by Johnny Marr
I went into the making of the Strangeways, Here We Come album with an agenda to use fewer overdubs and not fill up all the space in the sound. It came from a new confidence and a desire to shake things up, and was something I’d noticed in The Beatles’ White album, which seemed to have a feeling of suspension and an atmosphere of something unresolved. I was keen to use more keyboards, and I hired an Emulator for myself at home which we’d dubbed the ‘Orchestrazia Ardwick’. The first thing I came up with for the album was the synth intro for ‘Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me’, after getting back into David Bowie’s Low. Writing on the synth gave me new possibilities, and I made the decision that the first track on the new album would be all keyboards and no guitars. Even if no one else cared, it was important for me to do something different, to feel like we were going forward. I didn’t know it at the time, but my experiments with new technology were going to be one of the keys to the future.
Things started looking up business-wise as The Smiths finally got a manager we all liked. Ken Friedman was an enterprising Californian who’d worked with Bill Graham, promoting shows in San Francisco. He was introduced to me by Morrissey, and as soon as he came on board things started to get sorted out. Ken was amazed that we’d spent so much on lawyers, and he couldn’t believe that a band as big as The Smiths were running everything ourselves and didn’t even have someone to answer phone calls. The first thing our new manager did was fire the lawyer, and find us an accountant. He then got Rough Trade and the American label behind us for the new album, and had them agree to funding for proper advertising and tour support, which was something the band had never had before. It was a relief that business was finally being taken care of, and a good sign that the manager wasn’t a yes man and in awe of us, as everyone around us had now started to be as far as I was concerned.
The band went into a residential studio called the Wool Hall in Bath to make Strangeways, Here We Come, and I was in my element. I didn’t need to know what was going on in the outside world or see anyone other than the band and Angie, and I had everything I needed. I loved the new songs. ‘Unhappy Birthday’, ‘Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before’ and ‘Death of a Disco Dancer’ were great performances by the band and had a carefree spirit that reminded me of our first album, with Troy Tate; and with ‘A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours’ I got my track that was all done on keyboards, to start the album. The best moment on Strangeways was ‘Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me’. It was built around a riff that I came up with at the back of a tour bus one day when I was feeling lonely, and when it was done I thought we’d reached a level of emotion that was as good as we ever needed to be. The song epitomised everything that was unique about the band. It sounded like the drama of our lives.
Making Strangeways was a brighter time for me. The crash had given me a sense of clarity, and I didn’t feel weighed down by label hassles or worried about the future. Every so often we’d have a meeting to make some business decisions and then go back to working on the album, which was turning out to be my favourite yet. Things were going smoothly.
In the middle of making the album, though, something suddenly changed. New allegiances were formed between band members, and I was having to defend the merits of our new manager. I didn’t understand why there was a problem. The band’s business was finally being looked after for the first time since Joe, we were making plans and things were going well, but the rest of the band made a sudden U-turn and it was three against one. Everything I saw as good management they saw as interference and giving up control, and I thought it was really weird that a band as big as The Smiths were trying to avoid having someone taking care of business. This new feeling of opposition seemed like it was turning into a kind of domination, with our friendships now appearing to be a secondary consideration, and I could feel all the positivity I had for the future slipping away.
We were booked to do the video for ‘Shoplifters of the World Unite’ with the American director Tamra Davis. Andy, Mike and I got to Battersea early in the morning for the shoot, but Morrissey didn’t show up. It was costing the band a fortune with every passing minute, so I headed over to Morrissey’s with Ken and Tamra to see what I could do. In a complete reversal of the day I formed the band, I banged on my partner’s door but this time he wouldn’t let me in. I was shouting, ‘Don’t do this,’ but it appeared that we were no longer on the same side and it didn’t even seem like we were still friends. There was no way we could continue like this. Tamra was crying, and Ken was trying to calm everyone down. I didn’t know what else I could do, so I walked away.
We spoke a couple of times over the next few days, but we didn’t get anywhere. I couldn’t stop thinking about the future of the band. I had a sinking feeling. The Smiths were my life and I had protected the band and looked after everybody since I was eighteen, but now every day brought one new problem after another. I hadn’t totally given up, and I hoped that there might be a way for us to keep going, but I didn’t know what it could be.
I headed back to Morrissey’s again and we started to talk. Morrissey told me that he wouldn’t work with Ken. He said that he was unhappy and wanted things to go back to the way they were. I told him I couldn’t do it. I was no longer prepared to deal with all the things that came up. I’d had enough of running the band without a manager, and I’d had enough of meetings with the lawyers about contracts, and meetings with accountants about tax issues I didn’t understand. I was still only twenty-three, and I just wanted to be the guitar player in the best band in the world. Another manager was going to be fired, and once again someone’s head was on the chopping block, but this time I refused to be the executioner. We had reached an impasse; a chasm had opened up between us and there was no way to bridge it. I knew it would mean the end of the band, but I wasn’t able to face it. Our conversation moved on to something else and it was very awkward, so I left and called a meeting with the band the next day.
I needed to discuss things and tell everyone what was on my mind before Angie and I went to Los Angeles on holiday for two weeks. The two of us had never had a holiday and we hadn’t had a honeymoon, so with the new album finished it was the perfect time to go away. I’d put the management situation aside for the moment, and thought that clearing the air would be a good thing for us all. The band met in an upmarket fish-and-chip restaurant in Kensington. Andy and I sat on one side, and Morrissey and Mike sat on the other. I told the band that we needed to have a rethink and get some perspective. I was trying to shake off the malaise that was taking over us, and I talked vaguely about reinventing the music, although I wasn’t sure what that meant. I knew that the others no longer considered Ken Friedman to be the manager and I didn’t have a solution to that. I expressed my frustrations as well as I could without trying to sound too negative, but inside I felt like I was drowning.
The band’s response was unenthusiastic and unfriendly, and again it looked as though I was in a minority of one. They’d already been discussing what they wanted to do, and now Mike appeared to be the new spokesman. He informed me that the band intended to go back into the studio to record new songs, which I thought was a bizarre suggestion. We’d only just completed a new album that wasn’t due out for months. I was about to go on holiday, and now I was being told to go back into the studio, and with no songs. It was like a weird test, and I was guilty of some kind of violation. The mood stayed frozen. They obviously had a problem but I didn’t know what it was. I loved the others and I wanted everything to be all right, but I was aware of a new dynamic that had developed in the band, and I felt like I was being made to submit.
I agreed to go back into the studio to please everyone, and we chose the home studio of our friend James Hood in Streatham, as it was informal and wouldn’t cost very much. I had no idea what we were going to do, but I set up the studio with Grant, who would be with me behind the mixing desk, and waited for the band. There was an uneasy atmosphere from the moment we got together,
and then Mike came up to me and said, ‘We’re doing a cover version. It’s a Cilla Black song.’ I thought he was joking, but I looked at the others and realised he was serious. I didn’t want to do a cover of a Cilla Black song, and I didn’t want to be told I was doing one by Mike either. That was not going to be the new way. I was becoming angry. My dedication to the band was being tested, which was hard to take as I’d formed the band in the first place. I relented and listened to the Cilla Black song. It was a silly bit of Merseybeat called ‘Work Is a Four-Letter Word’, with lyrics that said, you were born lazy and change your life. We recorded it, and when it was finished I thought it wasn’t even worthy of being associated with The Smiths.
The oppressive feeling affected the sessions every day. We all needed to take a break from one another, and the stress was being expressed in desperation and mistrust. The more weird everything got, the more I wanted to get out, and the more I wanted to get out, the more tense the feeling became between everyone.
In spite of all the weirdness, Morrissey and I managed to write a new song called ‘I Keep Mine Hidden’, and then we attempted another cover version, an Elvis Presley song called ‘A Fool Such As I’. It sounded as desperate as it felt, and we abandoned it after a couple of takes. I was determined to finish the two songs we’d recorded, and I spent the next two nights sleeping under the mixing desk so I could go away knowing that everything was done. The day after the sessions ended I went to the airport in a daze after working all through the night. Angie and I got on the plane, and as we took off I felt an incredible sense of relief.
Getting out into the sunshine was exactly what I needed. I hung around for a couple of days doing very little; it was nice not having to be anywhere for a while. I was still shell-shocked from the events of the previous few weeks. Things had reached breaking point and I thought a lot about the new divisions in the band. I waited for one of the others to call but there was nothing, and the more days that went by without hearing anything, the more it pissed me off and the more I started to think that The Smiths might actually be over.
Angie and I returned home and settled back into life in Manchester. I was making instrumental tracks on my new recording set-up, and I started thinking about a different kind of music. Everyone was back in Manchester and it was odd to be only minutes away from the other Smiths and not hear anything from them. But at the same time it was a respite from what had become the band’s day-to-day reality, and I felt the freedom to just be a musician again. I held out for a sign that someone might do something to salvage the situation, and then out of the blue I got a call from The Smiths’ publicity agent Pat Bellis. She told me that the press had somehow got hold of a rumour that I had left the band, and she wanted to know what I intended to do about it. It didn’t sound right, and I wasn’t about to be forced into saying anything to her, the band or anyone else about any split by making a public statement. Two days later, a story appeared that I was leaving The Smiths. The article included a new photo of us that had been taken by the press officer and just happened to catch me scowling while the other three Smiths were all smiling away. Having the story out there I had no choice but to make a statement. I still hadn’t heard from the others, and with everything that had happened I just thought, ‘Fuck you.’ I faced up to the inevitable and announced that I was leaving The Smiths. The other band members issued a statement on the same day. It said they wished me luck and that ‘other guitarists are being considered to replace him’. I thought that it might be some kind of hoax, but then one of our friends called me to say that it was true, and that they’d gone into a studio with another guitarist. It was a difficult thing to hear that the band had been so quick to replace me within only a week of the story coming out. It was the final nail in the coffin. I couldn’t go back even if I’d wanted.
All hell broke loose when I left The Smiths, and the soap opera commenced. It didn’t work out for the band with the new guitarist, and everywhere I looked people were discussing the split and had an opinion about it. I kept out of the media and refused the deluge of interviews because I knew everyone wanted a sensational story and expected me to discredit the others to get my side across. The split wasn’t just the end of a band; it was a break-up of very close friendships, mine and Morrissey’s in particular. I didn’t want to slug it out in the media. It was hard enough to deal with as it was, and too painful for me to put a spin on in public. I had to stand back and let people say whatever they wanted, whether it was true or not. The more bitter the split became, the better off I felt out of it, and soon I was just happy to be out of it altogether. Angie had to handle it too. She’d been there from the beginning, when it was just me and her, then Joe and Morrissey, and she had to deal with the disappointment of it all when it finished just as much as anyone.
As stressful as The Smiths’ split was, it also brought with it a huge sense of relief when it finally ended. The fallout would continue for a long time, but as difficult as it might have been I always knew that the band would have a finite amount of time, and now events had conspired to bring it to an end. I was in charge of my own life again.
I was still only twenty-three and Angie was twenty-two when The Smiths broke up, and it was back to just the two of us. I had no idea what I was going to do. I just knew I wanted to play the guitar and do something different from what I’d been doing for the previous five years. It was a time of rejuvenation, pro-future, pro-music.
Talking Heads: 88
TALKING HEADS INVITED me to record with them for their new album in Paris. They had a few songs already down for me to play on, and they also wanted to do something with me from scratch. They’d been such an important band to my generation, and had managed to pull off the rare feat of being one of the biggest bands in the world while still maintaining their artistic integrity. I knew their stuff inside out, and I was flattered and excited to be asked to make a contribution to one of their records.
I flew over to the studio in Paris to meet David Byrne on the first day. He kindly vacated the apartment he’d been staying in to let me and Angie have it while he moved to a hotel. When I got in there, I noticed he’d left us some earplugs on the kitchen table. I didn’t think anything of it until the nightclub kicked in below us at midnight and blared full-on disco music until dawn. Steve Lillywhite, who was producing the album, was in the control room when I arrived to start recording, and it was good to have someone there who I knew. I wanted to get straight into playing and I got my sound going quickly, using a Fender Strat for a suitably funky Talking Heads approach, and told him to roll the tape. Steve started the first song and said, ‘This is a bit of a blank canvas.’
I listened to the sparse percussion and drum groove for a while, then Tina Weymouth’s bass line came and a couple of guitar chords, then … round and round it went. I was expecting a song that sounded like Talking Heads, and this was just a groove, albeit a pretty cool one. ‘OK,’ I thought, ‘relax.’ ‘Give it to me again, Steve,’ I said. I scoured my brain to try to conceptualise an approach to the track that might travel from my fingers. ‘OK now … here we go,’ I thought. Then … nothing. ‘What the …? Huh?’ I couldn’t think of anything. Usually I can hear, if not exactly the right thing to play, then at least something, but not this time. I was stumped. I really didn’t want to freak out. There was only one thing to do: get out of the studio and get my head together. I walked out on to the Parisian street. ‘What are you doing?’ I said to myself. ‘You’ve lost it.’ I walked around the block and then around again, and something occurred to me: put a riff on it, and make it a big one. I was being too precious. I needed to throw on my own sound – that was, after all, why they wanted me in the first place.
I walked back into the studio, plugged in my Gibson 335 twelve-string electric and told Steve to roll the tape again. The intro started, and without thinking I played the very first thing that came to me. Steve gave me a smile and a thumbs-up, and when it came to the next section I dived straight into a riff off the to
p of my head. It was exactly the right thing. The song came to life and everyone was grooving. After that it was plain sailing. David added his brilliant lyrics and vocals and the song became ‘(Nothing But) Flowers’. It was the first single off the album that was to be called Naked, which I suggested they call Talking Heads: 88. I cut three more songs with Talking Heads. ‘Ruby Dear’ was recorded live, with the original four members and me on guitar. I hadn’t recorded live with anyone other than The Smiths before. It was a learning curve, and as a learning curve goes, Talking Heads was a good way to start.
Angie and I got to Charles de Gaulle airport to fly home. I was asleep on one of the circular benches, and the next thing I know I’m being woken up with a rifle to my head by a French military policeman shouting, ‘Move, move – allez-vous-en! Evacuate!’ Angie hauled me up as the gendarme grabbed us and marched us away fast, shouting, ‘Hurry, hurry!’ Suddenly there was an explosion, with glass flying everywhere and sirens going off at a deafening volume, and the cop pulled me down on to the ground. People were rushing all over the place and as I looked around at the commotion I saw that the area where I’d been sleeping had been blown up by a bomb that was under it. Time stopped, and then all I could think off was to thank the gendarme: ‘Merci! Merci!’ I expected to be taken out of the airport, but we were made to wait until we got put on a plane to Heathrow. We landed a couple of hours later, where my guitar tech was waiting for me. I got in the car.