985 - we've heard it all before.

I couldn't disagree more. Compared with a band like the Beatles, where you can read the studio logs for every day they were recording, or listen to bootlegs that are 45+ hours of consecutive sessions, the surface hasn't even been scratched on the Smiths' musical legacy. I hope Johnny really geeks it out in his forthcoming book.

 

[Amy]

I couldn't disagree more. Compared with a band like the Beatles, where you can read the studio logs for every day they were recording, or listen to bootlegs that are 45+ hours of consecutive sessions, the surface hasn't even been scratched on the Smiths' musical legacy. I hope Johnny really geeks it out in his forthcoming book.

In the book, sure, but that's a different matter. Johnny has talked about The Smiths in almost every major interview he's done since the split, including plenty of pot-shots at Moz in the process. I could repeat his version of the band's lifetime practically verbatim...but it's been 25 years. I'm not interested in the tiny details of The Smiths - which guitars he used for which songs, which engineers were there at the time - it just seems irrelevant. The Smiths released almost everything they recorded, and Marr said himself that there's very little in the way of demo material and unreleased tracks floating around. So we've got the music, we've got Johnny's story so far, we've got 2 decades' worth of Press mud-slinging between band members - what's left? Nothing but Morrissey's autobiography to put the tin lid on it, in my mind.

Marr loathes it when the Press calls him a "journeyman", a "gun for hire" etc, insisting that he isn't - but how can he ever be considered otherwise when he keeps harking back to The Smiths all the time, cementing the notion that they were his one truly collaborative effort? Morrissey's solo career has grown to such proportions mostly because he never allowed himself to dwell on the past. He waited 10+ years before he put any Smiths songs in his live setlist and he never gave Smiths-related interviews. Johnny wants solo success - the very fact that he's resurrected The Healers after the dire first attempt should show that - but he's not going to get it until he can lock "the old days" away in a cupboard and interest his audience in something new. I went to the Healers gig in Manchester last year and over half the set was Smiths songs. My point is that Marr can either attempt a solo career or become a nostalgia act.

 

[Ms Valerie Gina]

Great Interview!

-Ms. V.G.

 

[Stephane]

The Smiths released almost everything they recorded, and Marr said himself that there's very little in the way of demo material and unreleased tracks floating around...

...that he wants to see released. He's right about the unreleased tracks, but there are demos of every song you know, often more than one. The Smiths did not go into the studio, do one take then leave. And then there's a bunch of rehearsals which are sometimes more interesting than the various 'finished' outtakes and monitor mixes. Rehearsals give you a peak into the creation process... early lyrics, early musical parts that were later transformed or abandoned. There is a good deal out there, but unfortunately M+M are reluctant to put out there something that they don't consider to be the best final version of a song.

Stephane

 

[Peterb]

I can't imagine anything duller than listening to outtakes. They rehearse so we don't have to hear the mistakes. The produced stuff represents the best they could do.
It started with the Beatles where people wanted to hear everything they did, the mistakes, the chat between the songs and now everybody's at it. It's so anal.

 

[Stephane]

It's so anal.

Anal? But you are the one dumping on other people's tastes...

I don't see what's anal about being interested in the creation process.

 

[Peterb]

Anal? But you are the one dumping on other people's tastes...

I don't see what's anal about being interested in the creation process.

It's just an opinion Stephane.
I'd like to think that I'm interested in the creative process but this doesn't manifest itself in collecting every recording of every note and fart ever recorded.
Now, I know that I may be misrepresenting you and that there is a middle ground here and I'm sure you're not the anal type I was referring to, but there is a tendancy, you surely must concede, of record companies re-packing old stuff by adding the 'laundry lists'.

 

[Stephane]

there is a tendancy, you surely must concede, of record companies re-packing old stuff by adding the 'laundry lists'.

But they are not forcing it down your throat. They do it because there are enough people interested in this sort of thing to make it profitable for them. Otherwise they wouldn't do it.

I want respect your opinion, but not so much when you call people anal because they happen to like something you don't.

 

[Peterb]

But they are not forcing it down your throat. They do it because there are enough people interested in this sort of thing to make it profitable for them. Otherwise they wouldn't do it.

I want respect your opinion, but not so much when you call people anal because they happen to like something you don't.

OK Stephane, you have a point. What right have I to judge people and throw a clearly derogatory term like 'anal' around. I consider myself chastened and apologise.

 

[egosheep]

Marr loathes it when the Press calls him a "journeyman", a "gun for hire" etc, insisting that he isn't - but how can he ever be considered otherwise when he keeps harking back to The Smiths all the time, cementing the notion that they were his one truly collaborative effort? Morrissey's solo career has grown to such proportions mostly because he never allowed himself to dwell on the past. He waited 10+ years before he put any Smiths songs in his live setlist and he never gave Smiths-related interviews. Johnny wants solo success - the very fact that he's resurrected The Healers after the dire first attempt should show that - but he's not going to get it until he can lock "the old days" away in a cupboard and interest his audience in something new. I went to the Healers gig in Manchester last year and over half the set was Smiths songs. My point is that Marr can either attempt a solo career or become a nostalgia act.

I find this kind of ridiculous. These past Healers shows are the ONLY time Johnny has played a bunch of Smiths songs at the same gig. Was he playing Smiths songs in 1989, 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009? With the occasional, one-off exception(only 3 or 4 spring to mind), the answer is NO.

When your band was The Smiths, I see nothing wrong with going on about it, especially when it's actually interesting; Johnny remembers what went on. I agree that I don't need to hear about how HSIN? was recorded, but I'd love some more elaboration about many other songs' recording sessions.

I can't imagine anything duller than listening to outtakes. They rehearse so we don't have to hear the mistakes. The produced stuff represents the best they could do.
It started with the Beatles where people wanted to hear everything they did, the mistakes, the chat between the songs and now everybody's at it. It's so anal.

I don't know where to begin. What about all the amazing live shows the band played? I guess there's the type of person who can listen to a soundcheck of Asleep being played 8 times and be mesmerized, and another type who is bored stiff. I want to see and hear anything related to the band I can, that's how much they interest me, I guess. Also, the band had a lot of production struggles, especially on the first album, so it's very reasonable that some demos could sound better and truer to the bands intentions than what ended up printed on wax.

 

[Amy]

I find this kind of ridiculous. These past Healers shows are the ONLY time Johnny has played a bunch of Smiths songs at the same gig. Was he playing Smiths songs in 1989, 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009? With the occasional, one-off exception(only 3 or 4 spring to mind), the answer is NO.

When your band was The Smiths, I see nothing wrong with going on about it, especially when it's actually interesting; Johnny remembers what went on. I agree that I don't need to hear about how HSIN? was recorded, but I'd love some more elaboration about many other songs' recording sessions..

Um... why is it ridiculous? He wasn't playing Smiths songs because he wasn't at the helm in any of those projects (Pretenders, The The, Electronic etc) until he created and toured with the Healers first time round. All throughout that first Healers trip, he never played Smiths songs and he talked about wanting to move forward and have success on his own. My whole argument was that he has contradicted that will completely by repeatedly returning to The Smiths musically and conversationally in the years since, so much so that he's effectively robbed himself of a "solo" career. Don't you think it bores him and makes him feel redundant, having to sit there endlessly fielding questions about stuff that happened 25 years ago? Reading "Songs That Saved Your Life" told me everything about the minutae of recording and performing that I would ever want to know.

 

[egosheep]

Ok, I misunderstood you. But what I'm getting at is, that Healers trip you're talking about was like 13 years ago. When it would be 'ok' for him to put his toes in the Smiths pool again? If Morrissey waited 10 years ten then Johnny waited 25... so what if he has Smiths songs in his setlist. Maybe in time he has mellowed out a bit on his legacy and can easier balance the desire to do new stuff and revisiting old stuff. It seems like you're saying that he should not ever talk about or play Smiths songs again, indefinitely. Imagine how Keith Richards feels about being asked about Brian Jones! When you're in a great band, you have to get over the fact that people will be interested in your history.

 

[MORRIZSEY]

I think Johnny is allowed to play any of his own songs at gigs if he feels like. It doesn't necessarily compromise his current career. You have to remember that he was only 23 when the Smiths split up, and 25 years have passed. To ignore Smiths forever would border on denial