Having your own space is getting rarer and rarer these days. It's dangerous giving someone like me - who grew up fantasizing about studios and records - the freedom and resources to build your own studio. I would just live in it, which is what I pretty much did for all of the '90s.

Johnny Marr

Categorized in : Giving Just Live Dangerous

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.

Johnny Marr

growing-up real america

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.

Johnny Marr

cities feelings mean

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.

Johnny Marr

feelings people looks

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.

Johnny Marr

fans important spiritual

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

Johnny Marr

aim radio people

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

Johnny Marr

growing-up tests people

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.

Johnny Marr

rocks animal thinking

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

Johnny Marr

fascinating seems people

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.

Johnny Marr

guitar four age

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.

Johnny Marr

running cute men

Sometimes people confuse contrivance and authenticity, and sometimes I think authenticity can get in the way of a good excuse to do something theatrical. I just don't like wasting opportunity - if you're going to do a photo session, if you're going to walk on stage, why not make it interesting?

Johnny Marr

opportunity people thinking

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.

Johnny Marr

genre difficult pops

I never took fans for granted. I always assumed subconsciously that people who followed what I did were just people who were kind of like me.

Johnny Marr

granted kind people

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.

Johnny Marr

class jobs father

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.

Johnny Marr

want trying people

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.

Johnny Marr

destiny technology fans

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.

Johnny Marr

keith player mind

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

Johnny Marr

musical-influence influence musical

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.

Johnny Marr

joining teenager interesting

That enforced time when you have to switch off, that you're on a plane, is so unusual these days. It's just that thing of not being able to interact with other people through e-mails or social media or whatever. It's crazy how you even notice that you're not able to do that. I find that the kind of traveling - long days, particularly if you go somewhere to do a show, and then traveling again the next day - a lot of people would find pretty challenging, but I find it energizing in a weird way.

Johnny Marr

crazy long people