Set the Boy Free

by Johnny Marr

  I’d work every day with the band and always go through a woozy zone of jet lag in the evening. I’d play through it and use it as a surreal and creative state of mind. It helped that the vibe around Modest Mouse was a mix of punk rock, comic, stoner, testosterone and alcohol, with some costumes thrown in, and it was all just part of being in the band. As well as riffs and some jumping-off points for songs, a contribution I made to the process was buying a big cheap cassette recorder from Radio Shack, which I carried with me at all times. The band would take a cigarette break, and if I noticed someone messing around on their instrument alone, in a way that sounded good, I’d record it and then we’d all work on it together. Throughout the days these little ideas would develop between two or three different permutations of the band, like little fires starting around the room, then the others would hover around and join in bit by bit and eventually we’d have a blazing bonfire. I would record everything and we’d pick through it, and then we’d break it down and then play it again.

  A few days in, I decided I was with a really good bunch of people. We were playing one afternoon, and as I listened to what we were doing it occurred to me that I had no idea what this music actually was. One of the drummers was playing trashy, the other drummer was doing something completely different, the bass playing sounded like it was from a Celtic tune and the keyboards were a sea shanty. On top of it all, Isaac’s guitar was raging mad punk rock and I was doing something punchy and melodic. I was playing in this band and I still didn’t know what the music was. All I knew was that it sounded good and it felt great, and that’s a rare thing, especially when you’ve been doing it a long time.

  I’d go back to the hotel each night around 1 a.m., sleep for a few hours and then wake up. It was the start of a sleep-deprived, Mid-Atlantic state of mind that would stay with me for the next few years. I always had the tapes of the jams with me, and I’d get up in the night and listen back to what we’d done and start working out some ideas for the next day. When it got light outside, I’d put on my running gear and get out to explore Portland. I was starting to really enjoy the place: it had all the things I liked about America and a refreshing lack of the things that I didn’t. There wasn’t much busy traffic around, and the downtown skyline looked American enough but wasn’t imposing and dominating as some American cities can be. The river that divides Portland into east and west was wide and pretty, and I’d run for miles along its broad paths, going south to north, and then cross over whichever one of the beautiful bridges took my fancy. Every day was a new experience, both with the band and with the city. I ran each morning around a place I was starting to love, knowing that I’d be making great new music with new people.

  All of the guys in Modest Mouse were interesting. Joe Plummer, who played drums, showed me around and introduced me to everyone, which I appreciated as I didn’t know anyone in Portland at that point. We got friendly straight away and had a lot in common, and he also introduced me to things that were going on in the American art scene. Tom Peloso, who played everything from stand-up bass to lap steel guitars and synths, showed me the town at night in his car, a beat-up Ford which he’d bought for $500 from a guy at the side of the road and that I named ‘The Duchess’, and every night after practice we’d cruise over bridges and through the streets downtown, listening to classical music. Tom was from Virginia, and through him I got to know about the new-time old-time Appalachian music, which I was able to relate to because of Ireland and knowing a bit about country music. Jeremiah Green was one of the most innovative musicians I’d ever heard. His approach to drumming was totally unique, and he played with a creativity that he applied to pretty much everything in his life. Eric Judy was the roots of the band, and through him I got a sense of the story behind it all. Eric welcomed me into the band in a way that was really warm and genuine, and like all good musicians his personality came through in his playing. Having Isaac as the leader meant things were always going to be lively. He’s extremely creative and likes it when things are on the edge; he hates it when life gets boring. Isaac and I worked out an approach to our guitar playing from the very first night where we would both be full tilt but could still complement each other. I would listen very closely as we both played off one another at high volume, and it felt like two race cars going around a track – sometimes we’d physically bump into each other. It was exciting to play and it was exciting to hear, and it gave us our own style that was as powerful as any guitar band I’ve heard.

  After one week of me being with Modest Mouse, everybody knew it was really happening. When you all work intensely and you feel like there’s a lot at stake, you go through something together and it becomes a brotherhood. The band wanted me to join and I felt I belonged. I went back to England as planned, and we arranged for me to get back to Portland as soon as possible. We were on a mission, and I was looking forward to seeing the songs through. Angie, Nile and Sonny were with me as I played the tapes at home, and the Marrs were all on board the good ship Modest Mouse.

  While I’d been in Portland I’d heard from Joe that Andy Rourke was trying to contact me. It had been almost ten years since Andy and I had seen each other in court, and I got Joe to pass on my number. Andy sent me a text that said, Hi Johnny. I hope everything’s going well. I think we should be friends. It was a nice thing. I was happy that we could be above the old Smiths dramas that had happened, and we arranged to meet in the Night & Day Café in Manchester before I went back to Portland to rejoin Modest Mouse.

  It was good to see Andy again, if a little strange. So much had happened at the end of The Smiths that there was a lot to get over. I assumed that the reason Andy had decided to get back in touch was because our friendship meant something to him, and after sitting down to talk we knew each other well enough to see that we were still the same people.

  He was on good form, having put his demons behind him many years before, and I appreciated that he’d taken the initiative to make a reconciliation happen. We spent the day catching up and reminiscing, and at the end we agreed to do it again and stay in touch. A few weeks later I heard from Andy again. He was putting a big concert together to raise money for the Christie cancer treatment hospital in Manchester, and he invited me to join the bill. It was an ambitious enterprise and a great cause, and I was impressed and proud of him for doing it. New Order were also playing, and I agreed to appear and asked Andy to come onstage to do a song with me. I put a version of The Healers together with a great musician I’d heard about called James Doviak on second guitar and keyboards, and we did a set of some new solo songs I’d written and also a couple of Smiths songs. When it came to ‘How Soon Is Now?’, I introduced Andy onstage. It was the first time we’d played together since the final Smiths show in Brixton, and everybody in the place went wild. I was playing with my friend who I’d been in bands with since we were schoolboys, and who’d been there when I’d first got together with Angie and when the police had me up against the wall. It was a good moment for us and a good moment for Smiths fans, and it put things behind us in the best way we knew how.

  I went to Mississippi with Modest Mouse to record our album. A U-Haul truck arrived outside Isaac’s house for us to pack up all our equipment, and I wondered aloud why American bands didn’t have roadies. We loaded up our amplifiers, organs, banjos, synthesisers, guitars and two drum kits, and then our lead singer climbed into the driver’s seat and he drove the 2,000-mile journey with the band’s gear to meet us in Mississippi to make the new album. I was amazed to be in a band with a frontman who would drive the band’s gear across America to make a record, but it was symbolic of the way that Modest Mouse had stuck to their original ethos, regardless of their success, and an example of the authenticity of the man who made records called ‘Interstate 8’, ‘Truckers Atlas’ and ‘This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About’.

  Oxford, Mississippi, is a pretty town in the county of Lafayette, and is known mostly for being the home town of William Faulkner. We were
going to stay for a couple of months, in rooms that were once barns and stables, on the grounds of an old Southern country house. The album was to be called We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank and was being produced by Dennis Herring, who’d produced Modest Mouse’s previous album, Good News for People Who Love Bad News, which featured the hit single ‘Float On’. Our working regime was intense, with two weeks of fourteen-hour days before a day off, and then another two-week consecutive stretch, and so on. Mississippi in the summer was hot and insanely humid, so spending any time outside the studio was like being in an oven. Every day I would be lying on the floor of the parking lot on the phone to Angie, baking in the heat as she filled me in on everything that was going on back home. It was hard being away for so long. All the family were excited about the album, but it was the longest Angie and I had ever spent apart and the time difference made it even more difficult. While I was making the record we got the news that Angie’s dad had been diagnosed with cancer. It was a blow to all of us and especially the kids, who were very close to their grandfather. I’d call to find out about what was happening and do whatever I could, but Angie’s dad was fading and it was heartbreaking that I wasn’t there with them. I’d just have to work on getting the record done and hope I could make it back sometime soon.

  All the work that the band had put into the writing was paying off, and having the guitar parts already worked out meant that I could put a lot of my energy into developing sounds in the way that I had learned to do with The The, when I was ‘producing with my feet’. Being in a rootsy American band was a whole new thing, and I enjoyed mixing guitar science with the vibe of the Mississippi swamp.

  One very big idea I had during the making of the record was to build my own Jaguar guitar. I’d become so accustomed to playing the black one, which I’d bought from Isaac, that I couldn’t imagine playing anything else. I’d been very fortunate to be able to acquire a large collection of guitars that I would employ to do very specific things over the years, and now with Modest Mouse I had found a guitar that not only suited me perfectly but did the job of several guitars, and which was also taking me into new territory, in much the same way as the Rickenbacker had done in The Smiths. I became obsessed with Jaguars and also Jazzmasters, and I used them exclusively on the album. Then, one day, my friend Clay Jones told me about a guy in Tupelo, Mississippi, who had a number of rare guitars. I didn’t need much of an excuse to go to see some guitars, but when I thought about the possibility of getting one from Tupelo, the birthplace of Elvis Presley, I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity. I set off to find Elvis’s old house and get me a Jag.

  When I got to the place where the man with the guitars was, I did what any other guitarist in my position would do, I went mad and bought a bunch. The fact that I was from England and suddenly finding myself in the birthplace of the King of Rock ’n’ Roll seemed to make it absolutely crucial to take advantage of it and get myself some genuine treasures from the place where it all began. I got an old 1962 Jaguar, a ’65 Jazzmaster and a seventies Guild Acoustic, before going to find 306 Elvis Presley Drive to pay my respects and cosmically seal the deal. I came to the little white house where Elvis Presley had been born, and there was not a soul around. There was a swinging chair on the porch which I couldn’t resist. I sat on the porch and thought about where I was, and I had to call Angie to share the moment. I just hoped she would answer. She picked up the phone and in my best Elvis Presley voice I started to sing, ‘Are you lonesome tonight?’ She let me sing the whole song, and then Angie, who it has to be said is not an Elvis Presley fan, replied, ‘You are such a dick.’

  One of my favourite ever things to do in Modest Mouse was to go out shopping with Jeremiah. The whole band were the most acquisitive people I’d ever come across in my life, and each gas station we stopped at was an opportunity to stock up on hats, 3D sunglasses, and fishing nets. Being in the Walmart in Mississippi at 3 a.m. with Jeremiah was an education and a treat, as he would saunter around, picking out an array of objects from children’s toys to garden tools with the casual air of a consummate expert, and I would marvel at the man’s aesthetic diversity. Things to make signs, things to make things, and things to stick on top of other things: they would all be launched into the basket. When we’d get back to the studio, he’d disappear with his haul and then reappear days later, having made some amazingly crafted item. One morning I went into his room and noticed something unusual. The furniture had been sprayed gold. It was on these nocturnal raids that I first started finding things to stick on my guitars. It was something to do at three in the morning, and it looked to me like decent art.

  When the record was finished, I thought we’d done something that sounded like nothing else. I liked the fact that we didn’t analyse anything too much, but Isaac’s description of it as ‘a nautical balalaika carnival romp’ seemed to fit the bill. Watching Isaac writing his lyrics was fascinating, because if you weren’t looking out for it you wouldn’t even notice he was doing it. We would already have what I thought was a really good song, and then he would seemingly write more, investing the words with extra nuance and meaning until they sounded like a collage of otherness, and another level would appear. In Isaac I’d found someone whose words I could read just for personal pleasure, whether I was involved or not.

  While we’re on the subject

  Could we change the subject now?

  I was knocking on your ears

  Don’t worry you were always out

  Looking towards the future

  We were begging for the past

  Well, we know we had the good things

  But those never seemed to last.

  Everyone’s unhappy

  Everyone’s ashamed

  Well, we all just got caught looking

  At somebody else’s page

  Well, nothing ever went

  Quite exactly as we planned

  Our ideas held no water

  But we used them like a dam

  Oh, and I know this of myself

  I assume as much for other people

  Oh, and I know this of myself

  We’ve listened more to life’s end-gong

  Than the sound of life’s sweet bells

  The Good Ship Modest Mouse

  ANGIE AND THE kids came to Portland and we all felt at home. Nile related to the culture in Portland and at sixteen was becoming serious about songwriting and guitar playing himself, having been influenced by Elliott Smith and Broken Social Scene. He was immersed in the music of the Pacific Northwest, and Modest Mouse had been his favourite band. I’d moved out of hotels and was renting an apartment, and the family came over as often as they could during this time, given my work schedule and the kids’ school, and the rest of Modest Mouse welcomed them into the band’s world just as warmly as they’d welcomed me.

  With the album coming out, I was set to go out on the most extensive touring schedule I’d ever undertaken. It was a challenging prospect to be away for so long, but the anticipation that we all felt around the band and the record meant that there was also a lot of things to look forward to, and I was committed to Modest Mouse for the long haul. We were making our last-minute preparations in Portland when I got bad news from home. Angie’s dad was now very ill and I needed to get back. I got home just before he died. I’d known Angie’s dad since she and I had first met almost thirty years before. We’d got very close over the years, and he was a great man. My main concern was to look after my family. My wife had lost her dad, and my kids had lost their grandfather. It was something we all had to go through together.

  It was a little strange being back in England and seeing first-hand how my joining Modest Mouse was being reported in the press. The band were already big in America, but only the more switched-on music fans knew about them in the UK, and the tone of the story in the British press went along the lines of ‘Smiths Legend Joins Weird American Rockers with Beards’. It didn’t trouble me to have the usual slant put on what I was doing,
but it bothered me sometimes when my songwriting partners had to deal with the Smiths baggage, when all they wanted was to make good music with their guitarist and friend. Luckily my band mates were all grown-ups and artists in their own right, and all had had plenty of success and enough sense of themselves to handle the obvious line of questioning that would come our way ten minutes into most of our interviews. Still, I wished people would think a little higher sometimes.

  I was at home, packing, when I got a call from the band’s manager, Juan Carrera.

  ‘Hi Johnny, what are you doing?’

  ‘I’m packing for the tour … why?’

  ‘I just thought you’d like to know that the album has gone into the American album charts at number one.’

  It was an extraordinary moment, and one I never expected. I stood on the spot for a while and was thinking, ‘No? … Really? … Really?’ But it had definitely happened. The Modest Mouse album had gone straight into the American charts at number one. I called Angie and told her, and she came back from where she was to hang out and celebrate. Then Joe called. He was elated. In all the time I’d been playing with The Smiths and beyond, I’d never been one to pay too much attention to chart positions. I was proud and felt a huge sense of achievement when Meat Is Murder went to number one in the UK, and it meant something that Electronic had had hits, but I never remembered what number anything went to, and I genuinely didn’t care if a single didn’t get high in the charts. When a record was done, and if it sounded great, then I was happy about having written and recorded it. Once it was released, my focus was on the next thing. Modest Mouse getting to number one in America, though, was different. I took it not only as an achievement for the band and the work we’d put into writing the songs, but as a triumph for alternative guitar music. Music like ours didn’t get to number one in America, but then we did it.

  Back in Portland, I climbed on the bus and in true Modest Mouse style it felt like we were embarking on some epic voyage. Hundreds of dates spread out over the horizon as we set off to take our nautical balalaika carnival romp around the world to who knows where. I’d been in the band for a while by now, and my role as British guitar specialist seemed to fit me quite nicely. Although there was a unity in the band, it was a huge novelty for everyone to have a British guy around, and no one missed an opportunity to belittle, lampoon and ridicule all cultural differences between us. My Englishness was a great source of amusement, and I got to hear the most bizarre cockney accents and brutal mockery, until I had to loudly remind everyone that I was actually a legendary rock star and they really shouldn’t take the piss. I liked everyone involved with Modest Mouse: I liked the crew, the management and the band’s friends and families. I really liked the audiences. The band had a special relationship with their fans, and when I walked onstage I was aware I was playing to interesting people. The shows were unpredictable and usually very wild as the six of us clambered up between pump organs, trumpets and banjos, and assaulted the place with full-on force, setting off on roaming explorations within the music. As the mood of the night dictated the show, we’d sometimes discard the set list and play whatever song we felt like, and maybe play it differently from how we’d played it in the past. Sometimes I’d treat the stage like an improvisational place. It was about playing in the moment, more than I’d done with any other band before. Isaac would go off into a spontaneous idea, and depending on what we were all feeling we’d fall in with an entirely improvised jam that could last two minutes or ten. It was out-of-body music, and music for the head. Out-of-body head music.