Johnny Marr has been thinking about his approach to songwriting throughout a career that’s involved frequent reinvention. His new solo album, The Age of Everything, is released on October 2, and he believes it’s a cathartic piece of work — although he didn’t work that out until it was mastered.
“I realised there are a few things that pop up musically that I’ve wanted to get out of my system,” he tells the NME. “Lyrically, I didn’t want to talk specifically about the political climate or ‘the perils of social media’ — all of these things that we know are in the forefront of our minds. I just don’t like being too obvious, but it’s in there.”
Marr wasn’t aware of the direction he was taking because of the way he creates music. “There was a sense of, ‘If you’ve got your own sound, do it and do it loud,’” he explains. “There’s definitely a time for that. There are other considerations that come into play when you’re about to go into a new phase. There’s reinvention — doing something you’ve not done before, and I’ve done it several times throughout my career.”
He adds that his “real sense of purpose” was the reason behind testing eight of the album’s 10 songs onstage — an approach he recommends: “Pretty much every band I’ve been in, and most of the guitar bands I’ve been around, have at one point said, ‘You know what we should do before we record the next album? We should gig the songs.’ It never happens.”
He managed it this time, however. “Once I get an idea that I think is a good one, I’m a little like a dog with a bone,” he reflects. “Brian Eno is the same in that. I’m not terribly impulsive, but I am decisive. Unless something comes along and knocks me off that course, then I pretty much see it through.”
Now The Age of Everything is complete, though, Marr doesn’t see it as a reinvention after all. “I felt that what I’d been doing with the records so far had a thing that I recognise now. Me and my band have got a sound that we’ve carved out. My solo stuff has got a sound, and I just wanted to do the best version of that that I could.
“I almost feel like every one of my albums sounds like a first album. To some people it might sound like a criticism. A friend said it to me about this one, and I took it as a compliment because I know what that means: it’s got that energy, there’s a lot at stake, and things are catchy.”
He continues: “I’m able to write catchy tunes, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve taken the liberty of sounding like other things over time and I always get, ‘Oh, that sounds a little bit like what you were doing with Electronic’ or, ‘Oh, that’s a bit Smithsy’ — but really it’s no more complicated than, ‘Why wouldn’t you?’”
