Full interview here
From today's NME. Great interview with Johnny, and some very revealing and interesting answers, especially at the very end.
WHAT ROCK'N'ROLL HAS TAUGHT ME - JOHNNY MARR
Previously of The Smiths, now of Modest Mouse, the guitar legend talks Keith Richards, The Horrors and – yes - The Smiths
Q: You don't know the meaning of the Dark Side until you've...
A: Been in The Smiths. There you go, I got it out of the way straight off. The last year of The Smiths, I was stuck with a load of ideas and nowhere to play them. So I disbanded the group. Was I worried I wouldn't have anywhere for those ideas? Absolutely. But if the worst case scenario is better than the situation you're in at the time, you've got to go.
Q: The coolest rock star in the world ever is...
A: John Lydon in 1976. He made the old guard look completely irrelevant while simultaneously referencing all the best things about the previous 20 years of rock'n'roll. He represented the pure essence of the original idea of rock'n'roll. And he just looked so cool. His persona was streetwise but also intellectual, masculine and feminine. Listen to 'Holidays In The Sun', which isn't my favourite Pistols track, but the vocal is as primal, as confused, as transcendant as a rock'n'roll vocal can get. It's the sound of someone exploding. I'm pretty cool too though! I've got secrets and insights into the whole pantheon and lexicon and philosophy of rock'n'roll that belies a man of my tender age. And I'm pretty good with a guitar.
Q: The biggest cliche in rock'n'roll is...
A: That money can't buy you happiness. I mean, it can't actually buy you happiness, but it can buy you a big yacht to pull up right next to happiness while you're thinking about it. Also, the idea that intelligence doesn't belong in rock'n'roll is nonsense. John Lennon, John Lydon and Iggy Pop proved otherwise. You need street smarts to get a message across, because people are smart. No-one who changed anything did so with a dumb-ass approach. So the idea that it's all 'sex and drugs and rock'n'roll' is a cliche. Look at Donny Tourette. I rest my case...
Q: The greatest guitar solo ever is...
A: 'Gimme Shelter' by The Rolling Stones. Keith Richards says more in five notes than most other guitar players can say in 50.
Q: The one chord change that every band should use is...
A: Em7, Cm to D, from 'All Along The Watchtower' by Bob Dylan. The list goes on and on and on...
Q: The best gig I ever saw was...
A: Patti Smith at the Manchester Apollo. It was on the 'Easter' tour. I was 14 or 15 and I saw rock'n'roll as an alternative way of living played out in front of my very eyes and ears. It was pumping, exciting and poetic too. It was like a doorway into another world opening up, and it never closed. From that night on, things in my life were different.
Q: I will never have my hair cut like...
A: That guy out of The Horrors. What's his name? Seriously, there's no arguing with that, is there? Come on, mate.
Q: The best gig I've ever played is...
A: Salford University in 1986 with The Smiths. The PA had to be tied down because the floor was bouncing up so high that the stage was practically falling to pieces. I've actually got that night on film somewhere. The Smiths were pretty full-on as a live band. Even the slow songs were full-on. I doubt we ever played a bad show.
Q: Never trust anyone...
A: Whose sideburns are a different colour from the rest of their hair. I don't need to explain that one.
Q: My advice to young bands is...
A: Write. Write. Write. Write. Because that's the currency and that's what matters before anything else. It's so easy to get distracted by all the other stuff – trying to get the money to pay for your equipment, doing endless demoes, maintaining your MySpace page. When you've got the songs, everything else follows. Oh, and get everything in writing.
Q: I've never deliberately set out to...
A: Write an anthem. I just get swept along as the chords and the melodies come out. My instinct is to take the emotion in a track and blow it as big as I can, which can create an anthemic atmosphere I suppose. I like the fact that a song can be a celebration – that it can make people feel good about the way they live.
Q: The biggest discovery I've made in music is...
A: If you were to play 'How Soon Is Now?' on piano or acoustic guitar, it wouldn't have the same impact as the finished article – the power of the record has a lot to do with the sound and the instrumentation and not necessarily the words and the chords. That's very satisfying for me because 'How Soon Is Now?' is built on the guitar – unlike poetry, sound is something that's beyond intellectual ideas, it's primal and otherworldly. But I was ecstatic when the words came on top of the music. They are actually quite brilliant. The contrast between the two worlds that Morrissey and I lived in worked especially well on 'How Soon Is Now?'. That's what made our songwriting partnership so interesting; the intellectual, self-conscious analysis, and the streetwise druggy exuberance.
Q: Music is a gift because...
A: It has the ability to freeze time. We recorded 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' in 10 minutes. I went on to add some flute overdub and strings and a couple of extra guitars, but really, the essence and the spirit of it was captured straight away, and that normally means that smething's gone really, really right. I have a version of that take with just the three instruments and the voice on it – it absolutely holds up as a beautiful moment in time. The Smiths were all in love with the sound that we were making. We loved it as much as everyone else, but we were lucky enough to be the ones playing it.
Q: My reaction when I hear my songs on the radio is...
A: To sit back and enjoy them. It's like hearing any other songs I'm familiar with – I don't feel any weirdness or overt affection towards my own songs. I've always been able to have that distance from the minute the record's released – as soon as they become part of the public library of music I let them go. I probably don't hear 'There Is A Light...' as poetically and emphatically as everyone else does, although when I played it at the Manchester Arena last year and 15,000 people held up their mobile phones, that was pretty unforgettable. I'm glad I can't quite feel it in the same way as other people, or else I'd have an unbearable ego. I feel very priveleged to have written those songs.
Q: When I grow up I want to be...
A: Aldous Huxley. Because having already had success and acclaim with his written work in the first half of his life, he then went on a mission in a different direction, against the odds, and created an incredible legacy of even better work.
Q: Before they die, everyone should...
A: Try psychedelic drugs at least once. It's philosophically and psychologically liberating to find out that we wander round with these huge egos, when we're actually monkey-brained primates, when all's said and done. We're not the be all and end all, and that's healthy to know.
Q: I'm still making records because...
A: The band I'm playing with right now, [Portland indie rock types] Modest Mouse, caught me at a time when I was really excited by moving forward as a guitar player. The idea I had was to create a big, clear, strong expressive Fender sound. I wanted to invent a 20-foot-high amplifier and a 10-foot-high guitar. That's why I'm out here in Portland. It's nothing to do with business. I don't want to be any more rich or any more famous, and I'm not some road dog who likes being backstage with all the beer round me at two in the morning. I'm doing it because I think that, with Modest Mouse, we've created an important piece of music.
Q: The six things I guarantee I'll never do are...
1) Allow my music to be involved with advertising McDonalds or any meat product.
2) Wear winklepicker shoes.
3) Wear a tie onstage.
4) Have a fringe that faces North instead of South.
5) Lend a drummer my money.
6) Reform The Smiths.
Peter
