Other Ex-Smiths

NME interview about the fallout from the Rick Astley/Blossoms cover project:

“We knocked on his dressing room door and said, ‘Look… We probably should have told you, but we were just too scared.’
“How do you turn around to one of your heroes and go, ‘I’m starting a covers band with Rick Astley playing your songs?’ There’s no easy way to say that. Even the most f***ing confident person in the world would struggle to say that. He was like, ‘It’s water under the bridge – let’s hug it out’.”

https://www.nme.com/news/music/blos...SiWBcYqinqoVztftBOmWnmaxKL36HfIq9guV6Y0b_WSf8

Give me your top 5 Smiths songs?

-How Soon Is Now?
-The Headmaster Ritual
-Bigmouth Strikes Again
-There Is A Light That Never Goes Out
-Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me

And finally, what are the top 5 songs you’ve been involved with since the Smiths?

-Get The Message - Electronic
-Dashboard - Modest Mouse
-Slow Emotion Replay - The The
-City Of Bugs - The Cribs
-No Time To Die - Billie Eilish

It was a strange little interview on Steve Wright on Radio 2 this afternoon, with Johnny. Aside from Steve mentioning The Smiths once at the very start, in his intro about Johnny, they were not mentioned at all, even when Johnny was talking about his early years as a musician, etc. And then there was a brief exchange near the end that went something like this:

Steve Wright: Now, are you OK with me asking you the question that you probably don't want me to ask you about? You know the one.
Johnny: Sure, go for it.
Steve Wright: When did you last talk to Morrissey, or have any contact with him?
Johnny: I guess, 18 years ago. Maybe 15?
Steve Wright: Wow. And so, what are the chances of you ever maybe working together in the future?
Johnny: Zero.

And that was that.

---

Clarification (March 1, 2022):
The exact wording of Steve's question to Johnny was:

"So what do you see in the future for any kind of personal professional relationship with Morrissey? Could that ever happen?"...

Johnny Marr interview - The Times

Johnny Marr tells his side.


Excerpt:

A month on the guitarist explains his decision to come out fighting. “When you’re attacked out of the blue, particularly in public, you have to defend yourself. The letter was designed to be insulting, wasn’t it? That has to have been the idea. If it’s something that’s not based in fact, you have to react in kind, which is just” — he curls his lip — “with ridicule.” Tellingly, he doesn’t use the M word.

---

Related items:

• Johnny Marr responds to Morrissey's open letter via Twitter (January 26, 2022)
• Morrissey Central: "OPEN...

From there we turn to Lou's fellow contrarian Morrissey and the "severed alliance" between him and former Smiths bandmate Johnny Marr. With the latter releasing a new album this month, Kate and the RBP crew reflect on the very different personalities (and values) of the two Mancunians.

J'en ai marre?

Johnny Marr: ‘When I play Smiths songs I experience this huge wave of elation’

Particularly liked Bernard Butler's question...

---

Excerpt:
Did the Smiths ever fall out over football or politics?
Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester

We never discussed football so that’s that. And we never fell out over politics, but we probably would now.

Morrissey’s recent political views have cast a shadow over the Smiths for me – reaching back into the past and tainting something that was very important to me. I’m so disappointed in him. Has it impacted how you feel about the Smiths or are you able to separate the past from the present, the band from the man? I find it very difficult to do so.
Johnny Spence, Northern Ireland

It hasn’t impacted how I feel about the Smiths. That’s all I can say about...

Excerpt:

Something about making The Queen Is Dead you’ve never shared publicly

The Smiths have been pretty much done to death really by everyone who was involved, and plenty of people who weren’t. It’s a shame that so much was said without the benefit of maturity and hindsight and that there were so many agendas going around for so many years. But I guess it’s all part of the band’s kind of complicated story [annotation].

The truth was that there was loads of love in it. So maybe that’s the story that everybody is missing. Maybe that’s a surprise that everybody who is still interested needs to be reminded of: One of the reasons why they liked the sound of it and why it sounds the way it does is because there’s so much love in it. And there was love in the making of it. There was love in the...

Dear @officialmoz. An ‘open letter’ hasn’t really been a thing since 1953, It’s all ‘social media’ now. Even Donald J Trump had that one down. Also, this fake news business…a bit 2021 yeah ? #makingindiegreatagain

---

Related item:

• "OPEN LETTER TO JOHNNY MARR." (January 25, 2022)

---

Media item:

• Radio X: Johnny Marr hits back after Morrissey asks him to stop mentioning him in interviews - January 26, 2022