Johnny Marr has looked back at the sage advice Paul McCartney gave him in the wake of The Smiths‘ 1987 break-up.
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Marr left the band in July of that year, with his guitar duties briefly overtaken by former Easterhouse member Ivor Perry. However, Perry failed to gel with Morrissey and by the time The Smiths’ fourth and final album, ‘Strangeways, Here We Come’, came out in September, the band were effectively finished.
Speaking to MOJO recently, Marr looked back on that fraught period, and said Beatles legend McCartney was instrumental in navigating it.
On spending “one long, incredible day” with him and his wife Linda, Marr said: “Linda was so generous as a person, she was asking me all about my life. And he was sat there so I just told him about the break-up of the band.
“I looked to him and waited and he just said, ‘That’s bands for you.’ It’s such a brilliant answer coming from him. Over the years, I’ve been asked to give advice. There is just a time to say, ‘That’s bands for you.’”
He also touched on how, post-Smiths, he found purpose in being a “ringer”, and didn’t feel a pressure to form another band right away.
“I just have to give credit to the people I was working with – [The The’s] Matt Johnson is one of my closest friends to this day. Bernard Sumner and Chrissie Hynde – that collection of people. Because I get very tight with people, you know.
“If you’re looking at it like a CV it seems to be flitting around a lot, but I know when I’ve got a good job – playing with Bryan Ferry and turning up on his records. There’s a time to not look too deeply at stuff,” he said.
McCartney could’ve been another name on Marr’s CV, given at that time, he was invited to play with him. While the sessions never led to anything permanent nor any official recordings, Marr opened up about the experience in a 2012 interview with The Auto Jubilator, and said: “I didn’t do a recording session with him as such, but we did get together for a good long eight-or-nine-hour day, and just played and played and played very intensely, really loudly.
“He can play that bass and sing pretty well, I must say. That was a fun time. That was pretty much the first thing I did when The Smiths stopped being together. I’ve seen him a couple of times since. We’ve not played together, but he’s always very friendly and very gracious.”
Earlier this month, Morrissey and Marr both helped to create a rare new seven-inch release from The Smiths, as part of an upcoming Rough Trade boxset.
The legendary London independent label will release its second volume of newly printed classic singles, titled ‘Rough Trade 45s: Volume 2’, on October 30. It will comprise tracks from The Fall, Aztec Camera, Mazzy Star, Scritti Politti, Robert Wyatt and more, and the boxset will be limited to just 1000 copies, released on October 30. Pre-order here.
Among them is a new release from The Smiths, with ‘The Headmaster Ritual’ on the A-side, and ‘I Want The One I Can’t Have’ on the flip side. Both songs originally appeared on the band’s second album ‘Meat Is Murder’ in 1985, but they were never released as a single on Rough Trade.
Now, they will be available as a single for the first time, with Morrissey and Marr both requesting the two tracks.
