Set the Boy Free

by Johnny Marr

  We started working on a new Electronic album, and Karl moved into my house with us. It was a good arrangement as Karl was a friend, and by then my house was essentially a residential studio with a family in it. Working with Karl, I learned first-hand about German history: composers, philosophers, and what was really happening with the musicians in the German counterculture. We influenced each other, and we would sometimes go out to investigate the music that was happening in the clubs. Karl could memorise the records and would then write the music down on a white board when we got back to the studio. One morning after a late night, we were all in the kitchen and Karl was there wearing a black T-shirt and shorts. Andrew Berry sidled up to me and said, ‘Johnny … your life is mad.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ I said. ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘there’s one of Kraftwerk … in his underpants.’

  Sonny

  IT WAS MIDNIGHT on New Year’s Eve 1993 when Angie told me we were having another baby. We were super-excited to be having another child, and I had a strong feeling that we’d have a girl.

  The morning Angie went into labour she grabbed my arm extremely tightly without any warning and just said, ‘NOW!’ I jumped into the car and my wife looked at me very seriously and said, ‘We need to get there FAST!’ It was the height of rush hour and the traffic was bumper to bumper. I was trying to keep calm as we manoeuvred up Princess Parkway, while things in the car were developing very quickly indeed. I weaved in and out of the traffic, gesturing apologetically and saying, ‘Sorry, mate … sorry about that,’ and then, as we came to a standstill for what seemed like for ever, muttering, ‘COME ON! COME ON!!’ The baby was going to arrive any minute, and my blood pressure and stress levels were going through the roof with every ‘argh!’ and ‘woagh!’ that Angie yelled out. We weren’t moving very far at all, and there was a real possibility that my next child was going to be born in Whalley Range. I prepared myself to pull over to the side of the road and deliver the baby myself, thinking, ‘Oh God, at least wait until we get to Ardwick.’ We finally crawled to within ten minutes of the hospital and I sped off through the back streets of Moss Side, screeched up to the doors of St Mary’s and shouted to the hospital staff, ‘No, really, she’s having it NOW!’ as a concerned-looking porter raced Angie to the delivery room, where the baby was born before I even had time to take my coat off.

  We called her Sonny, which was a name Angie and I had thought of for a long time. I looked at her for a while, imagining all the things she was going to experience in her life. As a kid I’d grown up with my sister, and ever since I’d been with my girlfriend: I’d always had girls in my life. Now I had a girl who was closer to me than anything, and I watched her and thought, ‘You and me are going to have a good time.’ I raced over to get Nile from his nursery school and drove him back to the hospital with the roof down as The Kinks played on the radio. Nile was enthralled with his baby sister, and with the four of us together for the first time, me and Angie had our own tribe. That night The Pretenders played in Manchester at the Apollo and Chrissie dedicated the song ‘Kid’ to Sonny. My friend Greg Dulli was also playing a show that night in Manchester with his band The Afghan Whigs, and he dedicated a song to Sonny too. She was born to the sound of music and it was a good day for my girl to come into the world.

  I loved being a father, and Angie was an amazing mother. Everything we did, we did it together. It was important to me and Angie that our kids were educated, especially as our own schools had been a let-down, and we wanted them to be around as much nature as possible and to pursue all their curiosities and be citizens of the world.

  High Court

  ELECTRONIC WERE GOING through a difficult time. Bernard was dealing with some issues with the Haçienda as the gang violence at the club was having serious legal and financial consequences, and he often had to break off from recording to attend meetings that were becoming increasingly stressful. I was being dragged into a lot of meetings at the time too about my old band, as a situation which had been brewing, and which I’d made many attempts to resolve, had now turned into a legal action; depressingly, The Smiths were going to court.

  Mike Joyce had served a writ against Morrissey and me, claiming that he was a partner in The Smiths and because there was no agreement to say otherwise he was an equal partner. This was based on the Partnership Act of 1890, which says that unless there is a clear agreement all partnerships are equal; he was therefore entitled to an equal share of the band’s recording and live earnings. Andy was part of this action too, but he settled and agreed to take 10 per cent in the future. My position was that Mike had agreed to 10 per cent of the band’s earnings when the band decided the splits on a very emotional day in Pluto Studios in 1983. Mike argued that he never knew what the splits were, and as it had never been written down and signed, he was entitled to 25 per cent of the profits. It turned out in the evidence at trial that, through our disorganisation, the splits had not been consistent. It seemed odd to me that you could be in a band with three other people for five years and not know what everyone’s splits were; no one had disputed or rejected the finances at any time during the five years when the band was together.

  The Smiths as a band were not equal. People might want to think otherwise, but anyone who was around us in any capacity would tell you that The Smiths were not a band of equals. Morrissey and I formed it, and apart from the first year when Joe was with us we managed it, and usually managers take 20 per cent of a band’s income before the band members take their share. We had the legal obligations and the responsibilities, and it was our names on the contracts. We hired everyone and fired everyone, and we ran everything with the record company. Morrissey did all the artwork and I produced most of the records. It would be nice to think that we all did as much as each other, but we didn’t, and in that respect it was more like The Kinks, or Kraftwerk, where the two founder members are in charge. It’s that way in many other bands, and that’s how it was in The Smiths. If Mike Joyce wasn’t happy with a 10 per cent share, he should have walked. He should have said, ‘I’m not happy about this, get another drummer.’

  I was surprised by the legal action, but I wasn’t hurt by it. What really baffled me was that he brought this action against me and Morrissey but had continued to play in Morrissey’s band after The Smiths had split. Mike and I had been good friends, but now it was just a matter of who was going to dig the most dirt. My instincts told me to get on with playing music, which I did by making a second album with Electronic and working with Pet Shop Boys.

  The Smiths met up again in the High Court. I bumped into Morrissey outside the building as we went in, and as surreal as the situation was I was pleased to see him. Then I saw Mike and Andy, which was difficult. I didn’t know how to feel. Andy looked shell-shocked and Mike was very friendly. We took our places in an empty courtroom and waited for whatever was going to happen. As I tried to make sense of the situation, I thought about how I’d come to be in a courtroom in a war with three people I used to love. Since I was a kid I’d worked to be a musician. I’d been in different bands as a teenager, getting on buses with amps, and had dedicated my life to it until I was able to form The Smiths. We went on an incredible journey for five years, and made our own kind of music that a lot of people loved, and broke some rules. We’d had amazing success on our own terms, but our modus operandi was dysfunctional on a grand scale and had caused a lot of problems for the group that led to our inevitable demise. I’d travelled a long way, and this band had gone too far.

  The people I was with at the court – my manager, barrister and his assistant – were standing next to me, but I thought they were all useless – not because I didn’t like them but because they were all outsiders. They weren’t there when The Smiths were together. They weren’t there when me and Morrissey spent every day chasing up people to do our first demos. They weren’t there in the dressing rooms backstage. They weren’t there when we worked together on the records, and they weren’t ther
e when the band discussed money.

  The Fleet Street reporters scurried in and scribbled in their notebooks before proceedings even began, checking every flickering eye movement and scrutinising body language for anything that could be interpreted as drama.

  When Morrissey took the stand, it was uncomfortable from the word go. He argued with the judge, who was surly and pompous, and at one point Morrissey lost his temper and walked off the stand in frustration. Mike’s barrister made sure he planted a few bombs for the court and the media by putting it to Morrissey that he regarded his bandmates as ‘replaceable as parts on a lawnmower’. I watched the reporters as they devoured that phrase and scribbled it down, and a couple of them exited to phone their editor – job done, now everyone had ‘the angle’. The phrase became assimilated into the newspaper reports and then the proceedings as if it had been said by Morrissey, which it hadn’t: Mike’s barrister had planted it. He knew exactly what he was doing and it worked. The judge fell for it, and the press fell for it, then the public fell for it.

  I watched the bullshit and it was like being bound and gagged while everyone threw dirt around. For the band to be wrung out like this and put in such a lowly position was degrading, not only because we were arguing over money, but because to me The Smiths were too cool to end up like that. I’d tried to find a way to settle it without having to go to court, but I couldn’t achieve a settlement on my own. With each minute I grew more and more disdainful of the whole thing. I didn’t respect anyone on either side, including my own. I envisaged the barristers and lawyers sitting around together after the day’s hearing, scoring points and exchanging quips about how each other had done. To them it was all in a day’s work, and we were just rock stars with unlimited amounts of money that we’d acquired easily in the fame game. They couldn’t imagine they were desecrating someone’s dream; to them it was ‘just business’. Having to listen to the story of The Smiths told in such twisted terms by cunning cronies with no understanding of what a band is about was galling and grotesque. Every bit of love the band had for what it did and for each other was extinguished and interpreted in the worst possible light until there was nothing left. A few weeks before, I’d had to call Joe to inform him that he was required by law to give evidence. He wasn’t happy but he attended just the same. He was summoned to the stand, and we all watched as Mike’s barrister ripped into him with accusations of deceit and duplicity, because he was known to be close to me and therefore needed to be discredited as comprehensively as possible. Nice.

  All four members of the band were called to the stand. I knew there was no point in trying to be clever, and by then I was under no illusions that Morrissey and I might win. I just answered as directly as I could, without letting Mike’s barrister succeed in winding me up. I’d been forced to go to court, and I decided that whatever happened I was going to speak up for myself and get the satisfaction of putting a few things straight. At least that way I’d have no regrets and I could walk out of there my own man.

  When the judge ruled in Mike’s favour, he made a point of sticking it to me and particularly to Morrissey, who he really didn’t like, making remarks about him that were personal and fairly shocking. As well as giving Mike everything he’d asked for, he also ruled that Morrissey and I pay for Mike’s legal costs, which for the previous seven years had already been paid for by legal aid.

  Morrissey mounted an appeal to the Court of Appeal which was unsuccessful, and Mike revised his claim against Morrissey and secured orders on his income and assets. They continued their legal battles for a further eighteen years. I paid my share up in full and have done ever since. I wasn’t going to have it in my life any more. I wanted out once and for all. A great thing did come out of that court case though: Joe Moss and I decided we should work together again.

  When the hearing was over, I went straight from the court to where Electronic were rehearsing for a show the next day. In the band with me and Bernard were Jimi Goodwin from Doves and Ged Lynch from Black Grape. I was drained and emotional when I walked in, but the band were all waiting by their instruments and gave me a hug. Having just gone through the court case, it felt right to be standing with three good guys in a group. I plugged in my guitar and heard the buzz coming through my amp, the drummer counted off ‘Forbidden City’ and I started to play. It was the only thing to do.

  It was great to be back working with Joe again, and I felt like the returning prodigal son. Although life had changed since we’d last seen each other, our relationship was much the same. He’d come over to the studio and listen to the songs I was working on with Electronic, and we made up for lost time. In the previous couple of years he’d been busy nurturing new bands and setting up a live venue in Manchester called the Night & Day Café. One of Joe’s bands was called Haven, who I really liked, and I ended up producing their two albums. I’d had a lot of offers to produce different bands before and had turned them down. It’s a real labour of love producing a record for someone else, and you have a responsibility to deliver a magic outcome for the artist. It was great to be back doing something with Joe though.

  In LA, I did a session with Beck on his Midnite Vultures album. I went into the studio, and after meeting everyone I noticed that there were pictures of Prince all over the place. I took this to be ironic, especially the posters where Prince was wearing women’s underwear and a sexy face, but then when I heard the music I realised the posters were for real, as the record was very, very funky. I played on a song called ‘Milk and Honey’ and on another one called ‘The Doctor’. After one session everyone was eager to go to a local bar to see a Van Halen tribute band. It was explained to me that this band, who, except for the singer, looked nothing like Van Halen, were the crème de la crème of eighties poodle-hair tribute bands, so I was in for a treat. As my formative years had been in England in the indie eighties, I didn’t quite get the cultural gravitas and importance of Van Halen, and I could only marvel at how enthralled and excited everyone else was, and the joy that these fellas in spandex brought to the faces of my American colleagues. I liked working with Beck. Aside from being supremely talented, he’s also very funny, as are his band, and I stayed good friends with his producer, Mickey Petralia.

  Boomslang

  IT’S AMAZING WHO you meet in an elevator. I’ve met actors, musicians, footballers, fans and Mancunians on holiday. I was in an elevator in New York when a wiry and intense-looking guy said to me in an English accent, ‘I like that new Electronic song.’ It was obvious he was a musician from the way he looked and carried himself. I didn’t know who he was at first, but something about him was familiar. As we got out of the lift he said, ‘See you downstairs,’ and after making a couple of calls I went down to the hotel bar, where there were a lot of rock ’n’ roll people with laminates and crew T-shirts who all seemed to be involved with The Who. After saying a quick hello to John Entwistle, I sat down at a table with my vaguely familiar new acquaintance, and at that moment I realised who he was.

  ‘Do you play the drums?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, I’m playing with The Who tonight at Madison Square Garden.’

  ‘Right!’ I said. ‘Are you Zak Starkey?’

  I’d heard a lot about Zak over the years. He had a reputation for being an amazing drummer, and I knew his dad was Ringo Starr. Our mutual friend Alan Rogan had told me many times that Zak and I should get together as he thought we’d have a lot in common. My and Zak’s friendship took off with supernatural velocity. It was as if we were trying to catch up on every day since we were born. The two of us were really alike. We both knew why our quirks were worth protecting, and we chased down things in life the same way. He was the only person I knew who didn’t drink and was into running but was still kick-ass. As a kid he was into music with as mystic a mindset as I had been, and when I was transforming myself with glam and my guitar, he was doing the same with his drums. The only difference was that when I was watching Marc Bolan in Born to Boogie on the cinema screen, he was watch
ing it happen in real life on the set. I thought that was brilliant, and he did too, and I thought it was brilliant that he did.

  We got together to write some songs. It was just the two of us having a good time with a guitar and drums for a while, and then I remembered that Lee Mavers had told me about a bass player from Liverpool called Edgar ‘Summertyme’ Jones. I contacted Edgar, and before we knew it the three of us were playing a few times a week and I started to think about having a new group. I wrote some songs and I sang on the demos I made so that when I found a singer all they had to do was just show up and not have to worry about writing the words. I’d heard about a singer from an unsigned band in Manchester and was impressed enough by him to think I’d found the right person to stand out front. I played the guy’s CD to Zak and Edgar, and after they heard it Zak said, ‘I thought you were going to be the singer.’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘We don’t need anyone else,’ Edgar said. ‘He’s a bit boring … I think your vocals are better.’

  I had to think about what they were saying. I respected Zak and Ed’s judgement as they really knew what they were doing. We got back to work and all I was thinking was, ‘I’m going to front it?’

  Me and Angie and the kids had moved into a house in Cheshire called Forest Edge. It was run-down and funky when we got it, and the place needed fixing up and some love. The house had been built in the 1920s by the chairman of Rolls-Royce and had beautiful gardens and a courtyard, and outside the front gate was a 200-acre deer park. Forest Edge was the classic ‘rock guitar player’s pile in the country’, or more accurately ‘indie guitar player’s pile in the country’ – like Jimmy Page if he had signed to Rough Trade. We didn’t have a moat, but we did have a big recording studio on the grounds and our own woodland. It was a wonderland for the kids. As with everywhere else Angie and I had lived, our house became the HQ for whatever I was working on, and over the years our place had been used by The The, New Order, Pet Shop Boys, The Charlatans and Oasis, as well as quite a few others who I let use the studio because I liked them. Nile and Sonny grew up around artists and musicians, and the other kids in the neighbourhood liked to come over to our place because there was always interesting things going on and a big black Newfoundland dog called Boogie. It was good for whoever I was working with too, as my musician friends had the benefit of a proper studio while being around a family atmosphere and curious children. My personal life always followed the direction of my artistic path, whatever it meant and wherever it took me, and luckily for me, my family wouldn’t have it any other way. Our home was a residential studio often populated by interesting people, all of whom were great, and some of whom were sometimes a bit crazy, including me.