Johnny Marr was interviewed by BBC Music 6 hosts Radcliffe and Maconie today ahead of a few live shows planned for this weekend. During the interview Marr revealed he's going to put a live album out (implied that he might be recording at some U.K. shows this fall) and he's written the soundtrack to a new Julianne Moore film which will be released this October. Marr was asked about the status of his autobiography and admitted that he's procrastinated a bit, but has at least started on it and hopes to finish it after his tour is over:
"I've started, I've written quite a bit of it...I'm writing it myself, I don't want to use a ghost writer or a journalist or anything, and I really enjoy it, but it takes a lot of time...it means not writing music, and I've been writing some new songs as well. I'm going to get down to finishing it off when this tour is over.
I'm not really writing it in chronological order. I've done some bits of it, I've probably done about 20 percent. I'm looking forward to getting it finished, I want it done, I want to do a good job of it.
If people already kind of like what I do, records and all of that, if by the end of the book they want to hang out with me, then that's the job done, really. I want to celebrate a lucky life...it's not going to be a Disney thing, I want to be straight-headed about things, I want it to be like my life, intense and interesting and a lot of joy in it, and some of the other stuff that has been more mysterious, I want to represent that properly. I want to cover the whole thing."
Another highlight of the interview was a discussion about how Smiths songs were created -- Marr would famously compose the music, much like a backing track, then give the music to Morrissey. The hosts asked Marr if he was ever disappointed with what Morrissey came up with lyrically. Marr had only positive things to say:
"It's a complete surprise as to what goes on top, and then you react to that, and that's great...I was always really, really pleased to have another song...for some reason I always loved it."
Marr didn't want to discuss details about any particular songs because he didn't want to spoil it for fans, but he did reveal that some of the Smiths' instrumentals were intended to be instrumental and others weren't:
"Some of the instrumentals he (Morrissey) couldn't get a handle on, and a couple of them, we decided were going to be written as instrumental b-sides, "Oscillate Wildly" was one like that, that's why it has a very strong melody."
Listen to the archive of the interview here (starts ~ 36 minutes into the broadcast).
Published July 7th, 2015 @ 6:50 PM