Ep 49: Johnny Marr

please do check out our previous episodes. I feel like we've had some really good guests on recently, but throughout from the beginning, really we've been very lucky with the people that have wanted to come on our podcast. So yeah, if this is your first time here, please do check it out. You can subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher or any of the Android apps, and you can also listen to all of these on Loud and Quiet dot com

as well. Loud and Quiet is our magazine that we make a music magazine that is completely independent and we attempt at least to cover new interesting artists from cover to cover. We also feature some more established artists, which include tonight's guest. Now I'm not going to just pretend that this is just some other guests. This is just another one for me, at least it really isn't. Johnny Marr is a man who I he's I mean, there's no other way to say. He's a very big hero

of mine. And there aren't many people that I've wanted to meet more than Johnny Marr. And We've come close a few times on a few different things that Loud and Quiet in the magazine and a few different interview ideas we've had and it's just not happened. So to meet him to do the podcast was a real treat for me. And I hope that I don't embarrass myself in the conversation you're about to hear. I don't think I do. I think I managed to keep a lid on my excitement. Johnny made that very easy for me.

He was as nice as I'd heard a lot of people. He's got a bit of a reputation for being a bloody good guy actually, and he really was not a preening rock star, which you know, he could very easily be just a very down to earth guy from Manchester who just also happens to have been in one of the most important indie bands all time, So I hope you enjoy it as much as I did doing it. We've also today released aur new issue of the magazine.

The Dune issue of Loud and Quiet is in stores now, and Johnny's in the magazine as well, so if you are particularly a Johnny mar fan, please do pick up a copy of the magazine. The cover feature is with the Internet, but Johnny's in there talking about being a sixteen year old and what he remembers about being sixteen. You can pick up a copy of that from any of our stockists across the whole of the UK. A list of those are on loudon quiet dot com. You

can also order a copy. If you're listening outside of the UK, or you can't get to your nearest store to pick up a copy, please do order a copy on our page there, and you can also subscribe to the magazine as well without further ado. Then it's a complete honor of mine to say that guest number forty nine on Midnight Chat by Loud and Quiet is Johnny Marr. I think it was the start of last year, we had Ryan Adams on this podcast who he's a big fan of yours, and at that time I was listening

to Set the Boy Free. I was listened to the audio book version of it, and I thought, and because I knew he was a big fan, I thought, that's good. I've got that in my back pocket if this conversations going bad, because he can be a bit of a tricky customer sometimes, so I'd heard and I used it up quite quickly the whole I'm listening to Johnny Mar's autobiography.

or whatever to do a similar kind of book. I was aware when I got to seven months in that I was really crunching it and getting really stuck in. You know, I was doing five six hours a day, and sometimes inspiration had strike and I'd worked really late at night, so I was pretty I was pretty burnt out by the time I finished it, to be honest, you know, nine months to write your life story and try and do it properly is quite a sort of compressed time. But I'd still be doing it now if

I hadn't done it that way. So it was mind crunching, and it was a little like I'd imagine it was a little like working on a dissertation every day for nine months, pretty much every day, right, So it was that intensive. Things came up during the writing of it that without I don't want to make it sound more dramatic than it was, but some things actually, you know, made me feel immense joy and were very very easy

in the telling of it. My days with Modest Mouse, or you know, hanging out with my mates in the record shops, stealing record covers. My mate Malku was this amazing shoplifter. Those kind of things I'd forgotten about, and as they came up, you know, I felt, oh, it's a really really warm feeling. But then there were other things that actually just pissed me off and made me kind of I carried around for a few days that kind of made me angry. I didn't realize my school.

I'm not someone whose bangs on about how torturous my school was, and I actually thought in my school days, secondary school as a teenager would be really a bit of a breeze to write about. But when I started uncovering what that experience was like, you know, this kind of anger came out in me, that this sort of

resentment that had really withheld or just forgotten about. Of course, you know, writing about the Smith's, the ending of the Smith's brought up some real sadness, you know, looking at it, not just because it's so important to people, and I realized that that was going to be the kind of thing that most people were interested in, but you know, looking at it from an adult, a much more mature

person's advantage point that you know, that made me sad. Really, I didn't want to pour too much syrupy kind of emotion on it in the writing of it. I wanted to keep the book a consistent tone and not too much of a drag. But yeah, that you know, so that was a drag, but it was sad. But that's what happened during the writing of the book. And I

think it's not like there's Catharsis going on. But I think I'm now in the process of post book, having literally written the chapters of my life and released it. I think I'm going through that now really, and we're you know right now that my new album, third solo album called The Comedy is coming out and I'm starting to realize that the autobiographical songs, they're not confessional by any means, because it's I find that a little much, But I think they're kind of a result of having

written the book. I think, yeah, I'm sort of in the process of this record coming out now, I'm seeing that the new album was was it like a blank page? Really, I went into it with no preconceptions and no not really a certain definite agenda. And that's been really, really good for me. I think it's been really good for the record. I think it's made it's what's made this record, amongst other things, but it's made this record a step up from the other records. I think. I'm happy with

the others book. What gives it its extra dimension is this that there's a new emotional quality in it, which I think I wouldn't have done and not written in the book. That's a quicker version.

still more importantly, still doing really good work. And I've got a couple of friends who are artists, once a sculpture and an other ones an artist, and I can't really imagine them finding much worth in looking back, other than to tell some tales out a dinner party or around in you know, in a bar or something like telling the odd Tale, but it actually informing your work, any nostalgia, and actually just even informing your kind of life.

I don't see any point in it, I actually other than the retelling of a nice tale.

I think I'm alright with that. You know, as I've got older, I remember, you know occasionally when you'd read some old motown star putting out a record in the nineties or whatever, and they'd get really touchy with the journalists because they just want to talk about now and you think, I don't think, Oh, I don't really, I

don't really want to turn into that. But I think the important part, and this is where it becomes quite subjective, is is, yeah, you've got to make music and be doing something that is, if not as interesting, at least interesting to talk about. Yeah.

You know, they were really skinned and he was someone I really liked. I had no idea that Oasis, I mean who did. Yeah, no one had any idea that Oasis were going to one day play three nights at Wembley Stadium and be this enormous kind of phenomena. There could have just been some band who never got out of the board walk. I still would have gave him the guitar. I just liked him, you know.

It's a bit of a tradition. Really, it's it's a kind of there's a there's a thing amongst country musicians if you give someone their guitar, it's it's like the ultimate sign of respect, you know. And you know, I've I've owned quite a lot of the years. So but it's a very good question because I did notice for many a day who was giving me a guitar?

guitar is pretty much as big as I am. I was so tiny, and and that's got quite a good story to which I've you know, I've been asked to tell a few times about when Seymour Stein from Sire Records he bought that for me when the Smith signed Sir in nineteen eighty three, and that inspired Noel and then and it inspired Bernard Butler and stuff. So I'm very proud of I'm actually really proud of the fact it's inspired two guitar players that I really like mates.

But that's you know, over the years, that's become like a a pretty treasured guitar. And I know Ryan Adams likes this red Port red Less Paul rather that I used to that I started using in nineteen eighty five, and he's got very good taste that because not a lot, not everyone picks up on that guitar. And it's a really really great guitar. I mean that is very very important. So like a lot of guitar players, I could would

be here for hours. But yeah, there's a there's a few really important ones that I've kept.

I was. I was staying out all night, was staying up all night, you know, And you know I always joked about I was the only footballer with eyeliner on the pitch, which is true, but that was sort of symbolic of my kind of commitment to you know, I was just really getting in deep into the life of musician, you know, you know, I wanted to take drugs and and stay up all night writing songs. I mean, it was completely the opposite of what a fifteen year old boy should be focusing on if he's going to be

any kind of a you know. It was just happened at the time when I was really discovering all of this stuff, so internally I knew like, oh man, I mean if you asked me a couple of years earlier, like now, academies and all of that, when they get you at eight nine, ten, might have been a little bit different. I mean, I'm such a musician. Yeah, you know, I'm such a musician. It's I can't really imagine it.

leave school. You know. My older mates who are in bands, they're going in virgin records and looking for a bass player and all of that. Okay, I have to be like that. So it was all aspects of that. But I think what you're talking about really is commitment to almost commitment to a vocation. Yeah, you know when you in my case it was me musician, your case being a writer of getting your magazine together, and people have

got all these different stories. When you get a clear inclination and a vision or a path at a young age of what you might be a to achieve or an obsession. Say it's it's not only is it very powerful, it's actually really quite unusual. And you're very, very lucky to have that, because we all know that most people don't really know what they did want to do until the twenty two, twenty seven or whatever. You fall into your your occupation from trial and error, and that's kind

of the way it should be. But I it was so hell bent on doing what I now am doing it, and you know, it took a lot of work, you know, like I didn't know I was going to quote quote make it. You know, I just knew whether I made it or not, I just knew I was going to give it a go, and I really wanted to do it in spite of you know what people read about me being so self assured, and a lot of that was Bravardo frankly, you know, but I just had such a love of what was what I wanted to do.

And I see it occasionally with other when I've seen it with other young people, it's very rare. Whether you want to be in clothes or fashion, or do makeup or be an artist, or whatever. I almost think it's really bad for you if you don't honor it. Yeah, I think it's psychically bad for you and spiritually bad for you. Whatever that means. You have to be better to be a starving writer or a starving artist than a working call center person emotional and mentally. You just

got to do try and do what you love. So yeah, so football was a good idea, but you know, I was, I was really I was starting to kind of like get elbowed off the picture more ways.

being able to execute songs with concepts. Really, I mean the concept being and that because I like to just instinctively sing about the outside world more than my inner feelings and thoughts, just because I think, you know, it's kind of a good thing to write songs about and the outside world. For the last couple of years, the one that I live in anyway, has been so affected by the political climate, specifically that I had to sing about an alternative kind of world because I to be

you know, basic about it. I just didn't feel like those people deserve being in my head or my songs. The politicians are around at the moment, I just had enough of them. I thought, well, I have to kind of live with the consequences of you being in power. I'm not gonna I'm not going to have you in habit my record. And then that got me thinking about anyway, about how I was escaping into my life as a

musician and an artist. But also it'd be quite good for what I remember that it's a good thing that rock music can be an escape for the listener too. And I don't know about anyone else, but it was almost something that i'd forgotten in a way.

isn't it. And I think we are now kind of swinging back towards the idea of thinking like, oh, let's just have a bit of escapism, and as you say, not give them, not give them the time, you know.

to day living experience, and same with the audience. And I also thought that I'm very, very very fortunate to get up on the stage and sing and play the guitar and have people support that and have people's ear to do that, and that should be my job. You know, in this day and age, that's not a walk in the park. You have to songs don't just you know, fall out of the sky. You know some of them do,

but you know, they don't just happen. You have to apply yourself and work out writing decent songs that your audience want to hear. So you know, it's not a doddle but I thought that should really be enough for the audience. If I get up and do for people, particularly for the people who are interested in what I do. If I get up there and play good guitar that they like and come up with decent songs and do good shows, that's my protest in a way.

a piano or anything. Anyone can learn it. Yeah, But there is a difference between learning it and mimicking it and actually being this kind of feeling seeing a guitarist and you think, oh, that's like that gift, that's what they're That sounds a bit like Hammy and Hippie. But when you see Jimmy Hendrix playing guitar, yeah, you know that. However much anyone else tries to do that. They can't

do that, that's just in him kind of thing. Do you feel the same, Do you feel that with the guitar with you, like it was just in you to be able to play the guitar that way?

obsessed about playing it. But it does come really naturally to me, you know, And it came naturally to me when I was starting out the basic obvious things when you're seven or eight, trying to hold down on a really crappy acoustic whold chords down, which is physically very difficult, and it hurting your fingers.

they were like my battle scars in a way. Really I loved it. Yeah, and other people know what I'm talking about there, And I loved all those hours of putting it that I put into it. So playing the guitar was always came really easy. When you're that interested in something, it's quite easy.

into me. Then fourteen fifteen, it didn't go into me because because I was in the Smiths, I understand what you're saying, and Morrissey particularly being very revered, it hasn't played into it doesn't affect. In other words, I'm when I write lyrics, I'm not going does this measure up to the Smiths? I'm kind of going, does this measure up to the person I was what I twigged at

fourteen fifteen about decent writing. That's gone with me all the way through the Smiths, through the other Neil Tennant, Isaac Brock, modest Mouse, Everyone've worked with, whether it's Beck or Neil Finn on and on, all these different people

I have worked with. That journey started at fourteen fifteen when I was like, oh right, okay, Lou Reed's really really good and Ray Davis is really good and started measuring that up, and I iced to measure Morrissey up against that, right, And I used to really love David Bowie's more surreal early seventies lyrics and the kind of androgynists and surreal ones driving Saturday and you know, are you Pretty Things and all and kooks and just all of that Onnky Dory,

ziggy lad insane period and that criteria if you like, and that bar is It's something that's been set over all of my life. Really, Debbie Harry. I think he's a really great lyricist of kind of pop and new wave music. And so if I'm competing with anyone and competing with all of that.

I thought they were better, and I mean, I love clothes, I love football, and I was even really loved girls in that young age, and I loved a lot of things, but a record and what it did was really up there, really really up there, which is why fans will know. I've got this forty five tattoo on my arm right And so days like today when my single, I still think of it as a single and it will exist on seven inches. I mean, I'm not like some old retro daddy kind of vibe, but you know, but it's

not a retro thing. It's more like it's the release of my lead single from the record. I can't wipe out all that forty odd years of love and this thing that's been in my life, so being you know, so putting out a Johnny Marr single, and I really like the single as well, is a you've asked me a good time because it's you know today, it feels really really good. So I'm really enjoying it. It's a very rewarding thing. Fans are hearing it for the first time.

One of the upside of social media is that you get that absolute reaction. Particularly it's a good reaction. Yeah, yeah, straight away, you know, from fans, so you know that they're hearing this record, so that that never diminishes for me.

I think it's really exciting. Other aspects of it. You know, running a band is not only takes a lot of energy, it's very very costly, and it's a it's it's you know, it's I want to say it's a business because it's a lot more than a business, but it is a business and you have to get out there and you know, you have to get out and roll your sleeves up and do it. It's you know, being the boss of on the road. It's not enormous, but I have no twelve fourteen to fifteen people and that brings a sort of

kind of pressure. But I'm always going to be doing it anyway, so I might as well be trying to, like, you know, employ people while go while I do it.

first off, well done fleet with Matt. Yeah, because I know some people are a little like I'm not really seeing that, but I mean, it's a no brainer for Fleetwood, Matt, because Neil's like a great singer and a great guitar player and a great writer.

but that was a real temptation. I always say that modest Mouse still really tempt me to go back there.

the kind of circuit and stuff. I suppose the thing that I think that it showed or took from it, I guess was that you're asked still someone who just wants to play music essentially. And also it kind of gave me this impression that you are kind of void of ego because a lot of people. I think the reason people were surprised was because most people wouldn't do that.

They would be like, oh, I'm done all that and and kind of feel like they are above being in a band, Like you know, Nil Finn joining Fleetwood Mac. That's a no brainer there.

you understand those sort of kind of things. But one aspect of this, right is that that people probably wouldn't get is that when So in both cases with Modest Mouse and the Cribs, so I get together to do some tracks, right, which is you know, And in the case of the Cribs, it was Ryan said to me, let's do a record like a single I think he made at forty five and like an EP right Cribs and Johnny, and I thought, well that would be I

could see that that's a good thing. Within minutes, I thought, yeah, out of forty five would be kind of cool. Right. So, I, from being a kid, like to be a little bit prepared, so I never go into a kind of writing thing without anything really, you know, collaborating with someone else. That is, I always have to have a few riffs. That's been in me since been about fifteen, since I went up. We used to because I used to as a kid.

I got so sick of people ask him how to go and jam with him, and I'd go in there and everyone's looking at each other like what we're going to play? Stoned like just playing an e chord for twenty minutes, and I was like, this is so boring. So I from even back in those days, I was like, Okay, we'll do a bit of homework and have a couple

of ideas when you go in there. So I had a couple of riffs when I went over to Portland to play with Modest Mouse, and then when I started with the Cribs, We're like, okay, well we'll do this. Let's see where we go with this. We'll do this EP. And I had a couple of these rifts, right, So we started playing, we set up our gain, we started playing,

and these songs came out really quickly. It's like, okay, now again from being fourteen fifteen, this apprenticeship that bad, I go, well, this isn't really that usual that they happen so quickly, and they're really rocking. Okay, I know when chemistry is good. Right, So, oh right, we'll come back and what we're going to do tomorrow, Let's see what happens. So we do some more. So we just got on a roll with me in the Cribs. So after about five days we had about six seven instrumental

great pieces of music. So like wow, wow, okay, well let's just make an album's worth. Similar kind of story happened with Modest Mouse, right, And so then what happens is you go because we're all record freaks. And this is the bit that people who are outside of what I do particularly anyway, won't get. All of us were egolests at that point, because we all go this, let's make a record. We kind of in the background, the

cribs now hung on. We're bringing Johnny Marain to our band, and I go, I'm being in the cribs now the outside world, but that's only a little bit of your consideration. Your altruistic, genuine musician ship just takes over and goes, this is happening. Let's just carry on. So then what happens is you're arranged to make a record, and all right, the outside world and the radio and journalist might be talking to you about it. So this is what i'ms

in my mind. Anyway, I get really attached to the music. I obsessed about it. I think all that middle ages round we need to change the key, or I think the singing needs to or we need we should the intro isn't right. That then takes over my life, and it's been that way from being a kid. I'm swimming in these songs that I have to finish. I don't care what you know, what it looks like on Jiles Holland or what. I don't care about that. So I'm like, this work has to reach fruished. So I make a record,

and then by what's happened. By the time you make a record, you've been playing together for a few months, you go out to la or Portland or whatever, you go through intense pressure. It's not right we have to recut that the drummer's broken his arm. You go through this real bonding that if you were to bail, it would just be weird. Yeah, because you've sort of it's like being in the army or something, or on the rigs. You've become this it's more about it's actually the opposite

of what people think. It's it's the opposite of flitting around. You become really loyal friends. Yeah, so you kind of So if I were to turn out of mod't Mouse and say, you know, this thing we've slaved over for a year and that we've really crunched down and all that, well, by I'm off.

bands X Ray Spex Smith's. I know Smeths have gone on to have a massive legacy, but good street punk rock band and I know how to do that. And I thought, all right, I want to experience being in the modern version. I want to know the reality. It would be good for me as a musician in a way. It's a little bit like a stand up getting back and getting in front of crowds and clubs and stuff. And I just thought they were they were great, and

I really loved the Garmans. I loved the family and I thought they were these are the best modern British band around and I'm going to have invited me to be in it. So I'm going to join this band, and I'm going to be in it and get back in touch with what it's like being in a in a young, happening band. So that's what that's the way I think, really, yeah, I'm not very careery despite what people may think.

Then flick to the pages of the Smiths and then and then it's going to trail off, you know, and in that in that time, you you know, you went straight from straight from the Smiths to working with talking heads, as we've mentioned, pet shop boys, Bernard some with electronic, Matt Johnson with the the The list kind of goes on and on. But there's one name. I was looking at your Wikipedia page yesterday because I'm a great journalist, and that's where we get all that facts. A Girl's

Allowed song. You played on A Girl's Alloud song? Yeah, on their final album.

have like not done that. I would have you know, I thought about legacy and all that, I probably would not have done it. There's a part of me as well which is so perverse that I quite fancied it. You know, I've got such a stick from certain parts of the music press when I left the Smiths that there's a sort of irking and you know, people think I'm a nice guy and stuff, probably, but irking some people,

particularly the indie militia. I can't sometimes it's just so there's such a delicious opportunity, and it's not You're not going to get much better opportunity than to pissing the indie militia off than to play on a girl's aloud track. So I thought, all right, fuck it, I'll just do it. No, no one's going to know.