Set the Boy Free

by Johnny Marr

  The heatwave continued, and every day we made our way into a little studio called the Elephant in London’s dilapidated Wapping wharf to record our first album. Troy Tate had been assigned as the producer. I liked Troy. He was a talented musician who was mostly known for being the guitar player in The Teardrop Explodes, and he was passionate and had a vision for what he thought our first album should be. The sessions were conducted in a sweltering heat as the basement studio had no air conditioning, which was particularly arduous when we were working at 3 a.m. Not only was it energy-sapping but the baking temperature meant that the guitars were difficult to tune. I’d spend twenty minutes tuning my guitar to the piano, only to find out the next morning that the heat had also put the piano out, so I’d have to record the whole night’s work all over again. I did enjoy the process of making our first album though, and it was good to work for the first time with a producer. Troy’s vision was to capture the way the band sounded live. He thought it was important that the record represented the way we were in the clubs and was an authentic document. He worked pretty tirelessly to get passion from a performance and was very nurturing with me, something I later discovered had alienated him from other members of the band who thought he wasn’t spending enough time on them. I was oblivious to any such problem, as by the very nature of what I did in the studio I had to spend more time recording with the producer than the others. Either way it didn’t work out, and when the band and Joe finally gathered to hear the finished work Morrissey didn’t like the album. It was excruciating for everyone, but I could hear myself that the mixes sounded underproduced and were not the finished article that we needed as our introduction to the world. Why it was deemed necessary to scrap the album entirely rather than just mix it again I didn’t know, but I wasn’t going to make too much of it or spend too much time thinking about it. It was a document of how the band really were at that point though, and it was the last time I saw Troy. He dropped out of the music business shortly after.

  Marple Bridge

  ANDREW BERRY AND I had continued to live with Joe and his family. I’d stopped running the Crazy Face shop and spent my time either with Angie or working on songs. Joe’s wife, Janet, had suggested that I might want to use a cottage she had in Marple Bridge, a picturesque little village about twelve miles out of town. It was good of her to furnish me with somewhere to write songs, and with all the coming and going and my nocturnal activity she probably needed me and Andrew out of her house so she could get on with the business of bringing up a family. It was odd living in a rural environment. I still got the train into town most days for rehearsals, but if I wanted to stay out at night in town I’d either have to head back before the trains stopped, or crash on Mike’s floor, which is what I usually did. Some nights Angie and I would stay in the cottage and she’d drive back late to her parents’ house, and other times I’d stay in listening to records with Andrew and get into my new favourite pastime of taking acid. I’d already done acid a few times in my early years. It was full-on but always interesting, and I considered it to be a recreational and creative thing and not heavy. The cottage was perfect for tripping. It was quiet and you could take walks by the canal and go wandering around. At night we could play music as loud as we wanted, and as we lived so far out of town we wouldn’t have any unexpected visitors. In some of The Smiths’ early reviews my guitar style had been compared to Roger McGuinn from The Byrds. I knew a little bit about The Byrds, but I wasn’t familiar with them to the extent that everyone had assumed. I’d come to my sound through different early influences like glam rock and new wave, and besides the influence of folk music it was a coincidence that my and Roger McGuinn’s sound came out sounding similar. Getting this comparison made me investigate The Byrds more, and the combination of the acid and living out in a village in the summertime made me appreciate The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and The Lovin’ Spoonful all the more; the music went with how life was.

  Andrew had given Morrissey his quiff when the band formed, and Mike and Andy theirs too; he also cut Bernard Sumner from New Order’s hair. I had been sporting a quiff of varying colours and trajectory for the previous couple of years and it was time for a change. When people first saw the band we all had our quiffs, and while it was all right to be inspired by Johnson’s or the Beatniks, I didn’t ever want the band to be thought of as rockabillies. I was bored and wanted something original, and living with my best mate who was a hairdresser meant I could get creative. I started thinking about how the Perrys had looked around town a few years earlier, especially the girls. My sister had been a Perry girl and I had copied the frayed jeans and corduroy shoes that she and her mates used to wear. A big Perry thing was the bowl haircuts and if you happened to be playing the guitar you looked the same as Brian Jones or The Byrds or Sterling Morrison from Velvet Underground. I got Andrew to give me a bowl cut and I started wearing suede moccasins, with a necklace over a crew-neck sweater. I borrowed Andy’s sheepskin coat, which was another Perry item, and with a bit of lateral thinking I worked out that it was Stuart Sutcliffe who first changed his haircut to create the Beatles mop style. It all made sense. I would take the ethos of the band further in looking more feminine, and working class, and definitely more Mancunian, and as our audience grew, some of the fans started to appear with bowl cuts and moccasins, with sweaters tied around their waists.

  The first real money I made was when I got my first publishing deal. I had no idea what publishing meant, but it was amazing to have a few thousand pounds and I asked Angie if she would come with me to get an engagement ring. We took the train to London and went to a jeweller’s on Regent Street. It was an exclusive place, and the staff all clucked around us, inspecting the teenagers that had come from the north to buy a ring. They were amused that I was wearing eye make-up and a poncho with beads, and it was good that Angie had something nice to celebrate after everything we’d been through to get where we were. I spent the rest of my money on a bass stack for Andy and a drum kit for Mike, and I got myself a black Rickenbacker 330 six-string. I bought the Rickenbacker because I loved the look of it and also because I knew it would make me play in a way that would be good for my writing. Some guitars are designed to be as easy to play as possible and are great for a rock approach, but as much as I liked the Gibson Les Paul I was aware that it might influence my style in the wrong way. The Rickenbacker would make it more difficult to fall into an automatic rock technique, and from a sound point of view it wouldn’t be bluesy. It suited me perfectly and it steered me towards writing new songs like ‘You’ve Got Everything Now’ and ‘Still Ill’.

  New songs usually started with me recording the music on to a cassette and then giving it to Morrissey to write his lyrics and vocal lines, which he would complete within a day or two. Other times we would get together at my place and sit face to face, about three feet away from each other, while I played my new tune into a tape recorder that was balanced between my knees. Angie would sometimes be in the room with us; and once Andrew was with us, when we wrote ‘Reel Around the Fountain’. There was nothing that could compare to having a new song; it was always the best thing. But we were pragmatic and well aware that we had to keep them coming and make them better, not only for the band’s career but to prove something to ourselves as writers.

  We’d done a couple more Maida Vale sessions since the first one for John Peel, and I’d got the hang of recording four songs under strict time restrictions. Having the sessions booked also gave me an impetus to come up with songs quickly, and one morning I woke up with an idea to do something that sounded optimistic. I’d noticed that our label mates Aztec Camera were getting a lot of radio airplay, and I wondered if it might be because their songs were more breezy and upbeat. The sun was coming through the window, and I picked up my guitar and strummed a chord sequence that conjured the feeling I was trying to evoke. After a minute of playing, another sequence appeared under my fingers from nowhere, and after following that for a while I had what I thought was a song. W
ithout needing to refine it, I recorded what I had on to my machine and then I overdubbed the first thing that came to me. Listening back, I thought the tune had a good feeling that seemed to come from out of the air, and I brought the cassette into Joe’s office and gave it to Morrissey. We rehearsed it a few days later and it was immediately great fun to play, and then Morrissey sang his vocal line and the song became ‘This Charming Man’. When music is effortless, no matter how complex or emotional, there’s something so right when you’re making it. When a group of individuals are working instinctively and intricately, thinking within milliseconds of each other, it’s as close to real magic as you can get. We knew we had to do it for the John Peel session the following week, and when Geoff Travis came into the BBC studio he declared it a hit single before he’d even finished hearing it.

  On the day of the session I struck up a conversation in the BBC cafeteria with an interesting-looking guy who was working in one of the studios. I found out he was John Porter, who had been a member of Roxy Music and who’d produced Bryan Ferry. After persuading him to work on one of our sessions, we all thought John would be the right person to produce our first album after the Troy Tate sessions hadn’t worked out, and we set about recording ‘This Charming Man’ as our second single.

  Before we started on the single and the album, Morrissey and I were approached by Rough Trade because they and John Porter had reservations about Mike’s playing. Often with young bands the producer and the record company will say that someone needs to be replaced, and it’s usually the bass player or drummer. John and the label put quite a bit of pressure on us to use another drummer, but Morrissey and I weren’t having it. We thought the personnel of the band was just fine. We chose to show our solidarity, and if anything the episode spurred Mike on to prove to the producer and everyone else that he was more than capable of doing a good job.

  Working with John immediately got us results. He’d been involved behind the scenes on a lot of records in the seventies and was an accomplished musician. He and I formed a musical and personal relationship that was inspiring, and with his knowledge of recording techniques and my energy and ideas, we started to explore a lot of things. John was a proper, old-school producer. He considered all the aspects of the record-making process, from what key the song was in to the tempo and arrangement, and he nurtured not just me but all the band.

  ‘This Charming Man’ starts with the guitar riff, double-tracked by a Telecaster and the Rickenbacker, which creates the chiming sound that was most people’s introduction to The Smiths. When the vocal comes in with the first line, there’s an abrupt stop to introduce the singer and the story, which is a device used on a lot of the old fifties rock ’n’ roll records. The song then takes off for a second time as all the band kick in and the story unfolds and quotes the song’s title after the third line. Underpinning it all is the hyperactive bass line and a punchy drumbeat, with crashing chords played on two electric and two acoustics guitars that add excitement but are set back enough not to draw attention to themselves. As the first chorus hits, everyone ramps up the intensity as the bass plays double time and the drums become even more animated. We then overdubbed a counter melody on a twelve-string Rickenbacker, which we recorded backwards to give it a ghostly effect, and put some high ringing guitar harmonics at the end of each chorus. When we’d done all that, I put the guitar in a drone tuning and dropped a metal knife on to the strings through a loud amplifier with tremolo on to make a percussive, bell-like sound effect.

  When the sessions for ‘This Charming Man’ were finally being completed, I sat behind the console and listened to our new single in awe. I was impressed by what we’d done, but more than that I was really impressed by the band. The vocal was fantastic, the bass playing was completely original, and the drumming kept it all together perfectly and was right on the money. The approach to the guitars was really innovative, and I dubbed it the Guitarchestra. With ‘This Charming Man’, John Porter had taken what I could only dream of in my bedroom and made it a reality. I thought my band were the best. We were eccentric and subversive, and we were about to gatecrash the mainstream.

  We were invited to make our television debut on a programme called The Tube as part of a segment about new bands. The filming was being done in Newcastle, which meant that as usual the band had to leave Manchester at hell o’clock in the morning. I’d been up all night buzzing, and when filming got under way I had the distinct impression that the director had instructed the cameraman to avoid me at all costs, as every time we did a take he filmed everyone else but me. I figured I must be mistaken, and that our first appearance on the telly had turned me into a paranoid egomaniac, but still it did seem like I was being cut out a bit. When the moment came for The Smiths to make their TV debut and our families and friends all gathered round to watch, every single shot of me was from the neck down, and the camera moved away any time it got anywhere near my face. It was strange, no matter how many times it was shown it was always the same, even Joe was stuck for a theory.

  After some conjecture I concluded that either the director must have had some weird personal vendetta against me, or maybe, just maybe, I was considered too weird or dangerous to be on the screen. Nineteen-year-old me? Surely that was crazy. It was only years later that the mystery was finally solved, when the director admitted to a biographer that he had in fact deemed me too risqué to transmit. Apparently he thought I’d looked too drop-dead decadent for the nation’s youth to be able to cope with. I thought I looked all right. The irony is that this was for a television programme that was supposed to be cutting-edge.

  Top of the Pops

  WE CONTINUED WORKING on the album in Manchester’s Pluto Studios. Morrissey and I would meet up in the morning in Piccadilly, walk to the studio and plan what was happening next. We were on our way to record ‘What Difference Does It Make?’ when the subject of financial arrangements came up. I wasn’t thinking that we would actually make much money at that point, playing the weird songs that we did on an indie label, but we decided that we would split the income for the group with 40 per cent each for me and Morrissey, and 10 per cent each to the other band members, seeing as we ran the band. However much I’d have liked to have thought that The Smiths were made up of equals, we weren’t, and unlike some bands The Smiths didn’t fall into being a band together. Everyone had been recruited to do a specific job, and there wasn’t an equal division of responsibility. Morrissey and I dealt with the management and the record companies, and as far as Rough Trade were concerned The Smiths were me and Morrissey.

  Like all bands starting out, none of us liked discussing the financial arrangements. I wanted to continue making the record, and I didn’t want to deal with it so I put it off. Morrissey didn’t want to deal with it either, and halfway through the session he took off to London to get Geoff Travis to handle it. That night I got a call in the studio from Geoff. He told me that the sessions would not be resuming until I resolved the issue. It was stressful. I was in the middle of making our next single, and the recording had been stopped to sort out finances that we didn’t even have. I was twenty years old, I didn’t know how to deal with it, and I was pissed off to be put in that position. It would’ve been wise and prudent to have taken some advice. Joe was confused that as the band’s manager he hadn’t been called upon to take care of it. Morrissey had gone to Geoff instead, and all Geoff had done was inform me that we weren’t able to continue as a band until I sorted it out. I wasn’t happy either that it had been taken out of Joe’s hands, and I decided that if it all fell to pieces he and I would just have to start again. Joe talked me round and said he’d straighten it out, and then he called a meeting between me, Mike and Andy the next day. I told them the situation had to be resolved and said that if they didn’t want to go ahead, I understood, and, as disastrous as it was, I’d go and do something else with Joe. We all talked about it and the next day we were back to normal and it was like nothing had happened. We didn’t even think to put it
in writing. It would’ve been a good idea if we had as the uneven split of The Smiths’ royalties would eventually boil over into a court case, in which Mike and Andy denied they had ever agreed to an unequal split.

  The release of ‘This Charming Man’ in October changed my life and the life of everybody else in The Smiths. The record quickly went into the national charts, and suddenly we were known not just in the music press but in the suburbs and schools. It felt like we had arrived from a different dimension to take over the pop scene, and because we were so different and very distinctive we got the country’s attention and everyone had an opinion about us, whether they liked us or not.

  ‘This Charming Man’ changed the lives of our families too, as suddenly they all had a famous brother or son. My family came to shows when we played in Manchester, and I would usually call them from wherever I was to let them know how I was doing. I’d make a point of seeing them whenever I could. Claire had moved out of the family home and was busy with her own life, but we never let too much time go by without checking in with each other, and we would always stay in touch.

  We were booked to play Top of the Pops, an absolute British institution and the holy grail of music television. It had been spurned by some of the figures on the punk scene but for my generation, who grew up watching all the artists of the seventies, us getting on the show was a big deal and meant that we’d be up there weirding it out with the nation’s favourites. I’d learned from pop culture that it’s a great thing when interesting personalities infiltrated the establishment. When I’d seen bands like T.Rex, Blondie and Bowie on Top of the Pops, it was like the naughty kids had invaded the straight world right where it lived and were subverting it with good ideas. Entering the hallowed TV studio for camera rehearsals at ten o’clock in the morning, however, was quite an underwhelming experience for all of us. I had grown up watching the glitz and glamour of a fantasy pop world, but I now stood in a deserted black box with zero atmosphere while we waited for the party to start. We kept ourselves amused all day by cracking jokes and critiquing the other acts in their swanky eighties finery, and stressed-looking people with clipboards kept giving us instructions while talking simultaneously into their headsets.