Speaker 1: Pushkin. Johnny Marr is maybe the last in a line
Speaker 1: of acclaimed British guitarists. He's played with tons of bands,
Speaker 1: including most famously, The Smiths. Mar started playing guitar as
Speaker 1: a young teenager growing up in Manchester. When he turned fifteen,
Speaker 1: he dropped out of school and moved to London to
Speaker 1: join the band Sister Ray. A couple of years later,
Speaker 1: he wound up helping to form The Smiths with Morrissey,
Speaker 1: Mike Joyce and Mars's friend and bassist Andy Rourke. Then,
Speaker 1: after The Smiths broke up in eighty seven, he went
Speaker 1: on to collaborate with an array of different musicians and
Speaker 1: playing bands like The Pretenders, The The and even later
Speaker 1: Modest Mouse. In the early aughts, Mars started releasing solo material,
Speaker 1: and he's on the brink of releasing a new album
Speaker 1: full of the best songs from his solo career. On
Speaker 1: today's episode, I talked to Johnny Marr about his exciting
Speaker 1: work in the studio with Farrell and on Zimmer. Mar
Speaker 1: also recalls the terror he felt performing live in front
Speaker 1: of massive stadiums full of fans with The Pretenders on
Speaker 1: YouTube's Joshua Tree Tour He also talks about the time
Speaker 1: he bought a Fender Stratocaster with Noel Gallagher from Oasis
Speaker 1: that Stratt had nine pickups and eventually led him to
Speaker 1: write one of the best songs of his solo career.
Speaker 1: This is broken record liner notes for the Digital Age.
Speaker 1: I'm justin Mitchman. Here's my conversation with Johnny Marr. It
Speaker 1: seems like a really sort of whirlwind time in your life.
Speaker 1: It must be like a lot of things that are
Speaker 1: connected to you.
Speaker 2: Now, do you know what I've been really looking at
Speaker 2: in hand on her and maybe accept for I don't know,
Speaker 2: a period in my I guess mid thirties or something where,
Speaker 2: you know, for a couple of years I was sort
Speaker 2: of like.
Speaker 3: Doing other things. But I feel like I've been busy
Speaker 3: for like forty years or something.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know it sounds crazy, but I'm always
Speaker 2: I'm kind of busy because I'm a workaholic. Well, actually
Speaker 2: it's a bad way of putting it. I'm really passionate
Speaker 2: about what I do. I've been doing the same things
Speaker 2: as intensely as I do now.
Speaker 3: I've been doing that since I was fifteen.
Speaker 2: I left school at fifteen to join a pro band
Speaker 2: with adults at fifteen and then really ever since nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty two, when I've made my first record with the Smiths,
Speaker 2: I just feel like I've never really stopped, you know,
Speaker 2: so I've been obviously I feel very very grateful to
Speaker 2: be to do that. But yeah, I mean, I suppose
Speaker 2: the last big thing I did was the Bond movie
Speaker 2: with An Zimmer. But and this year, really we've got
Speaker 2: a best of coming out. I was on tour with
Speaker 2: the Killers last year and right now I'm just rehearsing
Speaker 2: to go out and do.
Speaker 3: Some more stuff.
Speaker 2: Really, you know, I've not done a solo or best
Speaker 2: of yet before that's about.
Speaker 3: To come out now, And that was that was to
Speaker 3: do with the record coming in.
Speaker 2: The management just kind of went, hey, look, we know
Speaker 2: that you're going to be expect and to go in
Speaker 2: and make another LP, make another album. Well you've only
Speaker 2: just done a double album last year, so just hold
Speaker 2: your horses and let's just it's been ten years since
Speaker 2: you've had this solo band, and let's just put it
Speaker 2: all on the best of and if you think it's
Speaker 2: a good listen, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Do you like it? Have you have you sequenced it
Speaker 1: and listened.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I know this might sound a little
Speaker 2: odd to say, but being given the assignment to put
Speaker 2: a best of out when it wasn't driven by me,
Speaker 2: when it comes from someone else, and going oh okay, right,
Speaker 2: let me look at that, and then getting it all
Speaker 2: mastered and listening to it, you know, because I had
Speaker 2: to listen to the test pressings. Right, So the test
Speaker 2: presents coming, and you know, I've been doing this since
Speaker 2: I was a kid, right, test Presidence come.
Speaker 3: I'm always excited about that.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, great white labels, and you put it on
Speaker 2: the turntable and you have to sit and you have
Speaker 2: to listen for any little pops or anything.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I said to the band guys last night, I got
Speaker 2: the test presence of the You know, it's a pretty
Speaker 2: good album, man, it's a good listen, you know, because
Speaker 2: I don't take anything for granted, you know, justin so
Speaker 2: so pleased with it.
Speaker 1: It's great. I'd be excited to check that out because
Speaker 1: I've sort of been over the last year just curating,
Speaker 1: oddly enough, just different playlists of things that you're involved in,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, just randomly resequencing Smith's records. Just
Speaker 1: for fun or like, yeah, I made a playlist of
Speaker 1: stuff that was just stuff that you've played on but
Speaker 1: weren't like bands that you were actually a part of.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then your last record, the Fever Dreams one through four,
Speaker 1: I mean just came out was like a wealth of
Speaker 1: great material. You know.
Speaker 3: Thanks. I'm glad that that I've done all of that stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean obviously, but I did a couple of tracks
Speaker 2: with Beck, and then I did maybe four or five
Speaker 2: tracks with John Fishanty, and then I popped up on
Speaker 2: records with all these different really cool musicians.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, a chance. Yeah, And that was so well.
Speaker 2: As I was doing it, I was thinking, wow, man,
Speaker 2: this is oh I love this music, and what a
Speaker 2: cool thing, you know. So so like when John Vishanity
Speaker 2: he invited me over to when he was working on
Speaker 2: the Imperium and it was like, I've got these tracks,
Speaker 2: take your pick, and he played me a track and
Speaker 2: I said, oh, I think I can do something on
Speaker 2: that band and played me another track. Oh I've got
Speaker 2: an idea for that bank And then you know, a
Speaker 2: couple of days later you kind of go, well, that
Speaker 2: was a nice experience. So I think what I'm saying
Speaker 2: is none of it's planned. It's all this kind of
Speaker 2: I'm going to say it a journey. I've been a
Speaker 2: musician and being very very fortunate that people who were
Speaker 2: doing cool things have invited me to do cool things
Speaker 2: with them.
Speaker 3: You know, it's never been planned.
Speaker 1: Is it something about you like you yourself as a person,
Speaker 1: or about your plane, or a bit of both that
Speaker 1: allows you to fit in with so many different kinds
Speaker 1: of people.
Speaker 3: Well, I guess so.
Speaker 2: But I think musicians are very welcoming and inclusive types
Speaker 2: of people. It might be a bit cheesy, but I
Speaker 2: have a certain kind of pride in that, not my
Speaker 2: personal coming about myself, but my you know, brothers and
Speaker 2: sisters of music. You know, they because let's put it
Speaker 2: this way, I've been around.
Speaker 3: I don't whether you've.
Speaker 2: Ever been in a room with several actors or in
Speaker 2: a taxi with several comedians, but often there's a bit
Speaker 2: of a competitive vibe. I know it's a generalization, right.
Speaker 2: I know a bunch of great actors, and I know
Speaker 2: a bunch of some great comedians, right, But I've noticed
Speaker 2: that musicians are very You get a couple of musicians
Speaker 2: together and they go, hey, did you have you ever heard.
Speaker 3: This thing that came out in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 2: Oh man, you're gonna love it, or I really really
Speaker 2: like this thing, or oh man, did you know that
Speaker 2: he played the drums on this record in nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 2: And there's always this sharing kind of thinking, Well, I'm
Speaker 2: really typical like that as a As a musician, I
Speaker 2: suppose I'm very enthusiastic if.
Speaker 3: I hear something that I'm into.
Speaker 2: And the people that I've mentioned maybe Pet Shop Boys
Speaker 2: as well. You know, we had a little bit of
Speaker 2: a tradition for a while there where they would always.
Speaker 3: Get me to do the B sides of their singles.
Speaker 2: They were like, well, okay, we've got this this electro
Speaker 2: pop and the B side. Usually it'd be like this,
Speaker 2: the B side is slightly experimental and it'd be interesting
Speaker 2: to put a guitar on it, which in Pet Shop
Speaker 2: Boys land is being experimental, which and then and they go, okay, well,
Speaker 2: Johnny'll do it. And I'm the guy for that because
Speaker 2: I love them, and so I've got to be on
Speaker 2: more Pet Shop Boys records than any other musician. I
Speaker 2: pop up and do all the ones where they go, listen,
Speaker 2: we've got this guitar song. You know, I'm very proud
Speaker 2: of that. So to answer your question, it's a partly
Speaker 2: to do with my personality being very very typical kind
Speaker 2: of musician. That means I will stay in the studio
Speaker 2: either listening to stories or telling stories till really till
Speaker 2: three am or whatever it used to be seven am.
Speaker 2: But these days are a little bit more moderate. And
Speaker 2: the other thing is, I guess the second thing you mentioned,
Speaker 2: I like to play guitar that I think is appropriate
Speaker 2: to whatever the song is. So if all that's required is,
Speaker 2: like recently on Know Gallagher stuff, for instance, I'm not
Speaker 2: going in there going right okay by bar eight, you
Speaker 2: really need to know that I'm on it.
Speaker 3: I just kind of go, what's the song?
Speaker 2: And I sort of think in that regard, I'm not
Speaker 2: really beyond thinking like a session musician.
Speaker 3: I don't have to really be this big deal on it,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's the thing I really enjoy about your playing in
Speaker 1: your career is there is this bit of you that
Speaker 1: almost approaches music for the way like a jazz musician
Speaker 1: did in the fifties or sixties, like Herbie Hancock can
Speaker 1: put out you know, peer in Islands and then also
Speaker 1: just go play on like a great Lee Morgan record,
Speaker 1: and he puts as much of his heart and soul
Speaker 1: into that side man workquote unquote, you can tell as
Speaker 1: he seem to have done his own records, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's an absolute honor because I think
Speaker 2: that sort of feels about right. I think when you
Speaker 2: were talking then, I was thinking paradoxically, people who say
Speaker 2: they don't like jazz, or people who don't like jazz
Speaker 2: think it's about just people blowing. But to me, one
Speaker 2: of the best things about jazz musicians is to be
Speaker 2: a good jazz musician, you have to listen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have to listen to what everybody else is doing.
Speaker 2: It's a conversation and you know you can do that
Speaker 2: in indie rock again, come back to say the most
Speaker 2: recent thing that I've done with somebody else with no
Speaker 2: Gallagher stuff. I want to make the record really good,
Speaker 2: you know. So there's bits where you lay out, and
Speaker 2: then there's bits when you play just textual stuff, and
Speaker 2: then there's bits where you come in with the riff.
Speaker 2: And ultimately it's his record and his vision, and he
Speaker 2: trusts me to do because he knows that I'm all
Speaker 2: about the big picture and not about me just stepping
Speaker 2: all over it.
Speaker 3: Other times though, you know, I did a record with.
Speaker 2: The Australian project Avalanches a few years ago with me
Speaker 2: and MGM.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me and MGMT did a song with them, and
Speaker 2: that was that was really cool because they had this
Speaker 2: idea for this riff and I said, okay, well what
Speaker 2: about if I just develop it? And then what I
Speaker 2: did was sort of featured and that kind of floated
Speaker 2: through the track.
Speaker 3: So it's whatever's appropriate.
Speaker 1: Really.
Speaker 2: I remember when I was learning, maybe twelve thirteen something,
Speaker 2: so I sorould have been in the mid seventies just
Speaker 2: for punk broke out. Back then, there wasn't you know,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't be able to go in Barnes and Noble
Speaker 2: or Waterstones in England and see like shelves and shelves
Speaker 2: of books about anybody.
Speaker 3: You know. I'm sure Justin Bieber has got a whole
Speaker 3: wall fall, but whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but back then that was not a thing, right,
Speaker 2: So I would read the music press, and I would
Speaker 2: go into the library and if a book did appear
Speaker 2: about whoever it was, I didn't if it caught my interest,
Speaker 2: I would read it. Or I just stand in the
Speaker 2: bookstore and read it. There's only a few things around.
Speaker 2: I remember there's one about Pete Sounds, and there was
Speaker 2: a Miles Davis one, and there was led Zeppelin monster stuff.
Speaker 2: But anyway, when you start off, if you're really obsessive,
Speaker 2: as I was, some bits of information really stick to you.
Speaker 2: And there was it was either Keith Richards or John Lennon,
Speaker 2: I think, was saying that the most important part of
Speaker 2: being a guitar player is being able to play rhythm.
Speaker 2: And to a twelve year old boy whose poles are
Speaker 2: all going, you know, trying to play all this shreddy
Speaker 2: stuff or whatever, when I read that information, I was
Speaker 2: kind of like, huh, it sounded really noble to me.
Speaker 2: And this thing of underpinning the band and having the
Speaker 2: groove down and all of that. And then obviously as
Speaker 2: time went on and I got into people like Keith
Speaker 2: Richards or or obviously Nol Rogers and people like that,
Speaker 2: and you know, Jimmy Nolan who plays with James Brown
Speaker 2: and just any number of really great rhythm players. That's
Speaker 2: just one of the chapters that you need to have
Speaker 2: got through, you know what I mean. It's it's just
Speaker 2: part of being a guitar player. I think I just
Speaker 2: think it's really cool to just like be appropriate to
Speaker 2: the song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is your phone just open? You just say, people
Speaker 1: just know you're ready to play.
Speaker 2: Allays pretty yeah, I know pretty much because it's been
Speaker 2: that way for years.
Speaker 3: I mean a lot. I know a lot of people.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm always I'm never not available for Brian
Speaker 2: Ferry because I've been working with Brian now since nineteen
Speaker 2: eighties eighty seven, and Brian's always writing, and he's always
Speaker 2: he's always making tracks. He's always got tracks upon the
Speaker 2: go and he comes back to them and all this
Speaker 2: sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: So that's been an ongoing thing for years.
Speaker 2: But then since I guess twenty ten, Hans Zimmer, if
Speaker 2: Hands wants something doing, even if it's something on the
Speaker 2: on the choiet, just you know, you need a little
Speaker 2: bit of this or I'll do that.
Speaker 1: An incredible relationship to I mean musical relationship you guys
Speaker 1: have built.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he really taught me a lot. I think with Hands,
Speaker 2: he's he's got the soul of a rock musician. And
Speaker 2: if you go to his shows, which are now like
Speaker 2: three hours long, and then's some of the pieces that
Speaker 2: he's doing in this current show, which actually my son
Speaker 2: plays plays in that.
Speaker 3: I've been up I've been upgraded to the mar.
Speaker 2: Version two two point zero, so my son plays in that.
Speaker 3: But there are some moments in that.
Speaker 2: Show that it makes Kashmir sound like a boy band.
Speaker 2: It's wow, amazingly orchestrated rock music.
Speaker 3: At the heart of it is rock music.
Speaker 2: And you know, with me and hands, you know, once
Speaker 2: we get talking about music and talking about melotrons and
Speaker 2: fair lights or late sixties strats or what you know,
Speaker 2: or Tangerine dream or whatever next thing, we look at
Speaker 2: our watch and it's you know, it's quarter past three
Speaker 2: in the am, you know, and we just sit around
Speaker 2: his studios listening to music, playing music or talking about music.
Speaker 2: It's so that's what my pals are, like. My friends
Speaker 2: are the same as me, you know, we're Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: it's what I dreamed of when I.
Speaker 3: Was a kid, you know.
Speaker 1: For Shanty's same kind of character being around John Frushanti,
Speaker 1: the amount of guitar players he can reference in a
Speaker 1: given moment, and he feels like he's able to synthesize
Speaker 1: all of these disparate you know, he's like almost like
Speaker 1: a computer to me, like talk about AI, It's like,
Speaker 1: how is he pulling from all that at once? That's
Speaker 1: it's insane.
Speaker 2: Well, it's well, there's a couple of things that come
Speaker 2: to mind when you say that. I think you're absolutely
Speaker 2: right about John and there's a few other people I
Speaker 2: know like that. I think people who are great, whoever
Speaker 2: they are. But in my field it's musicians. They are experts,
Speaker 2: absolute experts. And that might sound obvious, but there's this
Speaker 2: famous sorry about when Bob Marley first went into record
Speaker 2: and it was like some little four track and he
Speaker 2: was like sixteen or seventeen or something. I think it
Speaker 2: was with cocksoil or something. And if you hear enough
Speaker 2: about those stories, you hear you know what. He was
Speaker 2: kind of a pain in the ass because he would
Speaker 2: be like, the backing vocals are too loud, back in
Speaker 2: volks are too loud. Because he'd studied the Coasters, and
Speaker 2: he'd studied the Drifters, and he'd studied Curtis Mayfel and
Speaker 2: the Impressions, so he knew how the backing vocals on those.
Speaker 2: This is when he was a kid, right, But you
Speaker 2: could go right across in sports, I'm sure in business too.
Speaker 2: But people who are great are real experts. I guess
Speaker 2: it's not a surprise because it's your passion.
Speaker 1: So become concessive, you become obsessive, yeah, because yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because you love it.
Speaker 3: That's right, you know.
Speaker 2: And then the second thing you're talking about there, like
Speaker 2: with Johnny's and other people like that, are there's a
Speaker 2: lot of musicians like this. They take all of these
Speaker 2: different elements that only to them make sense and then
Speaker 2: it comes out. But when you hear it, he goes, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: it sounds like that. So for example, in my case,
Speaker 2: like for forty years, I didn't really do a lot
Speaker 2: of interviews in the early Smith's days, but when I
Speaker 2: was asked about guitar playing, when I had to really
Speaker 2: nail it down, I was like, well, now Rogers, bertianch
Speaker 2: and James Williamson from the studios, Now that's yeah, but
Speaker 2: that's a pretty boat after anyone who's followed me for
Speaker 2: years and years knows that they're my like they're my tree.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously I love a lot, you know, I
Speaker 3: love what Roy Gallagher was doing.
Speaker 2: I love what you know John mcgeeock from the band
Speaker 2: Cheese and Will Sergeant from the bunny men.
Speaker 3: I mean there's hundreds.
Speaker 2: I mean I could stay of just giving a list
Speaker 2: and lists of amazing guitar players. Obviously, but at first
Speaker 2: people would were like, huh, come again, what you like
Speaker 2: now Rogers I influenced the Smith's. But over time, now
Speaker 2: people know that some of these songs like that, I go, well,
Speaker 2: listen to the Boy would listen to the second verse
Speaker 2: in The Boy with the Thorn in his Side, and.
Speaker 3: Or there's a famous story about when I wrote hand
Speaker 3: in Glove.
Speaker 2: It just started out as a sheet riff, so point
Speaker 2: being that that made total sense to me. But you
Speaker 2: put it all through a funnel, comes in through your
Speaker 2: own mind, and then it comes out and people go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: it sounds like Jenny mar right. But to me, if
Speaker 2: I told you what I was thinking of when I
Speaker 2: was trying to come up with some of these, if
Speaker 2: you go what.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you mentioned James Williamson too, though,
Speaker 1: because as much as I love the Ashley on Brown
Speaker 1: Ashton and the Ashton Brothers, James Williamson man like some
Speaker 1: of those. I feel like some of that music with
Speaker 1: James gets discounted. That Kill City re Iggy is just one.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, man, I go to that
Speaker 1: record all the time because it just blows me away.
Speaker 2: Well, it's amazing because when I first met Noel Gallagher,
Speaker 2: he was a fairly he was young. No would have
Speaker 2: been about maybe twenty or something nineteen. I was pretty
Speaker 2: young myself, maybe twenty six, twenty seven. But the first
Speaker 2: time he came to my house, that was the record
Speaker 2: I gave him. It wasn't aware of it, but I
Speaker 2: don't know whether this is so what I got from
Speaker 2: James Williamson. I had thought I was playing when I
Speaker 2: was about fifteen, and it was something like and a
Speaker 2: friend of mine, Billy Duffey, went on it being the call.
Speaker 2: He said to me, now that sounds like gimme Danger,
Speaker 2: and I was like, what's that. I've never heard of
Speaker 2: gimme danger? And anyway, so a long story, but I
Speaker 2: tracked down Raw Power. So when I heard that, I went, well,
Speaker 2: that sounds like the way I'm trying to play, so
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: The truth be told.
Speaker 2: I was a bit pissed that someone had already beat
Speaker 2: me to this, this new song I was writing.
Speaker 3: So James is a massive influence on me.
Speaker 2: Massive. When I heard that, I just kind of went,
Speaker 2: you're on the right path. You know you're doing the
Speaker 2: right thing. And then we'd say, just for an illustration,
Speaker 2: seeing as I don't always do this, but just guitar,
Speaker 2: I don't make it hear his probably.
Speaker 4: But the Smith's song Handing Glove, well that started off.
Speaker 4: When I first started playing.
Speaker 2: It, it went, which is me trying to be cheek
Speaker 2: It was my girlfriend said make it sound more like Iggy,
Speaker 2: so I did and I ended up sounding like that.
Speaker 3: But that and that was the first Smith single.
Speaker 2: But when we came out, no one I believed when
Speaker 2: I said I was now Rogers was a huge influence
Speaker 2: on me, you know. So you know that's what musicians
Speaker 2: are like, though, aren't they? And I think maybe creative
Speaker 2: people as well. Sometimes you're trying to copy your heroes
Speaker 2: and your limitations kind of get I mean, I'm not
Speaker 2: the first person I said this, but your limitations just
Speaker 2: kind of put a stamp on what you can and
Speaker 2: can't do.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a break and then come back
Speaker 1: with more of my interview with Johnny Marr. We're back
Speaker 1: with more from Johnny Marr. How much in terms of
Speaker 1: just raw skill do you feel like you've developed from
Speaker 1: let's say nineteen eighty to now.
Speaker 3: Well, I took it really seriously. I started.
Speaker 2: My parents to this day is still really their music freaks.
Speaker 2: So I grew up in a house of Irish parents
Speaker 2: who treated music like it was a religion. So if
Speaker 2: they like someone, they really really really like them. And
Speaker 2: so I want to see my parents, who are in
Speaker 2: their eighties now, and my dad was showing me this
Speaker 2: country music podcast that he just got into.
Speaker 3: They're still didn't it to this day.
Speaker 2: My mother she's super into like watching new country singers
Speaker 2: and singer songwriters on YouTube. So they were really young
Speaker 2: when I was a kid, so I was brought up
Speaker 2: around all these young Irish adults, your teenagers, really playing music.
Speaker 2: So to answer your question, what happened was I just
Speaker 2: got really obsessed with the guitar.
Speaker 3: I got my first proper one that I could play chords.
Speaker 2: On when I was about eight or nine, and then
Speaker 2: I started just trying to play the records on the
Speaker 2: radio like a lot of people. So I started playing,
Speaker 2: you know, like getting my own little tunes together and
Speaker 2: stuff when I was about nine or ten, and then
Speaker 2: enrolling my friends to be these little bands, and I
Speaker 2: you know i'd write, I'd do just like t Rex ripoffs. Really,
Speaker 2: all my songs were just like t Rex copies.
Speaker 3: And then I just.
Speaker 2: Had a sort of natural knack to be out of
Speaker 2: place too kind of riffs.
Speaker 3: But if i'd have been the sort of person who was,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: Just in a copy of other people and not being
Speaker 2: a songwriter, you know, I probably would have been shredding
Speaker 2: away forever. But you know it's not really my thing
Speaker 2: that really I wanted to sort of I went to
Speaker 2: have my own band with my own sound, you know,
Speaker 2: so the skill I have a master. I don't know
Speaker 2: I is answering your question, but come back to hand Zimmer.
Speaker 2: What I did on inception was pretty simple. But when
Speaker 2: it came to actually playing it on stage with an orchestra,
Speaker 2: like sixty pieces on stage with a choir and all
Speaker 2: of that stuff, I wouldn't have ever been able to
Speaker 2: do that when I was in my twenties. I wouldn't
Speaker 2: have been able to do it in my thirties either, really,
Speaker 2: and I might not have even come up with that
Speaker 2: really simple part.
Speaker 3: I think when you get older, you kind of know
Speaker 3: what you're.
Speaker 2: About, and it's about what I came up with was
Speaker 2: kind of right for the movie, and I might not
Speaker 2: have ever been able to do that when I was young.
Speaker 2: But I practice every day. I go through periods where
Speaker 2: I just practice practice, and then I play absent mindedly
Speaker 2: when i'm you know, around the house and watching TV.
Speaker 2: But I'm going through another phase now where I'll come
Speaker 2: in this little studio here and put the headphones on
Speaker 2: and and just play and play and try and get
Speaker 2: you know, try and get my chops. So maybe that's
Speaker 2: because I'm going out live or I don't know why,
Speaker 2: but that connects me to the kidder was when I
Speaker 2: was eleven or twelve.
Speaker 3: Honestly, it's got nothing to do with career.
Speaker 2: There's got nothing to do with the Smith's, got nothing
Speaker 2: to do with like you know, Johnny Marra, or nothing
Speaker 2: to do with business or anything.
Speaker 3: It's because that was my first love. When I was
Speaker 3: ten year eleven.
Speaker 2: I used to peel off from when kids were playing
Speaker 2: football or we were whatever, we were climbing trees or whatever.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I would just go and disappear and I'd go
Speaker 2: into my room on my own and just play for
Speaker 2: a couple of hours, not even plugged in. And I
Speaker 2: make all these discoveries and moving chord shapes around. And
Speaker 2: you know what, man, I'm so grateful that I still
Speaker 2: want to do that. Yeah, for fun, It's like it's
Speaker 2: my hobby.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the dream for any guitar player to have
Speaker 1: a setup, just like you have inspible to do that
Speaker 1: all day.
Speaker 3: That's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, musician and.
Speaker 1: You know whatever respective instrument is, like, that's the dream.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But then when it comes time to do an album
Speaker 2: sometimes I have to I know myself well enough that
Speaker 2: I have to think about the guitar in a different way.
Speaker 2: If you give me an if you give me three
Speaker 2: more lifetimes, okay, I'd love to be John McLaughlin.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ah, but.
Speaker 3: I'm also quite happy.
Speaker 2: But I'm also really happy having been the guitar player
Speaker 2: in Modest Mouse for a few years.
Speaker 3: That's fine by me.
Speaker 1: That was incredible work, man, incredible record.
Speaker 2: That was because I was in a situation with amazing chemistry.
Speaker 2: There was a moment when we were in Mississippi and
Speaker 2: we were recording the recording. It's one of those times
Speaker 2: it was like maybe what the four o'clock in the afternoon,
Speaker 2: We've been trying to get the backing track down to
Speaker 2: song on week three or whatever, and I was just
Speaker 2: stood there and then I just had a moment of
Speaker 2: present moment awareness, as you know, as it's called, where
Speaker 2: I just looked around and I went the chemistry in
Speaker 2: this room with these bunch of people is really really special.
Speaker 2: This particular bunch of people right now is not just
Speaker 2: a good vibe, but it's really unusual.
Speaker 3: Because one we had two drummers in that band.
Speaker 2: One drummer was his thing was like he might have
Speaker 2: been like, Okay, on this track, I hear pair Ubu,
Speaker 2: or I hear public image, public Image, or right hear
Speaker 2: Stuart Copeland.
Speaker 3: So Joe Plumm would be doing that. And then Jerey
Speaker 3: Mike Green.
Speaker 2: Who passed away just only a few months ago, he
Speaker 2: was the other drummer, and he would have been going
Speaker 2: in his head, oh, this is like fellow cootie, or
Speaker 2: this is like a rave or so yeah, there's two
Speaker 2: drummers like that. And then the base player, Eric Judy,
Speaker 2: he was always writing these like little tunes on either
Speaker 2: accordion at that time or he was teaching him yeah,
Speaker 2: teaching himself the accordion, teach himself the flute. And he
Speaker 2: had some little riff that he'd be playing on the flute,
Speaker 2: and then he just go, oh, I'm just trying to
Speaker 2: do that on the base. So yeah, these really unusual, cool,
Speaker 2: almost dugby basslines. And then the other guy in the band,
Speaker 2: he's a real utility guy, and he might have been
Speaker 2: doing something on a pedal steel or his mind was
Speaker 2: somewhere else.
Speaker 3: And then Isaac's got his amazing multi.
Speaker 2: Layered lyrical agenda that you know is coming from all
Speaker 2: different places. And then I got my thing that I
Speaker 2: was like when I got out of bed that day
Speaker 2: or that week, I was going, this is what I
Speaker 2: want my this is what I want to bring to
Speaker 2: this outfit, whatever agenda I've got, and it all fit,
Speaker 2: it all just fitted together.
Speaker 1: Did you have to think through how you might blend
Speaker 1: with this, because it seems like everyone felt like they
Speaker 1: had their thing and you're kind of getting put into it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did it take you second to figure out, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is what I want to bring or was it kinda
Speaker 1: just luckily instantaneous.
Speaker 2: No, No, I conceptualized it, which I don't mean for
Speaker 2: to sound very dry or contrived, even though No, I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed going, what's my role here? How can I
Speaker 2: be really useful and bring something melodic, catchy, technical. It
Speaker 2: was a little like Ocean six and I happened to
Speaker 2: be the kind of British bomb disposal expert or this safer.
Speaker 3: I was like the safe.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 2: I thought, okay, I can't just put my head down
Speaker 2: and go one, two, three four and just play. I
Speaker 2: really really enjoyed devising all these parts, and on that
Speaker 2: record we were dead for anyone who's interested. Usually I'm
Speaker 2: doing all the stuff on the left and Isaac's doing
Speaker 2: the stuff on the right, and we this might be
Speaker 2: getting a bit too music. But when we were coming
Speaker 2: up with all those songs and those parts, we were
Speaker 2: in this attic in Portland, and sometimes Isaac and the
Speaker 2: way I started to think about it, it was like, you know,
Speaker 2: two racing car drivers that were on the same team,
Speaker 2: you know, like sometimes that McLaren and stuff the same team,
Speaker 2: and we're both going around this track and then sometimes
Speaker 2: it's like no after you, no after you, after you,
Speaker 2: And occasionally we literally physically crashed into each other because
Speaker 2: we were stood either back to back or next to
Speaker 2: each other in this kind of.
Speaker 3: Little space, and it was really hot.
Speaker 2: And we're up there and we've been out there for hours,
Speaker 2: and sometimes we'd be a bit buzzed and I'm really
Speaker 2: really listening to each other and I'm trying to Then
Speaker 2: I'll just jump up the octave and then he plays
Speaker 2: something and I'd go, I'll get down there and literally
Speaker 2: we sometimes we bang into each other.
Speaker 3: And I thought that was really cool.
Speaker 1: Wow, howd you add that level of chemistry before, like
Speaker 1: that level of intense.
Speaker 2: In a different way, yeah, in the the but it
Speaker 2: was a different thing with all the bands that I've
Speaker 2: actually been a band member of. I think I bring
Speaker 2: a certain kind of intensity and a sort of belief
Speaker 2: in that even without my guitar, and I think I
Speaker 2: bring a sort of belief in the mission because I
Speaker 2: think that's very useful in a band.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm all in. I think people realize that now.
Speaker 2: It used to frustrate me when I was younger, when
Speaker 2: the precious report it, because you know, when I was young,
Speaker 2: guys to be a little oh, it looks like I'm
Speaker 2: just bailing.
Speaker 3: I'm leaving this band and I'm leaving that band.
Speaker 2: But after all these years, now I think people realize
Speaker 2: that it's anyone who's interested.
Speaker 3: It's probably the reverse, you.
Speaker 2: Know, like when I if I join a band, I'm
Speaker 2: really in and my family and my family moved to Portland.
Speaker 2: Or when I was in the cribs, you know, I
Speaker 2: got in the van and I played all the shows,
Speaker 2: and you know, I don't I don't expect any other
Speaker 2: kind of separate treatment. I really get get in because
Speaker 2: it's the way I was when I was fifteen in bands.
Speaker 3: It's no different that it's so cool.
Speaker 1: Was it because of that level of chemistry that you realize, well,
Speaker 1: I'm part of the band or was it already sort
Speaker 1: of decided you're sort of in for the ride at
Speaker 1: this point?
Speaker 2: Now? Do you know what the very first night we
Speaker 2: got together, Isaac and I wrote that the song that
Speaker 2: with that single dashboard became the single. And then I
Speaker 2: woke up really jet like that about whatever four o'clock
Speaker 2: in the morning because I'd only got in from England
Speaker 2: the day before, and I woke up on a can
Speaker 2: of was like, where am I, Oh, I'm in a
Speaker 2: hotel in Portland. Did we just write like a really cool,
Speaker 2: cool song with this guy? In fact, we wrote two
Speaker 2: songs that night. We wrote another one called We've Got
Speaker 2: everything that was me and him, and then frankly, because
Speaker 2: Maddi's mouth had paid for this English guitar player to
Speaker 2: come over for ten days, they had to kind of
Speaker 2: get to rehearsal for noon because you know, they've paid
Speaker 2: for my flight. And it's kind of like a little
Speaker 2: bit like, all right, everybody, you know, you know the
Speaker 2: ringers here or whatever. We better get we better get here, right.
Speaker 2: But quite cleverly Isaac had done it, so a couple
Speaker 2: of members would join. Each day we'd come, me and
Speaker 2: them would feel each other out. So as the days
Speaker 2: went on, with each couple of people that arrived, and
Speaker 2: we would jam and get a new song, and jam
Speaker 2: and get a new song. Very quickly, I was just like,
Speaker 2: I like these guys, they like me. There's such a
Speaker 2: positive feeling. Everyone's so enthusiastic. Something's really happening here. And
Speaker 2: I formed a manager and I said, listen, I'm suppose
Speaker 2: to be flying back on Wednesday or whatever. I'm going
Speaker 2: to stay. I'm going to stay for a few weeks.
Speaker 2: And I fell in love with Portland the city. This
Speaker 2: was two thousand and five. So to answer your question,
Speaker 2: by the time you get that sort of brotherhood going
Speaker 2: in a band and you're all really excited, and also
Speaker 2: you're playing together these long hours, you know, six seven hours,
Speaker 2: and you've got a song and you want to fix
Speaker 2: it the next.
Speaker 3: Day, and you're working on this thing. It was that simple.
Speaker 3: It just would have been really weird to bail.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ten days an out after building that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then that turned into two weeks and then
Speaker 2: three weeks, and then we're all talking excitedly about, Oh man,
Speaker 2: are you're going to would it be gratefully?
Speaker 3: You did some gigs and.
Speaker 2: I was like, wow, And the key thing is I
Speaker 2: really start to I've done this with a few projects.
Speaker 2: I start to really care about the songs we're making.
Speaker 2: I really really care about them, even if.
Speaker 3: I haven't written, like in the the.
Speaker 2: You know, my relationship with Matt Johnson, I really believed
Speaker 2: in what he was doing and some songs, you know,
Speaker 2: we would make these backing tracks and he'd be like,
Speaker 2: you know, soul searching about the lyrics and this isn't
Speaker 2: right and that isn't right. And I felt like I
Speaker 2: was going through all of that with him, you know.
Speaker 2: And we did this album Dusking in ninety two. But
Speaker 2: that's what I mean about being all in. You know,
Speaker 2: people don't really know that about about me. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm twenty four to seven. If I'm in a band, how.
Speaker 1: Does that translate to when you're when you're leading your
Speaker 1: own group.
Speaker 2: It's very different with my own band because it's a
Speaker 2: different scenario. With my band, they're there, we've had we've
Speaker 2: been together now ten years, the same lineup.
Speaker 3: We all live in.
Speaker 2: The same postcode pretty much, but we all hey, look,
Speaker 2: we all live within ten miles of each other, which
Speaker 2: is kind of unusual for guys of our age. I've
Speaker 2: been in bands where people live in different cities, in
Speaker 2: different countries.
Speaker 3: That was a very deliberate thing.
Speaker 2: When I came back from Portland, I moved to Manchester,
Speaker 2: not because it's my hometown. I moved here because it's
Speaker 2: a really great place to run a group, and I
Speaker 2: knew these musicians and I wanted for us to all
Speaker 2: I wanted to be at a call a rehearsal for
Speaker 2: tomorrow night and we all be able to get there.
Speaker 3: Someone doesn't have to get on a train or a plane, right.
Speaker 2: So, But why it's different in my band is I
Speaker 2: write songs and then I bring them to the band
Speaker 2: and they learn them and we learn them up and
Speaker 2: I kind of run it and that's the way they
Speaker 2: like it, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're really very much a group.
Speaker 2: But all the torturous I guess, the torturous process where
Speaker 2: the singer, which is me in this case, is soul
Speaker 2: searching about lyrics and all that. My guys just lead
Speaker 2: me to it and they say, up, give me a
Speaker 2: call when you've got the thing done.
Speaker 3: Man, the bastards.
Speaker 2: So in a way, I suppose in my experience, my
Speaker 2: band when we first got together, the closest that i'd seen.
Speaker 2: It's a bit It's like I have a sort of
Speaker 2: Beck's band. We kind of when we started, we kind
Speaker 2: of went, that's kind of the yardstick for the kind
Speaker 2: of music, like a British version of that. Really oh cool,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like when you go and
Speaker 2: see Beck. It was like really tight and the tempos
Speaker 2: were usually the tempos were up, and the drummers drums
Speaker 2: were really snappy, and he was a leader. But they
Speaker 2: were also a band, you know, but you knew the
Speaker 2: guy was going to have a good band. I kind
Speaker 2: of decided with my band that that's the way I
Speaker 2: wanted us to be really a bit like Beck's band.
Speaker 1: Well, what makes Manchester a great place to sort of
Speaker 1: run a band out of?
Speaker 2: Well, what Seattle was to La in the nineties, Manchester
Speaker 2: is that to London, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: So where being a musician's a little easier in Manchester's
Speaker 2: now like well books like Seattle is very there's a
Speaker 2: lot of money in it.
Speaker 3: It's a second city, So so London.
Speaker 2: If you're a musician, okay, and you've got to get rehearsal,
Speaker 2: it takes you twice a length of time to get
Speaker 2: to rehearsal space as it does in Manchester. People are
Speaker 2: usually am I love London and there all the time,
Speaker 2: but musicians have to live quite a long way out
Speaker 2: of town because it's really expensive to have apartments there
Speaker 2: and all of this sort of stuff. Manchester is a
Speaker 2: little bit more, is a little more like Seattle. And
Speaker 2: you know, like Seattle, it had a big movement. It
Speaker 2: rains a lot like Seattle, so it's an indoor culture.
Speaker 2: There's a whole load of things, you know, just in
Speaker 2: historically make Manchester really great to.
Speaker 3: Run to run Well, there's a history here as well.
Speaker 2: So for me in my generation, I grew up knowing like, well,
Speaker 2: the Buzzcocks did it, okay, I mean yeah, Buzcocks. I
Speaker 2: mean they were just like gods to my generation, Buzzcocks,
Speaker 2: that you didn't have to live in the capital, that
Speaker 2: you could live in the provinces and make great, really.
Speaker 3: Cool music, because before that it was just it.
Speaker 2: Was all about London, London, London. All these bands it
Speaker 2: was either London and La really London La. So you've
Speaker 2: got a heritage. And then so because Buscox did it,
Speaker 2: Smith raised to do it, and the Fall, and then
Speaker 2: because a New Order and joy Division and because the
Speaker 2: Smiths and Joy Vision and New Order did it, then
Speaker 2: Happy Mondays and Stone Roses knew they could do it.
Speaker 2: And then because they could saw that, you know, they
Speaker 2: did it, then Oasis saw that they could do it,
Speaker 2: and so on.
Speaker 3: Youngsters know that you can be a Manchester band, you know.
Speaker 2: And so that goes back, that goes right back to
Speaker 2: the seventies now with Buzzcocks.
Speaker 3: So having that.
Speaker 2: In the air and knowing that it's a musical town
Speaker 2: is a good place to sort of grow up around
Speaker 2: when you're a fledging musician. But really it goes way
Speaker 2: back historically to like the eighteen sixties eighteen seventies when
Speaker 2: Manchester was literally the industrial capital of the world and
Speaker 2: the industrial evolution, and all the immigrants came so from
Speaker 2: really everywhere, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean and West Indies
Speaker 2: and Ireland in my case, and all of this business.
Speaker 2: So there's it's a real melting pot Manchester of working
Speaker 2: class immigrants and they all brought their own cultures and
Speaker 2: their own need for entertainment. So a lot of comedians,
Speaker 2: Jewish comedians came out here. A lot of people came
Speaker 2: from Eastern Europe. In my case, you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of my family they moved over in the early sixties
Speaker 2: and they came over to work in construction and building the.
Speaker 3: Roads and all of this stuff.
Speaker 2: The Irish and my parents went to all the Irish
Speaker 2: clubs and they would see all the show bands, and
Speaker 2: me and my sister would go sometimes to these places
Speaker 2: in the afternoon where my dad was a booker for
Speaker 2: these bands, and so we grew up around.
Speaker 1: Your dad booked bands.
Speaker 3: Yeah he did, you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that was in the seventies. Me and my
Speaker 2: sister would be there, we'd be giving like soda and
Speaker 2: just loads of loads of sugar, and I'd sit there
Speaker 2: and I'd watch these cabaret singers and they'd be their
Speaker 2: vocal their microphones would be going into a space echo
Speaker 2: or a tape echo Watkins Copycat, and there'd be an
Speaker 2: organ player and a drummer and if I was looking
Speaker 2: at the big guitar player, and they'd be playing all
Speaker 2: these kind of seventy songs, and I thought that was amazing.
Speaker 2: I just watched these being my sister, watched these bands
Speaker 2: be like, holy shit, this is great. And sometimes I'd go, no,
Speaker 2: they're not too good, Dad, Now they're not too good.
Speaker 2: But just seeing the amplifiers and the electric guitars and
Speaker 2: all that, I would have been like nine or ten.
Speaker 3: I thought that was magic. Yeah. Wow.
Speaker 1: So your dad did construction and then somehow got into
Speaker 1: booking beat.
Speaker 2: What was that, Well, that was to do with the
Speaker 2: Catholic That was to do with the Catholic Church because
Speaker 2: he was numb. So he's a working class Irish guys
Speaker 2: are saying, be laid pipes, he dug holes in the
Speaker 2: road and dad, they're very proud of it. But to
Speaker 2: do with the Catholic Church, big Irish thing. They would
Speaker 2: have bands on on a Friday and a Saturday night,
Speaker 2: and all these bands would go an audition in these
Speaker 2: bars or these pubs, usually on a Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 3: And all of these used to call themselves agents.
Speaker 2: But all these people who could say, hey, listen, come
Speaker 2: and play at my social club for fifty pounds, So
Speaker 2: they would go an audition for people like my dad, you.
Speaker 1: Know, so amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean they weren't all that great, but
Speaker 2: to me it was magic.
Speaker 1: There must have been an education onto itself, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of how to be and on stage, and
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: One hundred per one hundred percent what it was was.
Speaker 2: The big thing for me was that I when I
Speaker 2: watched these bands set up their equipment when I was
Speaker 2: about seven or eight at these parties. So this was
Speaker 2: a little early because we used to have these bands
Speaker 2: play at christena It'd been out reinforce the cultural stereotype.
Speaker 2: But there was a lot of Christenings and a lot
Speaker 2: of weddings, and.
Speaker 3: My aunties and uncles I used to have these bands
Speaker 3: come play.
Speaker 2: But when I saw these adults setting up the equipment,
Speaker 2: that was when it occurred to me that, oh, this
Speaker 2: is a job. Ah, he's nearly always guys, these guys,
Speaker 2: and I see the same people, the same guys, and
Speaker 2: they'd be bringing their amplifiers and someone setting the drum kit.
Speaker 2: I'd be like, Oh, as an adult, you can do that.
Speaker 2: It's not just people on the television. Because on the
Speaker 2: television I just see these bands magically appear and looking great,
Speaker 2: you know, with the velvet.
Speaker 3: Suits on and all of this.
Speaker 2: And I'd actually see these men setting up their equipment
Speaker 2: and pulling these amplifiers and feeding back and testing.
Speaker 3: And I was like, where do I sign up for that? Wow,
Speaker 3: that looks like a great job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and your parents must have been thrilled as much
Speaker 1: as in the music as they are that you started
Speaker 1: thinking that way, right, Yeah, you know, I.
Speaker 3: Think a lot of people can probably relate to this.
Speaker 2: They were absolutely thrilled until at fifteen I decided or
Speaker 2: fourteen decided that I was going to go through it
Speaker 2: and not go to school. So now that it's worked
Speaker 2: out and I've actually, you know, it's my day job,
Speaker 2: they're really really proud. Much more than the fact that
Speaker 2: I'm famous. They're just really proud that I'm a full
Speaker 2: time guitar player. Seriously, and if I ever make records
Speaker 2: where there's not enough guitar on it. I kind of
Speaker 2: get to hear about it and yeah, but you know,
Speaker 2: mount craft work. No, it's okay, I'm playing I'm playing
Speaker 2: synth on this one. So they proud of that. But
Speaker 2: you know, like a lot of teenagers, you know, I
Speaker 2: went through kind of a pretty rebellious and rough patch.
Speaker 2: We went through a kind of a bit of a
Speaker 2: you know, typical sort of rebellious kind of They were
Speaker 2: worried that when I stopped going to school and was
Speaker 2: very obviously you know, taking drugs and spending all my
Speaker 2: time with these reprobates. But it was all really wrapped
Speaker 2: up with the music as well. It wasn't just hedonistic stuff.
Speaker 3: I joined the band. Thing was I joined the band
Speaker 3: when I was fifteen, who have adults who were.
Speaker 2: Very dubious, and my parents kind of said, well, it's
Speaker 2: either that or you have to get out.
Speaker 3: So I just left harm you know, but just got it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that was a bit contentious, and you know,
Speaker 2: so I was a little wild at fifteen sixteen.
Speaker 1: But what was your sister thinking.
Speaker 2: My sister was the mediator. She was the great mediator.
Speaker 2: She's only eleven months younger than me. We were very
Speaker 2: tight and still are, you know. But it's a funny
Speaker 2: one because yeah, they were proud of me being a musician.
Speaker 2: But I think when I actually was like, listen, I'm
Speaker 2: going to go for it, and I'm going to go
Speaker 2: to London and I'm gonna even though you know, I
Speaker 2: had no money whatsoever, and I'm going to join this
Speaker 2: band and these adults. So they were very obviously kind
Speaker 2: of dangerous characters. You know, they're pretty druggy. They sounded
Speaker 2: like a cross between Hawkwind and I guess the Stooges.
Speaker 2: Of course, sister Ray. I think their tracks up on YouTube.
Speaker 2: It's got a song called Suicide. So because he'd made
Speaker 2: a record, they sought me out at fifteen, right, and
Speaker 2: they were like coming be in the band, and I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure I said, listen, you are aware that I'm
Speaker 2: I am fifteen or fourteen even I think I didn't
Speaker 2: want it to be a freak show, and they were like, hey, listen, now,
Speaker 2: come on, come on, it'll be cool. So I used
Speaker 2: to go to their rehearsal a couple of times a
Speaker 2: week and it was the Red Light area, really kind
Speaker 2: of rough area in Manchester. A couple of nights a
Speaker 2: week and to subsidize that, I used to sell clothes
Speaker 2: my pals and working clothes shops. But anyway I left,
Speaker 2: I had to leave home. I had to leave home
Speaker 2: to do that because my parents didn't approve. And that
Speaker 2: was a little bit of a kind of a rough
Speaker 2: bit of a look back now, and it was a
Speaker 2: bit of a wild time for me.
Speaker 1: But London and seventy seven at fourteen fifteen, yeah, must
Speaker 1: have been that must have been crazy.
Speaker 3: Well, it was.
Speaker 2: Amazing because I went to the I went to the
Speaker 2: Marquee when I was fifteen to see a bank called
Speaker 2: Pearl Harbor and the explosions and they had the Stray Cats.
Speaker 3: Who else was in London at the time. The class
Speaker 3: were still around.
Speaker 2: This is seventy eight, seventy nine, and I was really
Speaker 2: into this band called the only Ones.
Speaker 3: You know, I sung Another Girl Another Planet. Yeah, So
Speaker 3: I fell.
Speaker 2: In love with this band called the only Ones and
Speaker 2: I followed them around quite a bit and that involved,
Speaker 2: you know, sleeping on train stations. Me and Andy Rogue,
Speaker 2: who was my best part at the time. I enlisted
Speaker 2: in the Smiths, so we Yeah. I used to hang
Speaker 2: around close shops and that was all to me, that
Speaker 2: was all part of the apprenticeship of being a musician
Speaker 2: because I heard loads of records. As I say, I
Speaker 2: saw Brian Setzer when I was I think fourteen, I
Speaker 2: saw Patty Smith when I was fourteen, I saw the Cramps,
Speaker 2: And to me, all of this stuff has made me
Speaker 2: what I am really seeing all those bands when I
Speaker 2: was really young.
Speaker 1: What'd you think of Brian Setzer at the time.
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe it. He was amazing.
Speaker 1: And what were the Straight Cats doing over there?
Speaker 2: They had a hit, They had a I think they were.
Speaker 2: England was where they took off, and me and my
Speaker 2: pals were like, listen, there's this crazy guitar player. It's
Speaker 2: rockabilly band.
Speaker 3: I saw them.
Speaker 2: I think there was you know, maybe about thirty people
Speaker 2: in the audience, and this whole lot held like eight
Speaker 2: hundred people. So all of that stuff, you know, I
Speaker 2: saw Peru Boo, and I saw a whole load of
Speaker 2: bands I didn't care for because we used to sneak
Speaker 2: into all the venues. So I look back on all
Speaker 2: of that and it can sound romantic, and I can
Speaker 2: make it sound romantic, and that's because it actually was.
Speaker 2: I had no problem with walking back from a venue
Speaker 2: from god to see some band, whether I liked him
Speaker 2: or not, walking back for miles with no train fair,
Speaker 2: and it all feeling like it was part of an apprenticeship, you.
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, yeah, all part of the mission.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: How did you meet Andy Rourk?
Speaker 2: We went to the same school and he was you know,
Speaker 2: it's like with guys in school. I saw a guy
Speaker 2: another guy with long hair, long scruffy hair, and we
Speaker 2: were either going to be friends or we were going
Speaker 2: to fight. We were either like in competition or we
Speaker 2: were comrades, and I think neither of us wanted to fight.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I I had a button, as you kept in America
Speaker 2: at a badge that said that it was a Neil Young
Speaker 2: Tonight's tonight. And he walked up to me and he
Speaker 2: went to night to night and he did this really
Speaker 2: amazing Neil Young impression, and I was just really impressed
Speaker 2: that he knew what tonight tonight was.
Speaker 3: You do that kind of thing when you were a kid,
Speaker 3: It's so important.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, wow, I mean I wasn't going
Speaker 2: to wear one that had harvest. It had to be obviously,
Speaker 2: it had to be a really obscure badge and he
Speaker 2: walked up to me and he just sang Tonight Tonight,
Speaker 2: and I thought, Wow, this guy's cool, and then we
Speaker 2: just became friends for life.
Speaker 3: You know. It's beautiful. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did you see Neil on that Tonight's the Night tour
Speaker 1: in London?
Speaker 3: No? No, that was I was too young for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know the big amazing story about that, about
Speaker 2: Tonight's to Night that tour.
Speaker 3: So he came over to England.
Speaker 2: He played at the Scarlet, which I might be wrong
Speaker 2: about it might be the Rainbow, but anyway, John Lyden
Speaker 2: told me this. So he comes and the album hadn't
Speaker 2: been released yet, and it's also a real down heavy album,
Speaker 2: as you know.
Speaker 3: Right. Anyway, he comes out and he's.
Speaker 2: Got scraggly beard and he's drinking loads of tequila and
Speaker 2: the stage and if you look on the inside of
Speaker 2: that record, the stage set is crazy. It's got platform
Speaker 2: boots hanging up and it's got like a it's got
Speaker 2: hub caps all over the stage and a fake palm tree.
Speaker 2: So he comes out and he starts playing this album
Speaker 2: no one's ever heard. So he plays Tonight's Tonight from
Speaker 2: start to finish. It's not even been released. Yet, and
Speaker 2: it's this real down alcohol kind of thing, and he
Speaker 2: plays it and the audience had like, what the hell
Speaker 2: is this? And it's going down kind of badly. He
Speaker 2: goes off and he gets called back on for the
Speaker 2: encore and he says to the audience, now I'm going
Speaker 2: to play one that you've heard before, and he plays
Speaker 2: Tonight's Tonight again.
Speaker 3: That happened.
Speaker 1: I just saw Neil six nights ago. So it was
Speaker 1: just like, this guy does not give a fuck.
Speaker 3: You know, I've never seen him play. You've never seen
Speaker 3: Neil never, man, it's crazy, just for some reason or other, just.
Speaker 1: Never it's worth it. It's just I've never seen someone so
Speaker 1: single minded, so single minded, you know those I don't want.
Speaker 2: To generalize too much, but I've met a few sixties musicians,
Speaker 2: which obviously you are very very fortunate. Just just a
Speaker 2: few a handful, and they, nearly to a man and woman,
Speaker 2: really care about playing.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I might sound obvious, but the most important thing is
Speaker 2: if there's a guitar in the room, they will pick
Speaker 2: it up and they'll play Ronnie Woods like that, Donovan's
Speaker 2: like that, you know, Paul McCartney's really like that, you know,
Speaker 2: like those people, hats off to him, you know, I
Speaker 2: think they're really Ironically, it's kind of come around where
Speaker 2: some of those older generation musicians they go out and
Speaker 2: they appear to do it because they love you know,
Speaker 2: whether it's your thing or not.
Speaker 3: But you know, the Rod Stewarts and the Who's and.
Speaker 2: The Jaggers and Springsteen's and all of those sort of people.
Speaker 2: Johonny Mitchell even now coming back. You know, it's nice
Speaker 2: to see that those people who could be just sat
Speaker 2: on their boats or sat under the palm trees, or
Speaker 2: spending all the time with their architects and all of that,
Speaker 2: they appear to be out there doing it because maybe
Speaker 2: they know something that we don't, which is, you know,
Speaker 2: what they're really isn't anything better. Yeah, I've realized how
Speaker 2: super fortunate I am that I have people's ears. You know,
Speaker 2: there's an audience as people who are interested in what
Speaker 2: I'm up to at the moment. That's such a motivation,
Speaker 2: you know. But I do like to think that might
Speaker 2: be bullshit, But it's easy for me to say but
Speaker 2: that if I didn't, I'd still be playing every day, practicing, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, just for the love of it and just
Speaker 2: to try and get better, try and get better and
Speaker 2: better in some ways, you know, if that's all you've
Speaker 2: got to do or day.
Speaker 3: You get pretty good. But it's horses for courses, you know.
Speaker 3: I like what bands are. I like what indie rock
Speaker 3: for one.
Speaker 2: I don't put myself in a box too much, but
Speaker 2: I like the area of music that I work in.
Speaker 2: I still feel like that there are surprises in that
Speaker 2: area of music. Obviously, you and I we can talk
Speaker 2: about go off on these different tangents, talk about all
Speaker 2: kinds of different music, you know, But my mission I felt,
Speaker 2: I think it almost kind of got doubled in a
Speaker 2: way when I got the solo band together. I felt
Speaker 2: like I had this freedom to pull in all my
Speaker 2: influences that really goes back to people like Sparks. It's
Speaker 2: an interesting thing, I think, because what you love is
Speaker 2: such a subjective thing, obviously, and I think you get
Speaker 2: to a point in your life where you kind of
Speaker 2: go back to as an influence, you really do draw
Speaker 2: on those things that were your first loves.
Speaker 3: I love being in the modern world.
Speaker 2: I'm not particularly nostalgic person, but the area of music
Speaker 2: that I'm working in guitar music. I guess melodic that
Speaker 2: I suppose, you know, I don't really use terms like
Speaker 2: art rock, but you know, I'm fine with being called
Speaker 2: an indie musician. It all sounds like to me. It's
Speaker 2: all what used to be called rock music. Anyway, for
Speaker 2: the longest time. I used to call myself a pop
Speaker 2: musician for the longer time, and still until I started
Speaker 2: really recognizing that pop music is something very very different now,
Speaker 2: and I think that's post rave and to do with
Speaker 2: the technology and all this sort of stuff. I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna make past judgment on it. But when I started
Speaker 2: out at eleven or twelve and studying these records t Rex,
Speaker 2: the Sweet Sparks that luckily for me, had amazing guitar
Speaker 2: playing on it. Who knows what in England we call
Speaker 2: glam rock. In America, glamorock was a different thing. Was
Speaker 2: a little bit to do with sunset and the hairbands
Speaker 2: and all that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: But in England glam rock was very definitely nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 2: seventy three, seventy four. Davy Bowie, you know, you the
Speaker 2: gene Genie and all that stuff, which you know, you know,
Speaker 2: those forty fives were amazing education for me. And as
Speaker 2: I say, it's probably subjective because that was when this
Speaker 2: stuff really really hit me. But I still think that
Speaker 2: what I do is working within that area where it's
Speaker 2: for me. The best thing is that it's concise. It
Speaker 2: doesn't have to go on for seven or eight minutes
Speaker 2: unless I'm making a point, and there's guitar hooks in it,
Speaker 2: and the tempos are up, and yeah, it makes you.
Speaker 2: It gets a blood racing a little bit with some
Speaker 2: quite sort of interesting, clever, if possible lyrics that fit.
Speaker 1: That's the part musician in you. That that's where that
Speaker 1: is located. And that's what probably i'd imagine, like probably
Speaker 1: how you fell in love with Chic in the seventies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well I think with Sheik it was to
Speaker 2: do with the harmonic progressions a lot. I always say this,
Speaker 2: but with so much is made with now Rogers, everyone
Speaker 2: obviously he thinks, even if they're not musicians, what they're
Speaker 2: thinking of is his right hand. Well, what I'm really
Speaker 2: fell in love with was his left hand. These beautiful
Speaker 2: McCoy tyner. The first time I ever met now Rogers,
Speaker 2: first question asked was do you really like McCoy tyner
Speaker 2: because the core progression's so beautiful, so pretty, so emotional,
Speaker 2: you know, I want your love and lost in music
Speaker 2: and oh man, So that's why I like that stuff particularly.
Speaker 2: It wasn't just a groove, it was beautiful harmonic changes.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm a real melody freak.
Speaker 2: And I'll try and squeeze those hooks in too, excite
Speaker 2: in kind of punchy guitar music wherever I can, especially
Speaker 2: if it's my own stuff.
Speaker 1: We're going to take another quick break and then come
Speaker 1: back with the rest of my conversation with Johnny Marr.
Speaker 1: We're back with the rest of my conversation with Johnny Marr.
Speaker 1: Where did the riff for Spirit, Power and Soul? Can
Speaker 1: you figure out how you arrived at that riff?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: What I did was months before, when I was on
Speaker 2: the road. We had this third album called called The Comet.
Speaker 2: I started to think, the next single off the next
Speaker 2: album should be like an electro banger. I kind of
Speaker 2: did conceptualize it hand on heart.
Speaker 3: Now, hey, I.
Speaker 2: Wish I could do that with every trap, but the
Speaker 2: Smith's used to do that. Sometimes we'd go because I
Speaker 2: was given a title. Often not always, but sometimes say.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I was given a title like Panic, and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, what does that conjure up?
Speaker 3: Or meet his murder? And we meet his murder.
Speaker 2: I set myself the task of writing a horror score
Speaker 2: for animals because I had the title.
Speaker 3: So I quite enjoy hey listen as I say. I
Speaker 3: wish I could do it more often.
Speaker 2: But I had the idea for Spirit, Power and Soul
Speaker 2: months before, and I went, oh, man, this and the
Speaker 2: next album, the first track on it would be really
Speaker 2: good if I can write an electro banger.
Speaker 3: So I started with a drum machine. I borrowed the
Speaker 3: drum machine.
Speaker 2: Off Steve Morris from New Order, which actually I've got
Speaker 2: to give it him back. And yeah, I thought, if
Speaker 2: I'm going to borrow, if I'm gonna borrow a drum machine,
Speaker 2: who better to borrow one off than Steve's great. So
Speaker 2: I got in a programming, even though I could have
Speaker 2: done it much quicker on the laptop, but that wasn't
Speaker 2: the point. I wanted to do the process, and I
Speaker 2: was kind of going, all right, we'll do something that's.
Speaker 3: Like Cabaret Vaultare. So I had the beat.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I was playing along with that for like four days,
Speaker 2: and I wrote this song that wasn't very good, and
Speaker 2: then I had to just kind of scrap it and
Speaker 2: apply myself again. And I just wrote it and wrote
Speaker 2: it and wrote it and wrote it. I went in
Speaker 2: the studio from ten so five or six for five
Speaker 2: days and I would sing melody and melody and this
Speaker 2: is too clever, this to melodic, this is I just
Speaker 2: knew what I wanted, but I knew what it would
Speaker 2: be when I found it. Hey, I'm talking a little
Speaker 2: bit like I've written a day in the life. I
Speaker 2: know it's but that's what I had to do.
Speaker 1: It's a great song, man, it's a great.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate that because I worked my ass off
Speaker 2: doing it. I just kept writing these vocal melodies that
Speaker 2: were too melodic, so it became a real craft. The
Speaker 2: interesting thing about that song is that sometimes I have ideas,
Speaker 2: and I've had these ideas from being a kid, where
Speaker 2: I have an idea for what would be a good
Speaker 2: song away from the guitar and away from the studio,
Speaker 2: and I have it in my mind, and then I
Speaker 2: set about trying to do it, and when it works out,
Speaker 2: it's fantastic.
Speaker 1: It's a wild way to come to a song like
Speaker 1: you're not even in the realm of music, you're away
Speaker 1: from it. Do you think that would be the worst
Speaker 1: song potentially, that it's like this thing where you're like
Speaker 1: conceptualizing it before you even have the chance to you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'm really glad it worked out. But I
Speaker 2: was determined. And to be fair, I think when you're
Speaker 2: talking about skills, say, one of the skills that I've
Speaker 2: learned that I didn't have years ago was I learned
Speaker 2: this perseverance from Bernard Sumner from New Order, working with
Speaker 2: Bernard for nine years in electronic If he had an
Speaker 2: idea for a song and he believed in it, he
Speaker 2: would not let that thing go away. He would keep
Speaker 2: coming back to it until he was right. So that
Speaker 2: was a skill that I've learned along the way from
Speaker 2: somebody else. It wasn't to do with, you know, diatonic scales,
Speaker 2: what to do with, you know, music theory. Was to
Speaker 2: do with application process, and I've learned on that subject.
Speaker 2: It's been I could go through all the people I've
Speaker 2: worked with and tell you what I've.
Speaker 3: Learned from him.
Speaker 2: Now I think about it, I might be getting a
Speaker 2: little bit sentimental in my old age, but Isaac Brock, Prizzy,
Speaker 2: hein everyone, everyone, Really I learned something from all of them.
Speaker 1: You know, what about from Chrissy.
Speaker 3: Chrissy ay listen?
Speaker 2: I played with the last week at Glastonbury, you know,
Speaker 2: and that was amazing rejoining partic playing those songs after
Speaker 2: thirty years, you know, because I haven't played them since
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty whatever. So Chrissy, well, I learned that there's
Speaker 2: a lot when you walk on stage.
Speaker 3: Even though I don't want to embarrass it.
Speaker 2: She might even realize this, but when you walk on
Speaker 2: stage as the front man, you give off the vibe
Speaker 2: to the rest of the.
Speaker 3: Band that no matter what happens, you've got this.
Speaker 2: And I picked up because I was very young when
Speaker 2: I was working with Christy was twenty four and we
Speaker 2: were doing these We were playing sometimes we played to
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand people opening for you too, and certainly
Speaker 2: seventy thousand people most nights on the Joshua Tree tour.
Speaker 2: And I'm telling you, I was terrified. But when I
Speaker 2: walked behind her on stage, I was like, it's cool,
Speaker 2: she's got this. Try and be that for my band. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And also, you know, things like in rehearsal. When you
Speaker 2: wear that one, two, three four. When you start singing,
Speaker 2: you sing like you're on stage. None of this like
Speaker 2: looking at your phone or looking up at the roof
Speaker 2: and or you know, being distracted, when for those four
Speaker 2: minutes that you're singing.
Speaker 3: You really are in it. Yeah. I learned a lot
Speaker 3: from Christy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's quite dedicated as a in her as her
Speaker 1: role as front person.
Speaker 2: In a natural way, in a natural way because a
Speaker 2: big part of her as well is that she's a
Speaker 2: punk rocker and she's not too referential the business of
Speaker 2: being in a band. She honors that she thinks being
Speaker 2: in the band is a special thing, and especially her
Speaker 2: relationship with a guitar player that goes right back to
Speaker 2: Jimmy Scott, who I was a big fan of when
Speaker 2: I was a kid, which you can really hear in
Speaker 2: my plane, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of like, you know, you're sort of thinking
Speaker 1: of yourself as a pop musician in a weird way.
Speaker 1: On paper, could look like a strange pairing, but I
Speaker 1: think having spoken to you now, it seems to make
Speaker 1: a ton of sense. You and Hans Zimmer and Pharrell
Speaker 1: getting together. Yeah, about a decade ago, to work on
Speaker 1: some of that Spider Man stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, well, I've got to say this is
Speaker 2: classic hands because Hans is a real lateral thinker. He
Speaker 2: really thinks outside of the box, and he genuinely has
Speaker 2: told me this so many times now that I really
Speaker 2: think it's true. So when me and Pharrell first got
Speaker 2: in a room together and we wrote two songs on
Speaker 2: that that think just me and him, Hans loved telling
Speaker 2: this story that he was watching the guy who wrote literally,
Speaker 2: watching the guy who wrote Heaven Knows I'm miserable Now
Speaker 2: writing a song with the guy who wrote Happy.
Speaker 3: He thought that was hilarious.
Speaker 2: And so we got offered that movie, The Amazing Spider
Speaker 2: Man three, and he and I got together and he
Speaker 2: was like, well, what comes to mind what you're thinking.
Speaker 2: I don't really know the franchise very much, but I
Speaker 2: had this idea. I saw the opening scene so real
Speaker 2: rough of it and it was New York and it
Speaker 2: was like, there's a lot of action and everything, and
Speaker 2: I said, you know what it should it should be
Speaker 2: like the Who. I wasn't thinking classic rock, but I
Speaker 2: was just thinking it should be like Won't get Fooled Again?
Speaker 3: It should be like if you're asking me as.
Speaker 2: A guitar player power chords, it's whoa this big kind
Speaker 2: of explosive thing. I never think in terms of metal.
Speaker 2: It's just not my bag. But yeah, if I think explosive,
Speaker 2: I think of like the Who or whatever. And he
Speaker 2: really liked that idea, and then from that he jumped
Speaker 2: then to like having a band in a room so
Speaker 2: straight away because Junkie Excel was he had a studio
Speaker 2: in the same building that we were in, and he
Speaker 2: was brilliant like, well listen, we'll get junky Excel on bass.
Speaker 2: And then we had this idea about this explosive pop book.
Speaker 2: Hands then was like, who's the most melodic thinking that
Speaker 2: you can think of? Who's like, who's amazing act coming
Speaker 2: up with melodies? And he just let's just ask for real,
Speaker 2: and I was like, well, I was like, well, this
Speaker 2: would be interesting. I mean, I'm not I'm sure I'm
Speaker 2: not the first person to say this at all. But
Speaker 2: when for All comes in the room, He's like, where's
Speaker 2: the tune? Let me write a tune. He's amazing. We
Speaker 2: were putting the song down. I don't I'm sure he
Speaker 2: won't mind me telling this story. I've been for a
Speaker 2: run in the morning and I had this idea for that.
Speaker 2: We needed a romantic song. We need like the love
Speaker 2: the love song in this and I just happened to
Speaker 2: be out running in the morning and I heard that
Speaker 2: this this tune in my head. I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: that would be good, so I'll get I was enthusiastic
Speaker 2: to get in the studio and put this tune down.
Speaker 3: So I got in the studio.
Speaker 2: Kind of early, and we're in this big room and
Speaker 2: I started laying this down and there's some of the musicians,
Speaker 2: a couple of string players piano, and Hans was playing piano,
Speaker 2: and Frell wasn't there, and we started putting this running
Speaker 2: the chords down and I've got this tune and we're
Speaker 2: putting it down and we're recording it. And about the
Speaker 2: second time I get through this tune for our walks
Speaker 2: in and uh. We're halfway through the tune and he's
Speaker 2: kind of trying to be quiet and make a noise
Speaker 2: and he's got he picks the microphone up and when
Speaker 2: we finished doing this quick run through, we've got to
Speaker 2: start a third one for some technical reason, and he's
Speaker 2: asking Steve Lipson to stop the track I want to sing,
Speaker 2: and Hans goes, can we just put the track down?
Speaker 3: He goes, I want to. Now, my point in telling this.
Speaker 2: Story is that most musicians know that is the opposite
Speaker 2: of what happens. What usually happens is you have a
Speaker 2: tune and you put the tune down and you have
Speaker 2: to wait for days for the singer to sing.
Speaker 3: For I was like, plug this in, plug this in,
Speaker 3: let me sing. It was brilliant, and he's in the
Speaker 3: control room.
Speaker 2: He's tapping on his phone all the time, tapping on
Speaker 2: his phone writing lyrics. So my experience with with with
Speaker 2: for Alpha on that movie was he was he is
Speaker 2: exactly what I thought.
Speaker 1: He was.
Speaker 3: Just music just oozes out the guy.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that was this funny thing.
Speaker 2: But when when I've been a couple of times about collaboration, right,
Speaker 2: I use that that example of writing with Pharrell as
Speaker 2: an illustration as to what happens in the collaborative process,
Speaker 2: because on the face of it, what I say is
Speaker 2: it's like when you've got two musicians working together. On
Speaker 2: the face of it, look, I'm an indie rock musician
Speaker 2: from Manchester in the eighties, and then Pharrell is a
Speaker 2: R and B, you know, hip hop pop musician from America.
Speaker 2: But I always say it's a bit like you're getting
Speaker 2: a rowbot and the two ears are rowing in the
Speaker 2: same direction and the horizon is the speakers. I think
Speaker 2: the point is is that music and collaboration and when
Speaker 2: you're trying to create something with someone, even if you
Speaker 2: don't know them very well, it transcends your being from
Speaker 2: different backgrounds, completely transcends it. Yeah, music's amazing for that,
Speaker 2: and collaboration is amazing.
Speaker 3: You're both trying to just come up with a good
Speaker 3: middle eight.
Speaker 2: And because of that, because people on the outside will go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: you have to check your egos at the door or well,
Speaker 2: I mean that's a given because people who are serious
Speaker 2: they just want to make something great and it's not
Speaker 2: even a question of egos.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I mean the people I've worked with, the greats, you
Speaker 2: know they I'm sure they have an ego when they're
Speaker 2: getting out on stage, but when it comes down to work,
Speaker 2: they know, you know, you've got.
Speaker 3: To put the hours in.
Speaker 2: Billie Eilish is like that, at Licia Keys is like that,
Speaker 2: just real hard working, rolling the sleeves up and putting
Speaker 2: the hours in, you know.
Speaker 1: Talking about greats who put in the work. What was
Speaker 1: it like observing or being a part of the Joshua
Speaker 1: Tree tour like seeing YouTube in that moment as up close.
Speaker 2: If you were well, the amazing thing was I told
Speaker 2: Edge this actually that so when I joined that tour,
Speaker 2: because the pretender's been doing it for a then the
Speaker 2: guitar player quit and then I joined on there. At
Speaker 2: that point, Bono was doing this thing where he's in
Speaker 2: front of whatever, seventy eighty thousand people and they've got
Speaker 2: this material that is just really sounding good in those stadiums,
Speaker 2: and don't forget that it was new music then where
Speaker 2: the Streets have No Name and I still haven't found
Speaker 2: what I'm looking for.
Speaker 3: They were new songs.
Speaker 2: That people were just hearing on the radio, right, So
Speaker 2: it was like, whoa, this is a pretty good place
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 3: I was stot out the side of the stage.
Speaker 2: Going wow, when you hear that, When you hear where
Speaker 2: the Streets have no Name, which I think they used
Speaker 2: to start with, you go what, I think this song's
Speaker 2: going to stick around for a while. And so there
Speaker 2: was a vibe and they come on and Bono was
Speaker 2: doing this thing where midway through the set or whatever,
Speaker 2: he would climb up on the PA and then he
Speaker 2: would climb on whatever on some light in trust or whatever,
Speaker 2: and he was hanging down off doing that thing, and
Speaker 2: he'd be hanging down a fit and you know, and
Speaker 2: Chrisy said to me, got a look at that.
Speaker 3: You know, it's kind of laughing about it. What does
Speaker 3: he think he's doing?
Speaker 2: And I said to her, you know, Chrisy, I saw
Speaker 2: him do that in front of about forty people in
Speaker 2: a little room in Manchester when they first came at
Speaker 2: Manchester in nineteen eighty.
Speaker 3: I want to say, me and my pals went down.
Speaker 2: We heard about him on the John Peel Show and
Speaker 2: I thought that's really cool because he was doing it
Speaker 2: back then, and also I guess the music, I think
Speaker 2: I started to see that.
Speaker 3: Well, first off, you've got to have a real.
Speaker 2: Got a lot of energy to be the head of
Speaker 2: you know, that kind of organization with like you know,
Speaker 2: fifteen trucks and such a big, big organization. You know,
Speaker 2: that takes a lot out of you during the day,
Speaker 2: forget even the shows. Just being the center of all
Speaker 2: of that operation, which you know, made me realize that, Okay,
Speaker 2: with being what I am, you.
Speaker 3: Know, but because you know, I don't like a lot
Speaker 3: of fuss, so I really admired that.
Speaker 2: But how masterful it was that you the tunes have
Speaker 2: to be really if you listen to those, that kind
Speaker 2: of music, which I guess was part of what defined
Speaker 2: now stayed in music.
Speaker 3: It's very simple, but it's in the I.
Speaker 2: Remember those those nights has been pretty there's a lot
Speaker 2: of motion in that music. Simple doesn't necessarily mean like vacuous.
Speaker 2: I still haven't found what I'm looking for is such
Speaker 2: as and and the Singing Man.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that was really that. That was very very cool.
Speaker 2: And again you know the chemistry of a band, if ever,
Speaker 2: you know, you want to talk about chemistry, you know,
Speaker 2: look at those guys. They're kind of really archetypal. You know,
Speaker 2: the edges are really archetypal. He's rolling the band, and
Speaker 2: you know, he's kind of arty, and he's got imagination
Speaker 2: and he he sort of paints pictures and with his
Speaker 2: guitars that sound and all of that. And Adam really
Speaker 2: holds it down. And then Bono is a flamboyant on
Speaker 2: stage and off kind of concepts guy, and and Larry's
Speaker 2: the guy who kind of really is he formed the
Speaker 2: whole thing, and he's like the engine in a way. Yea,
Speaker 2: So it comes back to that thing if you are
Speaker 2: what you play.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when I think about the Edge, I also start
Speaker 1: to think about like Johnny Greenwood, Oh yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: he seems to me like you also, where it's like
Speaker 1: it's sort of just down to like like it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how complicated it sounds. It's just like what fits
Speaker 1: the strap, you know, and is adventurous.
Speaker 2: Similarly, yeah, well, well, difference between me and Johnny though,
Speaker 2: is that he's been able to grow with the same
Speaker 2: musicians over a long period of time, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, because again they are another band, you know,
Speaker 2: with amazing chemistry.
Speaker 3: Jo they've all become who they are.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know now that you know, they got
Speaker 2: to a place where they're all doing their own projects
Speaker 2: and everything. But Johnny's been in a place where he's
Speaker 2: been able to grow with Phil Selway playing behind him
Speaker 2: and with Tom next to him. The difference with me
Speaker 2: is that I've done that in different bands. I think
Speaker 2: that's a big difference between me and Johnny. You know,
Speaker 2: in a way if you like Johnny's Johnny's family stayed
Speaker 2: together a long time, whereas my family was a very
Speaker 2: the family I was known for was very short lived,
Speaker 2: you know, in the Smiths, which is fine now. It
Speaker 2: happens with a lot more bands in than the ones
Speaker 2: that stay together for forty years.
Speaker 1: I think like the Beatles too, the Beatles. The Beatles
Speaker 1: short lived, but a lot of packed a big punch
Speaker 1: in their time. And it's smith I mean, you look
Speaker 1: at the work you guys did in the short amount
Speaker 1: of time. It's like, damn, it's a lot of It's
Speaker 1: a lot of work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it felt like that, and I'm very extremely
Speaker 2: proud of it. But I think Johnny's as well as
Speaker 2: been supremely talented, I think he's been in a place
Speaker 2: where he can really he occupies his place in that
Speaker 2: band and has done for a long time now, and
Speaker 2: he's you know that band that they've all they've all
Speaker 2: sort of grown around each other, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: You pick any album like kid A or that, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm easy at that period. I really like him Rainbows
Speaker 2: as well, and they've all kind of evolved together. So
Speaker 2: I think that's really that's really suited him as a musician.
Speaker 2: I think it always suited my personality to kind of
Speaker 2: flit around. Really, you know, it doesn't come as any
Speaker 2: surprise to me whatsoever that I've been in loads of
Speaker 2: different bands.
Speaker 1: Going back to the beginning of our conversation, I love
Speaker 1: that it's something you've done, and I wish you. I
Speaker 1: don't know. It's like, you know, if I had my brothers,
Speaker 1: my personal taste taking into consideration I had my brothers,
Speaker 1: I would have that happen more often. Like I love
Speaker 1: seeing different like going back to jazz, like I love
Speaker 1: it's like I love the fact that I can pull
Speaker 1: up and be like, oh, I want to hear, Oh
Speaker 1: I can hear Askar Peterson play with with Check Baker
Speaker 1: on this one, or I can hear I want to
Speaker 1: hear Wayne Shorter play with you know, Jimmy Cabb instead
Speaker 1: of what you know, right, I just want to hear
Speaker 1: what the different combinations and formations sound like. And that's
Speaker 1: what's cool about and why I got into make last
Speaker 1: playlists around news because it's like just cool toy hear
Speaker 1: how someone sounds in different context with different people at
Speaker 1: different times. It's just fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks, Well, sometimes I think what I do is
Speaker 2: more heard in some situations than others. So in the
Speaker 2: other there was quite a lot of space for me
Speaker 2: to do my thing in especially on the Dusk album
Speaker 2: you can Hear You can Hear Me quite a lot,
Speaker 2: and then other times, like with electronic, the guitar kind
Speaker 2: of got squeezed out. But that was my actually down
Speaker 2: to me because I was really kind of getting getting
Speaker 2: so in electronic pop and I just got really enthusiastic
Speaker 2: for that, and I guess, you know, I just sort
Speaker 2: of fell out of love with being a rock musician
Speaker 2: during that period. But that's okay because I was only
Speaker 2: twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven. It's all part of
Speaker 2: it and I've done that now and if you know,
Speaker 2: but but where the guitar did feature in on electronics
Speaker 2: records likes feel every be and get the message.
Speaker 3: It was pretty interesting stuff.
Speaker 2: I kind of wish that I had done more of it,
Speaker 2: and Bernard was always, to be fair of Bernard was
Speaker 2: always encouraging me to do more of it, but I
Speaker 2: wanted to learn about other aspects of record making there
Speaker 2: so it is or what it is and you know,
Speaker 2: and on the Cribs record that I made, there's plenty
Speaker 2: of me on that stuff.
Speaker 3: I can hear a lot of that.
Speaker 2: So I mean, I really feel like as a and
Speaker 2: I don't mean to sound glib or whatever, but I
Speaker 2: kind of think of as a British guitar player, I've
Speaker 2: kind of had the best job I could think of.
Speaker 2: I mean genuinely, you know, I understand sure be could
Speaker 2: dismiss are so revered and so loved over time and
Speaker 2: almost you know, times made the band almost even more
Speaker 2: kind of you know, valued or whatever the big narrative is.
Speaker 2: People are seeing, oh the band was so short lived,
Speaker 2: if only they could stay together for longer, and all
Speaker 2: of that. But it makes top sense to me that
Speaker 2: just speaking for my own life, that I've done all
Speaker 2: of this different stuff as a guitar player, it's entirely
Speaker 2: the person I was when that when I was fourteen fifteen,
Speaker 2: and I say that all the time, and it's it's
Speaker 2: the person.
Speaker 3: That I kind of dreamed of being.
Speaker 2: Really. I mean, obviously, you know, life throws all kinds
Speaker 2: of curve balls without getting down you know too philosophical,
Speaker 2: nothing doesn't turn out like a fairy tale. But professionally, man,
Speaker 2: I can't. Sometimes I think, wow, I was under there.
Speaker 2: They were my favorite band at the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and you were with them and maybe you know,
Speaker 1: like maybe their best record, you know, like Dusk is like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, Dusk is a real good one. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's just weird that it all turned out.
Speaker 2: And then, you know, it was really when I The
Speaker 2: short thing with Body's Mouth was that I went through
Speaker 2: a period where the late night is were I just
Speaker 2: wasn't really hearing that much in British guitar music that
Speaker 2: excited me, but I was hearing it in American guitar music.
Speaker 3: I built to Spill he liked.
Speaker 2: And there was a band called the Lilies I really
Speaker 2: liked from out of Boston.
Speaker 3: I thought Lilies were great. And then and Elliott Smith
Speaker 3: And what ant was I met Elliott and Elliott Smith?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I met Elliott a couple of times.
Speaker 2: In the first time I met him, I was talking
Speaker 2: to him about these bands and he hit me up
Speaker 2: to Modest Mouse. I didn't know what Modest Mouse was.
Speaker 2: It was Elliot who told me about Maddy Smouse and
Speaker 2: he said, well, listen, if you had Madice Mouse. He
Speaker 2: said something like all roads lead to Modice Mouse. I
Speaker 2: was like, okay, So that's how I got into He
Speaker 2: took me on the Moon and Antarctica, and then six
Speaker 2: seven years later I ended up being a full time
Speaker 2: member of the band for like longer than people think.
Speaker 3: I thought.
Speaker 2: I joined the band two thousand and five and I
Speaker 2: left the band twenty ten think and ended up moving
Speaker 2: to Portland. So that was all down to Without Elliott,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have known about that.
Speaker 1: How did you ell you?
Speaker 2: I was in LA and mutual friend said he wanted
Speaker 2: to meet me, and we're a couple of mutual friends,
Speaker 2: and I think XO would just come out, and I.
Speaker 3: Thought that was great. I just thought he was really good.
Speaker 2: And then then I knew a couple of these musicians
Speaker 2: and he always had really nice The thing about him
Speaker 2: was the people.
Speaker 3: I knew who worked with him were all really nice people.
Speaker 2: My friend Scott, he was his drummer for a while,
Speaker 2: so we had kind of we had a.
Speaker 3: Sort of mutual sort of scene.
Speaker 2: Really yeah, but I look back on all this and
Speaker 2: I think, Wow, I'm kind of glad.
Speaker 3: I'm glad that things works out.
Speaker 1: It worked out amazingly. Before we go, man, do you
Speaker 1: have I see your guitars back there? Do you have
Speaker 1: your nine? You have a you have a book coming
Speaker 1: out called Mars Guitars that I'm excited to check out.
Speaker 1: Do you have your nine pickup guitar?
Speaker 3: No one's ever asked me about that guitar. They probably
Speaker 3: won't again.
Speaker 2: Just it's in my actual studio because this is this
Speaker 2: is my house now. But it's an amazing sound.
Speaker 3: It's a.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't drink anymore, but I wasn't actually drunk.
Speaker 3: When I bought it.
Speaker 2: I may head, but it was back in the days
Speaker 2: when I was like drinking quite a lot.
Speaker 3: I was either drunk from the night before.
Speaker 2: But I went into a guitar shop with Nold galageries
Speaker 2: only I think it was said maybe they might be
Speaker 2: when the very first day we met and I saw
Speaker 2: this thing, and I just was like my logic for
Speaker 2: buying that guitar. I was like, Okay, if Kraftwork played guitar,
Speaker 2: that's what they would play. Nola had only just met me,
Speaker 2: and I think he thought this guy is a crazy,
Speaker 2: crazy rock star.
Speaker 1: That's a fair assessment.
Speaker 2: But you know what, maybe it was about what it
Speaker 2: probably almost thirty years later, I had to wait to
Speaker 2: get a song out of it, but it was spirit,
Speaker 2: power and soul.
Speaker 1: Ah so cool.
Speaker 3: It came up with the riffs.
Speaker 2: So hey, that's my that's that's my excuse, and I'm
Speaker 2: sticking to it. Man.
Speaker 1: I got a thousand and one questions for you. Man,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It's such a such a pleasure.
Speaker 3: Hearkened to you all right, man, all the best. Thank you.
Speaker 1: See he thanks Johnny Mar for talking about his epic career.
Speaker 1: You can hear all of our favorite tracks featuring Mar,
Speaker 1: as well as some of his solo work on a
Speaker 1: playlist apt Broken Record podcast dot com. You can subscribe
Speaker 1: to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken
Speaker 1: Record Podcast, where you can find all of our new episodes.
Speaker 1: You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken
Speaker 1: Record is produced with help from Leah Rose, Jason Gambrel,
Speaker 1: Ben Holliday, and Eric sam Our. Editor is Sophie Kran.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you
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Speaker 1: expect Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Rischman.