I’ve heard that the Healers gigs you’ve played so far have been, in a word, loud. Has that satisfied an urge for ...
the rock demon in me? [Laughs] I got so tired of seeing bands in Manchester who were sub-Nirvana or sub-Oasis, and I started to think, “Are there no girls in music anymore?” I’m primarily around a lot of women, because most of my friends I work with, the guys in my studio, when we’ve got time away from each other, I hang out with my wife’s friends, you know? They’re frankly more fun, more so than the miserable bastards that are on my payroll. So anyway, I was very conscious of these girls going out to see bands. Are they gonna relate to these four guys pretending to be like very surly onstage? It was very boring. They don’t necessarily need to see women onstage to relate, but these guys were just not sexy, not playing sexy music. I thought, “That’s not right. Congas are in.” Also being a T.Rex fan I fancy the idea of having percussion in rock ‘n’ roll. Whatever synchronicity was at play led me to come across this great percussion player, Liz Bonney, so she came around. So it was the core of me, Zak and Alonza and then Liz, and then I wanted some technology involved as well so it wasn’t strictly guitar-based, and Liz introduced me to this wild guy, Lee Spencer. He plays keyboards. I did have an agenda of volume, electricity and rhythm, because I don’t have a natural desire to get up on a stage. That came to me late in my career. It’s unusual, most musicians assume that when you make a record, you then go onstage.

Well, for a lot of people, being onstage is the payoff, it’s being in the spotlight.
Everyone I know is like that. But with me, I grew up with this obsessive idea about the seven-inch 45, which I regarded as an almost mystical object. And the process by which those things are made has been magic and mysterious. I was so hung up on that thing and studios and what goes on in studios that there really wasn’t that much space for me to think, “Ain’t it great to go out on the road?” I don’t have any kind of problem with being onstage, I just have this overt attraction to recording studios and the process of orchestrating records and guitars and hanging out with players and so on. It’s also a refuge for me away from the bullshit.

Do you think that’s also you being a bit of a perfectionist? In the studio, you’re in a controlled environment, sound-wise, but onstage things can go wrong.
That hadn’t occurred to me but, yeah, I think that’s right.

I’m not trying to call you a control freak.
No, I think you’re right. Because I like things to sound absolutely great. It’s not enough that everyone’s getting their rocks off—I like it to have a good sound. About the live thing, I’ve found a way to make the prospects of going out onstage exciting. We went out and we’re very loud and we jammed very long and some people went, “What the fuck is that?” We took most of the songs that ended up on the record and extended them and made them heavier. We wouldn’t have gone out live had we not been invited, anyway. Oasis invited us and I just thought, “OK, now’s the time to sort of put my toe in the water.” And you’re about to go out in front of an audience who don’t know the material, don’t know who I am and about five minutes before showtime a ripple of a rumor would go around these 5,000 or 13,000 people that it’s Johnny Marr’s new band. Of which probably 200 of them said “Really?” and the rest of them said “Who?” Half of the rest of them said, “Yeah, the guy’s in a band with one of Kula Shaker.” “Oh, right!” [Laughs] It was a young audience, you know? That was tough, but really good. It’s hard to go out in front of a very big audience waiting for their favorite long-haired Mancunians to come out.

The people who did know your work were probably expecting an army of 12-string Rickenbackers jangling away.
Funnily enough, I’ve started playing the 12-string Rickenbacker again. Someone passed me one in a shop and it just sounded like me. I went, “OK. Guilty.” Also playing with Lisa Germano and Neil Finn brought that out.

Have you seen 24 Hour Party People?
I saw it very recently.

I was wondering what you thought of it.
Well, I was sent the script about two years ago and was asked to do a cameo in it. Before I read the script I said, “Oh, sounds good—only if I could be one of Joy Division’s roadies.” Being obsessive, I considered really getting into the role, like DeNiro, Raging Bull, eat pasta for breakfast. But then I read the script and went, “Oh, no. Forget that.” It was difficult for me to be objective about it because I was so close to it and it’s primarily about people I know and a scene I grew up around. I only saw it about six weeks ago because I’d made up my mind it was dire. When I saw it, I was pleasantly surprised because I thought it was quite sweet. Because to me, it’s about Tony Wilson, Alan Erasmus and Rob Gretton, who I knew very well. It’s got a bit of poignancy.

I thought it was very clever. Steve Coogan is a well-known comedian over in England, but we really hadn’t seen him before.
He’s really funny. His portrayal of Tony Wilson isn’t that far off the mark. Tony is that ridiculous. I thought the guy playing Bernard Sumner was a bit lazy in his research. It doesn’t take much to dye your hair black to be in Joy Division. Put a tie on, you know? Bernard in Joy Division is actually Bernard doing “The Perfect Kiss” in New Order from 1985 in terms of the way he looks.

How do you mean?
In the movie, when it was supposed to be Joy Division, it was actually Bernard five years hence. Bernard didn’t discover peroxide and long trousers until at least ‘84. Get it together, man. But that’s just me being too close to it.

The film was admittedly focused on Factory, but did you find it strange that the Smiths weren’t featured? Was the music scene in Manchester more intertwined than was portrayed?
I was around the Hacienda all the time. Without my involvement in the Hacienda, the Smiths wouldn’t have had a lot of the resources and insights that we had into what was going on, frankly. The scene that’s the very first night in the Hacienda essentially was right, because the point was that nobody came. It was essentially right, but it was nothing like that. I was there. It was dark, the floor was wet, it was different. But to answer your question, the Smiths very much peeled ourselves away from Factory Records and consciously made the decision to sign with Rough Trade.

Which is London-based.
Yes. Mostly because the Fall was on Rough Trade; Morrissey was particularly a fan of the Fall and Monochrome Set. We didn’t want to be regarded in that family of Manchester bands. But I played on the Quando Quango record in 1983 with Bernard Sumner. Bernard was a mate and the guy I used to live with was a DJ there, and Tony Wilson came into my clothes shop the day they got the plans for the Hacienda and unfolded the plans on the counter of my shop. The blueprints for the building. It was really important for someone of my age, 17 or 18 in ‘80, ‘81 because it was the only place at the time to see bands. And there were a lot of bands at the time that sort of went into the melting pot. Birthday Party, Gun Club ...

When you work at a magazine, you tend to compartmentalize things, and I was thinking that this year, Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto came back and did the Buzzkunst thing, and a Factory band called Crispy Ambulance reunited—
Really? [laughing, incredulous] They came back? No one’s said the words “ambulance” and “crispy” to me in the same sentence since 1983. Really? And there was Fire Engines and Josef K, I saw them at the Hacienda. That place was my formative years.

You’re still around Manchester recording bands, right?
My place could be anywhere in the world, really. I live a pretty insular life. I rarely go out, and don’t need to. I’ve got a real studio with a live room and high ceilings and an engineer. The studio could be anywhere in the world, but not London. The decision to move to Manchester was to follow where the music was. It wasn’t because that’s my home or that’s my roots or my family’s there or anything. I was in California after the Smiths split and was happy to be away from the British music scene. Friends were looking after my house and, as I remember it, I was speaking to them on the phone and they were saying, “Oh, we had an amazing night last night. Went down to the Hacienda and got in a few E’s and then we came back here and we listened to Donovan. Did you check out any Donovan? [Note: Marr is most likely talking about the reggae/dancehall artist Donovan, not the ‘60s folk singer.] He’s really, really good. And we’re listening to (Detroit techno duo) Inner City.” And I’m just sitting in L.A. with MTV on with Poison keeping me company. Damn, sounds like a really good scene over there—in my house, you know? Had it been in Glasgow or Seattle or Sydney, I’d have gone there. It just happened to be in my hometown.

Do you have a certain status in Manchester, where other bands seek your advice and things like that?
Whenever I’m asked whether I give bands advice, I always feel uneasy about it. It seems like a very patronizing, pompous, self-elevating position to take. However, if you’re around your friends, you just pop ‘em straight: “The live sound sucks because the guitar player’s got a bad amp.” You just give them the amp. Which is what I did with Oasis in the early days. I had no idea that Oasis were gonna be as huge as they are, nor did they or anybody. It was phenomenal success. I just gave Noel a couple guitars and introduced him to my management. And let him live in my flat—because I like him. I thought he was a nice guy, you know? I’ve given a lot of people a lot of equipment because I don’t like waste. Not because I’m particularly an angel, but because I got helped out by a few nice people along the way. Maybe it’s karma or whatever, or just being polite. My parents—particularly because of the Oasis thing—still get tapes and CDs sent to their house. They’re often not very good, but if it just takes a phone call to give someone a little bit of encouragement, it’s not a difficult thing to do.

Next Page >>