With the success of solo albums The Messenger and Playland, Johnny Marr has been on an almost non-stop world tour for two years, and is currently in Australia to play Splendour in the Grass festival and a series of sideshows. The Smiths co-founder stopped by to talk about playing the old songs everyone expects, wrestling with political and social connections as a public figure, and why pop culture can also be art.
You’ve released two solo albums quite quickly. Will you do the same with the third?
I’d like to but the plan is to do an EP before that so we can get stuff out even quicker. You can look at the way modern music comes out as being a completely different kind of situation with digitisation of music and streaming – at the same time there are a lot of pop acts putting out one song and you’re not aware if it’s off their last album or their new album. They’re just songs that go out there, and in that regard, it’s not that different to the way it was in 60s, 70s or 80s, where you could put songs out as singles.
Is that how you’d like to do things?
I really liked it when I was putting singles out. I’m not sure how it equates to the modern day but I’ve got a few new songs so I’ll put them out. I like the album being an event, I like putting a body of work out but I’ll do that on the third album. I like the idea of these two EPs, between now and the next album.
You’re reportedly writing your autobiography. Have you got a name yet?
I have got a name, yeah. I’m not going to tell you though.
Are you enjoying that process of looking back?
Yeah, it’s a lot of work writing it, but I enjoy it. It takes a long time and I can’t do it on the road because you’ve got too many other things going on. I’ll attack it when I get back. Everyone is asking me about it all the time, it’s like I’ve not finished my homework.
You play the old songs along with the new in your solo shows. Do you enjoy that or do you do it because people expect you to play them?
I think people expect it and that’s alright, it’s not too much of a surprise. It’s okay to play because my new stuff goes down pretty well. I don’t think I would be enjoying it if I felt like I was just propping myself up with my old stuff. I do it in a celebratory fashion. Also you’re there to make people happy.
You can make a point about your new stuff and where you are now, but you don’t need to make too much of a point about it. I’m not fucked up about it either way. I just like playing good shows and at a point where you’ve played a lot of stuff that’s new, it’s good to play a song that people know. I think about it in a way that if I was going to see a band that I like, like Television or PJ Harvey, I’d want to hear some new stuff because I’m not really a nostalgist, but then it would be good to hear a really good version of something you know. It brings a really celebratory upbeat moment to the concert, and that’s what it’s about.
You can’t be too precious about everything. You can be a bit precious about most things but then you have to draw the line sometimes.
You recently called Pete Townshend the best of the 60s guitarists, and said “there’s always been a passion, a conviction that what The Who were doing is art, and should be high art”. Is that how you feel about your music?
I like to think it’s art because from being 10 or 11, it’s occupied most of my waking hours in the way film directors, painters and sculptors are occupied. I know a couple of painters, and I work in the same way. In some ways, it’s more intense, because you are getting planes to do what you do. It’s not like you are tootling down to a studio every day.
But yeah, I believe pop culture can be art. It doesn’t have to be art, it can just be purely entertainment. I also believe that art and entertainment can co-exist. It can be either/or, but it can be both. Something that is wrapped up in under four minutes, that delivers an entertaining, possibly life changing, spirit-elevating moment, is as good a description of art as any other form.
So what then is the purpose of art? To be spirit elevating?
No, I think the purpose of art is to take someone’s mind away from themselves for even just a minute. If you are looking at a piece of art, watching a movie, reading a book, looking at a sculpture or a photograph, if it makes you forget yourself, and if it gives you a connection with the person who has done it, and they want to call it art, then great. It’s also everyone’s prerogative to say, it’s a piece of crap, that they didn’t mean anything by it.
Townshend told the Guardian that music has always suffered from being tied to any political, social or spiritual connection. Do you wrestle with those connections?
I don’t wrestle with it in the music, sometimes I wrestle with it in terms of being a public figure or in the media and how best to articulate it. In your work [though], I don’t think so. It didn’t seem to bother Bob Marley much.
If he’s talking about the expression of spirituality in terms of explaining deification or some kind of organising principle in the universe, then that’s all very big and can probably get in the way of saying, “Hey ho, let’s go.” At the same time, if you happen to think that hearing a really great riff or a great record very loud before you go to school in the morning is a spiritual pastime, then I’m all for it.
As a vegan, have you checked out Splendour’s offerings yet? Which is the best festival for vegan food?
I heard Splendour is pretty good. Bestival in the UK I remember was pretty good. But you can’t really beat the festivals in France. Big on dairy, but if you avoid the dairy, French food is really good. We’ve just been there and me and all my crew just pigged out.
