Johnny Marr Quotations

No one has any respect for someone who can play a million notes per minute but can't put together a decent tune that someone can sing to or feel some sort of emotion from.

My experience tells me, unfortunately, that so many people ask the question about 'The Smiths' reforming without really caring about the answer. They just really want to ask the question.

Nick Zinner has been one of my favorite guitar players for a long time.

I had to work and it never occurred to me not to. But then it's never really been about the money.

I think good artists know when they're on a roll, and they recognize when lightning is striking. It's a very fortunate thing to have that inspiration and not to overanalyze it or mess with it; you just follow it if you love what you do.

I would join a band, learn from that band and be committed and passionate and bring my thing to the band. Then, when I felt like we were going to repeat ourselves, and I needed to learn more, I would go somewhere else.

You can grow up without having to conform, stop going to shows, stop having a record collection, start being politically iffy.

Andy Rourke and I had been playing together from 14 or 15, and we had a very great musical chemistry. Andy's just a very respected and unusual musician.

Festivals are great because you get to just walk around the corner and see a new band that you've heard but not had the chance to check out.

I've almost never played the 'Smiths' records, once they've gone out. I was always like that and probably always will be.

A day-time song like 'Word Starts Attack,' I want to make your heart blow up and make you want to punch the air with your fist. It can't be ponderous.

I live a super-healthy lifestyle not because it's sensible or that I'm contrite, but because I need to keep my focus on the music I'm making. To do that, I need to be wide awake.

If you're in a successful band, you tend to fall into a role. But I'm not remotely laddish. I'm a grown-up. I'm vegan and teetotal. I run 50 miles a week, listening to Franz Ferdinand and the Four Tops at top volume.

I played guitar from the age of four or five. Every year there would be a slightly larger triangular box under the Christmas tree, until finally I got one that was big enough to make a proper sound.

I don't like to waste notes, not even one. I like to put the right note in the right place, and my influences have always been those kinds of players. Keith Richards comes to mind, and I really like Nils Lofgren's soloing, because he's so melodic. I love John Lennon's rhythm playing, and George Harrison was an incredible guitarist.

We're in a society where no one's putting a gun to your head and making you use your phone, but some people start to crack. "I Want the Heartbeat" is about the downside of it. People can and do break up friendships and relationships because of the internet, and that can't be good. You have to find a balance. You can't let it be the boss of you.

I find this kind of folk with guys in Wellington boots and washboards not good to listen to. That music is one step away from barn dancing as far as I'm concerned. Anyone under the age of 60 should not be wearing Wellington boots on stage.

I haven't been walking around for years with some burning desire to do a solo record. If I had, maybe I'd have made a record that was experimental. Usually, the idea of a solo record is to get some weird stuff out of your system, but I don't think like that. I wasn't interested in making something that was a hard listen - maybe I'll get around to that some other time. I wanted it to sound effortless, not like I was trying to reinvent the wheel.

When you're young, you obviously have people you look up to. People like Andrew Oldham and Nile Rodgers inspired me then, and they inspire me now. But at some point, you start to try to be the best you can be and you're not copying anybody else. I'm just doing it in public, and my work needs to reflect that as well.

Now, I'm a dad, I'm an adult. I've been solo for 25 years; I've been in other people's groups but I'm solo [in a broader sense]. I stopped comparing myself to other people's maps when I was maybe 24, really. The trajectory that I've gone on is not one that I can compare with anybody else.

Navigating with a partner makes it half as difficult. We keep each other in check. It's not like she [Angie Marr] was ever a quiet little wifey wife behind the scenes. She's exactly like me. She's very smart. We're very lucky that we've always wanted the same things. She loves guitar music, she loves important records, and our lives are about records and shows and great bands.

I've also been with the same girl, Angie, since I was 15.

I met my manager when I was 17, when I didn't have enough money to buy a set of guitar strings. There are not very many people who are looking out for you and being in business with you when you're at that stage. And it's not in my nature to think that success as a musician makes you any different from anybody else.

Coming from a working-class background, where my father did manual labor, was a good grounding; I was obsessed with getting a job or getting out of the house at 15.

Earlier in my career, fans weren't a big consideration for me.

Growing up in public is a test, and not many people know how to do it.

I really like Howler and an American band on Sub Pop called Jaill. There will always be new bands that I like, it's always been that way. I still go out to shows. One thing I don't like now is this idea that all singing needs to be expressed at maximum volume with so much bullshit sentimentality - it's pervading regular pop music.

I had a feeling about what I wanted to say, and I wasn't really qualified to discuss real things out of America because I didn't grow up there.

Don't get me wrong, I think "Portlandia" is really funny, and quite brilliant, but I like to be in a city where I can hang out in Powell's Bookstore most nights and go out with my friends in a liberal, relaxed atmosphere. I wish more cities were like that.

Some cities are really boring and straight.

I don't really care what music's made on - I love guitars, but I'm fine with great electronic music.

The reason I don't drink is that the drinking lifestyle robs me of my musical intensity and sharpness. I live a super-healthy lifestyle not because it's sensible or that I'm contrite, but because I need to keep my focus on the music I'm making. To do that, I need to be wide awake.

I explored rock culture and what the guitar can do though people like Jimmy Page and John McLaughlin, and the music moves away from pop.

The biggest musical influence on me was my mum. We were both enraptured by music.

Anything that's ever gotten on the charts as a result of "American Idol" or "The X Factor" in the UK. It's born out of karaoke culture. It's been a long time coming, but it's absolutely affected radio.

Guitars have been the obsession of my life. I first picked one up at the age of four and Ive been a guitar junkie ever since.

I dont like to waste notes, not even one. I like to put the right note in the right place, and my influences have always been those kinds of players. Keith Richards comes to mind, and I really like Nils Lofgrens soloing, because hes so melodic. I love John Lennons rhythm playing, and George Harrison was an incredible guitarist.

People say to me, 'Do you dye your hair?' and I say, 'Well, does f**king Siouxsie Sioux? Does Bowie?'. Of course I'm going to have a decent haircut. It's one of the first things I learnt to do - get a few songs together and get your hairstyle right.

Now chart music is a genre all of its own and it's slipped away from what I understand pop music as. It's pretty difficult to take; it clogs up the airwaves.

As a youngster, I used to try to pick up any bits of wisdom about the guitar I could. Its not like now where you have books and books about every aspect of anything. Any little pearl of wisdom was welcome back then.

I can show bands how to produce themselves. In the same way, many bands think you cant make it without some fat cat in London or New York to manage you. Thats just crap. All you need is someone a bit older than you with a bit of business nous whom you trust.

Joining Modest Mouse was just consistent with what I used to do as a teenager: I followed where I thought I would make some interesting music.

Occasionally, a great band would come along, like Blondie or OutKast who could be pop and bring interesting ideas into the mainstream at the same time. That's now gone, because of this weird mutation of pop, rap, R&B, bad rave, and supposedly soulful singing on top of it.

I really had a great time working with 'Modest Mouse,' just because of the people. I loved writing songs with Isaac Brock, and Jeremiah Green is probably my favorite musician that I've worked with.

I didn't form a group to perform Cilla Black songs.

I am very proud of the fact that 20 years on people tell me they became a vegetarian as a result of 'Meat is Murder'. “I think that is quite literally rock music changing someone's life - it's certainly changing the life of animals. It is one of the things I am most proud of.

I'm not interested in trying to have people who might like other kinds of music follow me. I don't want to please them.

When Morrissey and I started The Smiths, we thought pop music was the most important thing in the world. It was almost a spiritual thing for us, and because of that, we knew what it meant to be a fan.

I seem to attract and be attracted to very willful, fascinating people.

If people can finally recognize you on radio without being told who it is, thats what you aim for.

In the earlier part of the 90s, I was really hell-bent on discovering how new technology works and how to make records entirely without a producer, which isn't necessarily what fans wanted. But I had to do it because I felt it was in my destiny or whatever.

I've run all the bands I've been in. A great front man needs that other person. It's not enough to have a guy with a cute face standing behind a microphone. I see it like the classic romantic relationships with men and women, where the woman lets the man think he's running it. It's a classic matriarchal trait, and that's always been part of my personality.

You've got to understand that. We all look out for Morrissey. It's a very brotherly feeling. When we first rehearsed, I'd have done anything for him. And as a person Morrissey is really capable of a truly loving relationship. Every day he's so open, so romantic and sensitive to other people's emotions.

I moved to Portland because Modest Mouse is there. I didn't necessarily mean to live there permanently, but I've got a really good feeling for it. The sensibility there really suits me. I happened to have grown up in Manchester, a city that was a pretty cool place to be a musician. It's close to Portland in a lot of ways.