EOB (Ed O'Brien) IN ISOLATION with Johnny Marr (03/06/2021)

you are now live hello we're live good evening good afternoon good morning wherever you are hi everybody it is thursday june the 3rd in the year of our lord 2021 which lord that is i don't know um that's not um anti-christian or anything that's just a you know anyway before i dig a deeper hole um great i'm going to pull johnny in because without further ado you don't want to hear me waffling on so i'm going to pull johnny in right now okay see all where is it i'm going to hang on a sec i'm gonna hang a sec here we go okay where's well um hang on a sec as you can tell i'm not very up on this i'm going to there we go here we go with me let's get the man on johnny hi red how you doing i'm all right i'm okay i'm all right how are you yeah good all right i'm enjoying this weather yeah it's it's all right manchester it's been it's been tropical for a few days so everyone's losing their minds obviously can you hear me okay i can hear you great i can hear you great how you do i mean have you have you finished the record yeah yeah i finished i finished it about like about a week ago because when we last spoke you just you said um you had like uh like one lyric or one riff or something right yeah it was driving me crazy yeah yeah it was a it was a line yeah that you know how it is yeah when did when when did it come to you was it like when you weren't thinking about it or was it did it just drop it of course it came to me like three o'clock in the morning because while i'm supposed to be asleep honestly seriously seriously why why why why does that happen but um most of it's been that way to be honest yeah they've been back to being kind of my nocturnal ways almost on the last sort of couple of albums i've been living pretty nocturnally and i said hey listen this is no this is no life for an an adult you know and uh this is you know living like like a dead one was a it's gotta say a student but anyway you know what i mean so uh but it just seems to go that way really for me like i don't know i don't try i just i just kind of i think it's better when there's no static around yeah there's it's not just a matter of like your brain waves slowing down it's just this too much static in the air these days so it kind of comes to me a lot of good ideas come to me in the night thing i totally agree with you there's so much noise in the daytime literally or and then you think about all the frequencies going off there's a stillness to the night that um that's when the stuff happens right yeah it's well it's been that way for me on the last few albums so you know i've got you know you think you're asleep and you're not really and then you just wake up and go pow you got it yeah put up you know honestly i had this thing with on the last album that the track the tracers and um it was just it was called tracers for a long time like months because i had i had that title and the concepts and all of that quite a while before i started doing that record and honestly man it was like half five in the morning i would just woke up thinking i had this major revelation it should be the traces and and i sent the i sent a text to myself and we sort of eventually got back to sleep and often when we're doing a festival whatever and i look at it on the set list i go that was a good move good races is a big it's a big difference but you know it's funny because that's one of the things you'll know this because you've written a lot more lyrics than i have but that's one of the things getting to grips with trying to write lyrics that you really notice that it one word can completely shift your feeling about something can't it i mean that for me is like that was the big revelation about trying to write a lyric was like you look at something you go i like the feeling of this but this feels really really dodgy and then you just change one word or you change it or you take a u out or you take an eye out or something and suddenly it's like oh that's better do you know what i mean the um the lyric that was driving the mat yeah i changed and for cars [Laughter] apostrophe c-o-s and for a few days when i talked to you it was the most important word in the english language and and the and so i mean seriously that that happened that was the last thing i changed and and then on another one of the choruses i think he said uh then or something and both times i was so happy because cars yeah because because better is going to come as a lyric it was and better is going to come yeah in the context exactly as you're talking about yeah because bet is going to come explained the whole sentiment of the of the previous three three lines that make the chorus and um and it made it less try and it made it more more sincere and all of that and um but this is why you know songwriting um particularly with words um you know it isn't poetry there's a there's a a lot of misunderstandings that people who don't write songs have about songwriting i think um which is you know that there's this mistaken idea that the more profound and the more or and the more authentic the better it is just by virtue of the fact that it's authentic and profound but spellbound by susan the banshees or you know uh boys don't cry by the cure or fascination street yeah i wouldn't want it to be called anything else no yeah i don't want some songs i don't want the opening verse to be profound yeah you know take me out franz ferdinand you don't want some yeah the exposition about alex's in the world you want it to do the same with the music i mean you know that and that's that's one of the great parts of part of the rubik cube that is the craft of songwriting i think it's so it's fantastic sometimes you know i've had songs which is the reverse of what i've just said where i'd particularly you know my own stuff where um say something like hi hello which there was a sincerity in the music and a an emote emotive quality in the music that what had i written something about you know a building or which i've done before or or society or or whatever it would have been pretentious to honor the spirit of the music so that's one one bit of the rubik's cube but then as i've said the another part of it is this thing where if something is is very beautiful it's so say this song uh i've said this before but with the song written called armatopia the fact that the lyrics are very serious it's an eco song yeah i deliberately wrote to a kind of banging kind of party backing track because to have written something that was you know that sounded like you know um i've been out in a cabin for the last sort of year and with my acoustics something very earnest it just would have been it would have over-egged it yeah so all of these considerations are what keep you up at night uh but when but when you crack it it's fantastic and then some other things as you know just pour out and they're just great and you go where the hell did that come from but it's all of the above it's never a lot of people think you have this idea you come down you descend down your staircase in your bathroom acoustic guitar and you emote i mean if you want to make music that sounds like gary barlow then be my guest you know gary barlow lives in next village next to my mum well ask anyone ask him where i can get a good dressing gown i might make some more money you know what i you know i because i listened to you you sent me the track so i'm not going to mention any names because i know i'm not allowed to but i know you like well i'm really glad that you like lightning people that's really cool this is an exclusive on your do you know what it's funny like i listened to it when you sent it through a couple of days ago and i listened to the six tracks and i think i mentioned another one and then today it was just like bang it really came out and you know what it struck me you're doing you it's certainly in the lyrics and what you're doing in the song you're capturing a spirit that's what i get i get this like what you're trying to do is like bottle light i really feel like that and it's like that spirit of and i really really relate to that because you know there's some on my record which is very much that same spirit it's that kind of it's it's it's like a william blake thing it's a like it's a feeling isn't it and that's that's really hard to do i think i mean i found i found that quite hard to do but man you completely did it and i totally i i mean it's so strong it's so strong which i want to get on to again because it baffles me how you can keep doing this but you you honestly it's like and it's so you as well it's completely authentic thanks that's very well you know you're i think you're one of the four people who've heard it uh so that means obviously that means a lot because you're in this not just because you like it and you because you get it yes and and it's positive but um you know what it's like especially now in this situation we're in wait how are we going to get feedback so yeah you're in this weird kind of i used to like for so many years i used to love this place where you'd finish the record and it's not yet out and it's just for you and your mates in the smith's days oh man i don't know whether you had that experience but yeah it was like this great secret that yeah that you just couldn't wait to put out but you had this little kind of period where it was just yours and you'd be playing it in your house and um do you remember when i did that when we finished in rainbows we literally finished mixing and i drove straight up to manchester to play it to you because i was like so proud of this record that we've made and i wanted to play it to you and i because you know because you lent us all those guitars as well but i was just like it's it's a magic moment when you when you think when you've got something that you you can't you think is people are going to really like as well or you hope they do but you really love it and you want to share it it's a magical moment isn't it it is yeah i think these maybe because i've been gigging so much or because i i don't know i must have changed or i don't know whether you know it um what it is or maybe it's because it's my own i'm the front man now and all of that but i kind of um now i i now want it out yeah yeah i i just want it out now you know that that's obvious that's real kind of your cliche thing of when you do you know a painter wants for it to be shown you know yeah maybe it's because i don't have like 15 people sitting around on the carpets smoking dope and i i need to get them back hey don't give a but that's also part of the thing isn't about but it's different the solo thing is different from being a band because the band it is about a gang of sorts it is about yeah kind of in a cabal and then you have it to the out and then you've got you know that's part of the you know it's i think also probably because if you're in a band it's gone through the filter of you know the four or five of you plus the producer engineer and if you're if you're all raving about it then you know that it's it's got something i think it's a lot harder i've only done this once obviously but i think it's a lot harder when you're on your own because you know yeah it's just it's a different dynamic that hadn't occurred to me i think i think there's something in that yeah um that that's right i think i was saying talking i did a podcast with someone today and they're asking me about some what things have changed and i i always had this one of my you know this sort of consistent mantra which was that i made in the smith stage and with the the uh i guess with muddy smiles as well the cribs the we um i felt like i first was making music for myself as soon as i hit the track uh i had to track together that and the idea but then i was making it for the band and then it was the fans uh that was the main consideration and then the media they were definitely you you knew they were going to be there but they were they were at the bottom of the pile before they were there yeah and um but um but now i'm not i find that i'm kind of i think uh once i'm i think i've got a good idea with the last couple of albums i'm not just saying it i'm making it for the fans first yeah the band can off but they'll like it they'll like it no but i'm making it the fans are you know really uh because i like i like my i really like my audience yeah that's the thing over the last it sounds like a bit of a strange thing to say perhaps but uh it's been like eight years of this building up this relationship and i feel like you know i feel kind of like i sort of got their vibe and they kind of got mine and you know we kind of you know we we sort of you know we dress alike and we think alike and we read the same kind of things and i think and so anyway they're on my mind more of the last couple of problems they're always on my mind but they're they're more to the front now thing so because of this situation and not being able to get out no we've got we're gigging yet i'm a little frustrated that i won't get out to play to play but hey join the cube you know yeah yeah yeah well you know i can only vouch for that the gig at the roundhouse in 2019 when susan knight came along and it was the it was the best gig i went to that year the vibe was you know you've got you've got all the songs but yeah the vibe and stuff is amazing so it's been great that was a great night polly came and yeah yeah you're all right but matt johnson it was funny it was it was it was it it yeah it was great it was great it was a good night ed it was a great night so what are you doing are you writing them well i i told you last i told you last time i've been in i've been in a bit of a hole um but i have to say today what i've been trying i'm i'm i'm i'm trying to find i've been trying to find my way in and i wanted to actually ask you about this because for me it's all about so i've written some stuff no no no lyrics but i have an idea lyrically in my head where i want to go but for me it's always well for me i say it's always it's only been the last eight ten years it's starting with the music and the top line usually appears in that and it's usually i have a feeling i know what i want to and it's usually sounds and then the sounds morph into words and that's how i always i say it's a bit like archaeology it's a bit like or one of those kits the kids used to get like at a birthday party where you scrape away a piece of chalk and you suddenly see a skeleton there or something you know what i mean it's that thing of like with lyrics for me it's a bit like brush it there's it's i have this thing that i have this thing like the song is fully formed it's out there and my job is to tune into that and to scrape it away and my intuition is my guide so so i've been really i've been really struggling because i i spent uh you know first four months of this year you know really applying myself doing that thing of getting down at 10 o'clock in the morning doing it going through till three or whatever and but i just wasn't connecting with anything and i've been in a hole so but today um today i i think i found the start of the trail which was right it's a sound and it's a sound and it's the first time that yeah it's so i feel like for me it's about getting the palette yeah well i don't think you're alone in that i think yeah quite a few people as uh with the sounds thing i mean when you say sounds in terms of the voice in terms of your tunes at your words you're talking like phonetics and no it's about literally it's about how what's that what's the musical palette what's the sound going to be so uh you know i've got i've got the synths i've got the i've got the juno the old juno and i've been playing with the arpeggio arpeggiator on that and stuff like that but i haven't i i keep on coming back to the guitar and i found uh so i you know i texted you about that boss looper yeah so that boss looper which is found that and then that that that voice three live extreme that tc helicon this i know i'm getting a bit uh nerdy here which is great for vocal harmonies but the other thing that i had today was an old uh harmonizer and even tied you know that event delay that you have the timeline time factor they do one called a pitch factor yeah and i've had it for 11 years and i've never used it is that the green one or the blue one also it's the red one okay right it's the red one and i've never used it either and i picked it so complicated i know that's we do too much oh and tell me about that if you can't crack it then none of us can crack it no well i honestly it's been on my shelf for 11 years and i pulled it out for whatever reason the sound is perfect it wasn't 11 years ago but there's something about the sound of it that just pulled me in and i started playing with it and it was great so um yeah i'm just i'm just at the start of it and i i you know you're at the end of a cycle and you have been writing i yeah i mean i i know i read that i read i read the article that interview that you gave in that songwriters thing and the thing that really struck me was well i know i want to ask you do you how do you know when you're ready to i mean you're not writing songs all the time are you or are you uh kind of yeah i mean you are yeah kinda yeah uh wow yeah a bit simple yeah and i think you know i'll be honest at the end of this now i've done this record there's two ways to go one is to either go and sit under a palm to literally go and sit under a palm tree or or in your mind do the equivalent and switch off yes um which i have done in the past you know i mean uh uh not often but i have done me bernie summer myself i would drive bernie mac because when we finish the electronic albums because bernie's really into sailing he's um you know that's his passion and we would go out on a boat and he would i just found myself in the middle of the mediterranean or in the you know in the middle of the indian ocean and and and i'd still be all buzzing about the record but that would really being around him and he was very very zen about that like really slowing down so i was able to that's my experience of switching off but uh as i know it's probably a good idea for my my mental health and the mental health of everyone around me if i switch off but i think i'm going to try i'm going to try you know stay on a roll stay i i'm not gonna be you know uh living completely nocturnally but i'm gonna i'm gonna try keeping the writing the writing up because i don't want to the gears can sort of kind of rust over a little yeah yeah one of the one of the things it sounds it sounds incredibly kind of like a moan and it doesn't it doesn't mean to be it doesn't mean to be a moan but what what one of the things that people don't maybe don't realize it happens so much when you have success when you're you know blessed and lucky enough to have people want to be interested in you is that the promotion and the the talking and the the all the stuff are promoting it uh which you have to do for a number of reasons to honor the work aside from anything else and to you know pay one's mortgages and all of that um you know you you uh it takes you away from from the space the mental space of being really creative all the time yeah and you know uh some people most people i know just can't write on tour i tend to not be able to because i'm just frankly just because i'm so busy but i know that i can because the second album playland i deliberately wrote around festivals and on the bus and we recorded that the biggest song i've had for 25 years myself easy money was written on and recorded on the tour bus wow we put the drums on afterwards the roll call everything the guitars the bass on the bus so i know i can do it but to answer your question i sort of uh i intend to be writing all the time my intention have you ever had moments when you have have you ever had moments when you have you've you've just nothing's come out or what you've you've written you haven't connected with yeah i've had times when i've written a lot of music that i've just not connected with but i think archaeology is a good way of putting it i think that's why some artists are crazy a lot a lot of arts are crazy because they have if they're lucky it's this idea of perfection and they will keep on going until they find this perfection now i'm not saying oh i think all my songs are perfect but you have this idea you have to say you know you're pursuing the track even with the songs i was writing with other people morrissey or courtesy or matt or whatever um and let's let's put it this way someone watching the process of watching you in a studio cutting the track they would hear you do the track seven hours later they go why are they still working on it yeah why did you just change that it sounded pretty good to me two days later why they still doing the track i mean your band famous for it why why why have they come back three months later and changed this arrangement it's actually you know i mean the story that i know about um everything in its right place is a great example yeah and this and the stuff you told me about you know okay computer and many people fans even will be watching that process and going they've nailed it why are they pulling their hair out five days five days later and the artists are crazy because you have this idea of perfection or or i've realized the promise that i was looking for i've realized it and you cannot rest until you realize it yeah and on the face of it it seems like peculiar behavior even on a more micro level sitting around uh on day one of getting a drum sound together yeah i mean most people who think they want to be in the music industry they want to do that for a few albums and do you know what it is you know it's funny sorry to interrupt you but what i think is amazing about music isn't you've you tapped on there when a song is in its infancy like when it's just you know when you get that spark what i find it that's that magic that you you realize in that moment that the potential right you feel the potential and i think that is and there's so much power in that you need that right that start to pull you through like you said all those cul-de-sacs meanderings all those things to come back it is about realizing the potential because it's like i don't even think it's a mental thing it's a feeling isn't it or you might hear it in your head potential of it's much easier when it's you when you're writing it you're writing the lyrics but it's it is an amazing thing that you've you it's it is magic it's a kind of it's like having me yeah and then you know the finishing it uh you know um the the promise is that's a good word that you use there it is so uh exciting yeah and then hey listen i uh i actually think that uh i've got no problem with the concept of craft no because you and i have been you know i know when you when you started out you played a lot of little gigs a lot of good to very few people and you had you you had the van and and that's uh that's got to count for something um i'm proud that i did that i'm proud that the smiths did that and um and then i'm proud that we went through uh all of us collectively the pressure of album to meet his murder that was a lot that was a lot of pressure he went to number one and in the year what was what was what was the sorry what was the pressure on that was the pressure following what you've done well the pressure was because as from the minute handing glove came out a lot of the world we were in which was the music pressing alternative uh culture let's say student culture just immediately said we're like these guys are the second coming yeah and unless you're a complete egomaniac you kind of go oh uh you know we knew we were good and i believed in us but we'd only had like nine songs yeah and then and then the first album did well uh and the trajectory we were being blown up you know blown up i mean in your case i guess you know it's very different but following up the benzo you know i mean it's it you know and but it was i think it's really different you guys had that amazing you you were amazing out the blocks we were like really slow out the blocks apart from like maybe we had a a good start a full start with creep but it was we yeah i mean we were like we were like the slow burners if you like whereas you guys were like you had the pressure because you were the coolest band it was yeah it was good and the best music as well you were the best thank you well well it was you know we felt like that would be important that we had to live up to that yeah and you know but did you know that wasn't easy but we did it and i'm very proud of all of us for doing that but that is all part when i say craft i include that yeah include the pressure uh and you know we didn't just i didn't just waltz into the queen he's dead and go hey this is going to be legendary step back everybody this is going to be just wait a second give me some room give me some room come and see me in 12 weeks time in it you know you know you know i was kind of like all the way through that record i was like what's that food what's that sleep what's that um can i ask you sorry just to interrupt you can i because this i this is fun because for me i've never we've never in the 20s we've been friends we've never really spoken about the smiths we did a bit a little bit but as of can i put my fan boy fan fanboy head on a set please do edward okay so finally after 20 years fine um what you it's interesting so you have so with the songs on the queen on uh meet his murder when the smiths the smiths came out you hadn't written any of the songs for uh meters bird at that stage they all came in the subsequent touring and that whole period right yeah we wrote kind of as we on the hoof as we went and one of the things so what that we did was let's write a single yeah let let's write a second single in between records yeah when we you know when we finished his murder for example as soon as that was finished we wrote how soon is now and please please please and what was the other one and and william and you know he just we were like well let's do this now and there was no like let's save it for the album i think because we were just such single freaks as well and it was going right what we were doing was was going well i don't mean in a career way i mean and fans liked it but it was extraordinary because i ca honestly you know and i can say this now because i've got my fan head on i cannot think of another band and i you know i was i was hooked in from my story is the way i got into smith's i had a very cool friend called jason haynes who had an elder brother called spanner and used to go to the kings road and you come back to abingdon and oxfordshire which wasn't a very cool place but jason from his older brother and so we had a very cool uh music teacher called mr finlow and he was one of those guys who like i think next lesson i'd like you to come in and bring up bring a song that you all should you want we'll play and sort of we'll we'll music appreciation so um i brought in straight to hell by the clash because i was really into combat rock at the time i loved it yeah great and i still think that track is genius they are great it's great it's a great album yeah it's really really like the way they absorbed all that new york funk thing and early you know hip-hop etc and then my mate jay haynes okay and he played back to the old house and i was like what the is this this is so melodic and so haunting and then i was completely pulled in and i think i then saw then i saw you on top of the pops but i cannot think and i bought basically once i had some money so it would have been after the queen is dead because i didn't have enough money before that but i bought every 12 inch you i haven't told you this i've got all your 12 inches and all the all the b sides were amazing as well and for us as a band you know radiohead because we formed in 1985 you were the benchmark there was never even we knew that even if it was a b side it's still got the same love and attention and craft and integrity and everything the um you know there was i i we loved that and it was honestly i it was it was you're amazing for the fans and it wasn't you know it strikes me as a songwriter it must have been incredible you were in this incredible purple patch right i mean you continued it on but i mean there aren't many people who've done that well thanks i mean yeah i had no idea i've known you for 20 years i knew you yeah i knew you liked the band there but i've got all the 12 inches from you know ask i got all the everything all the you know yeah mr finlow no well but you know well i think a lot of uh smith's fans knew that we really gave a yeah first and foremost they loved what we were putting out and the songs spoke to them and they thought we were banned for them but i think you can hear that there's a lot of uh there's it's not that it's not filler but everything's intense even the mellow ones are intense you know uh well you know pretty much everything you know there might be a couple maybe if i'm being really really you know serious about it but generally it's all you know it half a person which is a really one of my favorites is amazing dreamy dreamy track is it's intensely focused all the way through there's no it when we were when some of the music kind of drifts by that was done very very deliberately you know and the sound of strange ways now finally people will believe me what i was saying but at the time it wasn't like it was unfinished because we were splitting up or i went into that record really wanting to make a record that had more space in it yeah you know the queen's dead is so dense and i i love that that we had the discipline but even that was intense you know like that our decision to say i'm what i remember see i remember i could remember every note of the music we made wow and and uh so on happy birthday i deliberately the the electric guitar is just these these kind of love them they're kind of weird swells like they're so emotive it's kind of like it's not emotive johnny that that that gets up those guitar parts i love that song yeah i i always loved it it's so it's it's so moving it's i love that song and so you know you have the usual you know we you know the usual from some areas of the press like you know just trying to uh kind of um not believe when i said that that was all deliberate you know i i was very very inspired i was going into that record by the white album i was really kind of obsessed with the one strange ways yeah i was obsessed with the white album and i was also obsessed with with the gene genie wow so that's why uh i started something sounds like mick ronson wow it's kind of it sounds kind of more like um it sounds more like cracked actor oh yeah you're saying it's so interesting because about the sound of that record i because you know your all your albums sounded really different and i think for me i mean i love the sound of all of them and for me i always used to think that because you did meet his murder you did at amazon didn't you yeah i always yeah and it always sounded quite quite quite trebly quite kind of tinny which was a great sound but then when you remastered it you brought out all those other frequencies but the thing about strangers that i love is the sound of it it's like it's like a it's almost like a classic album sound i don't mean that it's like yeah room it's like rumors or it's like you know it's got that richness that yeah it's so beautiful it was exactly what that's because we didn't pack it right and that took a discipline so going back to what so even when we were being minimalist for us i won't share you things like that yeah that that was deliberate it wasn't because because it wasn't because we kind of went that will do you know it would have been easier if anything to like not have the discipline so we just really cared we cared enough on queen's dead say or how soon is now to really spend a lot of time finding trippy sounds and then we cared enough on on strange ways to to leave it and let it breathe so it was always always very careful very very very careful and and focused and uh deliberate so i'm very proud of all of that i can't believe we're having this conversation now because you know i've never been a fan boy with you like but death of a disco dancer like hell i mean you know the guitar on that and the way that it builds and it's it's just yeah listen you know i'll tell you what was interesting okay so you know this i told you well you kind of guessed that and i've been very vocal about you were like i think when i heard your guitar playing for me it was not only a sonic thing which is but it's the emotion and i think that like i completely was drawn in and so you were like as a as a kid who's like 15 years old and he's just picking up guitar first time i never heard let zeppelin i never we you know i hadn't heard the stooges it was all about at that time it was all i guess my ears sort of pricked up around the time of i mentioned andy summers around the police kind of his thing but really it was like mcgyok with susie spellbound and oh yeah amazing israel and all that and we've amazing but then it was like i know and it was it was you and and the edge and yeah i kind of think and will sergeant as well which we you know i know yeah i hear i hear that in your plane well i mean i feel like so blessed because i didn't hear a led zeppelin record until i was 28 and i certainly was never going to bend a note and you know um and so i feel really lucky that we came up at this time of these you know because music was very very tribal then um certainly where i was and you if you didn't have if you didn't have a if if your friends didn't have a stooges record or you didn't have an older brother or sister without or a zeppelin record you'd never hear it so it was literally what was on john peel what was on radio one and um but my point was i think what was amazing is that so i started like following with you and i remember when you when the first electronic single came out getting away with it yeah and i was just like oh my god it's like it was almost like the most perfect thing it was like you'd gone to an you know i think what what what what you've been i'm i'm you know you know i don't normally do this and it's slightly weird because we're being public about usually conversation that we have very privately but i it's a nice opportunity i just think i just think you've and you continue to do this you've got this extraordinary ability for melody and just songwriting and you know i i think i think you know all the stuff you did with the i was so into mind bomb and then um dusk dusk oh dusk was the sound of for me was when we were touring around america in 93. but yeah i mean that's amazing well you know i mean that's you know um yeah you know to i mean you get it i think what a lot of people get and i'm so lucky because i understand a bit of the craft that a lot of people but i think what you do not only there's so much emotion and and beauty i think that's the thing what you play there's such do you know what i mean there's such it's i mean it's a simplistic yeah i think when you know hearing yourself it's quite hard to follow i know that scotland no no i understand no ed what it is is that to be honest i think really there's no getting around it that you know the the missing i guess the missing word the word that ties it all together i think which is unusual i think uh his femininity really yeah i think i think i didn't realize i was into femininity in clothes yeah uh very much so because i hung out with girls so much as a kid you know like my sister's only 11 months younger than me and we were brought up pretty much can't really talk about maybe talk until we're about 10 or 11 we were kind of like brought up like twins and and um and we we stayed really tight till we were in our teens you know 30 14 and then um you know what my all my mates started chasing after it and you know i actually need to get rid of my mate so i had to stop spending a lot of time but she was uh but her and her friends you know that we and i grew up on a housing estate uh that was just overrun with kids yeah it was amazing and um so you know and being a and being very interested in girls and and very interested in the culture you know like me and my sister at 10 11 12 we're very very into fashion street fashion clothes and be we've got to go to people on the bus where'd you get the jumper where'd you get those shoes it's a very working-class thing and it might even be a very northern thing yeah and why'd you get a haircut strange but um very important and um i think that's quite a northern thing you know i've always come into manchester the first time the thing that really struck me coming from down south how people get dressed up on a friday and saturday night yeah yeah yeah yeah it's a really big thing isn't it so much now it's happening in the afternoon which abso seriously if you go to manchester on a friday certainly friday saturday and sunday afternoon the particularly the girls is something i've noticed since the lockdown has eased off a little it's amazing they are really bringing it at two in the afternoon like it's like what you would normally have seen at 2 30 a.m okay or or 11 00 p.m that they look i mean it's it's really amazing it's the thing i really noticed so but i think um that was part a big part of my personality a big part of my character and then um um you know uh and i i i had to think about it after i got known and i had to you know you explain what you're about but i definitely um i thought in 78 you know when you're 14 15 16 i i believe that you know one thing that 15 16 year olds are just absolutely amazing at is spotting absolutely um that's that's teenagers isn't it they're not as amazing as they think they are nor was i nor was i but spotting yeah in your teachers yeah in in society and your parents yeah that they are great at it and it's a difficult thing to carry around and i was just going along absorbing everything about guitar culture talking like 77 78 i was 14. and um and i just started seeing the regular guys who the in rock bands i just thought they were really macho and i thought that was really really old-fashioned i'm not being kind of you know right on here it was just really old-fashioned and i kind of thought that um you know i just assumed that wasn't that i didn't think i was special in that i just thought it was old-fashioned and then as i got older and you know i mean when i wrote my autobiography a few years ago from an adult's point of view you know and having grown up kids of my own and stuff i do see that um in that regard you know my sensibilities were were kind of half lad or uh running around as a guitar playing lad but also it's so very kind of uh very sort of pro the perry girls are they were my heroes yeah i'm manchester city and they just look great because they were androgynous see they were half between they kind of looked quite boyish yeah i realized that i could kind of turn myself into that so that you know that was that was a big part of what i did really i think you were really important it's funny but like particularly you guys were so influential in culture certainly for me as a teenager i mean you were the reason the smiths were a good reason why one of my courses at manchester university was feminism you know and i think it was a brilliant time because there was a you kind of exuded that and it was really quite weird i found the 90s really weird because when the whole lad culture came back and i was just like because i remember as a band that sort of came back and we certainly weren't part of that kind of like loaded and nuts magazine brigade and it was so weird because i thought i thought we'd done that i thought that went out years ago that's like that's like benny hill yeah yeah yeah 70s and i thought it was like this huge regression in the 90s we'd kind of you know feminism it was interesting when i studied feminism it was really hardcore it's fascinating but really hardcore in the sense of you know hardcore feminism which is i can't even remember a lot of it but i remember being wow this is um it was very 80s it's very 80s like full-on kind of um uh sort of i wouldn't say the derek hatton of feminism but do you know what i mean that kind of extreme version yeah really hard line the kind of like basically women should get rid of their should have mass hysterectomies because reaper you know reproduction and having babies is a is at the heart of you know of this inequality so all this stuff but it was so interesting like when the 90s came along we'd been through that and because and it was it was really cool a lot of that 80s stuff then the 90s came along it was like i'm a sec what you know it's like it was such a strange thing i mean i guess that's what happens in culture you know each generation reacts to the previous one but i don't know if you felt the same thing in the 90s it was just like yes yeah i do yeah the culture you know there was a lot of there's a lot of reasons for it you know politically and otherwise and everything the bar really lowered i think you know there's no doubt about it i mean luckily now the only generation that i'm privy to not everybody's perfect by any means and you can't okay i am going to generalize but you know what is what is endearing though now is that the the the concerns uh of the younger generation now talking say you know people leading school age to mid-20s um over the last sort of ten years they're um you know the rights gender rights and gender equality uh you know for trans people or whoever you know uh that is entirely uh a consequence of the younger generation i'm not saying my generation wouldn't have done that but we didn't the the amazing transformation uh and the awareness that uh some people have to get on board with yeah uh about gender equality of all sorts is entirely down to the generation of young people who may be uh up to their mid 30s yeah and that is really a brilliant thing yeah uh you know uh they've got a lot there's a lot of global concerns a lot of things but that that's they changed the world there so you know there's uh you know very lucky that i i guess you are too though you know we still play to several young folk you know uh they listen to our records they come to our shows and and they interact you know um and you get a vibe and and um i'm very you know i'm impressed with the the times i'm already in that regard the times are more impressive than what you you're describing but to go back to the guitar sound in a way you know i mean it's a long conversation but um i was thinking that see the smiths played a few gigs with the cocktail twins yeah of course that's another one robin guthrie and robin guthrie had that down yeah you know he he was a he was a guy i dug down and what and and what liz was doing vocally and with your thread her presence uh it was you know there were a lot of really there were there were smith i mean right i mean robert's got it in his voice he's got it in his guitar playing uh you know he's he's a really good very very good example of uh what was happening on the stage that did represent my generation of he's older than me but i saw the cure early gigs yeah uh you know his voice was beautiful his face was beautiful his guitar playing yeah i mean he's he yeah and and i think he stayed true to his values when you hear his songs you know yeah it's interesting because like you're right it was like that you spread the net wide and there were people like geordie yeah geordi had a great sound um uh billy duffy your mate your pal billy yeah as you said well uh of course billy uh well sergeant was like you know the king of the king of 12 string and and delay and reverb like making your guitar sound like it's come from the deepest cavern on the planet you know on the earth and yeah well do you know we'll just put um uh autobiography out or it's just about to be out oh wow that'd be great right yeah that'd be great and he's you know he's he's got he uses one of your sustainer i know it was so funny because when he sent me an email so for people out there johnny is a friend of wills and we sent him sent him one of my strats and he r he got on with it and he was i was talking because it was funny because i hadn't i you know he was another one who i was sort of i loved the bunnyman i thought the bunnyman were just they it was like they had their own world the bunnyman sound was incredible um and it's funny when he described his guitar playing or like the kind of sounds that he was after i was like oh yeah i totally get that that's how i you know oh did he right did he do what was that to you yeah he's yeah he said he's going to move this light just because yeah yeah i've had to alter the light so he was great because it was funny he said something about i want my guitar to sound like if you imagine what no i know what he said it's something that i was i had a i got obsessed with about imagining what music might sound like in space oh yes you know yeah and and i was definitely i definitely went through a period of like getting all cosmic and thinking and it's still there parts of it but thinking what what would that sound like or you know um you know how i bang on about that film interstellar that idea of being in space and and and trying to trying to find a sound that that evokes the feeling of how it might feel inside anyway you know did you like the what's the what was the the brad pitt space film what was that oh i thought that was rubbish yeah is that so is that happening now oh man i was so disappointed because max richter does the score and i really like max rix's stuff i think yeah yeah yeah me too he thinks it's good right yeah and um and i thought oh this is gonna this is right up my strasie and i think the problem is i watched it on a flight which can go either way as you know can't it can either be you can i'd be weeping about oh my god this is the first thing i've ever seen exactly crying crying at dumb and time oh my god this is brilliant exactly i i tell you remember those old days where you you're on a plane and you had the film uh in the economy class and you have it on on the wall at the front of that section so radiohead touring in fact 94 in america we have to do an internal flight we're in the back part of the plane in economy and they show and you wouldn't have equated radiohead with the film dumb and dumber right especially that time serious young men intellectuals yeah intellectuals we had those those funny old headphones you know the plastic things that you put in that have the basic the tubes that go into this that go into the arm there's dumb and dumb over there and i am laughing i'm i'm i'm laughing so much and i'm trying to hide it and then i look across and there's tom in hysterics there's johnny in his steering says everyone in hysterics is dumb and dumber so anyway i've slightly digressed is it good it's do you still stand by that i well i haven't seen it since that flight back tonight i'm gonna have to watch you now i i might i i know it might not be it might anyway but um no what are you up to let me ask you are you is your so is your uh is your your intention now is you're not you've got not got book gigs booked i can't go in with with elb yeah i was gonna i was gonna go out touring this year but i cancelled it because i felt um i didn't feel i was in the right space i i was i was i had that feeling which i i was completely honest with myself and i i was just like i'm dreading this i'm absolutely dreading this and you know you know better than me that's no way to go out there on tour you have to be you have to be carrying that karen a light you've got to have a fire in your belly you've got to be wanting to engage and i was i just i i got depressed i got i fell into a hole that i hadn't been in for a long long time and so i talked to the managers and i said i don't think i'm ready for this and and the way that what i've done is i've basically reframed this next year as kind of as a kind of people might call it a sabbatical you know but the idea is no pressure and i'm just gonna you know i told you a little bit i'm trying to get more into i'm letting go of a load of i'm getting i've realized that the way that i've been programmed is not sustainable and so i've been doing a lot of work a lot of inner work and um yeah so that's what i'm doing and and it's funny because i think for me it's like you know like you said teenagers are um you know they they're the biggest detectors i find that with music and yeah and for me that early part of the year when i was really in a dark place and i was doing the music but i was just not connecting with it and the music was telling me you're this isn't you're not going to connect with this unless you change unless you do something's not right here so yeah yeah you know and i'm thankful i've been through i've been through a dark night of the soul like many people and do you know what i'm really no self-pity because i actually think these these are these are really important moments and you have the choice in life and i'm very i know i'm very lucky because it's not like i have to hold down a nine to five it's not like i have to go to work to feed the kids or you know i'm on benefits i mean i'm very lucky because i can completely immerse myself in it in the way that not not through what i i can do the work i've got time to do the work and i know i know what i have to do and i have to do this so that's what i'm doing but what's interesting is i'm sort of doing music but i'm not doing music as a sense of oh i've got to have a song or i'm going to record this it's more a sense of this is what's coming out at this time and there's no you know what i put so much weight on the music i put so much weight on everything that i've done in the past and i'm just exhausted with that and i'm trying to get to a place where i now flow more and i'm not like and i'm not judging it by like is this you know i just i can't do it anymore jeffy i'm i'm exhausted yeah it's you know it's all these different this aspects of the the creative you know the the you know the not dilemma but you know the the uh disposition oh yeah yeah it is a definitely a disposition i had it as a kid i had a song on that on my last album called the comet and i had this tune and it was a a you know i really liked it it was a sort of effortless which one well day in day out is that yeah effortless kind of pop tune and i really i love the melody and and i had it all and it was all rocking but it was driving me absolutely crazy and um really really driving me nuts and i was like this isn't this is even kind of like a pretty straightforward tune and why anyway every every bus stop every every road sign i went past you know you know is that is that the title is that the title yeah ashton on mersey i know chill well yeah siren sister what rhymes with just man drag yourself crazy and every morning i'd be like no i didn't get it last night i didn't get it and then one morning and he's really drunk man and i just went i kind of went it it's just it's day in and day out and i kind of went there you go write the song about being crazy with this this see this personality you've got it's yes i mean you know neil our friend neil finn is pretty good he is not bad is it he's not bad that song that song that we we played in seven worlds driving me mad yeah i thought it was such a clever song because you could look at that and go oh it's a song about not being able to write a song well for a non-song it's pretty good you know and um he that song about the the torment of this thing you're describing ed you know i mean yeah i hope you know i you know one thing have you ever seen um francis ford coppola the documentary to the heart of darkness i love it it's called that that will make you feel better i got susan with with the iphone out there filming me now exactly she's just hearing you just like you're gonna be kicking the dog like hitting the kids it's so good isn't it it's so good it's just in fact i mean it's funny i actually prefer it to the film that film as a kid but as you get older it's kind of um i'm gonna i want to just ask you something uh because i've only i've only got one note have you seen a completely digress here have you checked out on uh on apple tv the new uh asif kapada um documentary series 1971. no oh my god wow so you know as you know he did the amy winehouse in the center i mean i love the map everything he's done is brilliant right that's right yeah yeah yeah he's done this series called 1971 and we're about seven episodes in they're an hour each and it's about that year and music and politics and holy moly i mean i've the amount of albums that came out in that year that are just elton john does a bit of a you don't see him but he's a talking and he said the incredible thing about that year was there would have been about 10 albums a week that would come out that were classic i mean he might be over egging it slightly but at least there was at least two one or two albums every week that was released that you know you've got you've got uh hunky dory uh obviously you've got what's going on i mean it's an unbelievable year uh slime the family there's a right i mean it's john martin i mean and it goes into it's got it's good because it it it flits over it sort of transatlantic so you get a bit of bowie obviously and a bit of i love you'll love the the mark bowlen stuff yeah the t-rex footage yeah right um right but then you go across and how it's kicking off in america with the anti-vietnam movement and you know what struck me it's really interesting so last night we watched a couple of episodes and one was sort of almost dedicated to you know remember angela davis who was there yeah yeah and i was watching that and i was going susan and i were going i mean i knew about angela davis but i didn't know about the detail you know me neither now but the thing that struck me watching it was like why weren't we learning this at school why why were we learning about henry henry viii and his six wives yeah and it's honestly it's enough to make it it's enough to make you conspiracy theorists when you start thinking about it are we deliberately i really think that that they deliberately keep this really interesting but topical relevant part of our recent history out of children's syllabus because it gets people questioning the status quo well you know england i mean certainly when i was a kid did you go to a catholic school no well in catholic school it's even more so everything ends with and that's why this person is a martyr and then and then that's why this person became a saint and you kind of like what uh america this is may i had 12. what was the american civil war right i'm pretty sure i've heard the word american civil war miss miss sir and uh you know it's like well was uh does someone get hung drawn and quartered for for the lord then you know you don't need to know about that yeah and certainly you know again i um yeah i i uh i kind of it's against one of those things when i wrote my book i i um i thought that writing about my school days this high school days was going to be really quick you know because you do because that happens when you're writing a a book an autobiography you you think oh this bit's going to be tough i need to ask around ask my family about what happened here and i've got to get this right and you know this before you should do that when you go into it that's what i did and i just thought oh you know what i get to do the bit about high school that's going to be kind of a breeze i'll tell some stories about you know getting that getting a chalk duster thrown at me and meeting andy walken and bunking off and all will be well and when i actually sat down i ended up getting really quite angry yeah i realized i was harboring this kind of resentment and that was one of the reasons that was the history the lack of the agenda yeah which i i put down to a really a social agenda yeah certainly certainly when i was a kid i think times are different now and i wouldn't know but for us yeah i mean well that 1971 sounds really right my street i can't wait to check that out i mean i watched um you know the lockdown thing we've all been watching lots of television and uh but i watched ken burns vietnam oh wow really it's the best yeah i mean i saw it when it came out but it oh man it's just really incredible as one might expect and the ken burns jazz series is really good as well particularly like the late 60s stuff but um yeah that that's a really fascinating time that you know the american well you know as well uh i watched i found myself somebody came up on my timeline and i watched when you were when you were probably when you were younger the rock and roll years right i loved used to love that on bbc too yeah yeah and and uh and i saw uh i went on 1975 76 when i was a little kid i watched that and the bombings in this country on the mainland yeah the the hostages the hijacks the the uh insane uh uh arrogant unaccountability of the government i was thinking wow this rings a lot of bells did you did you it's interesting because the whole irish thing was like a massive thing when we were growing up and you obviously your parents were irish but you were living in you know a big irish community right yeah did you because it was weird for me i you know my gran my grandparents are irish and my i grew up in a household where my dad was like very very very you were you were known you were irish and um obviously having i know as an irish surname but it was really interesting because i've grown up in very very wide middle class oxford you felt like a pariah with an irish name and there were no kids at my school like it was a church of england school no catholics i was like a catholic but there was and i had this conversation it was interesting because you know i don't know if this was was this a similar experience for you man so were there so many of you that was like well you know that wasn't an issue no i uh i didn't carry it around but um you just got used to it and also it was probably 10 years up so probably 10 years before the so yeah i got you know i got i just kind of took it for normal that some people were going to call you an irish pig i got called an irish pig by a teacher once and he was a teacher that i thought i liked not really that was heavy that was very that was a heavy thing and uh i got beaten up at school but when the bobby sands thing was happening someone you know and it was like you know the propaganda that was even on the news and it was just like the way it was portrayed was like these guys were like scum right when they were they were political prisoners yeah and my parents when something kicked off my parents who are from southern ireland and who aren't uh political particular particularly and certainly not radically political yeah and just got on with everybody and were very much respected and just got got on with life you know i think i i think you know affected them a little bit when there was when there's a lot of stuff kicking off yeah but but you know it's interesting i had this conversation with a guy the only other irish guy i knew came from a guy called colin granny and i said to colin a few years back because he used to cut my hair and i said and we were talking about this because he came over from limerick in like 78 79 to oxford and and and i knew the answer the question i was asking him but i said to him i said because obviously by the end of the 80s and the 90s it's all changed and that's not just because of the peace process that came later and i said to him i said i said what was it that started what was it that changed it and he said he said he said well i'm not a fan of the band he said but you too and i said i remember that as a as a fan and also i would say also because going to a youtube gig in like 1984 was the first time there was a sense of pride in something irish and you know you'd see the trickler a gig and it wasn't like a pro ira thing it was like it was tapping into this kind of lineage of irish i mean i think the unforgettable fires like it's like iris spirituality it's got it's got feelings i think when you read sheamus heaney and stuff like that but also i would say that you and morrissey because of your obvious irish names there was this whole like what you did the music kind of really made it a very positive thing and suddenly like you know all the kids at school who were like who was sneering at you because you got an irish name or like you know whatever they they're like oh yeah you two are great oh yeah i love the smith you know it was and and i i i think it play i think you two particularly played a really really important part in that yeah i think from from what i think you're right you know they're really of course a massive part they i think that's somewhat not long after that i think uh what roy keane was doing with the irish yeah and the irish football team totally well the 1990 world cup irish football team was amazing yeah and did the vibe i mean now you mean like irish it's just like i mean they'll always be proud but i mean i just on the stuff that i follow over the last few years you know do you know well i think i might send you a link to the blind boy blind boy podcast yeah it's great he's a really interesting guy he's very very talented very funny uh uh you know very evolved this is someone who's involving all the time very informed and open and a good good advert for young you not just irish men young men you know you know i i really rate him and then of course bands wise fontaine's dc great you know wow to not like they're great yeah uh i'm even hearing that i think they've recorded even the third album now yeah and i mean the second album came out really quick yeah so you know um just very happening but i also ireland for me i was thought ireland was dead cool i always had a kind of on i think it was uh half full of hollow i i scrap scratched ian was my little brother and air e.i yeah as a kind of like as a declaration that the smiths were proud of our irish irish roots it was my kind of thing really and it's informed me you know oh i'm not about it too much but it seems you know but uh um is really has informed me in a a massive way why don't bang on about it my parents never banged out about it but yeah you grew up around the accent all the time you know and and the iconography and um yeah you know i think um it's you know you can't help but be absolutely massively informed by me and my sister i felt like we were like um you know we were considered by uh you may and some other kids we were definitely considered as being from an irish family and i thought that's great i thought yeah yeah it's funny because we're going to manchester in 1987 actually was just i remember that whole sense of first time living in a big city okay as a student but i was aware of the irishness of manchester of the north and that's well because you know because because of your background as well you know i was thinking today actually about talking to you and i i was i was wondering i thought there's a lot of people who follow you probably aren't quite as aware of how uh that you lived in manchester for quite a while and that you really have got a uh you don't just love it yeah but you know manchester very well don't you well i what i did was i mean fanboy head again um i you know i went up to manchester because of the music scene and particularly because of you guys but i was completely for me i fell in love with the romance of the city so manchester u i can explain to everyone else but you remember what manchester was in 1987 it was it was a post-industrial city no there'd be no developments there was you know the north the north side and tip street and all these places and there was i i was just in love with the city because i'd wander around and i had a girlfriend who who had a who had who used to cycle and i used to borrow a bike and serve an evening we just go and cycle around the center of manchester unlike you know these these deserted red brick um warehouses that i just thought there was such incred there was a vibe there there was a spirit there that i loved oxford is also a very different place and of course i'd grown up i've been living the countryside for 10 years but oxford was a city of oxford university it's not it's not a real city it's a it's a town but it's not a big city like manchester united and i just i was just in all of it i mean i loved i love that one of the things i love living in a city is i love exploring a city so when i first moved to london with susan we go out walking every sunday we'd spend all day walking we just meander through the east end or end up on the south bank or whatever and it was the same thing in manchester and i loved it and you know they knew couple it with the music scene that was happening and all these amazing venues like you know not of every everyone talks about the hacienda which was obviously great but i love places like um do you remember where it's sometimes called the playpen or 42nd street second street on a tuesday night i was talking to john rob about this on tuesday night marky smith always used to be there but i swear the music was the best i mean the hacienda it was cool and really good but but the the music on a tuesday night the guy would just it was it was all over the shop it was incredible um so i loved that i loved house was the roadhouse was going on the roadhouse and the international the inter oh man the international one and two yeah the man i guess i saw you know gil scott heron there at the international one you know half strung out doing a three-hour set you know with 300 people there i mean it's i because i came from a city where there were there were no gigs you know you came you came through in 1985 it was and and you know uh was it yeah it was 85. james withdrew james supporting and my girlfriend went at the time and she was completely besotted with you and she came back and she said i'm in love with johnny mars all right great um seriously um but it was it was i loved it and then of course you know i get taken to uh taken to old trafford by a friend of mine and stand on the stretford end for the first time and i'm like holy moly and it could have been kippax you know it could did you get did you get work done seriously yeah no no no because you arrived you arrived in you know some which is made in this of the 60s carnaby street 65 66 67 or hey ashbury 1967 in in san francisco manchester united 87 88 89 a couple years after when it got milked was culturally that busy and that revolutionary yeah 100 percent 100 88 was when the nascent real seeds of that manchester thing and it wasn't just about debauchery now of course of course hedonism was a big part of it because it was a youth movement but also because there was a there was a key new drug involved yeah but people who really got into that didn't feel the nature of mdma and and it being a communal thing it didn't feel like it was a hedonistic experience he felt like the way people talk about lsd in the 60s it it was it was without doubt over sounding responsibility but the feeling was definitely of like opening doors for people bringing people together a lot of people who were formerly not very nice got a lot nicer yeah and that was great um obviously and then but coinciding with that was the digital technology i mean you can see in the story of the electronics started in 88 and we the our very first songwriting session bernie goes to his bag and i'm you know pulling my guitar out and plugging in my pedals and he pulls out a mac mcintosh se30 wow and that was like such an important member of the band and this was new to me i mean this miss reader we're computerized mixing desks and and where the akai sampler the on on strange words is a photo inside it that angie took of me listening to the mix and you can see the sample in the background so we were we were dismissed were by no means luddites yeah i had the emulator too at the start of last night i dreamt and that was because of bowie and you know all of this business but um anyway so but the mac se30 and uh that was you know um that was a big part of the sound not just of electronic of everybody 808 stay guy called gerald and but it felt like there was a tsunami behind this we weren't aware of it until it happened but what was happening i strongly speak for myself and bernard was while we were starting with electronic and while our peers were kicking things around with samplers and in studios uh that was behind us that we weren't aware of this tsunami of a little revolution that was about to happen that suddenly digital since uh dx7's and you know blah blah blah but within a year uh people are uh making their own flyers people producing their own t-shirts people are everyone is dressed the same but different to the mainstream so you'd walk around on a saturday morning you know everyone having been out on the friday or on a sunday and you just start to see these pockets of people who had radically the same clothes as you flat 18-inch flares and haircuts all of that and but we weren't all going oh we're all getting up that was down in the pecking order what that drug was facilitating was this communal feeling and people um doing this doing new things it was an amazing amazing time and it was in my hometown yeah and i always have died in the wall towny and still you know i've been growing up in the inner city and worked there in saturday jobs and all of that and it was my it was as sort of basically starting to develop in front of my eyes and in my house and in other people's places and and then similarly around the rest of the country uh with people like sheeram and danny ram playing and paul paulkenfold and and uh mark moore s express and all of this stuff but report manchester was the place where it all came together it does something about the industrial revolution yeah and something about the university and something about the vibe of the place that oh i guess one word hacienda well yeah it's funny and i it's funny i always used to feel really guilty about like i was always trying to play down my student credentials when i was in manchester because i didn't want to be you know another student but it was interesting when i spoke to john rob about it he was like no he said the the amount of students in manchester is key to help you know a scene stay buoyant and students like i always thought that you know the cool people in manchester would look you know would look down at um you know not another scene but actually john john rob explains that actually no they were really important because of course you know they spend money but they also uh they're hungry they're hungry for new stuff well the political chemical brothers met they were there as well before that the comic strip yeah uh um uh there's been a sort of uh you know there's been a a kind of legacy or tradition of of people from outside of the city coming and just digging it so much chris wright who's who formed christmas records yeah another one that's right yeah yeah and the amount of people who i've met over the years have come up they want a selfie or whatever and i can tell you know that they're not from manchester and i'll ask i kind of know the answer before i've even asked it really what what you know why did you come to the city and often it's they come to uni and they they chose that uni sort of a certain vintage i guess they chose that uni because of the oz and new order in the roses and and yeah and the mondays and all of that stuff uh and that's you know that's uh i don't know whether that's changing now but uh i know leeds has become like a really a bit of a hot spot for people to want to go to to uni but i said you know it's a different thing but there was that summer of 19 i for me it felt like every that summer of 1990 with the world cup was almost like the perfect kind of coming because that summer was so it was a hot summer wasn't it and i i remember i mean all i also remember i sort of left after that summer but it also that's also when it started to get a little bit gnarly i remember being in do you remember that club conspiracy oh yes i remember being in conspiracy and being scared at my wits because the cheatham hill posse had sort of stormed in and it was all stuck but there was it was really you know new order for instance neward did the world cup song right yeah electronic getting away with it just come out what the end of 89 yeah i think so i think when you when you were describing that you know it reminded me that that summer 1990 when um you know one of one of my favorite things i've ever done is um is is get the message the the electronic track and but that that literally i'd like to experience that as i can remember once this charming money you just get the message where i had the window cracked open a little bit and the warm breeze was coming through the window which is not something one is used to in manchester [Laughter] and i i i know i was right you know i was playing the guitar anyway and um and i don't want you can hear this but that's how i got that that riff you know is to me sounds like the warm wind coming through totally [Music] yeah kind of that's okay so so you know without with my that is that is one of the greatest riffs of all time and i remember because that came out the following summer right 1991 and for that was the sound of that summer and it was a it was it was just a cool it could have been like in 1967 it could have been the summer of love it it captured everything about that time well tightly yeah well i had the ch the riff happened and the sound and the 12 string and i was kind of like i was just re i didn't even think about it but i was remembering that i really liked the family stand ghetto heaven yeah oh i love that track well that kind of that space that that was what made me want i put and i put the song down in 25 minutes you know the baseline and everything i was like trying to marry that to a ghetto heaven kind of vibe and you know and we we ended up not only do i i think the song was a very good listener and particularly what bernard did on it i mean it was like amazing he was so good so i guess that really that i should i should open the window more and try and do it tonight johnny it's a warm night ready for riffs to come through the window was that denise johnson who sang on that yeah oh man yeah yeah yeah she do you know denise on that we wanted to sing more and she said no leave it i should just come in with this impact and do that do this thing and then leave it wow that's that's a real musician there's something about there's something about her voice this i mean you knew her but like yeah there's just be absolute beauty and magic in her voice right i mean denise and i did so much stuff together which i i was very felt very fortunate that we really clicked and you know on on the electronics second album which is very kind of housy in a way yeah really she's the sh on that so taking on the dance tracks she really gold-plated all of the stuff that she's sung and i mean you know i was running out of tracks back then we recorded on tape and you know we would have needed three studios to put them because we just kept piling on me and denise were encouraging each other yeah that was a that yeah i'm really i've yeah i feel very lucky that uh that i've got a voice on a couple of songs that i wrote you know so it's a beautiful thing i'm glad you reminded me of that yeah uh that's i love you know and i love the fact that you're playing you you you see you when i saw you play get the message live i wanted to do that for the longest time and for so i always thought it was going to be um a real task and i thought we would need other tech more technology and maybe a laptop or not always and you know what i've i suggest this is true story for years i thought oh it's gonna be we're gonna need five more band members to play this song for some reason and i mentioned it to my band and i went and was doing something in rehearsal and i came back and they were playing it and it sounded like it does wow wow that's how good my band are the three of them they're great i mean likewise likewise man that's why you know you're banned yeah i missed i missed those though we how long did you rehearse for we did we did two weeks out in wales we where i did a lot of the recording we basically because i didn't want to i i kind of wanted to imbue them with the spirit of the record i'm really into all that you know i'm really into yeah bit like you know very similar to when we went out to uh carrie carrie or rehearsal at pihar with neil in the first seven worlds collide getting them people into a place that's not in the city where we kind of eat eat sleep and breathe it and um and it was good it was really fun but you know it's funny it's a whole other conversation but um yeah i miss those guys i'm you know and it's uh but it feels like a very long time ago yeah well there's seven worlds well certain worlds was a long time ago yeah well you know hey look uh yeah the thing with lockdown um someone i know the other day just in conversation was well um said they were talking about just the lockdown it was just a passing non-conversation and they just said you just said type time isn't doing anything and i just like wow i think you just completely summed up locked down because my experience is that half the time i think that it seems like the days are flying by and then other times i think it seems like years ago that the whole lockdown started and then i think well i've i've got a whole lot done i've recorded a double album and then other times i feel like it was only yesterday and i'm not getting anything done and this phrase uh time's not dude time's doing nothing yeah it's like wow that's so pretty zen you know uh and it seemed to sort of cut i think that's what she said anyway i think it's sort of um it seems to kind of sum up this sort of work feeling of kind of uh suspension you know this sort of feeling of yeah sort of suspended kind of time you know i mean obviously you know you're an if you're not if you've thought firstly don't go to you know people have really really had some suffering and but also so many people are like you know sitting on the end of their beds in little apartments in london you know and or new york or wherever around the world and they're working on the end of the beds you know yeah that's it's going to be so good when this is all over get out and remember just get back to remembering just being ordinary you know yeah yeah unexpectedly you know like yeah just mundane stuff you know yeah and i think right i i think people as well i think if you know if you're if you're looking for silver linings there's i just hope that people are gonna i'm just about to say i hope that people are gonna be kinder to one another and i think some will yeah and you know more appreciative there's obviously there's obviously some who aren't but um yeah i think human nature is such that um what i think this is on my site kind of something about this is kind of endearing i think human nature is stuff such that about a year later people are just going to kind of not have forgotten it but the people who are who are the fortunate ones of us who haven't lost our businesses or haven't suffered losses and all of that there's gonna be a lot of people who just kind of remember it as a weird thing that we went through because yeah not because they're um unfeeling because we're just humans are such creatures of habit yeah and once we get back to doing and i think do you know what good good for people you know we don't be want to be carrying trauma around good for him you know good for people to shake it off and get back to get back to all our moaning on that note johnny it's been great to see you guys it's been great i mean i know that we we it's kind of have in a second now people listening to this well yeah sorry usually our conversations the last the one we had two weeks ago went on for three hours wow fantastic i love them i really i always love checking in with you because likewise yeah i always feel uplifted and i always you know great job mates man it's great exactly yeah love you guys love you johnny thank you beautiful evening speak to you soon thanks very much see you see ya

Channel: V∆LΞ

Views: 1,541

Rating: 4.7647057 out of 5

Keywords: johnny marr, eob, ed o brien, the smiths, radiohead

Id: qksW8x4yhuc

Length: 90min 43sec (5443 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 03 2021