Johnny Marr will play his Fox News acid trip of an album at Voodoo next week
Johnny Marr’s dexterous guitar playing and smart songwriting have always set him apart, whether in the Smiths or the numerous other projects with which he’s been involved in the years since. his most recent album, Call The Comet, was quietly released in the spring 2018, but it’s filled with some of Marr’s most emotional and dramatic work to date, even while retaining all the pop charms so many of us revere him for.
I called Marr up last month to talk about the new record and tour ahead of his upcoming Kansas City show at Voodoo Lounge.
The Pitch: I read that you don’t want political figures “contaminating” the creative work that you do. Do you only apply that to your work, or are you not a fan of any overtly political music these days?
Marr: If I was to hear a great political song that had good guitar riffs in it, and good singing, and a good beat, and interesting lyrics, or was intense or the usual things I like from rock music, I’m all good with it being about politics, I’m fine with that. I just didn’t want for those figures to be in my music. I just don’t think they’re worthy, and I didn’t want them in my mind when I was gonna be on stage playing these songs for the next year or two. These songs are gonna be part of my life and my family and my legacy, and I just don’t want those people in it.
Ironically, by having to work out a different kind of environment to put some of these ideas in, the Trumps and the Mays and the so-and-so’s of this world kinda did me a favor with songs like “New Dominions” and “The Tracers” and “My Eternal” and “Rise” — I ended up having to create an imaginary world, almost, trying to get away from those guys. They kind of expanded my horizons, really, so to speak.
You’ve also said that you didn’t see the world you create on the album necessarily as a utopia, but rather just a different world. What are those distinctions?
Good question. Well, the song that opens the album, “Rise,” starts with the line, Now here they come, it’s the dawn of the dogs. They hound, they howl, they never let up. And frankly, I’m kind of imagining almost the classic idea of post-apocalyptic, or a Mad Max kind of scenario. And that came out of the shock that I felt I was picking up on in the United States the day after the election. Essentially what that song is doing — it’s a dialogue between two characters who are having to face the prospect of completely rebuilding a society in the middle of nothingness, almost.
It goes, I say believe me and Fires they illuminate, ‘cause look what they done. I feel something. Do you feel it burn? But it’s not negative, it’s the passion of idealism and starting again. So on the face of it, it sounds quite bleak, but it’s affirmation between two people, whether they’re lovers or friends or just partners. It’s about affirmation and people believing in each other after a cataclysmic event. So that’s one aspect.
“The Tracers” was deliberately sci-fi and it’s imagining a kind of entity or an intelligence with all the great things that humanity has. It’s not like I’m thinking about aliens with three heads or anything — it’s just this idea of a more evolved and compassionate and wise aspect of ourselves from a different dimension who just kind of give the world a reset.
So kind of imagining what it’d be like starting a world from scratch, rather than carving it from what we already have.
Yeah, this is like starting from scratch, really. Because that was the only way I could imagine not including these political figures we were talking about. The song “New Dominions” was influenced by a book from the 1960s by Dave Wallis called Only Lovers Left Alive, where society is wiped out and leaves people only under the age of 30. That was a different scenario, but it was a way for me to at least talk about making way for the younger generation, as someone who is over 30, and not being afraid of death. So I was able to get existentialism in there. It’s all very deep stuff, Aaron [laughs].
I heard that you had actively sought out and watched a lot of cable news during the recording process. Was that a draining process? And what made it feel necessary?
It was [draining] for the rest of the band, they kind of got sick of it real quick. It was to create a sort of psychedelic atmosphere without bothering to having to take [hallucinogens], because I actually had to pick the guitar up and play and sing … There was quite of a lot of time it was Al Jazeera projected on one wall and Fox News and a French news network projected on another, and it got kind of intense, but I did spend a lot of nights in the studio on my own while everybody else fucked off, and that kind of distorted version of the outside world made me trip out a little bit, frankly. That, and sleep deprivation.
The song I mentioned, “New Dominions,” came about because in that environment I put a drum machine through some guitar effects pedals and just let the beat go round and round for a long, long time, a few hours, while I kind of got on with other stuff. This was during the night in my studio, which is in an old factory from the 1890s, so it had a real vibe going there. A lot of red light and all of that business, and I just came up with that because — I don’t know why. Fear and hate turns to lust, only lovers left to die. That tune just kind of came out as this drum beat is going round and round and round and round.
The song “My Eternal” was a similar kind of situation. The studio kind of got pretty trippy, and I very quickly came up with a beat on the drum machine and a synthesizer line and I just sang this sort of stream of consciousness. There was a strong vibe going in the studio. The song “Actor Attractor” was another one a little bit like that. The late-night atmosphere came around, and we got it done in the middle of the night. It’s partly due to being in this old industrial space, too.
I was curious about the song “Day In Day Out,” because it does have a few Smiths-esque melodies going on. I was wondering if you ever started writing a song and end up going in a different direction because you realize it sounds too similar to a past project.
That happened a lot in the Nineties when I was working with Bernard Sumner from New Order in Electronic. I would come up with something that sounded anything like the Smiths, and I would discard it straight away. And Bernard would have his head in his hands and say, “Everybody’s gonna blame me! Everybody’s gonna blame me.” And he used to kinda get bummed out and didn’t really understand it. And a little bit of it was because there was nine years distance between our age, and I didn’t wanna get typecast, and I think that’s a sensible position, really.
If anything, it really bought me the privilege and the right to do whatever I feel I wanna do now when I get older. If you get to where I am now and you’ve got hang-ups about those things, you’ve got a problem. So if I was still doing that, I think that would be a little weird. If stuff comes out now that sounds like me — because that’s what we’re talking about, we’re talking about me — then that’s fine. I don’t censor it now. I certainly don’t go looking for it, but when people heard “Hi Hello” from the record, and they thought that sounded very reminiscent of the Smiths, I knew that would be the case, but when I was working on the song, the music’s so pretty and the melody felt so right, it just felt real, and it would’ve been just weird to censor myself at that point. I think I’ve earned the right to sound like myself whenever I want.
What do you think has changed most about your live shows since you’ve started touring on the new album?
Without meaning to sound really basic, the songs are everything really. I think me and the band get more intense with every tour, and I’m really interested and enjoy what performance is. I feel like me and the audience now have a certain understanding and a certain thing that’s mostly built on these solo albums. There are people shouting out for “The Messenger” and people always shout out for “New Town Velocity.” Of course, some people shout out for “How Soon Is Now?” and I’m cool with that, but to answer your question, I think the new stuff is more dramatic.
The first two solo records were very deliberately highly edited and uptempo and very snappy and new wavey. I went into Call The Comet with [no goal] really besides “Escape the world” and to express what I was feeling emotionally. It was coming out of a dramatic time politically in the country. My manager of 30 years had just died. There was a lot of stuff going on in my life, and I think the album — the new songs — are more emotional. “Day In Day Out” is a personal song. It’s a song about being driven crazy by obsession and the torment of a certain kind of sensibility, like the Groundhog Day nature of that. I decided to write exactly how I was feeling.
“Walk Into The Sea” is musically more dramatic than anything else on the solo records. It’s also vocally and lyrically more emotional than anything from the other two records because it’s me wanting to find rebirth, for the lack of a better phrase. It’s a song about being reborn, and immersing yourself, but going into the void to come out of it again renewed.
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Johnny Marr is at VooDoo Lounge at Harrah’s Casino (One Riverboat Drive, North Kansas City, MO) on May 15, 2019. Tickets are available here.
