Johnny Marr Talks Guitars & A Life In Music

[Music] hey everyone welcome to that pedal show Dan here Mick here I'm Johnny hello ladies and gentlemen Johnny M it's Johnny M wow it is finally happening so we've been we've been talking about this for a long time and uh a lot of you have been asking for this for a long time and we are delighted and honored Johnny to be here at your studio you're welcome it's great we don't get many visitors nice to see you guys we're gonna cover a lot of stuff today um but we have a narrative that is Johnny's guitars Johnny's got a new book coming out which we'll talk a lot about and uh Johnny will indeed talk about but that's going to be the kind of backbone of the story today because it gives us a chance to work through a whole bunch of uh Classic Bits of Johnny's career Smiths the The Cribs solo career and everything else in between film music and all of that and I think Johnny You' picked out a bunch of guitars that helped tell part of that story yeah yeah well it's um it's great timing that we're doing this as of just finished the book that's the most recent thing that um you know uh fruits of my labor so to speak that the book's just just arrived and I've just got early copies of it and um it's Mars guitars and um and um you're the I guess you're the guys to talk to about it really perfect you know I mean um they're very proud of it it's as I say it's been a a real labor of love well do some close-up shots so you can see as someone who's worked in print I can see what an unbelievable labor of love this has been the detail is it's quite extraordinary off the scale yeah thanks yeah and you told us a little story just as we were setting up and everything about the the main um inspiration for how it came together yeah well the um I have to give credit to uh Pat grayan the photographer because uh Pat was um the main photographer with Modest Mouse he was around on the bus and he was around 247 with the band and um I just became a fan of his photographs This was oh whatever 15 years ago and um he takes these really beautiful uh quite often abstract detailed pictures of of people's instruments and I've seen that he' done that with u a bunch of other musicians over the years and that gave me the inspiration for it the the more abstract Arty kind of approach and thought okay and then I had the title Mars guitars that's a no-brainer and uh so that was inspiration Pat's abstract F abstract um Arty pictures um and then in the process of of taking on the book which men basically are getting together over a 100 guitars with all these often with stories and big parts of my personal and professional life it the whole process took on a life of its own then so uh arranging the the shoe of all those guitars and for them to be done um appropriately uh that was a big deal um in some cases finding a few old guitars one or two cases that I'd given to like a Berard Butler I'd given a guitar to and berer very kindly made that available and we know someone who you've given a guitar or two too would that be no G be no Galaga well no yeah was brilliant so but no was just sort of I know he was on the show recently night but um the two Les Pauls that now knows um that there's a lot of Stu stories around they they're in the book and then also he he uh he came up with a bit of a surprise which he I I'd completely forgotten about which was the strap that he got off me he bought off me he says in the book how he thought he' better actually pay for one um he he used on on wonder wall and don't go back in anger so a whole load of stuff happened whilst the book was being made from getting the shoot together and um and it's in a uh you know I did an autobiography in 2016 2017 and uh I was expecting you know this catharsis from writing a book about my life story but actually doing this guitar book was there was a lot of catharsis in writing the guitar book because I pick up the casino that I did house soon as now on or um or my Ricky or something like that and just something about holding the guitar and I I felt like I did at the time and all these memories came back and uh very clear memories of how I felt and that was through hearing the guitar and um picking it up do you want to see the first one in there yeah let's let do it let's do it you uh by the way you must um listen to Johnny's autobiography or read it it's great uh listen to it because Johnny narrates it set the boy free it is just awesome guys one it's really brilliant so yeah get us a Gretch nice one uh this is Rich by the way yeah Rich y my assistant and uh enabler thank you those of you who have been around 20 odd years guitar business will know Rich 30 years 30 30 years Rich I've never seen one of these In the Flesh before this is um uh gret's super ax and this was the guitar I got when I form the Smiths um I traded in my Les Paul Standard for this uh for a few reasons really I wanted something different it was 1982 gretes with d Reger it sort of seems to be I like that it was kind of a 50s thing but frankly this was the only one I could afford um all these switches so it's got a phaser on [Music] it now I would use it back there I was like no that that's got no place in my new band but there's a compressor on there uh I forget to work yeah so there's a compressor in there um tone and um yeah this is what I had when I started the Smiths off and um like all all guitars and all guitar players out there will know this it makes you play in a certain way yeah I wrote so H and glove was the big one that we did the record [Music] on that's [Music] simple and it's stayed in pretty good [Music] condition I just love that if you're so [Music] dumb which is G by the Smith and [Music] um [Music] so it's got a really unique voice isn't it because I expect on a bridge pickup to it to be midly and tight but it sounds really open and full yeah it's warm sounding [Music] yeah this makes me kind of play in that very open style of thing um Smith's did all our our really shows with this guitar it was a my one guitar right um there was a thing that for some reason I used to tune up a whole step most other people always tune down don't they perverse right out of the box The Smiths right so uh I used to use light strings and sh up I think it was just to do with when me and Mory first started writing I just I think probably I didn't couldn't afford a capital or something maybe went back to that so I just tuned up to because his Melodies were quite low okay so I tuned up but Andy on Bas stayed uh in concert so it gave us some interesting sort of things that he was doing on the bass he was amazing anyway obviously but but um anyway that but so I used to snap strings all the time okay of course when I really couldn't afford to snap strings so um yeah we did the first single on this and the early songs as to say in the early shows and then um when we got signed um I was able to buy a backup guitar and that was when I bought the Rick 3:30 so this is hand in glove yeah um that was the only song that was let me see was that the only song we recorded with this guitar and all the early gigs yeah because there's a version of The Smith's first ALB album that we did with the producer Troy Tate which I think has got some really good moments on it uh and that was done on this guitar right uh but then we we uh we re-recorded the first album because there was some aspects of it that weren't right and by that time we' done more gigs and I'd acquired the Rick and buaka by that time okay would you like to see the Rick would you like to see the Rick Anda okay so when I got this um I got it very deliberately so because I thought it it would make me play in a certain way I I just had a a feeling that I just knew that uh Rick Anda players played a lot of chord Melodies and there's a thing about these early 80s Rick is that they are actually really great sounding guitars so one of the first things that uh we recorded on it was [Music] I know you know it's got a bit of chorus on it a little bit of compression and everything but the sound of that riff is is that is this guitar so is the cappo on there because you tuned up a step would that guitar have been would you've been playing that two Frets down with the guitar tuned up a step we wrote I wrote the song on the Gretch yeah and so it was it was written up and then when we came to record it because we gigged it on the Gretch and then when I came to record it I didn't write it on this when we came to record it I just had to do it with the CPP one for that reason yeah and also I mean usually to be honest I'd probably just play it without the kapper but uh I know what nerds are life the record is actually in B I am aware that the records in B thank you very much uh but one of the first things I wrote on it though which really I don't think I would have written on certainly on a strat unless Paul was um accept yourself which [Music] went [Music] the guitar just made me do that yeah it's I I've got to say it's totally fascinating sat here because what we're hearing there is a whole generation of music yeah yeah that style of playing is in undeniably you but then of course that influenced everybody else at the time to start doing a similar thing and it just it brings in a whole Epoch of music and a time that is yeah it's phenomenal here actually experiencing and what blows my mind is that so we take This Charming Man and you were 19 when you did that yeah and it was fully your sound Johnny are fully realized from 19 years old because as soon as you hear that and the The Melodies the the the ariani guitars um it's like it was all there from from like the yet from yeah one of the things that happened was uh I mean obviously chorus was a big part of the sound but um I had um there's a tap machine knocking around somewhere but I had this teak tap machine before I got a chorus pedal uh and I could overdub on it so I really liked doubling right maybe because I couldn't afford a chorus pedal but I liked doubling I like the discipline of it and um that sort [Music] of [Music] that that was kind of a hyperactive version of of uh I don't know what yeah yeah um yeah uh but what what got you there what got like 19 years old and what you know uh so this is 83 four this CH remember was 83 I think yeah and I'm just thinking of everything else that's going on at that time I think when people heard that they hadn't heard anything like that before just popped out it was its own thing well I've been um like like loads of my mates who were into guitars I've been gone through the whole you know obsessive fan of guitar culture for all the way through the 70s um because of my age like Punk happened that for me uh around about I guess it would have been 12 or 13 so I'd already got into some guitarists that I really liked you know like BB looks had this guy Bill Nelson who was really great guitar player and um and really when punk out me and my mates the thing that really got our ears you know going I mean obviously the pistols what they meant and everything to my generation was amazing but um from a guitar playing point of view as I remember the thing that really impressed everybody was television Richard L Richard Lloyd I really loved I mean I know you know um him and Tom valaine but I don't think Richard gets enough credit for his influence on my generation musicians um I think will Sergeant will tell you that you know and um so there was the and before that really I guess um a big influence on me from electric guitar point of view was Jimmy Scott from The Pretenders so but when I he [Music] that I just thought it was one of the coolest sounds [Music] yeah stuff but the pretenders were very there was a few bands that were dead cool for me sure um late 70s bands the only ones I was obsessed with they had a great guitar player called John Perry still great Jimmy from The Pretenders which is amazing because I ended up being the pretenders and um XTC Dave Gregory was really good I I saw I saw them and they were great I mean I saw everyone the big big one as well for um my generation was John Mok who was playing with the Banshees and with magazine so there was um it wasn't a complete Wasteland but it felt aside from those guys I mentioned who were much older than me um a lot of my stuff came from UM playing acoustic playing Bert Jan so that's where a lot of the arpeggios came from and the broken up chords thing that just came from really I've got to say that just came from playing my feelings really right you know stay up late um in in the bedroom and just [Music] be I never really saw anyone doing that th those kind of things um it just I don't know it just sort of suited my personality I think yeah was it a an active rejection of kind of hard rock do you think was that just not your thinge very definitely yeah yeah I think um when when you're young I think uh the things you don't like you really don't like and you you kind of um identify with or it kind of defines you in a way um I wasn't like a sort of I wasn't particularly Angry Young Man or anything but there was a lot of things about guitar culture that really I thought just thought was so Naf you know you go in guitar shops and honestly there would be posters of g guitar players with some like you know scantily clad women on with and snakes and yeah all the all of that business but I loved guitar culture I was already in I was in from I was in from um 1972 really when I was about eight or nine with Mark Bolan and um so I was super I was in any I know I come from a a very musical family as well my parents are record Freaks and still are so I grew up around a a lot of um very um enthusiastic young Irish people who loved rock music well loved rock and roll music and loved pop music of the day so my parents were young and really into record so that was the atmosphere I had in my house and and they loved that I played the guitar so it started with bowan so I was right in there from the early 70s glam rock and all of that but yeah um when I got it's interesting you know I got to 14 15 and I would go in the guitar shops and a lot of the stuff I was hearing people playing a lot of stuff I was hearing on rock radio or on the old great with suest and stuff like that I wasn't like an angry Punk but it I just thought it was um not not very nice music really and the bands I liked only ones Psychedelic Furs uh magazine buzcocks I mean they were like they they were just like a an Awakening for everybody in Manchester particularly because that's where we were all from um I don't know what when when the bus Cox um I mean this is not a Ricky thing but when when the first bus Cox album came out um I was aware I'd read in the music press I you know that it was going to come out in like a silver bag and all this anyway the day it came out I sagged off school early to get it and um and I went into town I always remember it was a sunny day I got it I took it home and when I heard um I heard this on [Music] a [Music] Steve dickle doing that I still think that's well that's as good as you need to be in a way yeah absolutely it's so brilliant that rib and it felt like um in my bedroom hearing that song for the first time because I was already playing I went it's a new day for guitar players when I heard that and and the other riffer because it doesn't sound like me this [Music] but cuz I was fully aware that he could probably play more complicated than that but I just went I just want to hear that for half an hour yeah the attitude about reclaiming the guitar as something to do something dead cool with that's way that's the way I was thinking so obviously I had a lot of musicality about me and I was super into Melody but that period suppose it's the same for everyone who's 15 16 17 but that attitude of just how cool was that riff it just really spoke to me and I was like wow you you can do something really simple I think it's um I didn't realize it at the time but that it was um my first discovery of aesthetic okay you know what I mean there's an aesthetic there because that's been a big part of your you the whole clothes thing and the style and you ended up doing that in Manchester in early days that the whole idea of it being a like you say an aesthetic yeah yeah it's like a worldview yeah just um you know I don't want to be disrespectful but the culture at that time there was Freebird and there was a buzz Cox right for me as a guitar player and um now my old age God bless Freebird but you know you know it's you know yeah you were going you were going but for a young for a young person it was just dead exciting hearing that what what those those bands were doing so I was inspired by those cool sort of bands that that had guitar players who all played guitar parts yeah right the other thing I I think I hear in the arpeggiated chords is it's almost like a West African High Life influence is that a thing or not really completely accidental yeah so because [Music] I can hear that that sounds very African yeah um the chorus and everything yeah maybe they nicked it from you I can I have no idea or just so that on on boy with the S [Music] there that's very King a day yeah but I had no idea about that at the time I I just liked there was Tunes to be pulled out the air and one way or other I was going to find a way of doing it on guitar sometimes I would do it with a slide sometimes I kept like with that joke isn't funny anymore there all backwards stuff and um there was no question really until we started augmenting with some keyboards but that always backed up the guitars anyway that we are a guitar band and I just wanted to come up with Melodies really yeah but also it's all centered around the song like you were a aware from a very early age that it's about the song yeah and you always writing just looking at the amount of songs that you've written yeah it's like it's something that you're constantly doing yeah yeah well the um the thing about serving the song was um I read just some little quote from John lonard guitar books and [Music] um yeah this even before book a lot of book culture came around there wasn't a lot of there wasn't like tons of books and there wasn't tons of books about bands um as a remember but anything that was going I would sort of read it it was in a library or whatever and um you know even to this day really you don't hear John Lenin there's not a lot of documentation of John lenon talking about his guitar playing very much not that much and um but I remember seen a thing about that about he he said you got to serve the song and um yeah it just stuck in my mind that really um and I was aware that it being the 70s I was aware that that's what Keith Richard was doing that he was serving the song There was such a um such a massive amount of people we call it shredding now but such a massive amount of people noodling that seemed to have got really become the currency in Guitar culture of what was good and the in a way the Keith Richardson the John L just talking about going I mean I really like that if you let me do that on a song for three [Music] minutes it's just catchy and great right it's a really good sound I'll do that and um you know I mean I like stretching out and I like surprising myself and all of that sort of stuff too but those people who were who were because Jan was famous Keith RIT was famous who were big and who were like saying don't bother with all of that they were almost outliers in a way really yeah so so it was quite a powerful message of of serving the song and it just really spoke to me that idea and it just seemed like just cooler really um all the bands Al lighted were all about that yeah I just I I'm just I just think of myself at 19 and if I had had the presence of Mind think no just serve the song but at 19 it's like you know and it's like so many kids but it's just the that to have the the the vision and the songs and that sort of coming out at the maturity yeah it's very grown up very grown it's amazing yeah I mean I've been in um I've been in bands from Little you know bands just with your mates not trying to get things going in bedrooms and Scout huts and all of that from being 13 15 but I think um what I what I think now about that apprenticeship that I had from being 15 being in bands that were giving it a go and I'm not talking about getting paid for gigs or anything like I was in a band with adults when I was 15 and and I was in a couple of other bands and we would sort of took it seriously weren't great but um that so what you talking about having that I guess that awareness of serving the song and and of uh I suppose you're talking about that I was very uh I had a bit of a vision for I wanted my guitar playing to go it's quite deliberate um that came from I'm going to say this because maybe if there's younger people watching this but from being 15 to 16 17 18 all of those rehearsals and all those playing those Daft gigs in front of like 15 of your mates and everything um you sort of iron out a load of stuff that you don't want to be there right you know it's a funny thing in my life anyway there it was more terrifying playing in front of 11 of my mates on but actually being on a stage and they turn up in this like this youth club than playing at glasbury right because they were they a hard they are hard crowd come on Johnny let's see what you got they would my mates would just take they started off taking the piss and then um and then by the third time me and my band played with me and Andy wrot we had this band uh they were kind of like oh yeah that's quite a good one yeah I quite like that yeah you're not bad and um if you can win over your mates uh 16 17 you you're sort of on the right path there really I think if I'd had been doing something a bit na I probably would have heard about it was playing guitar cool then or was it weird like did your school friends think playing guitar was cool not really no they they no I think they thought yeah I think they thought it was a little uh um odd uh yeah it it was odd in a way really I'm always surprised but I talk to kids now who play guitar and there their mates think it's weird that they play guitar and it's like wow really still oh still yeah things haven't changed you know yeah I mean one thing that's I mean you guys will know this but one thing that's changed massively is the amount of girls the visibility of of young girls playing and they're just killing it and loads you know I mean obviously in the last 20 years or whatever so many in in Indie music particular particularly because that's what I know about the uh girl bands that I've been around who've made really good stuff um it's it's just not even it was a little bit unusual yeah in the late 70s and early 80s I mean Chrissy hind I mean obviously you know there people like Debbie Harry and Susie soon but Chrissy hind coming out front in a band with her telecaster and playing those great riffs she really P was a Pioneer I think yeah it felt like the last nut to crack as well didn't it guitar because female drummers and bass players became Durer much earlier than that and you'd see touring um drummers and bass players in in massive bands and then the guitar thing just feels like it's still just about just about happening now yeah I think you're right about that yeah I think that's one of the uh one of the attractive things about the guitar playing on social media seeing these girls just playing all different kinds of music it's not just oh I'm you know I'm up in I'm in South London in in an indie band from all over the world you got girls playing all kinds of stuff Jazz you know Fusion everything you like metal whatever it is stuff I don't you can't put a name to that's uh obviously that's got to be a good thing it's wonderful so we've got to a Rick and Backer then we got two guars in okay yeah we got two guitars yeah okay um so we're what are we now 84 yeah so what I'll do now I'll just show you a couple of things real quick let Rich um so the next big guitar that I got really and it is a big guitar is the 355 I mean big oh my word so um people who've followed me over the years will know uh know the story about this guar [Music] um instantly that one cord it's like that's it that's that song well when um there's whole backstory uh about um when the Smiths were signing to S records in America and I kind of tricked seor Stein or Charmed seor Stein into uh promising me one if we signed even though I may had my pen at the ready uh and um and he did on January the 2nd 1984 took me into 48th Street guitars we buy guitars and and I just saw this thing I fell in love with it um and um but anyway TR trundle back in the snow with this guitar and I went to the IR hotel which was a real you know dive and um but anyway opened the case and U and I just had a noodle on it in the shop but I opened the case and first thing I [Music] did [Music] that's what the guitar did really far and um so okay need another [Music] bit [Music] um it did all of that really for me so just fell out that moment yeah all those kind of chords and I don't um in all honesty uh I wasn't aware that I even knew those chords it wasn't like I could go oh yeah um a guitar teacher taught me about those major sevs I don't even remember that that I knew them but I think uh if you're lucky enough one of the things that um uh I've learned doing the book I knew this anyway but I've really experienced it now that if you're lucky enough to own and have relationships with different guitars they they will make you make different kinds of music right it's a very privileged situation to be in it's kind of defined me really I think that's defined me more than being known or anything like that but it was quite a big deal when I I put when I was pulling all these guitars out and revisiting them and I was like oh wow it's uh all of the stuff came rushing back about where my head was at at the time and [Music] um and then the other thing with this was uh when I was like oh okay I've got a new song now you know and I thought all right okay well just paid for itself oh yeah but awesome I I thought I'll bring that to the band um I then went uh [Music] oh that sounds like a good start to a [Music] song [Music] yeah that that just was like okay well that could be the BS side that the most beautiful bounce yeah in the right hand that chord change I have no idea what I have no business doing that F to B minor and to the The Smith's credit the rest of the band made it into a great record right you know two things I found really interesting about that whole process one was were you firstly can you remember being aware of realizing that guitars maybe had songs in them that it was something it could give to you because I think a lot of the way a lot of people who play guitar think about the guitar is is I'm G to do what I want on this guitar and they try and sort of bend the guitar into what they want to do rather than letting the guitar do what it wants to do I think I think um that's possibly the difference between your sensibilities being I'm a songwriter and your sensibility is being I play over things I think wow I think if you're a songwriter the business of that kind of thing happening the basis of a song composition is so magical and Elusive and sometimes maddening yeah that um once you've had that experience once you go instruments have songs in them some people will go over to a piano and well maybe they've you know there's a certain piano that Paul M Paul MC has written so many songs on and he will he will probably give that piano so much credit yeah he's like it might be something to do with the fact that you put M uh but so yes I do think uh uh I really do yeah I was very fortunate that I mean Smith being very prolific and our turnover of putting records out was really quick um that gave me an excuse to keep buying guitars and to have the confidence to to go yeah this is a song this isn't just some noodle I've played actually this is a song and I think all of us who play guitar probably throw away 20 songs a day potentially by doing some noodle which you go no actually let's work this up and you had the confidence and the vision to say no I'm going to take that and we we will work it up yeah I think also um I've been very lucky in that I've worked with a lot of good singers you know I mean most famous for being in the Smiths and that's amazing but what you're talking about Kirsty mcco was really good at getting that out of me because I would be sitting with Kirsty and was a little different with Kirsty because we used to hang out a lot together and um and i' be we just be chatting and I'd been noodling and she say what's that and I'd be like I don't know and and um she'd make me record it on a little cassette and then a week later she'd had written lyrics for it so uh cribs were really good for that as well uh if was knocking around a riff around at a sound check um they always had the radar up and uh they were very creative people so I have to give credit to my partners it's great collaborating working with other people but yeah I think I know if I'm on at something good because there's been a few times when um I've literally gone around to well like Gary jman in The Cribs I I had this riff um um for this song um we share the same skies and I played it one night and I was like that's got to be a song and this was importantand Oregon and and I went out at Gary's and he was doing something else I was like Gary let's get in the basement and do this so so you know when you're on to something pretty good I think and it's a brilliant thing you know other other times you have to really you think you're on to something maybe I've been in that situation as well I mean that happened with with uh with stop me if you think you've heard this one before I was the only one in the building who thought it was any good before the vocals went on everything but as a potential riff right um you know I uh I I had I had this uh so I [Music] thought [Music] it's just music is it just it sounds crazy to say it's just music but when you when you when you're in well all of our worlds but specifically mine and Down's world where 99% of what you hear is Mindless noodling well and sometimes that can be a bit divorced from from music and Melody and song and yeah what I was doing there was I actually uh I I I didn't realize I I wasn't thinking I'm going from a major to a minor and and that's it just sort of went my ear just went with it really but um but there's a couple of members of the band uh just thought it was bizarre for for that for that they were well okay um but you can't argue with the end result though no I mean hey in the end the bum were amazing you know this you know they they're like okay he's a bit he's a bit nuty but we trust him you know so it was good you said about you know the major in mind you didn't know where that came from in those Major Seventh chords you were playing I said there was two things that amazed me about what you played so you said when you were growing up there was lots of Records in your house I think I'm hearing classic 50s American songs you know like classic Melodies In Those chord changes and I wonder if that just permeated in some way that you'd heard those a lot of those classic songs that used yeah well what's uh I think where that comes out more than anything is that um not just on the Smith's records but my solo stuff as well is and with the the um the Acoustics are really loud on some of the records you know obviously big mouth's a obvious one and um maybe there is a light but um uh and that was a something that I heard as a little boy that the first records I ever heard was it was my auntie and my mother playing at every brothers and you got chat Atkins playing like these layered Acoustics and um I still think that's an absolutely amazing sound to this day you know you wear it on um what's the Tom um is some tomet song like running down a Dream It's a real 50s rock and roll device right and um I suppose in the 80s when most people sometimes myself included wearing eyeliner and all black and and you know baggy clothes and all of that sort of stuff to be dropping those 50s elements I I can remember how it felt at the time you know when we were doing it we do it in a couple of Records quite a few it was very deliberate uh and also it was a little bit of a we are a guitar band okay you know it's like yeah this is what guitars do I mean that's why I put mandolins on please please please let me get what I want it was very uh I sort of felt like I was it was my duty to do it I'm still like that now I still feel with me and what I'm doing now with me and my band I think sort of come full circle really with the solo band is like it is a good center part I just kind of go would that be better on guitar and even if it's not it's going on and even if it's not we're doing it on the guitar because we're a guitar band when we were chatting before we started filming um Johnny brought out an ovation acoustic which we may or may not see I don't know um and and it the observation was made that you know we talk about the the jangle Johnny Johnny Mar guitar sound that's famous from The Smith's days as you say those Acoustics are really loud and it's a reminder that the Smith was a really really short period of time in your yeah in your creative life you know it's was it 84 to 87 or something like that well we formed in 82 to 82 to 87 uh the public knew us from 883 to 87 so it was really short and very prolific and you know uh the thing about it why we even talking about it now is like it's it's sort much love and and dare I say you know there's got to be something in why people like it so much I suppose it stands up very well you know I can hear that yeah um but people are still like my daughter's 19 and she discovered you guys and it's such an important part of her musical Journey your songs that's amazing it is it's it's it's it's incredible but it's Testament to what you were doing at the time just grab people you know the the the songs the just the attitude it just was at that perfect place in time where it was it's like yes we need this right now and the push away from the mainstream way yeah well aside from the dedication and the I guess the talent um of all the members of the band we uh we just thought being in the Smiths was the greatest thing in the world of course you know at at the time um and I think that's yeah and that's I'm really pleased that we did you know I that was great um and um yeah I'm very proud of what all of us did really yeah we've got a lot of guitars to get through but there's one last thing I wanted to ask you um musically you were you know you'd found your sound you'd found that thing but in the Smiths you weren't just the guitar player on the Smiths like because there was a long time that you didn't have a manager yeah and that you had to look after all that you were doing so much apart from the music to keep that going yeah you know yeah um I'm just I think well that a lot of that side of it the way my role in the band what you're talking about a lot of that was because I started the band right um so you know it's it was just it was just the way it was that I found rehearsal room and then I found them the first manager and um and I found the band members um you know I found everybody and then I found the studios and that sort of you know it started off as my project at the start right right and then obviously you know things completely different but I guess you know that was just it at the start of it it suited my personality but the problem was as you know everybody subsequently found out that when you're playing to 10,000 people in America and you're doing these six weeks tours and you're a huge band and all that um I've yet to find anyone who thinks that uh it's a good idea that the 23 year old guitarist is the manager yeah probably should rethink that one Lads um and and I was also trying to be busy writing songs I think you know more interestingly what you were saying that um this thing about I found my thing well I know why you say that because it seems like the the sound of the guitar playing was like oh right okay that was fully formed as people say but I I have to say that at the time and even now I still don't feel like I have entirely found my thing when I heard you say that I was like oh I know what you mean but I'm glad that it's like this search there's still 40% of Me Maybe 30% now back then it was so you got okay right you know we sound like this we've got this song we got boy with the thorny side or we've got girlfriend in a coma or whatever came out and um but at the time it was a search sure song by song was a search uh and if I think about that I'm still like that now yeah I think you can hear it like once we get to strange ways you can hear the ambition in certainly a bit a little bit in the production and in the arrangement of guitars and stuff and all right we're we're creating a new narrative because we know what happens next but it's almost like you you can hear you going I want something different I want something bigger I want something new and it's always about it's always been about pushing it's like okay well this is now my thing I'll just do the same Al like you know create all the same um things that rely on that no I'm going to go in this direction now I'm going to you know we're going to be pushing something different I think there's always a when people think they've got you you know going through the albums they've got your sound pigeon like no we just going go here now yeah yeah well the most obvious uh you know the best illustration of that was that the first song on the last album does have any guitars on it and that was a decision I made months before and I thought I just I've really needed to keep stretching what what I was about and what I thought the band should be about really that just for my part and there's you know there's a couple of songs on there like on Happy Birthday being like really 12 stringy acoustic um and this the sound of some of the songs on that last album being really unadorned and and open sounding that I can remember that being my frame of mind I mean the obvious thing about putting a instrumental keyboard thing at the start of last night I drent I've been working on that that was because I got really into Low by David Boe wow and um you know his whole Berlin thing and it being the Smiths ended up sounding like uh tripping night in Salford you know uh and um but it worked you know and then um uh there's a couple of other songs as well like I think I started something it's got this real Glam thing I deliberately left super dry because I wanted it to be a bit like um what Mick Ronson was doing on on um Aladdin s so new things were you know there's loads of things in the Smiths that don't sound like heaven knows and don't sound they don't sound like This Charming Man and so as I say there was anything was up for grabs as long as it as long as really my mates thought it was cool yeah I love love that how did you feel about overdrive in those days cuz it listening back and we are going to move on from The Smiths a minute it it felt like it sort of crept in a bit more like there was more overdriven sounds as as time went on a bit well I think I was very uh black and white about things and you know and guitar culture was my life um being a guitarist had been My Life by then it was like no turning back we by the time for the Smiths so these things were like life and death to me so the idea of like having Distortion I was like well no the pistols have just done that as well as you can do it yeah yeah that was my thing and anything beyond that was I guess I can't even think of what it would be like maybe metal or something like that but I thought well if I'm going to do it I'd uh I think I maybe even use the HM2 on that the black one with and I thought well if I'm going to if I'm going to you know go go big right so I mean this is a a car plexitone the other thing about it that's good was that I I was trying just getting those trying to be as nasty as possible I thought that's a pretty good Rift but the thing the also the thing that I did on the uh on the the choruses on that so say we went from absolutely no Distortion to that's what happens on that record though well okay if you want if you want some niley there you go that's all I needed to do really no convention I'm not doing this conventionally I'm going to do it in a different way yeah and it the track again the rest of the B just played a Blinder on it um awesome okay so another one that's a 1960 ES3 55 that was bought for you when you signed the deal uh in America yeah that's that's that one all right so I brought this out because I don't think this has been kind of uh talked about before really but this casino like a lot of people I I got this because of the Beatles and the Hol so essentially so this is the guitar that house now was done on and and uh when the track was recorded it's just such a simple track um but the Rhythm track just [Music] went for the demo and for the uh four or five hours after we cut the backing track I was like yeah it's okay but as as the day went on in the studio and then me and the producer were left on our own I was like that's not cutting it there's just something missing and um that's when we sent um we we sent the that boring Rhythm track out out to the Fender Twin reverbs [Laughter] [Music] and [Laughter] [Music] the thing about that was that over the years uh I play how is now my life set and I've got the sound really down and me and my band plate really pretty well and uh I've played with not many people but a couple of times and when we come to do the book when I picked up this guitar and I played it it sounded like the record wow sounded more like the record than any other time and it it's to do with this particular guitar it being a Hol Hol body the P90s and all of that but this just into a fender ramp it it sound I was like oh okay it really confirmed that no matter how much how clever you are with graphic Equalization yeah yeah and so I'm pretty good at programming I like I really like programming pedals I'm nerdy about it and and I've had to do a lot with house iners now over the years but essentially that last bit of the ingredient is [Music] [Laughter] [Music] uh it's this guitar it's mad having heard the records so much for obvious reasons I hadn't quite figured out that's what the the the Rhythm you were playing was cuz the tremolo so takes over and is the sound of the track um that's right yeah well I mean for you know for okay we really going to get down into it there's also we were pushing the faders yeah in time going me and the producer were going and that adds to that whole thing and um what's good about that as well as the fact that we had to feed into these Fender amps and when they went out of syn we had to start again was only every eight seconds so we fed the Rhythm track I didn't play it through a f the twin with with TR one we fed the so in other words that's onard of in the last 30 years because you just would have sampled it and looped it yeah but the fact that it isn't looped makes it it keeps your ear moving because no four seconds are exactly the same yes so all of that all of that stuff goes into it I think um uh and then the slide part on the top is that yeah that used to be like a really pretty thing um I used to just I used to just do this on it sorry there's me assuming it's a slide part no it's a slide it's a slide but the thing I was going to mention so so uh again about pulling these guitars out when I was doing the [Music] book [Music] now that only sounds like that on that that guitar on that guitar yeah killer and what how old what is that it's a 64 casino is that right Rich yeah got it from Denmark Street and um yeah it's the sound of house in is now and and nowhere first a lot of your guitars are in really lovely condition as well you've looked after them yeah which is amazing because any guitar tech who's ever worked with me will tell you that I just leave leave them around this is how uh how long I've been doing it or how old I am these days um well tuna's definitely tuna pedals W around when I was a when I was starting out when I was in bands unheard of you had to tune to a piano yeah there wasn't a lot of those in like gares and all this stuff that I used to uh so I I used to just tune up to records well you're a hard player as well yeah yeah yeah I the harmonica so sometimes like in the early Smith's days I tune up to the harmonica but what I was going to say though was like there wasn't really a lot of guitar stands around either so I I just got because I'm from that period I leave my guitar this is right is it rich rich I'll tell you I leave my guitars on top of amps right and leaning up against amps um and if I you want to see me grapple with a stand it's like I'm dealing with a wild animal it's like I'm at the zoo my strap will catch on it's it's I'm like um just so uncoordinated but also I I I like the look of a guitar on top of an amp yeah I just like that so I'm very very lucky tou would that no haven't had too many mishaps but me and guitar stands are flipping it's one of the reasons I never have them on stage I just walk you never see me put a guitar on stage because otherwise I'll just end up rolling on the floor first time I watch in your house in the early 90s walked in the living room there's a burst leaning up against the bookshelf with a dog running around yeah 59 burst you're 59 burst yeah well my dogs are amazing that's the thing my dogs two German Shepherds it was as well I think W it yeah um yeah it's part of it's part of living in my household really dogs and children have to navigate amazing old guitars which I have to say were expensive for a workingclass boy from Manchester but they were nothing like they are nowadays obviously yeah and what okay next guitar next gu okay so just like magic I'm uh I'm now playing this one I thought uh and this another thing about doing the book that was great that I've been asked about this guitar so many times over the years different people like you still got that green one I think it's because he used it on TV a couple of times right and um I I did use it to record Headmaster ritual and um nowhere fast um which I think is on a is on a TV thing uh it weighs an absolute crazy T far out man yeah check that out oh yeah yeah oh that's got to be over 10 pound isn't it yeah it is over 10 pounds yeah but Angie bought me that for a present when we got engaged when we were kids and uh yeah so it really means a lot to me and um it's it's amazing sounding but girl afraid it's on and um Headmaster and uh one of the layer guitars on nowhere with the casino do you want me show you another one please yeah oh I'm going to say what's really lovely in the book there's like a full page full bleed shot of the um Bird's Eye Maple back of it you get really good yeah yeah the details of that stuff the distinctive thing about that guitar [Music] so [Music] yeah [Music] why why this is interesting is that um so I got this one from A1 repairs in Manchester uh in ' 85 when we came to to start um mate's murder album and um I want I just wanted I wanted to go back to Les Paul I've been on Les Paul's before the Smith so I want to go back to that and um so I was knew I was going to when I got the opportunity and then I got the Cherry one which is quite unusual I find at the time because i' remembered the now famous one that George Harrison plays you know that class giv yeah um and um but this the thing about this guitar um for anyone who's interested what a lot of people think are my arpegios that I've used on with the the slow motion replay uh dogs are lust uh sh with the cribs a lot of Smith stuff from 85 onwards uh Headmaster is this guitar people assume that it's ricken backers and stuff like that but this is this clean is the but the other thing about this guitar is it's um what Berner T used in for regret with they [Music] [Applause] order it's not my song [Music] [Applause] so and um the one that I would only have written on this guitar the another one of those things of um um some guitars I've been musicing them [Music] [Applause] [Music] something about the guitar maybe come up with it you know I've got amazing amazing Baseline on that on that song and uh yeah so this is uh the one that had run into a burning building for program really yeah so yeah that and the nine pickup guitar that I bought with n gallager of course so no said that we had to get you to show us that guitar so first time nol and I hung out together he he was on the doll all good so far and I was uh kind of pretty out there rockstar I guess is probably thr enough assessment and uh this is what I bought look at that baby oh man that you know I wouldn't get rid of it for anyone my logic was that because it was the 90s was that um I think it looks fantastic the thing about it is it sounds amazing right yeah so obviously obviously nine on and off switches of course obviously but then just to add more torture for the guitar tech uh I think it's in and out of phase I think yeah right brilliant so you've got I think it's 18 switches on this thing I am expecting Nigel Tuff to walk in I know I know I know I'm okay with it I'm all right with it I tell you why because about three years ago I remembered it you know just I was messing around in the studio and I pulled it out and I wrote uh spirit Power and Soul on it which was the first single off the last album and I really like that track and the guitar it just came out of this guitar so 30 years later and much ridicule see you write spirit Power and soul I don't care uh does it work oh it's amaz yeah I mean it it does work yeah I mean it just sound like a guitar to wow what else am I on here now what is it early ' 80s Strat then somewhere no it's late 70s late 70s is it yeah okay deep beneath it's kind of like Richie Blackmore goes to Blackpool or something it's no it's craft work if they're in a metal ban that's my story I'm sticking to it there you go you go yeah still enough of that [Laughter] one feels are loose right okay so I guess it you know obviously there's loads of stuff going on here I've got my 12 string 3 okay but uh this this is the one that started the Jag thing yeah so this is the whole Jag journey I think I think there's a little bit of kind of um uh cohesion or um what go because they the red light Po I used a lot in the the mhm and um this was the first Jag that I owned um sorry not to go too uh biographical but was the The Happening alongside electronic yeah all around the same sort of time yeah the the electronic would running at the same time and did you have uh a different kind of guitar approach to both projects yeah yeah yeah did yeah because the thing with the there um we were kind of um I guess on those albums Dusk and mind bom we were trying to capture a sort of late night almost uh there was a spirit that we were looking for that was I guess is like I don't know maybe Memphis in 1968 at the not we wanted to sound like a Soul band but we there was a kind of after hours uh illicit kind of mysterious world that we were trying to be in really and you know so Matt singing through a bullet mic quite a lot there's a lot of it's to do with the aesthetic of what the the was about and that was amazing and but I was contrasting that with Machester amazing nuttiness that was happening in literally in my home studio in my house at the same time which was Rave wasn't a thing there it wasn't it wasn't even a word but it was just a new music that was coming out of Manchester that me and Bernard were doing and that was that was a whole different thing for me I think had I not been in the there I think from a guitar point of view it would have been a bit challenging because there's not a lot of room for guitars are in electr cop you know and I wanted to make really great electr pop yeah and who better to do it with than Bernard Suna yeah and um you know I mean literally Bernard I've seen Bernard as a PIR trick he can once he knows what what s's doing he can turn the volume down and then actually create a sound and then turn the volume back up and go there it is I mean he's he really knows about synthesis a brilliant guy but yeah it both things were going at the same time and um it was great it was absolutely great for me I mean the two the world you know so we talked about or I mentioned ambition earlier that uh was it mindbomb the first record you did with them is literally that it's like it's stereoscopic 360 degre sonically compared with Smith's certainly so you're going on vertical curve there yeah and then you compare that with electronic with those massive singles you know yeah that everyone remembers Neil tenant singing on a couple of them um it just felt like just a massive creative place for you to be you had outlets in in every direction yeah it was well it needed to be really because the Fallout from The Smiths on a personal level was so intense and difficult that the that thing which you've just described and I appreciate you saying putting in those terms that was happening in my life that the those massive cinemascope [Music] kind of not pioneering but real sort of a discovery that was happening in Manchester that was just on a that really balanced out the real personal difficulty of the Smith split and you know to get philosophical about it so thank God I had that going but so in other words it wasn't just all all roses and you know going I was literally up and down the mway from Manchester to London the electronic amazing on toing the world with the the and then doing those records with electronic at dodg stadium and all that but there was a counter quite heavy counterbalance to that right that's that's the fact of it that went on for quite a long time so now you mention it thank God that I did have that other amazing creative Outlet uh which was almost in um in spite of it okay really you know and it was great we ended up with some great records so I look back on that time and I still play some of those songs in my set now you know getting away with it it's like become like a it's become come like a really big part of my set now which is very very cool you know yeah uh and when the me Matt Johnson with the there he took a Hiatus of I guess 16 years a long long time he he when he came back with a very poignant and Brilliant song called We Can't Stop what's coming I play guitar on it that was an amazing thing you know yeah so this happened uh in Portland Isaac Brock from Modest mous contacted me and outright asked me to join the band and she kind of Isaac's way really and I was like I don't know you but um but I did join he was right sometimes you just got to ask he was right he was right but um no we the idea was that uh I go over to work with M Mouse for 10 days and we try we we we try doing some r writing and and so the very first night that I was there it was just me and Isaac it was an engineer being unobtrusive sat away was in Isaac's uh Loft and his attic crazy hot and um he was playing through so not many people know about Fender super sixes I think are there 612 in them or 610s or something they know I lost the guys from the pedal show they'll know we we will confirm here yeah but anyway there I want I want to say it's a 6x1 but it could maybe 6 by 10 yeah they're super super crazy loud anyway and Isaac was playing through at least one of those I mean eventually he started playing through three of them um but and I was playing a Telecaster through Deluxe raver but it just wasn't cutting it and I'd noticed this guitar it didn't have all the stickers on uh part of his guitar stuff and um anyway he uh M wasn't cutting it so I picked this up and um and it was it was a moment um where see this is why I changed thank God you did because it's it's a [Music] um as soon as I picked it up he said to me he goes have you got any riffs and i' had some riff that I was playing in some different way [Music] something like that that in it but soon as I pick this I just [Music] went and when that happened um I I just when this thing that I'm playing I kind of was like I think my life's about to change I genuinely did not because of the Riff but because I was I was like hang on a [Music] minute and then over the next couple of hours um um we we wrote that song dashboard uh which you know became like a big song for us I think I saw you guys performing on lean yeah we did it yeah and so we did that so that was a good start so I was going it's all this is why this is why and then um and then I think get this then we did that and it by this time it's 3: in the morning went got any more Rifts and I was like well my best best English accent you know Austin Po's actually actually dear boy I do and [Music] [Applause] the guitar made me do it you know and and um and then we wrote that song so that was on the first night so far out and then I guess what uh nearly 20 years later I just play Jags now I just play I I built my own Jag and that's this whole other story that we can talk about but it's because of what happened with this guitar and and honestly um it's because of who I was at 14 because in those moments I'm not I'm not going all right this is a thing that I'm doing and and then um I'm then going to go and watch the the footy or whatever what it's it's life and death to me this stuff as crazy as that sounds but and you can go where you're a bit of a nut job right because you know you might be reading into things and I know right it's my career and it's my profession but it's kind of an odd thing to do where I was like I am definitely having a moment right now yeah and um but because of it I I started building my own Jags and um obviously I've I'm in a very extremely privileged position and Fender heard that I was building my own Jags and um and I ended up with this prototype uh so was that the actual guitar you picked up in that session yeah yeah oh yeah I I neglected to to mention that as soon as I got it uh I went and and also cuz I it was quite drunk I said do you want to sell this guitar you yeah uh and what is that's an early 60s 963 yeah yeah okay Rich sorry M can I grab that for a second I just wanna Dan to hold it Dan by the way is having a um jagu realization in his life similar to Johnny's I think there there's there's words for that sort of thing in different cultures aren't there I think the Buddhists call it sori or something like we call it a Moment of clarity where you you realize that this is moment of Consciousness and your life is changing that's right it's very inspirational that you talk about it in that way because grab it people when it happens Sor that's right that that is the way yeah well I um one's called a moment of credit card Terror there is but I think you know you could look at it less cosmically which I don't and be like well you know I am who I am and I'm obsessive and I've been on on this I've been obsessing about this from being a little boy about this guitar thing but um if I wasn't that way then this wouldn't have happened this these are this is aldus Huxley CRI of building marel do Champ's bicycle wheel these were done by my friends Ali and Ari who started a fanzine called Dynamic and um they did that in believe it was in Sydney uh but so this was the one of the prototypes there's a couple of prototypes my son's got one and uh and ended up I ended up um this just ended up being everything I needed in a way really uh because over the years with Modest Mouse me and my tech at the time we uh I I I just feel like well look I want to make a perfect I want to make a perfect Jack I I thought it was Perfection and then when I started to play uh a lot of show go the bridge the bridge kept going down I mean I put that Mustang bridge on it which is a lot of people do obviously um but the bridge is just kept changing and and the string height was changing I thought well that's weird that's not right but it's part of the character of the Jag and then the other thing that started to happen was that I was hitting the on and off the pickup switches on and off by accident I found out that I really liked the um the high pass filter right and like most people because we don't set Jags up right that became redundant the um the tone section or Rhythm Section whatever you call it uh so you know it's a long explanation but change the bridge change the poles that the bridge um uh sit on so it doesn't go move up and down put little rubber feet on it stops that keeps the energy in it crucially changed that's genius add did that yeah uh but because I really wanted to keep the highp filter and also I like the look of this chrome I didn't want to change that so I had to find a reason for that to stay there but so the also it makes more sense to me particularly singing I use the highp pass filter the notch filter all the time wow always using it yeah just different nights I do different things but sometimes even though I program my sounds I uh if I'm singing I just go it's too Bassy and I just hit it up uh and then beig it's amazing what happens in process isn't it because of the process of putting this on we put this on because I didn't want to keep knocking those switches off but then that gave us an opportunity to have a fourth position and that's just what happens in process I guess the creative process which is in series now the guitar in series is so thick [Music] sounded [Music] it's so far almost like P90s it's kind of unheard of on a Jag but that looked a little lonely on its own so we we gave it an extra switch an extra Notch switch which happens when you're in that serious position so there's I keep losing count there's nine or 10 different positions of this so it does more than the old Jag does but with less [Music] [Music] switches it's just amazing isn't it just yeah yeah D Dan's had a Jaguar Revelation as we as we have said I was lucky enough when Johnny did this project with fend at first I was lucky enough to be working at guitarist magazine at that time and I think we we made a video didn't we build yeah and you explained about the pickups and everything and the whole process well it it can sound like any guitar cuz um the bridge pickup so um Tim at bare knuckle he really understood my it's quite hard to talk about sound really and use words to get Nuance right but from what I remember now it's been a while ago but I think this came from the Joe Strummer uh pickup on the Telecaster that he did one of them definitely came from the city boy Telecaster remember that or the yard bird so the yard bird and city [Music] boy so it's super punky [Music] uh and you know it was it really came into it was own with for me within the [Music] [Applause] [Music] cribs it's just it's all Melody it's it's yeah you just yeah wow it feels like it feels like a almost like a resolution of a journey because what you were playing there is reminiscent of the early days and it just it's you it's it sounds like you yeah well the uh let's say the Jag that moment I had with the with the Jag and why I pursued it with so much passion I was like this is much like when I got the Ricky really I was like this is going to make me sound like this is where I need to go yeah but because I was older uh I think I was like okay I think I know how I'm supposed to sound now I was in my 40s when that happened and as I said earlier I still feel like I'm always feel like I'm on a search the next song I write hopefully or the next few songs I'm going to be like looking for something I think but um I'm all right with uh if I could come up with some stuff and it sounds like me like you know whether it's a Bond theme or whatever it is um whatever I'm on I'm all right if I can do a good job of that I don't mind like you know I don't mind sounding like how I'm supposed to sound really and this this sort of does facilitate it so still yeah I don't want to think like okay I'm going to I've done it now by any means uh that's why the last few singles sound the way they do they sort of quite unusual I'm determined to sort of keep keep doing that but as a guitar [Applause] player I'm sort of I think you I'm I'm all right with having my voice yeah yeah did it so alongside all of this band work that Johnny's done you may or may not be aware that there's been film soundtracks there's been a tremendous amount of session work did you ever get to a point where someone calls you in or you start working with someone to do something like that and they ask you to sort of for want of a better term wheel Johnny Mah out you know can you can I have Johnny Mah on this expecting you to do the thing and you've you've pushed back against that does that ever happen um that's what they always want to be fair and now though instead of having an attitude about it I sort of get it yeah well okay if you got me the sound like me but um what's great about working with null is because we know each other so well he likes when I do that uh and when I come up with that thing and I particularly likes that and that's really what people sort of want which is fine they want Melody really and hooks nothing wrong with that um but if I do something a bit off the wall because he's my friend and because he's he's also someone who is all about well what's good for the record right yeah yeah um as long as it's good for the record he's sort of happy with it although I did kind of jangle out quite a lot on his last album it is it is true yeah yeah and I guess you have the sonics based do everything else in your own in your solo stuff cuz you know let it be said that is now the longest part of your career today isn't it being a solo artist yeah and me and me and the bander you know we we put on a good show like we're good live band uh the I've had same musicians for 10 years now they're really great saw your Crystal Palace was just fantastic they're really good singers yeah great players as a you I I had never heard you sing live before yeah and cuz you're out fronting it I was like whoa your voice is superb well thanks very much I mean it's it's a bit of a quiet taste for people and they've sort of uh you know I take it seriously and I wouldn't do it unless I thought it was good enough frankly I mean I mean the thing with singing when you you know what happened with me was that I was so known for not singing sure that it's a big ask for people but it's gone pretty well uh and then the rest of it is just whatever's in my own head and whatever I aspire to kind of aspire to be for the for my group you know again so much of this goes back to the way I was when I was 15 16 it's like you know um the front the front man in this band plays guitar and is a singer it isn't someone just led by led by a singer that was a very deliberate thing um after I was working with the cribs like well if I'm going to be in another band I want for the singer to be play the guitar with and i' writing these songs so it might as well be me uh but then you know I think I I think I was pretty serious about it when I was 17 before this me I was when I was pushed to the front and but now I'm much better at it and you know hundreds and hundreds of gigs later you you you get better and all of that so I'm still I'm still working on it but with Zack starky wasn't there yeah the healers in the healers because I think you were looking for a singer yeah and then he said hang on I thought you were singing yeah that's right yeah and because I trusted him well it was Zach as well and then Chrissy years ago Chrissy said I should do it yeah because I was doing back invb because with the pretenders and that's a pretty good what's that like like being on stage with you're growing up listening to Pretenders suddenly you're on stage with the pretenders I mean theyve got to be amazing yeah well that was the thing when I joined the tenders was yeah it was as amazing as it sounds particularly as I was 24 at the time so even though I've been through the Smith and i' done The Queen Is Dead and we've been all you know with all that stuff that's on the TV and all of that I was still really a kid yeah and um she uh she influenced me in in many many ways that I've then brought to my that I bring to my band right but when we rehearse we really we don't mess about sure uh when I when I sing rehearsals I'm not I'm I'm singing like I'm on stage and there's loads of things that she doesn't even realize that she she did for me really but yeah I mean it was it was amazing especially when um when we opened for you two at the Olympic what was it called back then it was like the Olympic Stadium or something with they had the Olympic flame going it's 100,000 people and uh we H for you too on the Joshua Tree tour and I was 23 and it was it was pretty scary but uh as you woke up on that stage what are you going to do you can't back out yeah um but that's the other thing like I was with uh someone fronting the band who I thought well she's got this yeah and that is an that's an amazing thing really to learn you know uh but yeah so that that was trippy yeah oh man wow so we've come full circle with the guitars we started at the beginning and we've obviously there are loads more guitars that that Johnny has had and that you might know but it's been a really nice snapshot of uh of looking at some of those guitars maybe the last thing you'll see loads of pictures of the book so we don't need to plug that again but um for those people who just want to cop a bit of of you and of your approach to the guitar as there is there stuff that's remained constant throughout and remains constant in terms of your what's important to to your sound how it goes over I'm thinking things like chorus compression is that still do you still lean on those things well if I take what what this guitar is doing so obviously there's chorus on it but I I lean so what what I found out about I didn't realize that I played with a lot of delay over the years it's got more and more until someone picked up my guitar the video director and um and he started playing but he didn't play like me so I went wow there a lot of Cu he wasn't playing to to my DeLay So I mean this is Extreme there's a lot on this but um uh this is one of the sounds I programmed for U New Town velocity so here I've got the KL Martin plexitone and the AC tone and the gt1000 from a delays and chorus cuz I obviously like the boss chorus anyway and um and a lot of the things that that could do and then I've got the Loop Station but when this guy picked up a guitar and he started playing riffs it just sounded like there's loads of delay on but I play to the delay so the way I this might be obvious but I don't do like what Edge does which is you the delay becomes part of the tune if you like I just see it as a big halo um and a play to it so if I go like this that's a lot of delay but if I [Music] [Music] go you can't really hear the delay no [Music] I sort of play into it that's what I do so compression chorus another reason why I like the GT is because a lot of the chorus I use is is pit shift in unison just ever so slightly detuned is just a a more musical way of doing depending on where I am on the on the fingerboard um it's just a nice chorus that again goes back to where I was when I was a kid with like double tracking but I prefer that kind of pit shift Unison I mean I don't like the phony stuff that goes up there I tried that once for a while but um so I think and I think playing playing to the sound and not letting the sound play me I think right it sounds like it almost sounds like there's a rhythm track going on behind the guitar it's so it is a very full sound but you don't lose any of the melody of what you're playing yeah yeah yeah yeah it's supporting not not tramping all over that's right yeah [Music] so it's got that ethereal thing but you don't know maybe cuz I'm playing so many notes you know so I think but I like compression especially on a Jag just to get rid of that this isn't too spiky I was careful I calibrated the pickups but just to get rid of that front end even it out um if I'm playing Rhythm which I do a lot um obviously get rid of the chorus for that and um and then really take the delay down but I suppose so this is a flat patch I still probably still sound the same even [Music] without so the as I say the delay in the chorus is just to make the picture more produced uh I have to say that in my pedal he pass that rich in the Smiths uh as the years went on the pedal Bo s got more uh this was it this is the Smith's pedal board yeah and that's a BCB 60 yeah do you remember going into the music stores when they sold those and that it was like how am I ever going to get that that's amazing and um yeah so the uh that became because because there was more and more sounds going going on the record and I'd only just kicked some stuff in I mean didn't really use it a lot I think I had corus on all the time but so that was it but when I joined the there um because Matt had made infected and it which was a very cleverly produced record and had a lot of lot of stuff on it and soul mining um I had a big part of my job was to recreate these things these little things that he'd done at 3:00 in the morning where he'd played something and he put it through tape Echo and then he put you know he played like melodica through Casio keyboards and I was having to re uh recreate that plus his guitar parts that he' done and then my own stuff so I got really into I had a board I had a I had a rack had a tc2290 in it which is an amazing bit of gear amazing h3000 one of the early rolling it was called a GPA um and then there was a GP 50 and I was running that rack and I got super into it and I talk about this in the in the other book but um I was like oh I get it producing with my feet yeah and that's the way I see multi effects particularly and and Boards generally anyway there's a few ways you can look at it and we're in a certain kind of culture but um what it is with me is that people come to my shows expecting even even the early solo show they don't know it but they're expecting to hear 12 string sounds bits of backward sounds slide acoustic simulation all of that sort of stuff and um I don't want to I'm done with having 11 guitar changes to I I'm not do you know I don't like seeing other bands do it either I'm in just playing my Jag and the Technology's got so good now I've got all these pedals all around the studio these like all of us Boutique pedals that do all this stuff and I'm very very into him but um because of my experience with thether and the 229 and the h000 everything once I got that idea in my head producing with my feet I couldn't get away from it so every bit of every song I like for the delays to be right even if it's just all people think they're hearing is chorus delay compression it's really dialed in bespoke probably a bit too obsessively really no look you know we are the people people that you can absolutely be obessive about this stuff we're right there with you they yeah yeah it's like the world's biggest support group for this stuff um I I think it's because you care and you want it to be right yeah and you know that's everything that's why we are all into this stuff because we it means something to us well thank you yeah I mean there's definitely Obsession absolutely and I've been very very lucky because my parents uh uh and my brother and sister uh they put up with it and understood it and and you know love me for it when I was when I was playing records at half eight in the morning before go to school definitely loud definitely loud or playing my guitar at 11 o'l at night and then my girlfriend who's been my wife for 40 years in early 30 30 odd years 40 I think I want pull in the face CU I should know exactly the number um she was on that I'm going to say Journey right from 1979 um and um all these people in my life from The Smiths to Matt Johnson to Chrissy Bern Suna cribs now my own band everybody's trusted me and supported me in that mad Obsession and now with the book my mate Matt bankra when I went solo I I got a really close mate a brilliant mate I thought you're the art director help me with the videos help me with the sleeves and I literally couldn't have done the book without him so my point being I've I've had this obsessive life uh I'm very lucky at the people around me the kids too uh have have uh give me the space and the support and it's not always been easy sometimes you know uh there's been points in my life when I've probably been kind of nuts uh and um but they've supported me on all these different sort of Ventures and um uh now my management so key is just really find very loving supporting people I think but I think also kind supporting people they really see the value in what you do and and I think for fans of what you do you've brought them so much joy and like for me and you know seeing like my my daughter discover you and like today she was freaking out that I was coming here yeah and and her friends as well and that what you do continues to bring so much joy to people and it's it's yeah it's really it's very very kindly to say I appreciate I I just I don't take it for granted and um yeah I just uh as a kid I thought it was an amazing thing to be get to be a musician uh and uh and I still do yeah beautiful okay everyone um first up thanks for watching massive thank you to Johnny for having us here today we're not worthy for helping um it's it's a trip to be able to do stuff like this and get this kind of insight Johnny's got loads of stuff going on at the moment um there's uh a celebration of a solo career today I believe happening there's the book please check out websites we'll put all the re relevant links and stuff below so you know uh what's happening in this awesome ongo story yeah it's been a true it's great to see you around these parts you know we're all fans me on my pals we're all fans of the show oh come on yeah nice one brilliant cheers guys thanks for watching uh have a great day and we'll see you soon see you bye [Applause] m

Channel: That Pedal Show

Views: 517,928

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Id: NjY2O92ByNw

Length: 105min 25sec (6325 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 20 2023