How much does the mood you are in when you walk into a studio affect the outcome?
Totally. I can’t work if I am down. I get things done by being genuinely positive and using that energy. There have been times in my life when I have tried to control it and drown my intensity and I did that for a couple of years but I got nowhere. I try not to succumb to cynicism. I have to be positive otherwise it goes nowhere.
Are you your biggest critic?
Yes.
Are you able to leave tracks when they are good enough rather than perfect?
Not really, but I have partners who do that for me.
Were you nervous when you first put your songs forward to people?
No. I sort of did things the other way around. When we first went down to London as The Smiths I wasn’t nervous at all, because I was very cocky and I knew inside me that no-one had ever heard music like this before. I felt up against it and that confrontational element fired me up. I would be on stage thinking ‘Don’t go to the bar ‘cos you’ve never heard anything like this before, check us out’. Then later when we were more successful I would be throwing up all day which is why I was always so thin!!!
How do you feel when people openly emulate you?
I do hear echoes of what I have done in one or two groups and it is very flattering and then I will watch those guys to see what they do next. One of the best things was when my friends and family started recognising my style. My sister phoned me up once and said ‘I’ve just heard your new record, I knew it was our Johnny’, and although that was The The’s ‘Slow Emotional Replay’, it was a real triumph for me, because the harmonica was like nobody else but me.
Your harmonica playing is always viewed as secondary to your guitar?
Well, yes. I wouldn’t have played that instrument with The Smiths unless I had met Matt Johnson. After I went for a record deal in London I stayed with him and slept on his floor. He had nearly finished ‘Soul Mining’ and he played me ‘Perfect’. I thought ‘I can do that’ so I took it back to The Smiths. Originally though it was ‘Love, Love Me Do’ that started my whole interest in the harmonica.
What is at the core, the heart of your songwriting?
To me writing a song is about having a feeling and trying to catch it. It is much less cerebral than many people make out, much more spiritual, more about a feeling than anything else in my life. Once I have identified that feeling it might take a month or just five minutes, but I will capture that feeling in a song.
The insinuation of that is that you are pretty efficient?
Once I have the idea I am, yes. I have had enough experience to be efficient. In the early days it was a necessity because Morrissey was very, very demanding of me, he was always looking for songs, and without him I wouldn’t have written as many songs in that fashion, with such speed. Bad songs don’t tend to get beyond the second guitar overdub, I can hear by then that it isn’t working. There is a lot of truth in the school of thought that if a song is any good you can play it on an acoustic guitar. Billy Duffy said that of the first Electronic album, that although it was a dance record you could play all the songs on an acoustic. I said ‘Well, you’ll have to teach me ‘cos all I do is stand to the side at the ironing board playing keyboards!!!!’ [Laughs]
Has there ever been a phase when you lost the knack and felt hollow, that you had lost that passion?
Yes, when I got caught up in all the machinations of the fame game. It would have been incredibly hollow had I had nothing else to think about. Around 1989 me and Matt were ready to go on tour. The ugly situation with The Smiths split meant that trying to produce work after was really difficult, almost unbearable. I had to grow up a little bit and develop a really thick skin. I had to, otherwise I would have gone under. I felt hollow at that time, yes.
Was that a scary feeling?
No, what was scary was that I didn’t want to listen to records and to be robbed of that is much, much worse than being robbed of the impulse to write. I have as much joy from having a son as I do from writing a song, but to lose the enjoyment of listening to records would really, really sadden me. I would be devastated if the music business gave me such a cynical ear that it would rob me of the love of my life.
What is the most important record in your life?
‘Gimme Shelter’ by The Rolling Stones. That was the soundtrack to my life from 14 to 22. The intro is amazing. I have tried to capture the spirit of that on the whole of ‘The Queen Is Dead’ but I would never try to lift it. It is a spiritual reaction between those people that could never be recreated.
What is the greatest accomplishment of your life, musically or otherwise?
Musically it is that I still make records with the same passion and exuberance that I had when I was a kid and that has taken some doing. On a personal level it is my kids and family.
What has been the biggest failure in your life?
The way The Smiths ended. We should have split when we did simply because we had lost the touch with basic emotional values which we all possessed, but were subverted by our egos which by then had turned us into caricatures. We were good people, but we did the split all wrong.
When and why did you last cry in front of someone?
New York in 1993. It was the last time I was going to work with Matt and I hadn’t slept for three days. I had been exposed to the most incredible mind states, dragged through all these mind trips which were recorded as the video for ‘Slow Emotional Replay’ by Tim Pope. We went right into the heart of the New York porn world. The basic premise was to go right up to all these weird street characters we had been told about and stick a microphone in front of their faces and ask them ‘What is wrong with the world?’ Their reactions were just incredible. It was one of the most unbelievable experiences I have ever been through. Tim didn’t tell us where we were going at all. We went into this one innocuous looking building and he told me I was going to need my guitar to mime. I walked in and I was on live porn TV being interviewed by this guy. Then we went to this meat district as they call it, and I saw this guy, tattoos, beard, a real trucker and he gets out of his truck and he was wearing a tutu. Then we met these transexuals who were so beautiful. These people, who were supposed to be down and outs and losers came out with the most humane answers and ideas about the world’s problems. One guy was this Irish chap who seemed really down, not down and out but just very down, and we asked him the same question, and in front of our very faces he just broke up, this massive guy, he completely broke down over the course of three minutes. He completely went, it was like turning a key in him, and he cried. Fucking horrible. There was another club where we’d been told that snuff movies had been made in, the atmosphere was horrendous, dire. I was sitting on these plastic sheets and there was very little light, only a trickle coming through from the streets. It was so Twin Peaks. We were miming when this guy comes in called Danny The Wonder Pony, who makes his living going round these sex clubs with a saddle, giving people rides on his back. He had neon lights flashing from his mouth and when we asked him, this freak, he gave this real compassionate answer. After a while I became very numb, but at night-time I had the most graphic images, so I know that it all goes in to your head somewhere. It was a very surreal, weird experience. That reduced me to tears.
What are the musical constants in your entire catalogue?
Melodic guitar counter-point. You can hear it in all of The Smiths stuff. ‘Sexuality’ by Billy Bragg, ‘Still Feel The Rain’ by Stex, you hear it in ‘Disappointed’ by Electronic, ‘Beyond Love’ by The The, ‘Jealousy Of Youth’ by The The. It is there throughout my work and absolutely essential to it.
If you were to be run over when you leave this interview what shall I say were your last words?
I wrote some good songs… didn’t I?
Suggested tracks:
1. -‘Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me’ (The Smiths) has that sense of yearning which I feel mirrors certain aspects of my spirit.
&nb
sp; 2. -‘Get The Message’ (Electronic) displays the spirit of two partners, both putting in 100% of themselves and resulting in a creation that is more than than 200%.
3. -‘How Soon is Now?’ (The Smiths) shows that I’m a cool guitar player and that I can get it right when I really want to.
Young and beautiful: The Smiths in 1983.
© Paul Slattery / Retna UK
Love Will Tear Us Apart: Johnny and Morrissey in 1984.
© Sipa Press / Rex Features
One man and his guitar: Johnny Marr admires the legendary Gibson ES-355 bought for him by Seymour Stein.
© Paul Slattery / Retna UK
Johnny and Bernard proving that two heads are better than one? Electronic, 1991.
© Steve Double / Retna
Johnny with Chrissie at the Nelson Mandela benefit, Wembley 1988.
© Richard Young / Rex Features
‘Look out mate – we’re on the stairs!’: Sharing a quiet word with a rather worse-for-wear Liam Gallagher. The Q Awards, 1996.
© Scarlet Page / Retna UK
Two masters at work, as Johnny and revered acoustic guitar master Bert Jansch duet at Patti Smith’s 2005 Meltdown.
© Nickie Divine / Retna UK
Healing hands: Johnny with childhood hero Lenny Kaye. Meltdown, 2005.
© Ilpo Musto / Rex Features
A very modern icon: Johnny Marr plays live with Chic legend Nile Rodgers at Parklife in 2012…
…and is joined onstage by his guitar disciple Noel Gallagher at The Brixton Academy in 2013.
© Getty Images
Johnny and Ronnie (Wood, of The Rolling Stones and Faces fame) make an oddly pleasing mirror image as they perform a duet in London.
© Tim Whitby / Getty Images
A 2007 studio portrait with Modest Mouse. Marr and Isaac Brock do things the old-fashioned way, making a racket through a classic phonograph.
© Wendy Redfern / Redferns
There’s life in the old dog yet: a tired guitar hero catches his breath after the Cribs’ show at London’s Heaven nightclub, 2009.
© Tom Oldham / Rex Features
Johnny Marr remains a guitar icon for the ages.
© Donna Santisi / Redferns
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