Skip to content
Interviews

Johnny Marr Remembers the Smiths’ Studio Albums

Written by | 

Home »  Features »  Interviews »  Johnny Marr Remembers the Smiths’ Studio Albums
Johnny Marr / Photo by Jon Shard

“I haven’t talked about the Smiths today yet,” says Johnny Marr upon answering our phone call to do just that, “which is unusual.” Such is life when you played guitar and wrote songs for one of the most iconic bands of the last 30 years. Since parting ways with frontman Morrissey, drummer Mike Joyce, and bassist Andy Rourke in 1987, Marr has resisted riding on his reputation, lending his distinctive silvery guitar sound to a murderer’s row of musicians that includes The The, Modest Mouse, the Cribs, and others as well as his work with his band the Healers.

On the day we called Marr, though, talking about the Smiths was no burden. Rhino Records has recently released remastered versions of the Manchester quartet’s entire catalog and Marr himself oversaw the remastering. To commemorate the occasion, we asked the eternally boyish-looking guitarist to reflect on the band’s four studio albums.

<i>The Smiths</i>” title=”<i>The Smiths</i>” class=”image-style620_413″ /> </p> <p> <b><i>The Smiths</b></i> (1984)<br /> “Before I joined the Smiths, I was frustrated because I couldn’t find anyone else in Manchester who was as serious as I was. But when I met Morrissey, it was clear he felt just like I did. So off we went. On the first day of actually being together as writers, we talked about our dreams and what we were gonna do and how we were gonna do it. And amazingly, nearly all of it came true — things as specific as being on Rough Trade Records and touring America. But as far as songwriting, when we started out Lieber and Stoller were my main inspiration. </p><div class= Morrissey

Also Read

Morrissey Celebrating ‘You Are The Quarry’ With California Shows

“In terms of the music, I think the first record is kinda like a time capsule. I don’t want to describe the music too much, because then I just sound like a journalist, but I like [The Smiths] because of what it meant and how people heard it as something new when it came out. But it really doesn’t represent how the group sounded at the time. I think a first record should be a document of what the band sounds like live, and we had some aborted recording sessions that sounded more like that than the finished album did. But I don’t not like it. We wanted to be a modern band and impress our friends who had good taste and I think we did that.”

<i>Meat Is Murder</i> ” title=”<i>Meat Is Murder</i> ” class=”image-style620_413″ /> </p> <p> <b><i>Meat Is Murder</b></i> (1985)<br /> “People say this album is more political than the first one, but Morrissey’s lyrics didn’t surprise me, not in the slightest. Some of the very, very early songs we did were actually more radical. So the title track, “Meat is Murder,” for example, I thought, ‘Do I have an album’s worth of music to match that kind of title?’ But you know, you think about it for 40 seconds, and then you move on to thinking, ‘Wow, this is gonna be really interesting!’ That song, in fact, is one of the things that I’m most proud of. From that moment on I was vegetarian. People have told me over the last 25 years that they became vegetarians because of that album title. So who says pop music can’t change lives? </p> <p> “I can only speak for myself and not the other members of the band, but I think [<i>Meat Is Murder</i>] had a certain sense of daring about it. I was kind of designated the production duties for it and by the time we got to recording the second or third song I thought I was really on my mettle. As a 19-year-old, it was a very cool thing to be doing. And being cool was forefront on my mind. That and still impressing my mates! I think we did okay on that count.” </p> <p> <img decoding=

More from Spin