Re: Kevin Cummins interview: Did Morrissey really...
A good interview, sorry if it's been posted before..(the whole thing)
When did you first meet Morrissey?
"I met Morrissey in the mid to late Seventies when he used to be with Slaughter And The Dogs. I lived in Manchester and you used to see Morrissey at quite a lot of gigs. He'd always come to Bryan Ferry or Roxy Music, Marc Bolan. He was into all that glam thing. I remember him jumping onstage once with Marc Bolan and playing air guitar and then diving into the audience. Bolan didn't know what was going on. And Morrissey was sort of involved with them and Headbanger And The Nosebleeds and I saw the first gig Morrissey ever did when they supported Magazine at the Ritz. With him and Billy Duffy playing guitar. Their only moment together. It was sort of slightly rocky, a bit odd really.
"We were aware of The Smiths, we'd seen them a couple of time, and then I was asked to photograph them for the NME and they were going to put them on the cover. So we did all the pictures in the park and all the shots of Morrissey lying in the grass and so on.
What were your first impressions?
"Pretty shy really. I thought Johnny was more aware of himself. Moz was quite shy the first time we met, although he had very definite ideas of what he wanted to do for pictures. I didn't want to do urban street shots of them. I wanted to photograph them in a park. A lot of my pictures, we shoot out on the street. Because it's practical more than anything. But I thought with The Smiths, it wouldn't really suit being photographed around the rubble and building sites of Manchester, so we went out to a park in Chesire and it was a bit more genteel. And they were realy into that. It was quite a relaxed atmosphere, nice afternoon out sitting in a park."
It's rare for a young group to have such definite ideas.
"I think Morrrissey had always been very aware of his own personality. He wanted to control that side of it as much as he could. The way the band would look, the way the band were photographed, the record sleeves, the t shirts, everything, flowers onstage. Everything was quite orchestrated by Morrissey. He carried that through to his solo career, so that some people might say that he's a megolamaniac. Not me obviously.
So he didn't say much that first shoot?
"We just had a nice day taking pictures. When the pictures went in the paper, it was supposed to be an NME cover and the editor decided no, the Smiths will never be big enough to be on the cover of NME so he put Big Country on. I got a postcard from Morrissey after the pictures went in and he said that picture of himself, the one of him lying on his back with his arms out, had moved him dramatically and he needed a copy of it. So I sent him a ten by eight and he phoned me up and said that wasn't big enough, how big could I do the print. And he eventually bought one that was six foot by four foot.
Really?
"He was quite into, not just the images of himself, if he wanted a photograph or a picture, he had six foot prints of the New York Dolls and Terrence Stamp, so he was very into the big overdramatic statement.
What did he do with it?
"I believe it went on his bedroom wall but I never found out. I might be making that up. Someone in the band once said to me, oh Morrissey puts all the photographs of himself on his bedroom wall but it may have been a wind up. I think it was for his mum.
So he'd made the personal contact. What happened next?
"I photographed them live a lot after that. The problem with the Smiths, because they wanted to control everything they did they tended to use a series of friends and contacts to do pictures. Most of whom would do them without payment. So apart from that session, I didn't really photograph the Smiths, apart from live, until they split up. I was going to photograph them once and I was on the same flight as them from Manchester to London and they were off to the States a few days later, and I was going to do some stuff in America with them, but for some reason it didn't work out. I think again the NME decided they didn't really want to do that American tour and then once they split up I started working much more closely with Morrissey on his own and then I started working with Johnny on his own. And it was quite difficult sometimes because although Johnny wasn't that bothered I'd find for a period that I'd go from one to the other. I was doing a Morrissey tour book when Kill Uncle was out and I'd fly from Frankfurt and I'd go and do some pictures of Electronic and Johnny was go oh how's Moz. I'd have to think what does he want me to say and then I'd go from that back to Morrissey and for about two days Morrissey wouldn't say anything and then he'd say, and how's Bernard Allbran, I think he called him, and he would ask about Johnny in the end. He'd ask about Bernard first which I assumed was code for how's Johnny. I got to a point where I said to Johnny, look do you want to meet Moz because Moz would like to. I think in the end I was semi instrumental in them getting back together to actually chat to each other. They lived really close to each other outside Manchester as well so it was a bit of an awkward position all round.
Like a child in a divorce.
"It was like a messy divorce wasn't it, because they were very close in the band. They were a great partnership, so when they split up neither of them fulfilled that promise in a way. Whatever they did, however much Morrissey's solo stuff was great but I think you almost felt that a lot of those songs had been left over from the Smiths days * viva hate * education in reverse * and every musician Morrissey worked with afterwards you always thought, oh if Johnny had done that how would he have done it. And there was always a sense that they worked better together.
How did you find Morrissey? Does one grow to know Moz?
"I don't think you do really. As long as you get on with him and he likes what you're doing, then you get a little bit closer, but he doesn't sit down and confide in you. I'll have a beer with him. Musicians generally just ask fairly direct questions that aren't about your personal life so it tends to be a more professional relationship than anything else. And I'd do photographs of Morrissey and he'd say, when he's in Europe for instance, can you bring them out and I'd say where are you and he'd say Cologne, and I'd say, I'll just post them to you. And he'd say no no you've got to come and show them to me. So he'd like the persona touch because he'd like to look at the pictures with you and talk about what he liked and what he didn't like, and then he'd say, they worked really well , let's do some more like that, so you'd build on the way you were working. Which was quite a nice way to work with somebody. Whereas Johnny worked in a completely different way. With the Electronic stuff he was just happy to let me get on with it and then go and do another session a few months later. Morrissey always wanted a more hands on approach to everything.
What's he like?
"I've no idea. I like him. I've always liked him. I think he's very creative and he's got a lot of ideas but I think he needs somewhere to channel them now. He's apparently big with the Mexican community in LA, but sorry, so what? He should come back over here and make some music. I don't think it helped, when the NME decided it had had enough of Morrissey.
"I think with Moz we were so desperate for years to put him in the paper. We'd put him on the cover for anything. And he knew. He knew he didn't need to do interviews with the NME. He'd do a q and a for my favourite things and we'd put him on the cover. Or I'd go to Japan to photograph him for a week and he'd write the captions to the pictures and there was no interview. He got such an easy ride from us for so long that when they decided to turn on him, it must have been a real shock. And I think when the NME decided to turn on Morrissey, it was a ludicrous affair to accuse him of racism for using the union flag onstage. Because Oasis have used it since, Blur used it and they're still darlings of the music press. The Who had used it. Suddenly Morrissey was because it suited one person in the NME office.
Do you know how he was affected?
"We've got mutual friends and he was obviously very upset by it all. It was pretty unfounded. It was just the NME had an agenda and they decided they were gong to go after it like a rottweiler. Make their one half minute onstage fit into what they wanted it to be. It was bollocks I thought.