Johnny Marr

by Richard Carman

  The title came to Johnny in a dream, in which a snake (a ‘boomslang’ is a breed of snake, and the word is a Dutch translation of the name ‘tree snake’) approached Johnny and revealed its name. The album was the result of a long period of waiting for Marr; since the last Electronic album he had been talking the project up. It started as a solo process and turned into a band, which then turned into an album. Johnny had a clear concept of what the album would be from the beginning, but as time went on he refined the concept when needed. “I wanted to make a record that was less layered,” Johnny explained. “But when I came to finish the record, I decided to do what came naturally, and what excites me.” The agenda was out of the window, and Johnny decided to add as many ‘colours’ as he could, if they were the right colours. It was irresistible for Johnny to “put a capo on a Gretsch and see what happens.”

  Grant Showbiz heard demos of much of the album before its release, and knew that the project was high quality stuff. “There were versions of that Healers’ album that I just thought were stunning – I heard versions… that I just thought were killer.” The opening track, ‘The Last Ride’, clearly sets the tone for the whole collection. Johnny’s vocal has a Mancunian drawl that is, of course, immediately comparable to Liam Gallagher – perhaps the slight distortion applied hinted that he was not entirely confident in his voice. There’s a feel of John Squire in some of the linking riffs, but that points more to a combination of shared influences than to Marr’s referencing the Roses: there’s far more George Harrison, Cream and Rory Gallagher in the track than there is John Squire. Underpinning the entire track – fluent and melodic and fired by fine percussion – is heavy strumming on Johnny’s favoured acoustic. While the opening two tracks have a very Beatles-feel, Marr is in Neil Young territory on ‘Down On The Corner’: acoustic and breezy, it builds over acoustic guitar and piano to a lilting pace, the electric picking of which does recall a few Smiths moments. The rising crescendo, treated guitar sounds, Bo Diddley riff and harmonica that introduce ‘Need It’ suggest more Smiths reference, but again this is far more Rory Gallagher than Marr, Joyce and Rourke. Johnny’s solos are more extended chorus riffs than showboating, his vocals tight within a narrow range that suits the chugging boogie of the track.

  ‘You Are The Magic’ strums off in Oasis fashion, but is soon coloured with sonic details that mark it out as something else. Johnny’s wah-wah, discrete percussion and rootsy bass recall some of the Madchester dance scene of ten years before; it’s funky, dissonant and groovy, ending on gently looped guitar sounds, and Johnny was pleased that it was also compared to ‘Crazy Horse’. ‘InBetweens’ is another rocker reminiscent of album-track Oasis, but the song was very much about himself and people of his generation who were ‘between labels’. “They’re interested in esoteric things, like what’s going on in the ether,” said Johnny, “but at the same time they know that it’s important to [match] the right shirt with the right shoes!” For Johnny, the people caught up in the in-between corners of life are the ones with their eyes pointing in the right direction. As he expanded, “they’re not sitting on the couch getting sucked into so-called reality TV and the shopping channel.”

  Six tracks in, Johnny’s vocal style is well-established – he sounds confident and assured at the microphone. Of course this was not what many Marr fans had expected, but if they had been looking for rockabilly Johnny with esoteric Morrissey-lite lyrics then they hadn’t watched Marr closely enough over the last few years. ‘Another Day’ has a simplicity of approach tempered by tambourine and a John Lennon vocal, major seventh chords and gentle harmonies that belie someone steeped in country rock as well as in grinding rock ’n’ roll, a major key psychedelic optimism that is very pleasing. ‘Headland’, at a little over a minute and a half, is the shortest track on the album, an acoustic instrumental loaded with atonal guitar clips, threatening feedback growls and bubbling undercurrents in a lighter tone. It introduces ‘Long Gone’, another heavily riffed, loose drummed song. Johnny described the song as being inspired by the rock ’n’ roll carousel. “It’s about hanging out with five pretty crazy fans after a The The concert in Los Angeles in 1992… ending up in the ocean at Venice Beach at around six in the morning, and getting my clothes wet…what happens to everybody really!”

  ‘Something To Shout About’ slows the pace again, acoustic strumming and lovely finger-picking on electric guitar. Johnny’s vocal is one of the most affecting on the album, high in register and sincere amongst a wash of backing vocals. ‘Sympathy for The Devil’-style percussion introduces the last track of the album, ‘Bangin’ On’, with Johnny’s chords hard and fast, Starkey’s percussion heavy and tough.

  * * *

  While Johnny could probably have signed with any number of labels, he was keen that – in an echo of The Smiths first contract with Rough Trade –he did so on his own terms and not be ‘managed’ by people who didn’t understand him. “Some of the people I would meet with had this look in their eye, like ‘Shit – this guy’s an anarchist,’” he said. The last thing Marr wanted was to have to make a video in which he had to “walk around Barcelona in a white suit with a model.” Instead, he signed with the indie co-op label iMusic, led by old friend Marc Geiger, retaining control over the music rather than surrender to the whim of a major traditional label. Old habits die hard, and the parallels with the original deal Rough Trade are obvious. “I was pretty much in the same situation with The Smiths,” recounted Johnny. “We were invited down to record companies, sitting under posters of people I couldn’t relate to.”

  While setting up a deal that reflected his priorities in the early days of The Smiths, Johnny also cleaned up another element of his past when he reunited with early Smiths manager Joe Moss who became his manager once again. The pair go back a long way, before The Smiths, and it was Joe who first encouraged Johnny to realise that there was more than local bands and gigging around south Manchester ahead of him. The synergy of Johnny, band, label and management was complete.

  Should Johnny Marr have waited so long before releasing what is effectively his debut solo album? Some have noted that if Johnny had released something under his own name early in his post-Smiths career, and perhaps put out half a dozen albums over the years, then his solo career might have followed a trajectory similar to Morrissey’s and the critical surprise that greeted Boomslang have been avoided. The problem for Boomslang was that Johnny had no solo credentials for fans to compare it to: while Morrissey’s next album might be a masterpiece, or it may disappoint, at least people had an idea of where he would be coming from. With Boomslang, nobody quite knew what to expect from Johnny Marr, and so it either met with the listeners expectations or disappointed them – there was little middle ground.

  But such expectations missed the point of Johnny’s career in its entirety. From working with Morrissey, through The The, Electronic and occasional one-offs with the likes of Kirsty MacColl, Billy Bragg or Beth Orton, all of Johnny’s work has been about cooperation and collaboration. Whether forming a band with Andy Rourke or shacking up with Modest Mouse, whether lighting up a spliff at the desk in The Hacienda or joining The Pretenders on tour, music for Johnny has been constantly evolving ‘community,’ a social activity based around music. One of the key elements to Johnny’s music over the years has been that it has always been the child of creative comradeship. If Morrissey’s lyrics spoke to a body of people lonely within themselves and looking for a voice that mirrored their own relationships and agendas, Johnny’s music did exactly the same, because it was born out of the very emotional correspondence that Morrissey’s lyrics were. A Johnny Marr solo album was never going to be Johnny alone with a finely-picked acoustic, nor was it going to be simply a step on from The Smiths, as though the intervening years had never happened. It was always going to be a collaborative effort of some kind, again a snapshot of where he was on the journey at the time.

  So, of course, while the world waited for Johnny to present an album all about Th
e Smiths and his relationship with Morrissey, he couldn’t win. We were post-Mondays, post-Oasis, post-Roses. If the album had been filled with Smiths-like grooves then Marr would have inevitably been accused of sitting back and resting on former glories. If he had made an experimental album of tape loops and guitar clicks he would have been guilty of excessive self-regard. If he sounded anything like the bands who owed him so much debt themselves then again he would be chastised. Whichever way he turned there would be an enormous raft of fans ready to be disappointed, and just as many (more enlightened ones) ready to simply go and find out where Johnny was at.

  In fact, the album rocks. Sonically varied, confident, laid back but punching its weight, it is an assured piece of work from some heavyweight talents. Given that this was generally perceived as his first solo outing, could listeners expect any revelations? Were any of the songs about Morrissey, The Smiths, or the time in Johnny’s life that still meant so much to his fans? Johnny put the record straight on this one with aplomb. “None of my songs are about Morrissey,” he said. “I think that would be a bit showbiz, a bit cheesy. A bit corny. Singing about someone I used to work with sixteen years ago in a cryptic fashion so that people could decode it? That would be a bit cheesy!”

  Billy Bragg was a big fan of Boomslang. “I thought it was great,” he said, when interviewed for this book. “I thought it was great of him to finally do what he wanted to do – his own project. If you are constantly working a lot with side-men it can be hard.” Grant Showbiz also feels that to some degree Boomslang was Johnny coming home. To have lived through the exhilarating career of The Smiths at such a ridiculously young age and still to be contributing so many years later was a remarkable achievement. “I sort of looked at Johnny’s life and thought, ‘it’s been fantastic, and he’s been so lucky,’” says Grant. “But I don’t know how I would have taken to being king of the world at twenty one, then had the rest of your life to go on [to].” Simply getting to Boomslang intact, and with such a creditable body of work behind him apart from The Smiths was remarkable. What was pleasing was that Johnny simply decided to follow his own nose on the project. With friends like Bernard Sumner telling him that he should have the confidence to just sound like himself (“What the fuck is wrong with sounding like you?” Sumner had asked him), Johnny had come to the same conclusion. “I had to tell myself, ‘Come on Johnny, make the assumption that your audience wants you to sound like you,’” he told one interviewer.

  According to Bragg, it was evident that the album was a personal labour of love. “He put a lot of himself in that record I think,” he said, and – in response to the critics who unfavourably compared the album to Oasis – noted that such a comparison was “bitterly unfair”, given the support that Johnny had given to the Gallaghers himself. Johnny pointed out that if listeners thought he was influenced by Oasis, they should go check out the rock family tree. “I’m not influenced by Oasis,” he said. “The Smiths were very, very influenced by the White Album, so – years later – [Noel’s] obviously heard the White Album a few times!” The message is clear – if we sound similar it’s because we are coming from the same places, not because one of us copies the other. Billy has suffered a similar backlash at times himself. “The point is that the public get a fixed idea of you in their heads… it’s like me with my politics: if I don’t make those kind of records people aren’t interested.” Bragg sees a classic opportunity to knock someone down being taken by the press, who had – in the main – supported Marr since the demise of The Smiths. “There is an element of… they’ve lauded you all that time, they want to give you a going over now,” he says. “A lot of us have had to put up with that sort of mentality.”

  In the wake of Boomslang’s release, Johnny ceaselessly fielded the endless questions about The Smiths and why – after so many years – he suddenly wanted to be a singer. With the tour over, there was more production work to finish off, as Johnny handled the second Haven album, All For A Reason. The record was released in March 2004. Marr once again brought the best out of the four-piece, playing the role of producer again but adding harmonica and backing vocals too. Since Between The Senses, although it was tiring for the band to be constantly asked about The Smiths, they had found a supplementary audience that came to them because of Johnny’s history. “In America,” said vocalist Gary Briggs, “a quarter of our audiences were curious Smiths fans. You’ve got to respect that, so we’ll answer as many Smiths questions as [are] put to us!” In some respects that probably made it easier for Johnny Marr.

  CHAPTER TEN

  BACK TO THE OLD HOUSE

  In October 2004, the world was rocked by the sudden death of John Peel. To say ‘the world was rocked’ is no exaggeration – Peel’s death touched everyone who had ever heard of him, from mega-star bands who had received a leg up from him, to bedsit radio junkies who had listened to him under the duvet for decades. The BBC and the record industry in general went into justifiable overdrive in trying to pay tribute to a remarkable man, whose input into the pop music of the last thirty and more years was perhaps the greatest single contribution to the genre.

  Johnny was understandably distraught at the news, Peel having been the early champion of The Smiths. He summarised his feelings at the loss thus: “John Peel was very important to The Smiths, particularly in the early days. He was the first person to play our single, and we would often try out new songs when we did sessions for his show. He knew what was going on, and went out of his way to promote good music, and the underdog.” Johnny added one more modest observation. “He was a nice guy too!”

  While the world mourned John Peel, Johnny, who was appearing with the brothers Neil and Tim Finn, honoured the late DJ with an impromptu version of his favourite song at a couple of gigs, notably in Liverpool. Having already kicked the audience’s backside with ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’, Johnny introduced the classic Gerry and The Pacemakers’ ‘Ferry Across The Mersey’ in tribute to Peel. “A few people in the audience started shouting ‘Teenage Kicks’ (famously Peel’s favourite song)” remembered Marr. “I just went into it. Never played it before in my life! It was a good moment.”

  By 2005, Zak Starkey had joined Oasis for their tour, an arrangement that Johnny appeared totally cool with. David Tolan had joined on drums, and Iwan Gronow of Haven was playing the bass. Johnny was back in his home studio, making demos for new Healers material alone. Some of the songs would appear in forthcoming gigs over the next couple of years, but at the point that this book went to press, no follow-up to Boomslang has appeared or been publicly scheduled. Early in the summer, Johnny played with a number of his teenage heroes at the Meltdown festival in London, this year (each season has a different curator who chooses themes and performers to appear) curated by Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye. Johnny was on the bill with Beth Orton, Bert Jansch and others, including fellow-Mancunian Roy Harper. The year 2005 was one of the most memorable of recent seasons, when American and British folk artists stole the show but where perhaps the guitar was the major star.

  Bert Jansch played a beautiful solo set, and was joined on stage by Beth Orton, whose gorgeous, modest voice blended perfectly with Bert’s faultless playing. Johnny came on after Beth and, locked together as though there was only one guitar on stage, the seated pair played acoustic versions of ‘Pretty Saro’ and ‘Pretty Polly’ like old guys who had played together for years. The Healers replaced Jansch when he left the stage, and the band leapt into ‘Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want’. After Neil Finn had sung a cappella, Johnny returned with Tony Shanahan to join him on ‘Throw Your Arms Around Me’ and sang a verse of ‘Lay Me Down’ with the all-star line-up for a finale.

  While Johnny was busy working, The Smiths continued to be a part of the present as much as the past. While Smiths conventions have become de rigeur on both sides of the Atlantic, in April of 2005, Manchester Metropolitan University and the city’s Institute of Popular culture ran an academic conference with The Smiths as the subje
ct of the two day brain-fest. The supposed purpose of the event was to redress the lack of ‘serious examinations’ of the band over the years. ‘Why Pamper Life’s Complexities?: A Symposium On The Smiths’ was opened by author Dave Haslam, and included seminars with titles like ‘Architecture Through Music: Experiencing Manchester and Expressing Manchester’ and ‘When In Hulme Do As The Humans Do: Remapping Manchester and The Smiths Using Psychogeographics’, the latter chaired by the redoubtable CP Lee. The event was rounded off with a gig by The Smyths tribute band and an exhibition of Stephen Wright’s photos at Salford Lads Club. It was nice to know that a band dedicated to the memory of Morrissey, Marr, Rourke and Joyce could still, nearly twenty years on, turn the toe of a psychogeographicisist.

  In December, Johnny appeared on another collaboration, this time providing guitar and harmonica to Fictions, the new album from Anglo-French chanteuse Jane Birkin. His contributions were amongst others on a variety of songs both original and covers, provided by Rufus Wainwright, Beth Gibbons, Neil Hannon, Kate Bush and others. Rumours started to appear towards the end of the year that, while the band were booked onto the bill for a charity concert in Manchester, The Smiths would be reforming for the event. While these were pretty quickly scotched, the line that at least Andy and Johnny would play together was not.

  By 2006, even the most ardent of rock ’n’ roll rumour mongers had realised that the ‘Beatles To Reform’ stories were unlikely to have any credence. Despite the deaths of both Keith Moon and John Entwistle, however, Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend would still appear billed as The Who. It was no surprise then, that the Eighties band least likely to reform was still under pressure to do just that. While any remaining wounds between Johnny and Andy Rourke seemed healed, the various relationships between the four members were simply not active enough for a reunion to take place. Johnny wouldn’t confirm the amounts on the table, but it was rumoured that they were offered $5 million to play the Coachella festival in the USA. “I was offered twice as much for us to play in New York,” he confirmed. “And Hyde Park. And God knows where else.” It was nice to know that money at least would not be the deciding factor in whether The Smiths ever did reform.