Johnny Marr was interviewed by the UK's Radio X in front of a live audience on June 14th in celebration of the release of Call The Comet. The full video interview was posted today by Radio X -- the ninety minute video covers Marr's new album, songwriting, and his successful music career. The highlight of the interview was Marr opening up about the devastating breakup of The Smiths and his commentary about working in Electronic with Bernard Sumner.
When Marr was asked whether he'll collaborate with Sumner again he poked fun at Sumner's notoriously long album-making process saying "no one would see me for three and a half, four years" then went on to discuss the importance of Electronic and how working with Sumner, Neil Tennant, and Chris Lowe made him a better songwriter. He went on to credit Sumner, Matt Johnson, Chrissie Hynde, and Kirsty MacColl for helping him not only get over the "devastating" breakup of The Smiths, but how they helped him develop as a person.
Read Marr's comments below:
"If I was to do another album with Bernard no one would see me for three and a half, four years. Electronic takes SO long. You know why? It's pretty obvious why that is, right? Well, if you think I've made, how many albums have I made in the last five years? About 11, right? So something in that equation is slowing me down and his name is Bernard Sumner."
"With Electronic, the first album was great. We analyzed the hell out of ourselves on the second album but there were a few songs on there that I really loved. I mean, one of my favorite ever ever songs as everybody knows is "Get The Message." It's so simple. "Get The Message," "Forbidden City," there's a whole bunch of songs that we really like. I actually think the best Electronic album to quote Alan Partridge is Electronic's greatest hits. It actually is the best album 'cause we were a singles band really.
But in all honesty the best thing about for me about Electronic was being Bernard Sumner's best mate for 9 years. 'Cause he's just that cool. He was a good guy to be the best mate of. It was a lot of good times and everything. And the first album the people that like it really love it. I've got a whole sort of thing about Electronic.
Without Electronic I wouldn't have got to be where I am now because the main thing is that I learned -- the Smiths had already done seventy-odd songs that have now become really revered, but without going into the real boring technical details I learned to be such much better songwriter from working with Bernard Sumner and Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe. The stuff that I do now on my records that is a skill that I learned from those guys. Bernard's sort of excitement factor in he's just got a real interesting way of looking at the world. And Neil's pop smarts and Chris' sound smarts -- yeah, it's a whole thing that people don't realize but I know that some smart things that I do in songs sometimes like going around a bit three times when you think it's going around four, little weird arrangements things I learned a lot from Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe actually, so. Yeah, I would never swap any of that for the world really.
I needed to be around a certain kind of person when the Smiths split because you can imagine I was 24 and I was really really fucking heartbroken. I wasn't going byeeeee, jolly up. It was really devastating for me cuz I was forced into it. That's the simple way of explaining something really complicated.
So you do a lot worse than have Matt Johnson as your mate in London and Bernard Sumner as your mate in Manchester. 'Cause they're really very significant fellows and Chrissie Hynde and Kirsty MacColl. I had so many good people...We all know when you have these amazing people in your life you think, wow, shit, if I hadn't had those people I wouldn't be who I am today...Kirsty, Chrissie, Matt and Bernard were very much about the development of me as a person and just being amazing mates that I learned a lot from. And it backed me up actually, and were behind me going "this is bullshit, what you're going through is bullshit. Let's make a track let's go on tour. The The vs the world, don't worry about it." So you know, that's what happened.
Published June 18th, 2018
