The Smiths Young Guns Go for It

# Young guns having some fun

# Young guns having some fun

-# Young guns!

-Heads up!

-Go for it! Young guns!

-Heads up!

-# Young guns!

-Heads up!

-Go for it! Young guns!

-Heads up!

# Young guns! #

# I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour

# But heaven knows I'm miserable now... #

Led by the songwriting duo of Morrissey, the enigmatic front man,

and guitarist Johnny Marr, the Smiths, from Manchester, were an unlikely '80s pop success story.

# Why do I give valuable time To people who don't care if I live or die? #

Morrissey wrote about failure and loneliness, with a singular vision of British life rooted in the past.

He had an aesthetic.

It reminded me of the place I'd come from.

Sort of two-up, two-down, it's-grim-up-north scene.

I was only aware of it as something that was from when I was a kid - black and white films.

# Girlfriend in a coma I know, I know

# It's serious

# Girlfriend in a coma I know, I know It's really serious. #

Most groups around were manufactured, heavily styled, over-made-up.

The Smiths were three scallies from Manchester, with a weirdo front man

who couldn't decide if he was Oscar Wilde, James Dean, or some hybrid.

Among this sterile, bland electronics was something emotional.

# The boy with the thorn in his side

# Behind the hatred there lies

# A plundering desire for love... #

However, despite their refusal to join the '80s pop party, and their championing of alternative values,

since they spilt in '87, the Smiths have been in an acrimonious court battle over the band's earnings.

They thought me and Andy should only get 10%.

Well...I was in the back of the van. I did the gigs.

The Smiths' story begins in late-70s Manchester.

Stephen Morrissey was a shadowy presence on the emerging punk scene.

I was quite advanced at school.

When I left school, it seemed all these oafish clods from school

had wonderfully large cars and lots of money, and I was constantly waiting for a bus that never came.

It was a very aggressive time. Manchester is still a violent place.

It was quite an intimidating atmosphere.

He seemed to float above all that.

At the time, he was someone you sniggered at.

He always seemed to be leaning against summat, or pulling away.

Obviously, he was arming himself.

He wanted to join the Nosebleeds, but they didn't like his songs.

They found the gender confusion upsetting, being just regular lads.

When he had his self-styled period of isolation - the years in his room - he was planning.

I never had a social life, or left the house.

I just read and watched television,

and done things considered to be soul-destroying.

I'd write furiously - it was the thing that helped.

But you had to have a grain of hope, which is a difficult thing to have.

In the early '80s, he slipped me a cassette

of him singing very, very quietly,

with a note saying, "I have to whisper, because Mum's next door."

One of the songs was called Wake Up Johnny, and a few months later,

Johnny knocked on Morrissey's door and woke HIM up.

I mean, I was really into football

and I played football, but it came a long way second to music.

I knew from 11 that that was it. That was what I wanted to do.

Johnny's a great guitar player. He was a rare example of a person who...

Um...his ability managed to live up to his hype. He WAS a hustler.

The people I liked were...

people on the hustle, you know -

Andrew Oldham, the Stones' manager, and Phil Spector. Brian Jones - the way he got the Stones together.

I thought it was really cool to run around hyper and make things happen.

Lad bounds in - didn't know him -

says, "Hi. My name's Johnny Marr. I'm a frustrated musician."

He was magnetic, Johnny.

Joe showed me this documentary about Leiber and Stoller. One of them was writing music or words,

needed a partner, and heard about the other guy.

He said, "I just went up to his door and knocked on the door and said, 'Here I am. Let's do it.' "

And...so...I had a eureka moment then - "Ah, right. OK."

I remembered that guy Morrissey that was pretty good, you know.

So, we got on the bus, went to his house and knocked on the door.

I think he'd given up the idea of it ever happening for him.

It must've been weird for him. Just out of the blue, the door opens and this...

hyperactive...

flash git, with a massive quiff, just goes, "Aargh!"

I was discovered, if you like, by Johnny, the guitarist, who just came and unearthed me one day

and insisted we collaborate. I was there, dying, and he rescued me. It's been very nice.

We had Joe's resources, my resourcefulness and...

..Morrissey's, um...drive.

We were on a mission. We were taking the world on.

We planned a strategy and the Smiths emerged immediately.

# Good times for a change

# See, the luck I've had Can make a good man turn bad

# So please, please, please

# Let me, let me, let me

# Let me get what I want this time. #

With his mentor, Joe Moss, as manager,

Johnny Marr brought in old friend Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce to complete the line-up.

Johnny roped in Andy Rourke on bass and Mike Joyce on drums.

They're the most capable musicians I came across in Manchester.

It's a perfect little family.

I met Johnny at school, when I was about 12.

He called me to say he was doing a demo at Decibel Studios

and he'd got Mike in, um...on drums.

And could I do some bass-playing? I'd never heard the songs before.

MIKE JOYCE: Morrissey said very little.

He just prowled round the room! He had a long, tweed coat on.

He walked up and down, took a couple of furtive glances at me, and back down again.

I felt he thought I was stupid. I felt intimidated.

Not cos he was Morrissey - he was a bloke called Steve.

He could definitely be a bit strange. He kept himself to himself.

I don't think he wanted to be close to people, cos he wanted autonomy.

And he wanted the freedom to be able to break relationships with people and keep it professional.

He was different with me than he was with everyone else.

I couldn't have given my music to anybody who appreciated it more.

He fell in love with it. That went on all the way through the band, in that...

he was my biggest fan, really.

It was a very passionate friendship. And I don't necessarily mean that in a sexual way.

Morrissey talked to me in very awed terms about Johnny's abilities.

Likewise, Johnny would always talk of Morrissey in a very awed way.

Me, being literary, and Johnny, with his melodic ideas, emerged together so successfully.

We're following nature. There you have it.

# Hand in glove The sun shines out of our behinds

# No, it's not like any other love

# This one is different Because it's us

# Hand in glove We can go wherever we please

# And everything depends upon How near you stand to me

# And if the people stare Then the people stare

# Oh, I really don't know and I really don't care... #

Initially, we all travelled in the same vehicle, with the manager driving.

They had individual personalities and they complemented each other.

Andy and Johnny were very close. Mike could be very deadpan.

Morrissey would be making remarks about the countryside, and we'd be rolling about on the floor.

They were very close-knit.

We were really quite cemented. It's a very strong force. If you really examine an individual in the group,

you'll come up with the same notion, because, in an almost absurd way, everybody is quite individualistic.

There's only one person who plays bass, only one who plays drums.

We're a very strong unit. I'm sure we'll last a terribly long time.

The social aspect was very important to Morrissey. He needed a social life around him. He wanted a gang.

He carried them around with him like a cloak - for protection.

But I think the reality was that,

at times, it was more of a hair shirt.

He didn't have much in common with them. It was the "myth of community".

It was as if he wanted everyone to believe this was his club.

Within months, the Smiths were the most talked-about band in Britain,

with major record companies queueing up to sign them.

They chose the left-leaning co-operative, Rough Trade Records,

champions of all things subversive and indie.

They mistrusted the record industry, so going with an independent meant they could call the shots.

They liked to control the pricing of their records and things like that.

Their ethos was they wanted to be as big as the Beatles,

but as anti-Establishment as the Sex Pistols.

But when they signed the contract with Rough Trade,

they showed the band was anything BUT a co-operative.

I recollect a certain way. Johnny and Morrissey recollect another.

I'm sure the window cleaner at the time would say something different, as well.

When I went to Manchester with the Rough Trade contract, I expected it to be signed by all four members.

But at the point of signature, in the clothing warehouse,

Johnny and Morrissey signed it.

There was an apparent divide in terms of how Johnny and Morrissey perceived the business aspects.

There was only two spaces for their signatures.

Me and Mike were like, "What's all this about?"

Geoff explained there were only two signatures needed, so the obvious ones were Johnny and Morrissey,

but it wouldn't affect us in any way.

I certainly didn't instigate...

I didn't phone Rough Trade, saying, "Make sure there's only two names on the contract".

Wasn't in my sphere of consciousness. It's not something I would've thought of.

-But somebody did.

-Somebody did, yeah. You'd have to ask somebody else.

What bothered me was...

..whether we'd make two albums, or three albums, or four albums. That's all I was worried about.

I'm not a session player. I'm the drummer in the Smiths.

The Smiths signed a deal with Rough Trade, Johnny and Morrissey signing. I've signed a deal with Rough Trade.

Obviously, it panned out differently.

But what I found out was that Johnny and Morrissey wrote on a little card around that time

that they were the Smiths - everybody around them could be sacked at any point,

nobody else can disagree with anything Johnny and Morrissey say -

and they both signed it in Joe's presence.

Charming man! Talking of which, at No 30, these are the Smiths!

Business always came second to the music.

With the release of their second single, and just a year after Morrissey and Marr met,

the Smiths were on Top Of The Pops.

# Punctured bicycle On a hillside so desolate

# Will nature make a man of me yet...? #

Joe would give us all a pair of black Crazyfaze jeans.

Then we went to Marks & Spencer and bought crew-neck jumpers.

I think Johnny had a black one. I had a maroon one.

We went down to make-up.

They put our make-up on and they said, "What will you wear for TOTP?"

We said, "THIS is what we'll wear."

They were like, "You're joking?!"

MIKE JOYCE: We saw Paul Young's band come out

and it's these silver sparkle suits and hair and glitter and everything.

It was just overpowering!

But sometimes, when you see some of the people that are on stage and some of the groups on stage,

it looks like an incredibly exotic, formulated, strange world that pop music lives in.

A great Morrissey lyric - "It says nothing to me about my life". Quite.

INTRO: "What Difference Does It Make?"

People need really straightforward things for a change.

It stretches beyond music - it's to do with the economic climate.

Instead of living in this rather fantastic, futuristic world, which really isn't quite true,

because people's daily lives really haven't changed that much. They still have the same problems.

We're not in a super space age yet.

# But still I'd leap in front of a flying bullet for you

# So what difference does it make...? #

They were glamorous in their own way, but not traditionally. This guy's got NHS glasses and baggy jeans

and shirts from an old woman's shop.

He went on about basically being asexual.

At the same, there was this strange dichotomy that he was very sensual. His appeal was a thing apart.

# But I'm still fond of you... #

SCOTT PIERING: Morrissey especially and the band generally had almost an equal amount of male and female fans.

Obviously, it spoke to both sides, and I'm sure it spoke to a lot of...

gay people who were in the closet.

It gave them an inner strength. It didn't say, "Come out!" It said the opposite - "Appreciate this.

"This is what I am, and I'm conducting my life in public."

The Smiths had an adoring following, who made them the biggest guitar band in Britain.

Their bond with their audience was built upon a stream of singles and albums, and relentless touring.

The Smiths were the Smiths all the time. Very rarely did we have any time off in that whole five years.

We were always in the studio or touring. The crowd wanted singles.

"When's the next one? What'll the sleeve be like?" That was important to us.

It was a relationship between us.

# You shut your mouth How can you say...? #

ANDY ROURKE: We wanted that contact.

I was saying, "This is a celebration between the band and the audience."

MIKE JOYCE: We were trying to make people understand a certain kind of music

that doesn't necessarily have to be "us and them".

While they were breaking down barriers with their public,

the Smiths' business arrangements continued to divide the group -

a situation underlined before their first album by a dramatic evening in Pluto Studios in Manchester.

We were doing a vocal,

then he nipped out for some crisps or something. Half an hour went by and he wasn't back.

We thought, "Oh, right."

Two hours went by, then three hours, and we didn't know where he was.

Later on that evening, we got a call from Geoff Travis, saying,

"He's in Rough Trade. He won't come back till you sort the business."

So, he didn't come back until the business was sorted out.

Before he moved on with the band, he wanted to have it established as to what each person would be earning.

As far as he was concerned, that was Johnny's job to do that, with Mike and Andy.

Johnny had brought them in. Morrissey doesn't want to be having to go doing that.

Johnny Marr came in and said, "I'm leaving the band.

"Morrissey wants me and, er... and him to get a higher percentage - more money."

And...um...Johnny said, "If you don't accept it, I'm going to leave the band."

If Johnny Marr would've come in and said,

"I'm gonna leave the band...

"BECAUSE Morrissey wants some more money...

"I'm gonna stay if we all get an equal amount."

It's a different kind of... Very important, but a slightly different way of looking at it.

All me and Mike were trying to do was stop Johnny leaving the band,

which I hope he, in hindsight, realises was a good thing.

As far as Morrissey was concerned, that was sorted out then.

But it's well-known that Morrissey doesn't like to write things down.

We didn't come to an agreement that we would get 25%.

There was no agreement that we would get less.

The way in which the Smiths led their business lives, and...

..you know, Morrissey's...

..brilliant avoidance of responsibility for his actions,

perhaps meant they didn't sort out the more basic aspects of their business partnership.

The way the project worked was things were whispered in corridors and mumbled and discussed briefly.

And that was a meeting. That was where action happened. That's the way it worked for the entire period.

JOE MOSS: As soon as Geoff Travis was speaking to me, I knew that that was it for me.

If Morrissey couldn't come to me to sort that out...

I'd have sorted it out for him without question. That was the role.

There was too much of a division then for me to be able to stay.

I realised that, if I stayed, it was gonna put a strain on Morrissey's relationship with Johnny.

Joe was going, which was unfathomable to me and really did my head in.

Cos, you know, our sort of father-figure was gone!

Once Joe had gone, once he went to America, things changed a great deal.

Then they're asking Morrissey, "Please do this stuff,"

and Morrissey maybe wouldn't turn up, or he'd cancel a European tour.

# Would you like to marry me And if you like you can buy the ring

# She doesn't care about anything... #

Nothing happened without Morrissey.

If he didn't get out of bed, we all went home. That happened often.

We once cancelled a European tour, with loads of TV slots and live dates,

at Immigration Control at Heathrow.

I'm going, "C'mon, let's go..." Morrissey's standing there. Uh-oh! Problem.

He doesn't wanna go. Is it because he doesn't want to fly? Is he ill? He just didn't wanna go.

We all turned around. No question - if Morrissey didn't go, nobody went.

# Panic on the streets of Birmingham

# I wonder to myself... #

ANDY ROURKE: I think Morrissey's pretty much unmanageable.

We'd have managers for a while.

Initially, they'd aim to please, so they'd do whatever Morrissey asked.

And what we asked, or whatever. But, um...

..after a few months, when they'd bedded in, they'd say, "I think we should be doing this..."

And...if Morrissey said, "No, we're not doing that", if they didn't agree, they'd be fired.

We had some really good people around us, and they were dumped. That was the pattern that emerged.

And it was invariably people who I was getting friendly with.

"So-and-so's... He's got to go. Will you phone him? So-and-so's got to go." I just got tired of it.

-Who was saying, "So-and-so"?

-So-and-so was saying it!

# I won't share you

# I won't share you

# With the drive and ambition

# The zeal I feel This is my time... #

That WAS the chemistry of the relationship,

in that there was inevitably two camps.

A truce was made between those worlds to create this work.

When the intrigues and the politics of the camps began to intrude on the work, that's when it fell apart.

# No, no, no, no, no, no, no No, no, no, no, no, no. #

It started to just come to me mind over a period of 18 months that, well, there IS one solution.

I mean, it was just something I didn't even want to think about. I thought, "What's the solution?"

We did the last album, my favourite.

But directly after making it, things got a bit weird. The atmosphere was weird between us.

I said, "That's it. I fancy a two-week holiday." I was just treated like a pariah.

I thought, "With all the crap -

"managers coming and going like it was a revolving door, the weird atmosphere around the band..."

Plus, musically, I was starting to want to do other things.

I thought, "Now's the right time for it to finish, you know."

And I said...

"We can do one more album, at least." I think that was the worst thing I could've said.

Johnny just couldn't... I don't think he could actually make us feel just how upset he was.

I didn't know what I was going to do, at all.

No idea, but I thought, "It's all right. Signing on is better than this." Really.

I think he might have had a nervous breakdown. He'd had enough of all the pressure and needed a break.

He went on holiday. Just before he came back, there was a story - I don't know who put it out -

in the NME that Johnny had left.

So, he was obviously pissed off, and he said, "Fuck it. I HAVE left the band."

Did that cause a rift, a personal rift, between you and Morrissey?

God! You're not kidding! ..You're not kidding.

We didn't speak for a long time.

There was stuff between us in the Press, which I had to back out of.

"Hate" was a big word around that time.

Ten years later, Morrissey and Marr were back together, but this time, in the High Court in London,

to defend an action brought by Mike Joyce, who successfully claimed an equal share of the record royalties.

Bassist Andy Rourke settled out of court and continues to receive 10%.

Morrissey, who declined to take part in this film,

has petitioned the House of Lords to get this judgment overturned.

# I started something I forced you to a zone

# And you were clearly Never meant to go

# Hair brushed and parted Typical me, typical me, typical me I started something

# And now I'm not too sure. #

To me, they were the best band out of England from 1982-87.

And the best rock band in the world at that time,

without anyone coming anywhere near us.

Uh...

No contest.