The Guitarsmith

By Russell Baillie


He was once a Smith, briefly part of The The, and confirmed his reputation as a modern sort of guitar hero in innumerable studio sessions for many a big name.

But for the past decade, artist Johnny Marr's focus has been as half of Electronic, a guitar pop-gone-techno songwriting partnership with New Order frontman Bernard Sumner. And, in effect, a supergroup summit of two of Britain's most influential groups of the 80s (three if you count the pre-New Order Joy Division).

The pair have just released their third album, Twisted Tenderness (see review). A phone call finds Marr at home in Manchester.

Who is Electronic's audience? Is it just people following the Smiths and New Order lineage?

"Yeah, but it's difficult to identify your audience when you don't go out playing concerts and that has started to be a little bit of a frustration for me.

"These days the cliched idea of the Smiths fan is, to me, almost nonsensical. I get Japanese or Italian kids who come up to me ... and they are discovering the Smiths for the first time. When I was 17 or 18, like a lot of teenagers I got into the Velvet Underground and The Doors and I rediscovered Roxy Music and all that. I think the same applies to the Smiths.

"Some people thought we were bit of an anachronism at the time, but one thing about being an anachronism is that you don't particularly date. As a line-up and in what we were doing, we were more classic really.

"Smiths fans aren't necessarily 38 years of age with quiffs and National Health glasses and a bad attitude towards life. Though some are and they are normally the ones who come to my door."

On the new album it sounds as if Electronic is sounding less electronic.

"In the past people have thought Electronic sounds more New Order than the Smiths and that Johnny is taking a back seat. But on the first two albums a lot of the keyboards were played by me and also a lot of the things that sound like keyboards are me taking guitar technology to the limit.

"If you base the songs on rhythm tracks and grooves and you put the guitars on afterwards, even if you have 25 guitars on there the feeling would be that the guitars are an addition. Whereas on this record all the songs were written on guitar. The wheel moved around and I'd come to the end of a certain interest in technology."

You've always been the player behind the singer, and ones of strong personalities. Do you prefer working in someone else's shadow?

"It's an interesting question, this. I am very, very obsessive and very, very intense with what I do and I've done a lot of stuff with a lot of people. In terms of partnerships I have to form a really intense, very close friendship.

"The Smiths was very much an equal partnership, one of the reasons being that I formed the band. What was great about the Smiths was that I had no interest in writing any of the words and Morrissey had no interest in writing any of the music.

"Now I have worked with Bernard longer than anyone else. It's been a very, very strong friendship. I really feel like he's been the best partner for me."

Do you wear your "guitar hero" medal with pride?

"It's an honour and something I have worked at. You don't get your hair cut like mine unless you want to be a guitar hero. You've got to have some kind of shallow aesthetic in there somewhere."