Morrissey - The Solo Years - {Complete Film}

in the early 1980s Morrissey emerged as one of the most distinctive vocalists and lyricists of his generation with his band The Smiths he rose to prominence as a genuine phenomenon from the start of his career Morrissey had set his sights on becoming an idol one of the cleverest then stealing was from the very beginning of the Smiths he behaved like a big-time charla potato like a rock star you behave if money was nobody and just cycle to will block late he was behaving like the big rock star as the Smiths progressed it became clear that Morrissey not only had a unique voice but a unique vision of England and the quality of his lyricism was unparalleled in modern pop music lyrically there's no one better and then you know the lyric content to every song is starting most times and the Smiths split many feared that he would disappear yet his distinctiveness and his genius persisted and his astonishing solo career has spanned three decades amazing honest and Morrison solo artist I think has been three times as long as Smith is about dismissed as an anachronism in the late 90s Morrissey has emerged triumphant from a seven-year hiatus back in the limelight once more this is the story of Morrissey solo career from the split with Johnny Marr to the staggering success of you are the quarry it's the story of a very English pop icon now will suffice in the summer of 1987 to the disbelief of their fans and to the dismay of many close collaborators the Smiths split one of the defining bands of the decade the break appeared to be due to a series of minor conflicts between singer and lyricist Morrissey and writer and guitarist Johnny Marr despite the public announcement of the band separation few feels it would endure I just saw Tiffany within a few weeks they were kind of sort it out and got back together again and I really really didn't believe it was a permanent split I don't think it was inevitable artistically I think it was inevitable personally I think Stevens very difficult and I think I think John put up with it for a very long time I think the other two would have gone with it for as long as they needed to but I think Johnny Marr didn't need to and I would presume that Johnny Marr in the end and you know the word in Manchester was that not just Johnny but Angie had just had [ __ ] enough for Johnny Marr the end of The Smiths was a positive move he abandoned a group in which he had essentially become the manager and which had left him physically and emotionally drained Morrissey however was as distraught as his fans I did spend a night with dear old Morrissey at his place and he was incredibly unhappy and incredibly lost and I really worried for him you know I worried for you know whether he was going to wake up in the morning and still and still be with us and that was that felt very strange our Morrissey had always been a very strong character it felt very fragile and so I had that that strange thing whereas Johnny and Morrissey had always been a unit and suddenly there was Johnny he was kind of not elated but but free and an Morrissey who was very very unhappy about the situation and you know you did feel that had Johnny said that he was in the Smiths then everything would have been resolved there was to be no reconciliation and in Mars absence Morrissey was forced to carefully consider not only the Smiths future but also his own when Johnny first left the idea was as far as Massey was concerned was to keep going I think he thought he could keep going at least for a while until Johnny came to his senses perhaps and rejoined the band and we tried this session with a guy called IRA Perry he was a guitar player from Bank called Easter house at the time but it was a nightmare didn't really work at all I certainly didn't get on very well with the guy Mike and Andy didn't really kind of click with him it was obvious it wasn't going to work we did it we had a weekend session on Saturday in the Sunday Sunday morning I got a phone call from Andy saying I wouldn't bother going in mercies come back to Manchester you know it wasn't going to work so that's when I sent off my cassette of songs from Morrissey to work with because there was nothing in the can after Strangeways here we come there was nothing left you know it was the barrel was empty as it were and I knew that we're going to be singles from the album released in at least two more singles or something so my idea was but here's some songs you know if you want to use Mississppi sides for the next singles please feel free to you know please you know don't yeah I feel bit presumptuous doing this but I thought I had to do something I thought you know I might as well kind of throw my hat into the ring as it were course uh the next thing I hear is a postcard from him saying Steven I want to make a solo record I love the things you've sent me um are you interested it was like wow you know this this was waiting on my doorstep and I have to go back from my honeymoon got married August of that year and I was like this is fantastic so it was mid August that I actually first had my meeting with him when we sat down and discussed about making what turned out to be beaver Hey and one of the first things you know I asked him I said do you want my candy to be involved and he said no this has got to be my servant record have you got any ideas who can work with and that's when I came up the idea of working with Vinny Riley and Andrew pacing the two musicians I got involved on on that first album when Stephen Street took over in essence from mom I think you have to remember that what he was up against was was Johnny Marr one of the greatest songwriters of the 80s if not a longer period so he's only had his workout but I think what he did he didn't try anything too brash and try anything too reckless so away from what the Smiths were doing in essence it was Smith's mark - well now I'm sure he'd be loathed to admit that and I'm sure Maura see one as well but there's no getting away from a voice like Morrissey's which is basically the Smith is Morris's voice all miles writing so you've got one of those components still there you're not gonna make it suddenly sound anything different and Morris he probably didn't want it to sound any different you know you're on a winning streak you had dismissed he had his voice he had his his lyricism the initial bunch of songs I sent obviously you know knowing that they were going to be hopefully used as b-sides in my opinion anyway Smith singles obviously they were written very much in the kind of Smith's kind of mode having said that every day's like sunday was one like one of my original tapes I sent him that dated from about two three years previously when my inspiration for that one really was kind of the bass lines to very much like an echo and the Bunnymen's sight bass line and so I sent him a whole hodgepodge of songs but obviously there was some like suede head where I kind of wrote distinctly trying to fit the mold as it were I'll dismiss why not I mean obviously it's no point putting out reggae album was more assisting on it I was going to be no it's not going to work so you know the case was yet obviously I was writing to try and follow as much as I could in the footsteps of the kind of material that Johnny provided for him having said that halfway through the album - he would say well I'd like a song to be a bit like this or a bit like that or I remember him saying he wanted a song that was a bit like a Joni Mitchell try Joni Mitchell type song yeah it's a very long rambling acoustic kind of chord sequence it and I went away and I wrote what became late-night modeling straight which was distinctly different from anything that the Smiths had done so you know it basically was he would ask if he you know and I would try and you know place in some way you know try and come up with the goods that was that was a point during the sessions Morrissey employed unique methods of reconstruction to fit his lyrical vision to that of the existing song I'd do a backing track hearing like a verse and a chorus of when Morrissey came in and he would listen to the backing track being recorded with in his book of lyrics and stuff like that and then he'd go away then he'd come back and do a vocal and the chorus would be where I thought the verse was and vice-versa often you'd be writing something and you think okay well that's the intro part and here's the verse and he's gonna start singing in and there's a bridge and there's going to be the chorus and then you get in the studio and you get to the verse part where you think it's gonna sing he doesn't sing anything I'm thinking okay and then when the bridge comes you start singing say so it's actually that bridge part can't be longer because I haven't got enough of those chords to sing you know what you thought was going to be diverse you know so yeah kind of light thing okay so what was going to be just an 8 bar bridge nice become a 16-bar verse and so you're constantly moving things around because but that was maybe exciting you know they did it made you kind of you know kept you on your toes as it were so the main thing was when you're supplying a song to him wasn't it you couldn't you know you couldn't just seemed to kind of cassette of you playing acoustic guitar of the chord sequence you'd have to kind of come up and conjure a backing track as it were that had a vibe so it would give him the inspiration to do something in a particular way as I say you know every time I sent him kind of demos for the first down they were complete with bass lines no hook the drum pattern that wanted the kind of guitar sound and so on so that it kind of had to inspire him because if he certainly something it didn't inspire him it wouldn't get used so you had to kind of make sure it was gave him something that he could latch on to and think okay that's good and as I say once he's done that I'm not saying it's going to sing where you think the verse is going to be it might end up being your singer course over that and singer verse over the bridge but still you've got a given enough to much on sir in February 1988 the first single from the new album was released although some had questioned the proposition of Morrissey without mah suede head was an instant success and reached number five in Britain the highest chart position Morrissey had ever achieved I still think suede head is as good as anything the Smiths ever did I can hear the Smiths doing it as well and you wonder whether these ideas Mabel knocking around Morrissey's mind lyrically before the dissolution of the Smith but I heard sweatin I thought this is a brilliant record this is everything I expected from the Smiths it's kind of glamorous it's kind of radiant its melodic its anthemic it's funny actually thinking back on suede head it was a song that I wrote around a baseline and the bassline is very Andy walk like it is I admit you know it's got they kind of springiness to it and melodic it jumps around a bit you know it's not just playing a root note and that song was written after I sent my original tape into Morrissey and and he said yes he wanted to you know do an album then obviously I went back and I wrote some more songs and sweet it was one of those songs I wrote in that period between him saying he wanted to do an album and actually start in the album and we did I remember recording and thinking musically he said he'd got you know it was sending really promising reading before I put a vocal on but once I heard a guide vocal that he put down for I thought this is great so it was one of the first songs we recorded on the session I think we went in the studio October of that year and in that first week session we did do suede head and I knew once we tracked that and I heard his vocal going properly and onto the track I just thought this is it we've got actually we've got a really good hit here the months after the release of suede head Morrissey's debut solo album Viva Hate confirmed that the singer was far from lost without Marv despite the inevitable comparisons to the Smiths back catalogue fever hate nevertheless emerged as a unique and successful work and both the critics and the public embraced it wholeheartedly favored hey I think it's a great album I think you've you've got someone playing the the sparring partner tomorrow through Steven Street and also Steven streets learn everything from in essence that he knows about production from the Smiths he's obviously done other bands as well but he is a gift really to produce Morrissey and be that other that other person it's quite a unique position to be you know I thought I can't record any other such occurrences of that you are the song where and the producer where before it was someone else it's very strange so you get acquainted of course classic single but then there's political things on there like Margaret on the guillotine and and all the usual sort of controversy with Bengali and platforms and things like that what's what's going on there what's he saying is it it is easy being racist or is he is he being comforting is he taking that usual outsider approach you don't know so straight to number one classic great Morris he's done is he's pulled that coup he's he's disbanded dismiss or the Smiths have imploded and he's now retained this wonderful solo career at the other end and how's he done that that's quite a thing to pull off although the musicians and songwriters had changed fever hate was marked by the same mastery of language that Morrissey had brought to the Smiths further demonstrating his ability to create pop music in which lyrical content was as important as the tunes themselves I do like his lyrics enormously there is an edge to them a very cutting edge they're not in the style of an Ian Curtis which has a sort of TS Eliot approach they're not in the style of Bernard of new order which has a kind of nonsense lyricism they're quite flowing in terms of the rhythm of the poetry they're quite flowing and also quite sharp and that's quite an achievement then again Morris is quite a sharp person you know I mean it comes down to it you know I don't think there's anyone that can be better than him and I think that's why the songs have lasted so well I really do it's not just because of the music but because lyrically people can find something in each song whether it be laughter whether it be you know joy whether it be sadness don't you'll find it there you know and he's great liver sisters no doubt that Morrissey had succeeded in escaping from under the shadow of MA was in little doubt the singers transitioned from frontman to solo performer had been relatively seamless and as the album enjoyed strong worldwide sales it appeared that the public were only too willing to accept his new role in popular music they remain however questions over the authorship of Viva Hate vini Reilly the guitarist on the album claims that it was he and not the credited Stephen Street who composed the album and that streets tracks were scrapped during his initial meeting with the producer they played me three to four demos of the Stephen Street had done filmora see to put vocals to and asked if I would play them and and I kind of said well all I was kind of quite shocked because the demos were just so appalling they're just so chill just it was just crass I mean really you know like folk folk you know three chords or a through so that kind dismayed me a bit I was my I was my initial feeling and also the happy sense Morrissey's great unease he was very uneasy once the demos began to play I was very dismayed when I heard the demos and very disappointed but I liked students free work with him on two albums previously two drug George column albums so I was kind of a bit thrown but I just I suggested that well I did want to work on this project and but the bassist had to be that I had to be able to be in charge of to the music basically we should jettison those demos because they were they were a joke they were really awful Morrissey knew they were and everyone I mean we all knew they were so but it was difficult because Stephen Street was was kind of a very close friend by that point and somewhat more as he trusted which something that he doesn't normally do so students tree was very paranoid I was trying to take take over as a writer so in order to allay his fears I said which is a mistake I now realize well actually said what I don't want any of the writing credits I just want to do the music you know you get nothing changes just just let me do the music and so that he was agreed well you know I mean that the only reason my vini Reilly was invited on the first album was because I'd work with him with a Jewish economy record and I knew I needed a goodly guitarist as it were to come in and you know supply some kind of good guitar playing on top of my basic kind of guitar playing but this claim that's been made in the press recently about him writing songs is complete nonsense the songs that we recorded we were hate were all sent to mercy in demo form by myself before we went in the studio either before we even start the session or subsequently throughout the session and this this claim once came up once before as a saying I you know wanted to get it clear and I actually invited Johnny Rogan who wrote the severed alliance around to my house so I could play in the demo tapes of my original demo it's to show these songs were completely you know in shape as it were songs before we know venue idea for but in the studio kind of was a little bit snobbish about playing some of the songs because he felt you know C F and a minor a bit below him and I was like well you know that's what the song is that's the chords and that in fact was the chord sequence for instance for every day's like Sunday so I can't quite get the prop I can't can't I can't quite see ways problem lines to finish with you well I was a bit miffed when it was released because not only did I write every truck except except suede head I didn't write suede head that was Steven streets composition whatever that every other track on the out my rope from beginning to end I even helped to produce and you know I think I knew how to begin the on with it with the jump start I suggested the guillotine at the end you know I mean look this loads of so it was basically my album and my album was really written by must from Morrissey you know you made one claim that you wrote the strings for angel angel down we go together which is complete nonsense because I wrote that song on a sampler inspired very much by hounds of love by Kate Bush at dumb der der der der der them right wrote it on a sampler keyboard sing off the tapes John Metcalf for the Juke string quartet he scored it played it on the day boys he sang on it done if anyway didn't play a note on it yet and this piece and Mojo magazine recently he says he wrote the strings for injure angel down we go together it's complete nonsense I mean the guys talking complete rubbish that was credited to my string section which was John Metcalf and his players who had been brought in but they didn't play it I played it on on a keyboard I raised it and played it on a keyboard physically played it so and that was credited to a string section which she wasn't it was me and it was my arrangement he was the whole thing was me basically and I just thought what just has been Riley guitars I'm not I'm not not only am I not credited with writing anything I'm not credited with arranging anything or producing anything it's like askew and like nothing basically you know as I say letters have been written to get you know and hopefully to get him to retract those comments but whether he will or not muscle I suppose I just feel a bit sad because I'm disappointed in Steven Street and amorous lead that they didn't credit me correctly just because it would have been good manners as I said before it's just courtesy you know it's just like good manners and respectful and they didn't show me that kind of respect and I think thus it's just a shame you know it's luck that they've really let themselves down as I say you know I know that I wrote those songs and I'm not going to stand for anyone claiming they wrote them you know it's it's just nonsense and if that was the case why then did Morrissey continue working with me in 88 doing subsequent songs that lost the famous international playboys and all those other tracks that we recorded I'm not Vinnie you know so it's just like you know I'm just surprised that you know he actually has the audacity to put in print that he wrote those songs I find it absolutely ridiculous with the rift over the songwriting credits as yet uncertain public Morrissey Street and Riley returned to the studio for the last time in 1988 when I finished through the hate in Christmas 87 basically went through a period of nearly two months of not being in contact with Morrissey at all and I was going to be upsetting I felt I literally worked myself to the bone to get that up and done I mean we've started it in October it was finished and mixed by Christmas at the same year considering it was you know we didn't start on the idea of writing together until until September or August September of 87 I thought no we'd worked pretty damn well and yet for two months I was completely out of contact with me wouldn't make contact you wouldn't we know lots of phone calls or anything so I was getting a bit upset as it happened sweet had came out in February of that year got fantastic reviews way across the board when smashing into the chart and I'll get a phone call from my CEO Stephen can we go back in the studio again so that's like yeah at least on back on back in the team again anyway so we go into the studio in spring of that year and I recalled um had a really good session actually we recorded some new b-sides to go on the b-side of every day's like Sunday the track called will never marry which I'm particularly proud of it was a very good session and we did that session we've been you Riley and Andrew / AC you know on that session vini Reilly was proven to be a little bit difficult he was been very moody and you know making noises about you know the chord sequences and everything and disagreeing with what I particularly wanted him to do at the time and he felt he could be better suited to be more sia songwriter so in fact one day in the steward yard sit among you go ahead and you see if you can come up with something I'm left him to it but it obviously was an atmosphere in the studio and after I finished that session I kind of made it clear to my OC that I didn't really enjoy that I didn't hadn't enjoyed that session in Mali kind of premature said the same thing and it was felt that if we were to continue recording together later in the year that we wouldn't use finis riding after we've made Viva Hey there were some other sessions which I was invited to participate in I cannot remember what the tracks are but there were the two maybe five or six tracks which was met which was I don't know what there were demos or I think they were released anywhere in the end and I was I think there were singles and I worked on those singles but that but those recordings were very unpleasant because by that time Stephen Street and Morrissey were at war with each other and it was very clear so why they were even attempting to record together was beyond me and I was very uncomfortable with that with those recordings and left as dense they're not after that those sessions I received a phone call from Morrissey several phone calls and found where he suggested that we do another album but we just simply cut out the middleman because as Morrissey pointed out he didn't write people hey so you know it was something we were kind of stuck with we convey ver hey but let's get rid of Stephen Street and do the next to the next album just just he and I and I said well that's great but I don't know I've done the three-minute pop song thing you know I'm kind of bored with that uh can we do something more adventurous and I sent him an CD of radio Ethiopia by Patti Smith which he listened to and I think he already knew it and he talked said yeah well we could do something interesting because he was at that stage in his career where anything he did would have been received by everybody and he could have done something quite extraordinary more prose more poetry at whatever I don't know but just anything that wasn't anything other than the three-minute pop suddenly and he seemed enthusiastic and then relented and just said well no I don't want to do that I want to you know can we do viva hey again basically he's what he was saying so I just said no and when when when he realized he couldn't believe he was kind of same over you you crazy he slightly concerned like it get me in there seriously why is you but you wouldn't know what you're saying and he was quite cuz he worked he was actually a very good friend and still is so he was quite kind of baffled and and then he took it as a personal rejection and he hates rejection and I tried to explain it wasn't a personal rejection of him as a person it was just you know the form I was bored with it so and he didn't speak to me for about five years despite the conflict surrounding the recording of its b-sides every day is like Sunday was released in June 1988 and became an instant anthem a gloomy evocation of northern England with references to John betcha means famous poem Slough it would come to be seen as the quintessential Morrissey record I'm one of those slightly awkward new irritating people and I acknowledge it myself who is a bit once everybody likes something I said I don't like that now which is fickle it's childish it's schoolboy a shock I'll be so I would never put every day's like Sun the top of my list of favorite Morrissey records just because he's the one everyone knows but I would have to admit it's a great song the reason everyone knows it's because it's a great song it does build upon that legacy that Smiths had of songs that are ostensibly miserable but also very funny there's a real strain of black humour amorites records like you can hear in the works of the English planner Alan Bennett it's a it's very sour and it's very funny at the same time every day is like Sunday is is like heaven eyes are miserable now was to the Smiths it's it's the stereotypical Morrissey moment whereby that was the stereotypical Smiths moment so to that extent it probably gets a bit too much scrutiny than that then it should then it's then it warrants really because it it's a great song you know it's well written its emotive it had a suitably a teaser video with with someone wandering around a forgotten seaside town in offseason and all of all the the box are ticked there for a memorable song memorable single it is great it's absolutely great don't it hasn't really got the bite I don't think that some of his more controversial topics have it's quite straightforward for a Morrissey son and I don't mean that as a criticism Morrissey songs are often quite odd things I mean things like sounds like panic for instance by the Smiths or William it was really nothing clocking at one minute 50 seconds so just the in terms of that every day is like somebody is verse-chorus verse-chorus middle-aged it's got strings on it that last three and a half minutes it's just a good solid piece of pop craftsmanship with probably out of the picture Morrissey needed fresh musicians to play on the new material that he and Strait were working on it was a brief search with Morrissey quickly enlisting his old Smiths cohorts and Ewok and Mike Joyce surprising to me he came up the idea of saying he would you to work with Andy and Micah game and would I have a problem with that I said of course not no if you want Mike and Andy in the game this that's fine by me and also boy I need the guitar player and he's well perhaps we could use Craig I some came fine I don't mind Craig Annan had been drafted into the Smiths in 1986 as the band's second guitarist but following a class with Johnny Marr the young musician had been quickly dropped with more now out of the picture Gannon left at the chance to work with his old bandmates I was really surprised to start working with Morrissey again yeah just because I thought you know once once he works with someone and then that's the end of it then that'd be the end of it really and the same way Mike and Andy as well or you know they wouldn't keep working with him but I got a phone call from Steven street asking me if I fancy playing guitar on these on these songs they'd written for Morrissey with Morrissey for his next solo album south oh yeah you know great be well into it working back with Morrissey again in the studio if we Mike and Andy he just did to just it just felt right you know it just seemed just really good you know I've been playing with a couple of people in the years between that and the Smiths and a couple of singers and since being in the Smiths and play with someone like Morrissey you sort of miss you know you he's thinking oh you know there's no one got any great selling really any more said you know I didn't really appreciate what Morrissey does and did and so just being back in the studio with him at least you know it was great and then with Mike and under be in there you know he would respect as musicians he was um he was perfect really and Johnny wasn't there um you know whether that that was a good thing at the time IRA bad thing you know it felt good to me because there was no there was no animosity or anything at all he was just everyone being civil to each other as I say there were first polling to do the job and obviously I felt a little bit difficult because Mike and Andy don't forget were the Smiths and now they're coming in and they're working with Morrissey but it's not Johnny telling them what to do it's me and that felt a bit awkward and you know it wasn't it it it put a lot more pressure on me in some ways I mean psychologically it was a bit of a you know it was a bit of a challenge really I certainly feel as I say they want to be thinking great this is the first step to the Smiths reunion but she can't blame him for believing you know I mean it was good as dammit you know so but I certainly felt like a [ __ ] mail move Overstreet wearing will take over from here you know and that kind of felt a little bit as if I'd been pushed to one side the reunion of the X myths members provided Morrissey with new impetus and the idea of playing a live concert both to promote his solo material and to bring out the Smith's song book seemed timely the venue was to be the Wolverhampton Civic Hall on December the 22nd 1988 we went into the studio later on in 88 and we did the session that provided the singles for interesting drug and last the famous international playboys now while we're doing that session Morrissey came up the idea of doing this gig Christmas special gig at Wolverhampton and so part of the session started then becoming like a rehearsal for that for that gig which kind of miffed me slightly you know because I was kind of wanted to focus on you know recording and getting songs done and I had kind of said well isn't it you know if you're going to be doing this gig you know could I possibly join in play on stage for one or two songs I mean I've they are going to be playing songs so I've written you know and I was kind of given this look I could tell the atmosphere amongst tip the boys you know the Xmas boys we all know whether you didn't do it straight you know and it was like a little bit keep out away this is the this is the Smiths back on track again and I'd certainly felt as if as if I was getting pushed to one side and it's at the beginning of the end really that was just really good senior playing playing back with Morrissey again I'm Mike and Andy as well it was quite small place Wolverhampton City Hall and unfortunately Stephen wasn't playing with us even though we were we were playing quite a lot of the songs we just recorded with him but you know a couple of years have gone on since I was with the Smiths Johnny wasn't there and we were all getting on really well so just to get back on stage again you know the four of us he it was just it was just great you know and he was just as soon as we started playing live together anyway it just seemed to all fit together the Wolverhampton gig was was with this incredibly strange because Johnny wasn't there but at the same time it was actually a fantastic gig it was great to see everyone and everyone was very happy to see each other it did feel like a new beginning I thought that that's perhaps the way it was going to go and is going to continue in that way and so it was a bit like a fall storm you know in some respects obviously you know Johnny's guitar playing could not be replicated by anyone but Johnny and so there was a slight hole in the gig but the audience was so up for it and it was so exciting that you got carried away and thought yeah ok this is why it's going this is what's gonna happen now ok I can go with that ok with that it makes some sort of sense you know the jubilant reunion was not to last as the group went back to the studio it became clear that a follow-up album to Viva hate was nowhere near completion it did seem a bit strange that were recorded the trucks the Stephen Street trucks with Morrissey but there was there was some type of legal problem which is not my place to to go into I don't know I don't know the ins and outs anyway that the recordings couldn't be released the Stephen a train and also at the time of recording Morrissey seemed to one a scrap at first it was one song he'd won a scrap and then I think we did about twelve or thirteen songs and he ended up scrapping half of them I certainly felt that for me the songwriting was getting better and better and I thought we going places there's no reason why we can't do another complete album you know but it wasn't to be we did the wolverhampton gig and things sort of fizzled out that way between Morrissey and Stephen because at the time Morrissey started asking me my kin and if the song ideas and that son at some Morrissey a few ideas and I think you know the riff was getting a bit wider between him and Stephen at this time so I look like Stephen wasn't going to keep writing with Marissa Marissa seemed to want to start writing with me he likes some of the songs as written that sense him Mel / is flattened in Manchester a couple of times we went all of things you know they'll how things were going to go in the studio one of the songs had written he said he wanted to be the next single so he was looking really promising for me because that's why I wanted to do I was you know I did want to write with Morrissey and yeah I thought some of the songs were you know could have been really really good you know and and then the next thing would we start spoken quite a bit over the phone I've heard the Morrissey doesn't speak on the phone but I remember conversations on the phone about what we're going to do in the studio as well as me you know yeah the next thing was I got a letter through the door saying you know I'm looking forward said better rain with you you know anis is looking promising things things should go well but at the time I had a case against the Smiths which was against Morrissey and Marr really for unpaid wages and Morrissey said if you want to carry on riding with me and you know work in recording playing and everything and you're gonna have to drop your case so it wasn't either our ultimatum really and he's just the icon had done that I had if I'd have done that anyway I would've had lies to pay and he's just I couldn't do it was just no my hands anyway so had to stop playing with Morrissey that way and that was the last adhered that's all from RSA despite the successful release of two more singles penned and produced by Stephen Street it was clear that the relationship was at an end in April 1989 Morrissey began work on another Street track Ouija board Ouija board with producers Clive Langer and Alan wind Stanley I think it was a record company thinkers Stephen Street I hadn't really fallen out with Morrissey but they I think Morrissey wanted a change of something and the record company suggested us we spent a day recording what became Ouija board but it wasn't going very well and so I left the band with Alan when Stanley and went for a walk with Morrissey I just talked about it said it was fine you know it's not really working out some really matter it's not a big problem and we I think we had a you know pint of Guinness or something and came back and they would the band just were recording the b-side and it sounded great and Morrissey and myself sort of looked at each other and said we'll just see what happens and that was the start of a beautiful relationship but if the first project we did with a single with the b-side and then we went in again and then he needed some songs and he we were all writing bits and pieces and he heard some tunes that I've done he quite liked them I didn't know that the tune I'd written was going to be November spawned a monster until because the way he works is you give him the music he then decided you know in my mind I decided what the chorus was going to be what the intro was or whenever he'll probably sing over the intro leaves verse you know in the chorus will be a real intro and the reinsurer will be a chorus and so he makes up his own musical plan over the top of what you've given him but with November it was good it was very interesting because once he did his initial vocal because of the subject matter I suggested that we could have a musical interlude or middle section in the middle that could really that could be quite theatrical in a way and be this the birth of the monster and so we added a piece of music after he'd done the vocal which was quite unusual with him and we had met Mary Margaret O'Hara come down and join him with the audio fireworks November spawned a monster despite its bleak lyrics continued Morrissey's success in the UK Singles Chart his sixth successive top 20 hit in two years I was proud of that track because it was a it was a risky track in lots of ways it was long I mean the subject matter was quite you know heavy and the sound of Mary Margaret O'Hara in the middle of it screaming as though she's given birth it wasn't exactly you know normal boyband pop record at the time so I was very proud of it and ah Stallone the album that eventually appeared in October 1990 was boner drag not the collection of new material that many had expected it was instead a compilation of post Viva hate singles and besides we didn't have a whole album that was finished or up to scratch I don't think we had the songs at that point but we had some great songs and so boner drank was put together and it was I thought is a really good compilation of it's really entertaining album so it was quite a clever idea I think in the end and I didn't feel any problems sharing an album with Stephen Street songs though while working with Langer and win Stanley Morrissey had requested that mark Nevin previously the songwriter and guitarist in fairground attraction begin work on new material for a true follow-up to Viva hate I was working in the studio with Kirsty MacColl at a Thai house studios in Shepherds Bush and I got a call from my publisher who said that Fichtner Kelley who at that time was managing Morrissey wanted to speak to me and he thought it was possibly to do with me working with Morrissey which it was and I was very excited about it because I was a big fan of the Smiths and and Morrissey and Dan and the next thing I heard was I got a phone call from Andy Parisi he was a drummer on a lot are they all the solo Morrissey stuff at that stage and I said can you send Morrissey some music and this was about I think they just had the beginning of 1990 and I said well what what sort of music you mean we say sounds like it's a very vague in an outline you just send him some music on a tape and I didn't quite know what to send him you know because you know it was just so vague there was no sort of let's have a chat about which way do we make it rocky a folk year well it was nothing like that it was just some music so basically I sent him some music as I thought would be the right kind of thing on a cassette and a few weeks later I got a postcard from Morrissey on the back of which had one word which was just perfect which M was about an afro really obviously because I write perfect and that was his a very funny joke and we didn't speak at all we just he just kept odd sending tapes and he would send me postcards or letters and very funny letters in his very individual handwriting and then one day I was taking one of these tapes to the to the post box on the corner of Chalk Farm Road by my where I live down in Camden and he's always send the tapes to mr. Reynolds of Burt Reynolds to his address in Manchester and I was taking one of these Burt Reynolds jiffy bags to the post box and at by absolutely bizarre coincidence Morrissey was walking past the postbox in Camden at that moment I had oh I said Marcel just about to put this in the post box team he went oh and he went very very red and took it from me and we have exchanged a few words none of which I can remember because it's very awkward it was just so strange and he just didn't expect that to happen and then I didn't see him again until we actually went into the studio at hook and Manor and started recording what became kill uncle late in 1990 Morrissey Nevin and production duo Langer and wind Stanley retreated to the rural hook end Manor studios to begin work on the new album it felt quite comfortable and Morrissey you know he's not comfortable in restaurants where you know there's the meat thing and all that stuff so we could all do what we were told there and it was it was good for him and maybe it was good for all of us it was good to share especially the walks that I used to have with him I remember them and you know it's just it couldn't have happened in London or any City - actually vaguely try and get to know someone understand them I always remember the first day that I went there I turned off my car and I was very nervous because you know that I didn't really know anybody and it was the sort of first thing really that I'd done after the fairground attraction breaking out and it was also at the same studio hooker mana where we'd actually split up so it was all very strange in itself and I remember driving up the the lane towards who came to the studio and and Morrissey came past me on his push bike with his glasses on looking like I don't know that one video I got my one Smiths video with it all the thousands of kids with the glasses on he just looked like like a Morrissey video would come into life in front of me was very funny and the first day that we were actually recording the song that we recorded what became our Frank which was became a first single first track on the album and Mark Bedford who was the bass player from madness it was best cleanest gg8 was myself mark and Andy Parisi on drums and we could all see each other and I was in a little booth as a good sound everything and Morrissey came in to his booth and they put lots of slapback Elvis style echo on his voice and we started playing and when he started singing because there's a first time I heard the songs when we recorded them you know he's like it wasn't like usually you've heard the demo a hundred times it was just like so so I was just playing the part that I'd sent him and he was singing the lyrics for the first time for me to hear and or for us for us all to hear and when he sang you know that give me a drink oh I'm going to be sick all over your frankly vulgar red pullover mark and me just looked at each other and we just started laughing because one because the lyrics were so funny but also it was just so funny somehow finding yourself in studio with Morrissey which is a bit like God who'd ever have thought you know and I remember we were just laughing so much it was tears were running down our face until on we were desperately trying to carry on playing you know because we didn't want to blow it and I think we're just about hung in there but when we actually got to end the song we were holding our stomachs mostly were just sitting his peas enjoying the effectiveness having I think the thing about working with Morrissey and especially at hook end is that you get into his world and I think it's the only way to the only way I could work out of working with him was that you get completely involved in his world it's quite a selfish thing in a way but it's also very rewarding and because I liked the man it was you know it's really worthwhile although the sessions were productive and fruitful both Nevin and Langer were at times confused by Morrissey's methods there was so little real communication aware that most musicians have you know you don't I don't remember really sitting there and having a conversation it was just like that I would bring what I'd brought to it Morrissey would not be there at the time he would be in his room writing another lyric for another song or doing whatever he did up there and he would turn up with his lyrics probably that go and do his vocal and very often just go again and Clive Langer he was producing it and Allen when Stanley would just kind of take over and put other instruments on it's a very strange way of working I thought I found him so mysterious I suppose maybe I thought that we were going to continue from where November had gone and that maybe I would have been more involved whatever but I just had a good time making kill uncle with Mark and everything anyway so it wasn't I just accepted it I accepted that you know Morrissey doesn't choose the kind of music I would necessarily choose but it's my job to make the most of what I've given and that's what I felt we did and it was really enjoyable but it was very an album totally out of time I mean it was like the man coming up and all that it was I all baggy and rave and we were like not very we were kind of raving in ourselves but we weren't raving in the right fashion kill uncle was released in March 1991 Marc Nevins attempts to steer Morrissey's music away from Johnny Mars legacy were met with indifference both critically and publicly and with the two singles failing to break the British top 20 it appeared that Morrissey had strayed too far from his musical origins um well I'm always disappointed when things don't do well that I've worked on but I was disappointed because it was it felt like a personal record that all the people involved it was quest small unit involved on it and but like like I said earlier it was it was a very unfashionable album and we got a couple of good reviews in the independent or whatever you know it's a couple of people got it I think kill uncle was a less powerful album they were one or two songs on it which were very very good one of them which I adapted into French that was there's a place in hell for me and my friend but it was less powerful than the other one he was getting further and further away from the Smiths and with the the first album with Stephen Street then they were trying to do a Johnny Marr and it worked very well Martin Evans seemed to be a reasonable choice but I don't think kill uncle anyone would say I would be astonished if kill uncle was anyone's favorite Morrissey album that meant we might have ins fault it just feels when you run through those tracks you think oh yeah I have remember that I have remember our Frank and I have remember the harsh truth of the camera eye but you'd be hard pushed driving your girlfriend hell max is what rather one of the better ones because like a lot of Morrissey's works anything with a bit of sexual mystery about it is always intriguing for us Morrissey watches because the old Izzy isn't he what is the debate has raged for many years so anything like that it's a bit you know titillating and press a rather rare vulgar way but the songs themselves a pretty average I think I think he was probably getting carried away with the idea of Morrissey being a star while and actually thinking about what he was working on you know the quality of the songwriting and so on but for me yeah it misses the target completely the album I regret that I didn't understand how it worked at the time that you know because I thought in a way what I was sending him was sketches you know that's all there were beginnings of a collaboration I thought that I send him some music and he would maybe come round or at least write back and say hey that's good but I need an extra bit there or maybe we could repeat that last chorus again or something but there was nothing like that at all it was just like he just took whatever I sent him as the finished thing so I think that sometimes some of the songs would have been a lot better had we been able to sort of work on them and that right stage longer and kind of developed them into a more you're more of a traditional song form to some degree undeterred by the critical reaction to kill uncle Morrissey assembled a live band and embarked on his first major world tour on his return in 1992 the singer once again found himself in search of a producer to work on his new album the renowned guitarist Mick Ronson who had made his name collaborating with David belly and later Bob Dylan became an unlikely candidate Marty called me one day that he what yeah does it drive any ideas about a producer for the next album and I suggested Mick Ronson kind of almost half jokingly because to me you know as a teenager MIT Ronson was my absolute hero we just got so when I suggested Mick Ronson known at her you know he'd been sort of out of the picture for years now and really knew where he was or what he was doing it was kind of almost a sort of off-the-cuff thought why not you know and my said what a great idea can you get hold of him and as a way I get out of Nick Ronson you know a clown Dudley believed he was a real person really nur and a friend of mine knew somebody else knew a man somebody used to manage meet Ronson years ago so I asked him if he could ask this guy if he knew Bubba and a few rings week went by and one day I was in my little studio at home in the high side down in Camden and damn my phone rang and I said it's northern accent our skis and northern activates all right well that marks in it my name's Michael Ronson and I just thought wow you know and he said hey hey I won't do the middle of maxing sanity I hear you want to meet to talk to me about producing a Morrissey record I said yeah that's right yes is what's he like is he white what's he like and I said I said well you know he's sir he's really he's very likeable he's a charming man I joked you know haha and very quiet very shy but you know they're great and he said huh what's his music like and I thought where have you been you know I said well you know he was a singer in the Smiths what were they like so clearly he was calling from New York right and he clearly he had no idea if about Morrissey at all that time despite his ignorance of Morris's work to date Ronson brought both muscle and vigour to the subsequent recordings his rock background elevating the heavier arrangements of new composers Allen white and Paz Bora although previous producers may have lamented the end of their creative relationships with Morrissey few could question Ronson's involvement I think you always feel you know if an artist goes with a different producer you feel you know bit Sam why didn't this dope with me what's wrong with me you know but I think I was probably busy anyway and I thought the album is really good and I think the whole thing of doing it we make runs and obviously before he died and everything um it was a good move I think Mick once did a great job in your arsenal because the actual band that he pulled together for that album which was like the rockabilly band as well as it as it were I saw them playing that was the first time once he started playing live with a band I think he started going out and I went to see him play at Wembley and I was so disappointed I mean I I really felt they crucified the songs I'd co-written with him on the first day of mums I was like can't believe this and I thought then these the guys are playing on his new album I was like Kutner but when I heard the album I thought it was a very good piece of work after the commercial and critical disappointment of kill uncle your arsenal saw Morrissey back on track appealing not only to his British fans but to a growing Legion of supporters in the United States with its surprisingly hard edged approach it proved that Morrissey could successfully exercise Johnny Mars influence and be accepted on his own terms the album was good and a lot of credit I think has to go to me once and I think he it was important for me I think to work with someone like him someone he respected because obviously was a huge big once and fan been you know big very kind of glam era fans as I were and I think God rested me Rick Monson had lived longer he would have come must be continued working I liked I would have liked to have thought you were to continue working with mercy but alas it was not to be there was trouble in the air however whereas Englishness had been a common theme in Morris's lyrics since he began with the slits his solo work had tackled racism and nationalism with questionable success with the track National Front disco Morrissey began to be criticized for what skeptics saw as his alignment with the politics of the far-right the crime Marty did commit was that he failed to patronize his audience and lecture them about the evils of racism in that way that I mean really that you can only talk about racism or race in the music world certainly back then and perhaps even now if you if you write a song in which you wag your finger and you say these people are bad and and you mustn't have any to do with them the story yeah if you don't if you don't patronize a right a rubbish song then you're committing a crime and that's what more is he did he wrote a fantastic song which did more than simply wag the finger it it was a sympathetic song about a misguided person you know who was lured into a certain way of looking at the world which I mean also Morrissey being you know the little Englander was was very openly and bravely delineating the line between his own attachment to England and Englishness and this world which he had nothing to do with you know that kind of politics but as I say the problem his crime was that he didn't make a rubbish pop song in which he wagged his finger at the audience the situation came to a head in August 1992 when Morrissey performed at the mad stock Festival in Finsbury Park London it was a concert he would come to regret summer of 1992 I remember it as if it were only yesterday I was a journalist working for the enemy which is the world's biggest selling Rock weekly or was then and Morrissey played at the maddest rock festival in Finsbury Park with madness a very British group who often attracted quite an unusual following in that madness themselves were very socialistic very anti-racist but a lot of their hardcore fans since the early days have been slightly dubious shall we said there was a bit of an old Skynyrd element in there and some people show rather robust political views Morrissey appeared on stage is support draped in a Union Jack and something kind of went wrong and I don't know when the Morrissey dot this would end ear into the crowd but it didn't something went wrong he got kind off the stage people threw things at him it was a real farrago it was a deed was a disastrous thing to happen and shocking what I find though he's trained about Finsbury Park is that when he wrapped the flag around him in the middle of glamorous clue it wasn't anything unique he'd been doing that for some time he'd done it the week before in the ladies in Festival in Switzerland he done the bell for festival in France and it was just a part of the act and it was suddenly the New Musical Express here who had I know a bit if I'm saying if I get myself sued because it was a set up back in the NME offices on the one in warn him this we talked of nothing else it was it was a real big deal now I had a particular vested interest in this for another reason I didn't read Kylie Minogue the delightful Callie Minogue the week before for what was going to be next week's cover and all journalists like to write the cover story you like to frame and put you on your wall you like doing covers and I wanted this Maelstrom on the Monday morning of people saying we have to drop the commando cover we have to go with this Morrissey story as Morrissey lost his marbles that effectively so I for two reasons one I wanted my Kylie Minogue covered to stay in place and two I was a big Morrissey supporter and I knew that there are a lot of people at the enemy at the time were gunning for Morrissey not literally and he also sends other petty and small-minded but that's what the rock world was like and there were a few people that who didn't like Morrissey there are few people that who didn't like the fact that he wasn't politically correct he wasn't like Bono he wasn't making vacuous empty political slogan the most of the time he was an white working-class northern Englander who was refusing to play the Metropolitan game the knives were out and the success of your arsenal was quickly eclipsed by the anger of journalists who felt that Morrissey had become too politically irresponsible to merit his position in popular culture yet some felt the attack was too convenient for a music press anxious to topple the singer from his throne it was a definite setup it was a few journalists including one who was friend of mine and I got the interviews at the time so I put it on tape to cover myself you know it was just a lot more easy thing and they'd already printed the me the cover you know they'd already got the headline what was it term I thought the headline was it on now flying the flag or flirting with disaster wasn't it yeah is that running when I'm talking yeah yeah yeah it wasn't very definitely a an inside job to discredit him yes I know that David bread's he wrote a rather odd biographies Morrissey um says that it was a state job well it was in the sense that people have been waiting for him to fall and get him in their sights it wasn't contrived we hadn't been waiting to run that issue and we really really argued about it that really violently argued about it shouting okay really honest came to blows but there were a lobby of people at the NME and in rock culture in general it's not Morrissey had become a bit of a bore and wanted to give him a bit of a kicking and he gave him the perfect excuse I mean I think when Marcy wrapped himself in the Union Jack you see he did it in a time when the Union Jack suggested things that oddly enough now it doesn't so much I mean there was once upon a time where if you had a cause of sin Georgie what you were a racist and if you had a Union Jack no something suspicious about you so when he was raped himself in a Union Jack I think people thought that that was him draping himself in a National Front flag he was in fact draping himself in the Union Jack and now that it's been reappropriation much more as a cheerful celebratory thing it wouldn't look as odd well the whole mad stock incident which has been captured and you can still see the image of Morrissey and his gold llama show waving the Union Jack to a crowd which for better or worse what had an element of the skinhead in them because it was madness concern much against their wishes they always had that following but the slight following of the far-right the skinheads the the the Nazis if you will so to wave a flag with perhaps Foley's I think what Morrissey was trying to do and he I think he still refuses to talk about it was is this recurring theme of Englishness which was all the way through the Smiths records and still persists to this day and Morrissey so no work so if I think it was just a slightly misjudge feeling any anything he he was nearly stamping back if anything I don't think he was although it's hard to tell with Morrissey isn't it because maybe he did know all along that he was that that's the crowd he would be playing to it's a tricky swine he never know with him it was an idiotic thing to do I think I think was an idiotic thing to do in that circumstance I don't know what he thought he was doing and I think he does now I think he thought he I think he was winding people up a big boy did he manager I don't believe Morrissey did it because it was identified with extremist parties I think he did it because it was it chimed with his understanding of that he was demonstrate he was still English so you know I think he became an easy target at the time for people who weren't really thinking it through Morrissey responded the criticism with silence and although the reaction would eventually die down it left an indelible stain on his professional career I think that he kind of just refuses to to defend himself which can be quite confusing he's almost as our why do I have to justify myself to anyone in any of you it doesn't have to justify him but then if you don't then you the consequence is gonna be that you're judged perhaps unfairly ignoring the early hostility Morrissey toward your arsenal throughout 1992 the following year Beethoven was deaf was released a live album recorded in Paris and London at the end of the tour in June 1993 Morrissey began working on his new album he enlisted johnny bridge Wood who had previously worked on the single pregnant for the last time to play double bass on what would be a more organic work well obviously the the band had evolved with with Baz Malin and then changes were taking place and basically Morrissey was looking for a new rhythm section no I came to mind because I obviously worked with him before a new boss Nathan and so I was invited down to - Noma Studios to play some of the songs that would turn upon Vauxhall and I along with woody Taylor and drums we just spent a day playing Morrissey came in listened we all gel together really well and a month later we started the album Morrissey and his band retreated once more to hook end Manor this time with producer Steve Lillywhite to work on what would become Vauxhall and I I think collectively it was a really good team as is shown in the album when we arrived there Steve couldn't actually get there for the first five days I think so we just set up and started playing working with the engineers and yeah it was a really good vibe and then Steve arrived and it was just right you know let's do it kind of thing everybody was full of enthusiasm on its release in 1994 Foxhall and I managed to silence many of Morrissey's critics it was roundly considered to be his most relevant album of the decade as the album was evolving I certainly felt that I think everybody else felt that as well including Marci that we were making something that was really good kind of stood out on its own regardless of what happened previously it just seems to occupy its own kind of space you know the production on it works well and there's just also good material on the good solid material when you can purchase a to the kill uncle songs the more you ignore me the closer I get interlude and speedway which is a cracking record where you really do hear stretching out in a kind of it wouldn't be unthinkable to hear speed when I Led Zeppelin record it's long it's rocking it's got a certain amount of menace to it and that's a great record and know that record Fox honor is seen with hindsight as perhaps the best thing you did in the middle of his career I mean from Viva Hate at the start the people are saying no you are the quarry is the best thing he's done in years in the middle his mid period of his solo career which had got member is now a lot longer than Smith's whatever together amazing though that sounds morosely the solo artist I think has been three times as long lived as the Smiths as a band so this is probably his mid period if not masterpiece kind of landmark work to me personally I preferred your arsenal I felt they had more vibe to it I think we once did a better job but I'm not there sitting in pick holes and Steve ledin White's production because you know he's accompanies a great producer I mean he's one of the people that inspired me to get involved in the game in the first place but IIIi didn't I didn't personally think that Fox when I was as good as your arsenal and for me was the beginning of what I saw I guess really as a kind of general decline of he's at Moses releases of albums throughout the 90s in January 1995 having decided against touring to promote Vauxhall Morrissey released a new single recorded after the album's completion boxes originally it was intended as an EP and the three tracks are on boxes plus sunny we did them all in four days at Olympic studios with the same lineup as Foxhall with woody and drums boxes charted poorly and was subsequently included on the compilation album world of Morrison yet it provided the catalyst for Morrissey's first tour in two years we started in Glasgow at the barrel and which was really good I remember we'd started doing them shoplifters of the world unite as non-core and we rarely got through the whole song because the stage would just be so invaded with people I remember doing it in it was a mother well which was like second or maybe third gig and everybody had left the stage and I was still on trying to play even where is everybody then I was grabbed and with the way I sort of ran out hard day's night style straight onto the bus and off down the road with people in hot pursuit I think live the songs were a little harder they were quite stripped down obviously you've got the the basics of the arrangement you've got the bass of drums two guitars you know have the luxury of you know the overdub parts so it's quite raw and you know the nature of a live gig you've got the buzz the adrenaline and everything so yeah I think sad if experience to the records friend said come to geeks it not seen it before always surprised at kind of how hard the gigs were and how loud he can sing you know I think they listened to the records I think it's going to be a slightly more tame night out you know but yes it was quite wild at times as soon as the tour was over Morrissey and the band joined lily-white once more to begin work on a new album the hard-edged south poor grammar again we just worked on some songs instrumentally that was more straightforward than Vauxhall you know I was less textured him sir it's the same more rock so I had more of a life feel to it again that we do the backing tracks get a drum performance at the base then I'd give guitars and then voices etc following the change in direction instigated by the artwork for boxes Morrissey decided to return to the iconography of the Smiths using found images to adorn the record covers Laurence Stephens was the man entrusted to make Morris's ideas a reality my first kind of introduction into Morrissey world was to go to be told to meet him at his house in just off Regents Park in London I had to be there at 4 a.m. for sorry 4 4 p.m. four o'clock in the afternoon and on a Tuesday time I remembered it was a Tuesday but if I was a minute early or a minute late he wasn't going to open the door it was really exact and fighting a realising that after that because people would just turn up at his door knock on his door and shock poetry through his letter box and leave letters for him and stuff so he never opened the door so unless he'd arranged a specific time for you he wasn't thrown the door so when you hear that you think that's really extreme and quite strange but really it's not because you know if he knows you're coming up for knocking out the door at 4 o'clock so I went down to meet him at the house and got there a bit early and waited outside and was just about to walk up the path of world rock in the open the door for me and I like to found out that in the front window that he had in his house was it was a two-way glass so he could see out and you couldn't see in so whoever was coming up the path a waiting point he knew exactly who they were he was either gonna work that or not I'm kind of standing there and he owns a door and just sort of says you know isn't resounding actually I just thought walked in and I had all these I you know ideas and Inklings of information that I've been told under my arm and went in and just sat down and laid this stuff down on the kitchen table basically you know so this is the actual image that Morrissey gave me to use for the front cover of the album sleeve for southpaw grammar and it was a picture that he cut out of a boxing magazine called the ring and I had no way of knowing what year it was because he didn't remember so I had to trace it back to actually get permission to use that image on the front even now I'm still not sure if we actually got permission to use it but we went ahead and used it anyway and so what I would then do I scan that in and then worked on a series of visuals which Morrissey had requested but we used the RCA Victor over on the front so I worked on a series of visuals and presented these to him and he would then choose the typeface and the loud that he preferred what happens is people say I've got this image isn't it great I found it here and it'll endure but with Morris he said look this is this is the image so the image wasn't up for discussion you know this was the image if I said well I don't want a image why don't we use that I think he would have said well no I'm giving you this image to use you know I really like the so-called strangeness of the Morrissey thing you know you remember when I went round to the house of his time and I sat on the sofa and when I went back the sofa had gone it was just a bare room and I said well you know are you moving your furniture you know what's what happened to you so foreign he said to me what sofa there's kind of like wool and I remember speaking to him baby Joseph and in the Hickey or RCI and they who's the press guy and he'd go round there he said I entered there was a table in the room ones we went back at the table was gone and we said oh what happens a table more he said what table it was a bit like he was he was enjoying playing game you think he'd leave the room and half a giggle and come back in again you know so but I quite like that I like the idea of going into someone else's world you know this was the actual 12-inch vinyl album sleep front cover and that we used after we'd scan the picture and this was the finished product basically we use the RCA Victor logo on the front and Morrissey was very adamant that we would use the existing old parser logo which actually is not wasn't existing at the time so we had to do a lot of work in trying to trace that down the company was now owned by BMG which is a German company which Morrissey wasn't very happy about RCA Victor and the longer existed as a company so basically we found them it was a Lou Reed album that we actually scanned the arty Victor logo off of which I think Morrissey quite liked the idea of that and then blew it up accordingly and originally we were going to have it on the back as it is on the back here in a way I think the fact that this no longer existed and it was really a corporation of America over the past time I think he quite liked the idea of that as well you know with the South Paul sleeve Morrissey was returning to the imagery that had so uniquely characterized the Smiths figures from the rich cultural past of the 20th century reimagined through a pop art lens for his solo releases he had previously turned his back on these icons and had instead attempted to become one himself I think it is fascinating that in a way the Smiths never existed and you never really saw them as a group on their sleeves as such you know on the front was mostly solo that was very much all about him and he could you could then unleash full vent to his ego with it with this like kind of undertone of him denying that because he could always say well for many many years you didn't really see me on the front the sleeves so you know it's not ego it's almost it's almost as well as it becomes some of those that he'd become an icon like those icons and I think it was fair enough in a way that he could then put his own picture on the sleeves it because that you know he'd become one of those icons he'd got the strength and the proof that he'd become that kind of icon and I suppose then he wanted to see if he could look like one and I think that there's a certain point see about his failure but I think it's kind of interesting that he's wanted to have a go at that I wasn't very happy with it at the beginning because I really felt that with the Swift albums he kind of started a president and that possibly he could profit from that and move on from that not sure how he would possibly do that but maybe he choose other imagery or or still life or some other scene that would not have a similarity to it but would still keep a bit of his personality I felt that obviously having working with him and and having done that album with him that those images were really important not only to the Smiths but to him and in a way I think he felt he couldn't use those retrospective images again because it was too related to the Smiths which I sure was a was a kind of an artistic problem for him because that's what he's about and that's that was more him possibly than the Smiths really it must have been very very difficult for him to to throw that away because he they'd work so hard and it's very hard to get a type style and a logo style within three years and to then decide well I can't continue this because I'm not Smith's um you know I'm now Morrissey you know plus we so difficult for him to done that you know so I think he toyed with himself on the front and then maybe another found image and now as you know his new album let's album he's he's back on the front you know but he's actually got some props and he's doing something this time here which he didn't do before you know released in August 1995 southpaw grammars raw unpolished sound failed to capture public and critical attention with two singles failing to break the British top 20 it was commercially a disappointment yet over time it has gained support southpaw grammar is the most underrated album Morrissey has ever made and oh boy some of them have been quite lowly rekted I understand what people don't like about it but I myself and it may be just a purely personal foible think that it has something it's quite dark it's the darkest record he's ever made and it's sonically the most adventurous record it was a good album I've recently been quoted in mojo sends up I thought it was nailed on too far I'm not actually sure what that means I preferred Vauxhall but you know I think some good stuff on on southpaw I mean southpaw grammar was to me a very poor album the songs would have been better had he taken more time with the editing and shortened some of them I mean there were two enormous sagas one beginning one ending it and the teachers were afraid of the pupils which begins so brilliantly it's it lifts the whole of the first movement of Shostakovich fifth symphony but then it just goes on and on and on and you know I mean most people they just press the button on the machine to move on to the next one I think maybe it's not as accessible as vauxhall maybe because of the long songs some people don't like songs to be more than three minutes because they don't have the attention span you know so it's probably more of a challenging listen which i think is a good thing it's 11 minutes this song of the teachers are afraid of the pupils which is about violence and modern Britain I just start kicking off a new album with an 11 minute track smacked of confidence it had a certain yeah you know you about it it it said to his detractors and people I don't have to spout some flimsy pop song I can start with this quite dark odd record that lasts 11 minutes it closes with southpaw which is about 13 minutes as well and has got in the middle and absolutely mad kind of motorbike revving up riff that changes the whole song halfway through and those two epics quite dark epics that wouldn't be out of place on Physical Graffiti bookend crellick odd collection of songs reading me author is about people slumming it it seems to me I think it I don't know whether it's about Martin a mr. British novelist but I think generally it's about the other people slumming kids which is a British phenomenon whereby people hang out with people of a lower class than themselves to acquire some kind of glamour but it's a funny record it's a mysterious record you can't quite work out it doesn't fit nicely in any of the themes or the career progression of these other career but I like says programmer I think it's sardonic I think it's a bit bleak I think the sounds on it are very different from the usual Morrissey sounds and it's over dual revival probably in about 2011 in November Morrissey went on the road again you for the first time since the early 80s he was performing as a support act the top billing was Morris's childhood hero David Bowie we opened it Wembley Arena it was four nights and I'm not sure that they led the fan sort of mixed really obviously that the berry people would come in I think a lot of them probably didn't once see Morrissey so we'd play and you know all the fans would be down the front and then I think it would change and Barry fans would come in so it was almost like two separate gigs in under one roof you know the tour was not a success and although Morrissey was playing - impressive crowds he soon reconsidered the venture we pulled out in Aberdeen and I think Morrissey was feeling very well and basically just decided to take a rest so yeah we didn't continue I think the initial plans to go to Europe after Christmas but we never did any of those states the following year Morrissey made the headlines again but we were wrong after failed attempt to initiate work on a new album Morrissey ended a quiet 12 months defending his past actions in the High Court Smith's drummer Mike Joyce's case against Morrissey and Joey MA had taken 10 years to reach this point and finally his claim of unpaid royalties was being heard by a judge the ruling went against Morrissey and Marr and once again the singer found himself with a black mark upon his career yet his reaction to the rumour has been equally detrimental I think the much-vaunted court case the royalties case in which Morrissey was found to be owing my JC a million quid I think it's had a detrimental effect on Morris's music and pranced Morrissey himself and I cannot wish that it could be sorted out because a if you love the Smiths and if you don't love this mess where I despair of you if you love the Smiths you don't want to feel this shadow of rancor and allegedly unpaid moneys is closing the legacy of one of the Great's pockets Britain has ever produced all the world has ever produced you know that's that's a given you know and I would rather know that they they don't have to don't know I don't care if they don't go up for dinner together I just rather know that all scores were settled properly in the best of ways I also think the Morrissey's got a little bit obsessed with him now he feels very very badly treated Morrissey sees himself as an outsider and being holed up in court in front of the police and guys in wigs I understand that I understand that he feels the authorities are out to get you because they don't understand him I understand that but I think now he has to move on because there's a terrible song of maladjusted that talks about lawyers and liars and all this there are just too many mentions of it on you other quarrys new album which I think slightly dogs I don't even Morrissey singing about whatever his love life or you know people you meet in the street or whatever I'm not sick about him just going on about judges there is a song I've never heard called something like your sorrow will come in the end or sorrow will come to you in the end apparently that you have to leave off maladjusted because he's so hurtful allegedly and contentious about my choice in the court case I just think no I'm not saying you know we want to see them shaking hands onstage anytime I don't that's gonna happen soon I think Smith's revival is not gonna happen any day soon Morrissey MA maybe but not a Smith survival there's too much bad blood but I do just the impressive Morrissey could put it down to last rich tapestry and move on then I think because I think it's in danger of people who don't like and have another thing to get it in with that's Morris Morrison his court case shut up already about the court case move on and and I do think it gives people who don't understand what a talent he is another you know stick to beat him with it I just think move on be happy let it go in 1997 Morrissey attempted to hit back with his sixth studio album maladjusted it was his most critically derided work so far and it appeared that the poet laureate of British pop was in danger of becoming irrelevant I thought it was a really good album in retrospect it I probably don't think it's as good now as I as I thought then probably not as good as the two albums that went before it really I wish I could say that maladjusted is a great record because I like to book trends I like to be different and I'd like to say maladjusted is the great loss to Morrissey masterpiece and the cloth-eared critics yet again have got him wrong but it's not it's really not very good maladjusted in fact it's boarding on being rubbish and the fear the chill wind of fear greets you as soon as you see the sleeve where he looks like he's dressed for Cree assaulting the fence on a Sunday afternoon this is a manner used to fling gladiola around in his calm dig us on chemises and he's national health glasses you know he was an icon a left-field icon and icon unless he's got a sort of v-neck jumper on and some kind of odd knee jeans that you might pick up at a garden center perhaps for 4.99 and he's kind of squatting him he looks really awkward it just looks it looks like an ordinary boy which maybe that was the idea but that is not Morris's forte although lots of reasons why maladjusted was almost the end of Morrissey as an artist the first is that it came after a very difficult album which was southpaw grammar actually maladjusted is a better album than southpaw grammar in my opinion but it needed to be a lot better the other reason which is probably more important is that Morrissey was at the absolute Nydia of his fashion ability or the peak of his own fashion ability depending on your point of view and Britpop was at its height and nobody wanted to talk about Morrissey it's got Steve Lillywhite I mean should be okay but I think the trouble is by now the world has grown used to Morrissey and Morrissey has grown used to himself and it was just time to go away it seems me by know we were Morrissey was on a conveyor belt of making records and it was just it was time for a new Morrissey record it had a title that sounded good for a Morrissey record maladjusted it's not great it just sounds Morrissey esque and a whole host of songs that just have evaporated from my mind I mean I would very rarely would go and play that record it's not an absolute clunker I don't think it's just a very boring Morrissey record not and and if your love affair with Morrissey is as intense as those of us who've always loved him you just don't want boring records and at the time was right for him to sort of swing that black care Bradley's face and disappear into the mist for a while but the story of course was to be continued the failure of maladjusted put Morrissey's Korea into crisis both the public and the critics had begun to overlook a singer who had once been so pivotal to British music and Morrissey was dismissed as a faded Talent a spent force from a bygone era what originally became fashionable about the fact that he wasn't fashionable then did begin in the in the way that things are treated to look old-fashioned so he looked old-fashioned and it was very easy to to turn your back on an old hero in order to celebrate even more the new heroes that seem to be doing what Moses had done but better it made it better he made it more likely that you would have someone's love for you radians and your blues and your aces or whatever therefore you didn't have time for my sin whatever mozzie had set up to in a way create the climate for those groups to exist he was deeply unfashionable in the 90s in the mid to late 90s partly because he had to be assassinated in order for the 90s to happen he was this ultimate pop star the ultimate fan had turned ultimate pop star and it's an impossible act to follow so that's why he had to be got rid of in a move that surprised many of his fans morosely left the country and relocated to Los Angeles England had lost its stranger son and Morrissey had left behind the home that had been his inspiration the small cold island that he had loved and hated in measure in Los Angeles he planned to disappear if it was a far more successful vanishing act than he could have wished for within a year Morrissey was without a record contract and although he toured in 1999 and 2000 his fall from grace for wildered both the music press and his fans where is he he's kind of gone to live in Los Angeles there's this guy we thought was iconic of rim pan he's living in Los Angeles he hadn't got a record deal this on a daily basis used to you know make some of us shake our disbelief or a maladjusted was not a great record but when you listened in the late 1990s to some of the absolute rubbish the recommitting of it every week you'd be sent the next big thing and you'd listen to this garbage these dollard's eve barnyard twerps and think Morrissey can't get a deal and these people can particularly with coincide with the Pop Idol phenomenon in Britain and the USA and you think these no marks can pie records and Marcie's not gonna deal even if you didn't like Morrissey even if you got bored with him even if you never liked him I think you felt like British music and British pop culture in general an American culture had lost this rather flamboyant interesting always entertaining figure and I think everyone breathes sad relief when he came back I mean he toured twice I think without a record deal and you didn't which compounded the irony in bizarreness ever darling but it we felt at his back in circulation apparently living next door to Nancy Sinatra and he's hanging out with Latin Latino street gangs in LA it all seemed to be a mad but luckily it all kind of came good onion following his 2002 tour in which he played new material for the first time since maladjusted Morrissey was finally rescued from obscurity by the aptly titled sanctuary records the time was right for a triumphant return now Britpop is dead and buried the 90s everyone's forget about it until you know 10 years time 10 15 years time everyone will want to recycle it but for now it's over and Morrissey's back 2004 the questions over Morrissey significance to modern music were finally answered with blink-182 producer Jerry Finn behind the desk the defiant Englishman returned from the wilderness with new material to unleash on a public fed up with pretenders to the is for a single Irish blood English heart saw him catapulted into the British charts at number two the most successful chart placing of his career when I first heard Irish blood English heart I thought great there was a kind of sigh of relief because it rocks and I think that's what I'd been lacking on maladjusted that and the latter Morrissey because they've been a rather Fey sort of Morrissey s stuff but the Smiths as well as being beautiful could rock and it rot and I kind of swagger about him when he came back he looked different he was older and I think he looked dimming in a good way that rather skinny youth with the quick for been replaced by what he is stocky handsome man in his mid forties but he looked like he'd grown into his skin of it and I thought that was a perfect record to point out it was a it was a real defiant sense of this is me this is the stock I come from of Irish English northern stock and it felt passionate he's seen a bit angry you got a bit of a swagger to it you came back looking like he was spoiling for a fight willing to take on all comers like the champ getting back in the ring and I think people fell out about it you are the quarry confirmed that Morrissey was back on Form ecstatically received on its release in May 2004 it was seen by many as his strongest album since the widely applauded Vauxhall and I you are the quarry is a very very good album I think again but my Viva hate we've all been wanting him to do so well for so long that at first we all went it's the greatest record ever made and nothing well no it's not but it's a bloody good record and and it has that just like that single it has a swagger there's a confidence of someone saying I'm back I'm not being around the bush anymore and this is me take me or leave me but I'm back in the ring although he's had an on and off solo career in terms of success definitely on and off he's he stayed true to himself and continued to do what he does and interestingly enough the new album which is being praised across the board almost isn't so different in my opinion to what he's done in the last 10-15 years it's not so different to maladjusted it's a better ad album and maladjusted but it's not so different but many of the people who have praised the new album to the rafters have gone out of their way to say how different it is to what he's done before I think that's to justify their own lack of interest in what he did before Morrissey stayed where Morrissey is the world has come around to Morrissey again now my final guest hasn't been interviewed on television in 17 years but before we chat he's gonna come out and perform his fantastic new single Irish blood English heart will you please welcome the brilliant Marcy you can I call you Steven no what I thought we'd already we become friends here and then you have these Steven doesn't mean friends to me they not didn't is it not no Steven that was your name when you were a little boy when I was small yeah but I wasn't very happy little bonus so that's why you changing it just wanted to distance yourself in your past yeah which I thought was quite clever and so you're just everyone calls you Martin everybody priests everybody what about on your passport and your driver's license it says Martha hey no it just says em okay can we be friends off the show I don't think so okay why not well you have so many friends but nobody and you don't have enough so I'm gonna share with you but also you you have Oscar Wilde's haircut what's love that you see I have a bone to pick with you you're still sticking with the coffin let's face it you know that's the last year's thing man you know when you get to my aides Jonathan if you still have hair it's incredible I'm not complaining well I haven't seen him for quite a while so I don't know you know what he's like these days cuz you know we all grow up and we all change and you know he's the same age as I am and I suppose as you get older you you mellow and I know that I've heard from other people that he's supposed to be a lot more outgoing these days and he was but he's very private and a very very shy and a really solitary soul you know and you know and obviously he's he certainly was and how he's now he's he was a very tortured person and he's interesting there you know he still I still find him interesting with such an unparalleled success as you are the quarry it would appear that Morrissey is now artistically free to go in any direction possible some have doubts however the future of his career may well be as unpredictable as the past I think that with him being away for such a long time and now making a comeback at 45 I mean he gave this massive concert for his 45th birthday I mean if he waits another seven years he's going to be 52 and most people would think is over the hill you have to remember that he was the one who sang a song called get off the stage and he was attacking Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney and Rod Stewart for being a rock dinosaur and of course now he is at the age now that they were then so his looked upon as being strange too hypocritical I would like to think it isn't just one song but I tend to think that yes it could be I think Morrissey can keep going as long as he takes a few risks which so far he's shown no inclination of doing I think if you take some risks and just goes for something that's just you know just a bit more [ __ ] original basically because if you know what kind of board word that now you know and I just think no he even hit the point is he sounds bored with it himself and he must be so I think he can't Kiko because he's incredibly talented there's no mistake that he really is a serious seriously gifted person so he's gonna have to move it he's not he's not moved anywhere he's still he's still you know back in the eighties Alec Morris he'll be around for quite some time I mean I'll be astonished if the success of you are the quarry hasn't given him a real Philip you know and the he quite rightly note things I'm a hot property he's a hot ticket you know he's so better than a lot of them a lot of the younger and more widely promoted bands have done this year was it was supposed to be great we haven't been Britain all the time in America an old-time you know magazines have followed them what Morrissey's outsold him this year no matter how successful his comeback has been and how successfully he has evolved from a frontman to a solo performer the definitive music of his early career will undoubtedly remain the benchmark by which all of his future work shall be judged there is no doubt that this miracle of this art form that the you know the whole is better than the parts certainly applies to Johnny and Steven I think particularly without Johnny's chord changes and Johnny's musical genius Morrissey does not have the correct ammunition to place his syllables I think there are some good melody lines in there I quite the stuff on a new album there's several good songs so it's there but it's not transcendental the way it was with the Smiths it's a difficult level of where we begin to talk about a career like knowledge to say it hasn't worked well and this album is good and this album isn't but I think that comes a moment with a songwriter as good as mercy and I think it comes with people as good you know and I put him in this category in this company of Bob Dylan of Lou Reed of Neil Young but it's almost unfair of us to put this incredible burden on a on a singer and songwriter because we've loved them so much for these great things that they do that they always do it I think the fact that he's kept exploring and made mistakes as he's explored is is the sign that he's a great artist and even if he goes 15 years without delivering an album that we think isn't as good as a Smith sound or a song that we think isn't as good as a Smith song well how dare we you know and I think the pursuit that he's made and the fact that he's kept going and maintained to an extent the qualities that make him a great writer a great observer of the world I think you know his solo career has been as fascinating however the critics receive Morrissey's music there is little doubt that he will stand as a unique character in the history of popular music for many now he is beyond mere technical criticism an innovator and an idol who has outlasted many of his peers I don't think that the record is that relevant it's just miss him that we want whereas many of the 1980s pioneers have faded into obscurity Morrissey refuses to go down without a fight he has managed to persevere through the bleakest of personal and professional crises to emerge triumphant as an incomparable modern icon of all the terrible prophecies that mercy made in the 80s pop kiss Angela Dee was the one about they'll never be another mean food to be booted oh she spreads you above but a slip through my - both the we'll suffer

Channel: Treble Clef

Views: 322,360

Keywords: Morrissey, the smiths, smiths, the cure, suedehead, jonathon ross, irish blood english heart, the charming man, cosmic dancer, steven morrissey

Id: BwEhJFbdQOE

Length: 108min 3sec (6483 seconds)

Published: Tue May 21 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/turkeypants]

Also see The Importance Of Being Morrissey on youtube if you missed it when it was posted here months ago.

[u/Legaladesgensheu]

Youtube comment sums it up:

Feels like an unauthorized biography.