Johnny Marr talks to Lauren Murphy of irishtimes.com
Excerpt:
Mention of The Smiths brings about the question of legacy. While Marr’s reputation for humility is well known, there are certain topics that you imagine will test his zen demeanour. I’ve already promised not to ask his most dreaded question – the one that begins with “Will the . . .” and ends with “reform?” .
“Good,” he good-naturedly grumbles. “Just Google it for the answer.” But my editor will kill me, I tell him, if I don’t at least ask whether Morrissey has heard the album, or, gulp, whether the two are still in touch.
An audible harrumph follows, followed by a nifty sidestep. “Well, I don’t actually have a copy of my own album myself – I’ve got the masters, and I’ve got tracks on all of these different devices, but I was just thinking that very thing yesterday. So that’s probably your answer, really. If I haven’t got one, I doubt he has, either!”
Marr is understandably reluctant to continue to re-tread the same patch of old conversational ground, but it is difficult – impossible, rather – to mention him without also mentioning his part in the band that are regularly hailed as one of the most influential in modern music.
Now, perhaps for the first time, he is being faced with frequent reminders of his past work acting as more of a burden than a buoy. Does his name being constantly prefaced by “former Smiths guitarist . . .” ever bother him particularly when he’s embarking on a solo path for the first time?
“Maybe if I indulged myself I could go down that road, and I understand the question – but Id rather have a legacy than not,” he says.
Plus, people say some really amazing things to me, and I think it would be pretty churlish to complain about anything in light of that. To have created something that people are really passionate about; it’s kind of mind-blowing, really, because I know when a record or a band has really hit me and meant something in my life, how important that is.
“So to be part of someone’s personal lives is a privilege. It’s more than a privilege. So I just take it for what it is, and know it’s a really nice thing, and I don’t analyse it beyond that, because otherwise I could go around in circles, or my head might explode. And also, you can forget to keep moving forward.”
