Johnny Marr: Playing The Smiths songs makes fans weep

FORMER The Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr is returning to Australia for the second time in a year, on the back of a new solo album.

Former Smiths guitarist and solo artist Johnny Marr for National Hit

WHEN Johnny Marr played Australia at the start of this year grown men and women were visibly weeping.

The waterworks were trigged when Marr’s solo band launched into songs by his first band The Smiths, particularly perennial adolescent soundtracks There is a Light That Never Goes Out, How Soon is Now or Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want.

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“It’s a real feeling of joy,” Marr says. “It’d be a real problem if they were crying because they were hating it and wanted to get them out of there. Although that’d be kind of funny too.

“I started to notice it after mentioned it to me. We played Glastonbury last year in the early evening, it was still light. People were crying and being really transported somewhere in their lives. That’s beyond me. It’s obviously very humbling.”

Humbled ... former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr says he is amazed that fans are moved to tears.

Also humbling were some of the festival shows Marr played in Australia over the New Year’s period — he found himself in front of some of his smallest crowd in years due to an early afternoon slot and young punters unaware of his history. Unusually, Johnny Marr had to win a festival crowd over.

“I try not to be snobby about it. I’m not above any of that, it’s all alright. I like playing. Even at rehearsals, I like plugging in my amp and looking at three or four other people and making an exciting noise. It is good for you now and again to have to win people over. The faces I was playing to were great, every gig is the same to me in that regard, you don’t phone it in no matter who it is.”

Soundtrack to youth ... Johnny Marr still plays songs made famous by his 1980s band The Smiths in his solo shows.

Marr was in Australia to promote his first solo album The Messenger. Harking back to the album a year work rate of The Smiths, Marr will be back in Australia next year to promote the swiftly released follow-up Playland.

“I just kept writing songs when I was on the road,” Marr says. “When you’re playing live all the time and you’re an energetic working live band, that tends to go back into the music. The new material is written with this band in mind. I try to keep the tempo up, keep choruses pretty chanty. They’re things that are in my mind when I think of shows.

“The Messenger album was the first record I’ve ever made where I’ve been able to play every song live and they’ve gone down well. Every band I’ve been in has had one or two songs that didn’t translate live, my solo stuff works in clubs and theatres and festivals and I’m really happy about that. The new record is the same but more-so, the drums and riffs are louder.”

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Marr cleverly sprinkled The Smiths songs, as well as his work with New Order’s Bernard Sumner as Electronic, with new material in his solo sets.

“Because the audiences like the new songs, it makes playing the old songs even more celebratory and all the more reason to do them,” he says. ``I like those moments when we kick into an old song and everyone goes mad. If you’re a musician who has those kind of songs you’re very lucky. It is something to celebrate. People can get too academic about rock music. It takes all the fun out of it. They forget sometimes it’s about making something that is going to make something feel good or think or be entertained by or all of the above. That happens when you play some of the old songs. It’s as simple and as great as that.”

Collaboration ... Johnny Marr with Bernard Sumner in his Electronic days.

Marr, 50, says he may rotate different Smiths songs into next year’s tour, as well as Playland material, “but it’d be weird if I didn’t play How Soon is Now or There Is a Light That Never Goes Out. I think my band do a better job of How Soon is Now than anyone else has done, it’s a tricky song to play.”

The guitarist admits his voice has improved after constant touring, as well as his belated role as frontman.

“I used to think being an artist and being a performer or an entertainer were all mutually exclusive. In fact they’re not. That’s one of the things that makes the artist as a musician different from the artist as painter or sculptor, that aspect of performance or entertainment. I have no problem with either of those words. If someone’s paying for their ticket and getting out of the house for the evening I want what I do to be entertaining. But it can be art at the same time. I take that quite seriously, without wanting to sound too pompous. It’s a nice responsibility. And it’s fun when it clicks.”

Playland (Warner) is out now. Johnny Marr plays the Astor Theatre Perth, January 29; Forum Theatre Melbourne January 31; the Gov Adelaide February 2; the Tivoli Brisbane February 4; the Enmore Sydney February 5. On sale now

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Originally published as Johnny Marr: Playing The Smiths songs makes fans weep