Johnny Marr’s cleaning out his closet and the world’s wealthiest music fans are warming up their credit cards for yet another hot-ticket celebrity guitar auction. Why does this keep happening? Answering that very question through the medium of – as one fan describes it – “a snarky faux interview”… it’s Fret Buzz!

Lend us a dollar – Johnny Marr is auctioning his guitar collection in September.

My pleasure. So you’re good for the other $199,000?

Excuse me?

As befits an indie-guitar god, Johnny’s instruments are quite expensive. For instance, there’s a $200,000 estimate for his fabled 1960 ES-355.

Hmmm. Anything in my budget?

How about $106,000 for the ’82 Rickenbacker 330 Jetglo played on This Charming Man?

Heaven knows I’m miserable now.

Well, we told you they’re expensive. Basically, if you put your hand in the air anywhere near Christie’s auction house in London, you’ll accidentally default on your mortgage for a road-soiled wah pedal.

Has Johnny fallen on hard times?

Don’t worry about Johnny. He’s doing very nicely. He’s just offloading a few dozen guitars because he “didn’t like the idea of my studio space becoming a museum”.

First-world problems…

Anyway, Johnny is famously a charming man, and the proceeds will go to various charities, including the Guide Dogs For The Blind Association.

Wow. Those guide dogs are going to be loaded. Will they all get gold collars?

That’s not how animal charities work.

How did this auction craze start, anyway?

Back in 1999, Eric Clapton sold his first batch, including the ’57 Brownie Strat. Since then, it’s gone gangbusters. In March, David Gilmour’s Black Strat regained the title of World’s Most Expensive Guitar, fetching $14.6m.

But aren’t these just ordinary production guitars that happened to be played by talented people?

Johnny reckons there’s more to it: “I once asked this acupuncturist if guitars had chi – a life force. He said, ‘Yeah, your guitars have got chi in.’ I was like, ‘I knew it!’”

Why don’t manufacturers just put in the chi at the factory?

Chi doesn’t work like that. It’s more of a spiritual thing. It’s under your fingernails.

Who has $14.6m, anyway?

Oh, all sorts of people. Tech bros. Russian princes. Centuries-old dynasties of European vampires. Regular folks, y’know?

Are you being sarcastic?

Yeah. People get annoyed by celebrity guitar auctions. But also excited. And jealous too. It’s hard to read the room sometimes.

Why the resentment?

It’s the notion of rock’s most cherished guitars being held captive in the iceberg basements of Silicon Valley, their voices forever silenced – except that one time Jeff Bezos took out Kurt’s Jag-Stang for a halting attempt at Come As You Are.

Isn’t that a simplistic view of auction buyers?

Yeah, maybe. Last year, Christie’s specialist Amelia Walker told GW that “at the Mark Knopfler sale, I remember seeing people in tears. It’s absolutely driven by the emotional connection.” She also points out that many guitars head to public museums – while the benefits for charity are undeniable.

Anyway, isn’t the guitar press partially responsible for stoking up this circus with its feverish coverage of celebrity guitar auctions?

Hey, don’t hate the player, hate the game.

Back to Johnny’s auction. Please, please, please, let me get what I want?

The best we can do is a ‘Comet Sparkle’ edition of Johnny’s signature Jaguar for $11,000. And that’s assuming you don’t get into a bidding war with a Big Oil CEO who was very sensitive at school.

The Smiths guitar icon Johnny Marr has teamed up with auction house Christie’s to sell nearly 100 items from his personal gear collection, with the bulk made up of guitars and amplifiers from across his career.

Over a five-decade career working with everyone from the Smiths to Pearl Jam, Billie Eilish and Hans Zimmer, his collection has understandably gotten bloated.

Each guitar, he says, “has helped me evolve as a musician, bringing new songs, new sounds and techniques,” but now he’s going through the “bittersweet” of letting them go so that they can write their next chapters.

Highlights include his Smiths-era 1982 Rickenbacker 330 Jetglo (estimate: £60,000-80,000, approx. $79,000-£105,000). It was bought a year after its construction, after the band signed their first record deal, and it was a key feature of their 1984 self-titled debut album, including on This Charming Man. It also moonlighted on Oasis’ Supersonic single cover, after Marr loaned the guitar to Noel Gallagher during the Definitely Maybe recording sessions.

But it’s his 1960 Cherry Red Gibson ES-355, which could sell for as much as £150,000 (approx. $198,000), that appears to be the most valuable ahead of the auction. Sire Records founder Seymour Stein bought the guitar for Marr as a sweetener for signing to the label for US releases (reportedly a request Marr made after hearing Stein had once done the same for Brian Jones).

It featured on Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now and also appeared on Top of the Pops and The Tube during the band’s heyday; it’s believed this is the guitar that got Noel Gallagher hooked on ES-355s.

The Roger Giffin Korina ‘Telecaster’, built circa 1984 and expected to go for up to £30,000 (approx. $39,000), was an engagement gift from Marr’s now-wife, and was made by British luthier and one-time head of the Gibson Custom Shop, Roger Giffin. Giffin’s also built instruments used by Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, and Pete Townshend. The Telecaster featured on Top of the Pops (for Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now in 1984) and a year later on the Old Grey Whistle Test (The Headmaster Ritual and Nowhere Fast).

Elsewhere, the Martin D-28 (up to £50,000, approx. $66,000) used to record There Is a Light That Never Goes Out, Well I Wonder and Cemetery Gates, the Cherry Red 1984 Gibson Les Paul Standard (up to £120,000, approx. $159,000) is another notable six-string up for grabs. The latter can be heard on The Headmaster Ritual and featured at the Smiths’ final ever show in 1986, before being used alongside the Cribs and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

The auction comes after the 2023 publication of his book, Marr’s Guitars, which spun the individual tales of many of these new auction items. It’s made him realize they need to move on.

“The book turned out to be a cathartic experience, and when it was time for these beautiful instruments to go back into storage, I couldn’t imagine them being put away and left unplayed,” he says.

“It’s bittersweet to be parting with these guitars, but I want them to go to new homes and new people who will love them as much as I have. I hope they bring as much joy, inspiration, and fun – and new songs – as they have given me.”

Marr will donate 100% of the hammer price of 10 lots from the auction to the British charities, The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and The National Autistic Society.

Select highlights from the auction will be displayed in New York from 25 June to 1 July, before being displayed at Christie’s London HQ, ahead of the 9 to 16 September auction.

Visit Christie’s for more.

It was the summer of 1985, and Johnny Marr was a man out of time. Three years earlier, while still a teenager, the guitarist had co-founded the Smiths in Manchester, England, with vocalist Morrissey (bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce completed the lineup).

But the crystalline chime of his Rickenbacker 330 was still a lone voice in the era of sweep-picked flash. “The ’80s shredders were a joke,” Marr told this writer in 2009. “That’s guitar playing as an Olympic sport. If you’re into decent music, it’s just offensive.”

What, then, did Marr deem ‘decent music’? In their early career, the Smiths had covered more ground than their indie-jangle elevator pitch would suggest, roaming from the swampy tremolo judder of How Soon Is Now? to the airtight Chic-inspired funk of Barbarism Begins at Home and the ringing doublestops of This Charming Man (a track Marr always denied was influenced by African highlife, but it sure sounds like it).

But the band’s opening albums had been patchy, and now, as he sketched out the songs for third release The Queen Is Dead, the guitarist knew nothing less than a masterpiece would do.

“It occurred to me one afternoon that the next Smiths album had to be a serious piece of work,” wrote Marr in his 2016 autobiography, Set the Boy Free. “The stakes had got higher, and greatness was a possibility for the band if we were prepared to go for it. I stood and thought about it, and then I said to myself, ‘You’re going to have to dig deep, whatever it takes.’”

The material took shape fast. Marr remembers sitting nose-to-nose with Morrissey to present the new songs on his 1971 Martin D-28, and in a single evening, the pair had chased down the foundations of Frankly, Mr Shankly, I Know It’s Over and There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.

“We didn’t waste any time,” he wrote of his ferocious work ethic in the period.

Likewise, as the band loaded into London’s RAK Studios, the 21-year-old guitarist became the driving force. When he wasn’t out on the floor with a rig that included a ’78 black Les Paul Custom (later loaned to Noel Gallagher of Oasis) and a ’63 L-series white Strat, Marr was to be found presiding over the mixing desk from morning until midnight, fueled by an endless stream of joints and strong coffee.

“Smoking pot in the studio never hindered me – it helped me shut out the outside world just enough to do the job,” he reflected. “I didn’t need anything else in my life. My world was the studio, and I tried to ignore everything that might distract me.”

That was easy: these were songs you could lose yourself in. The Queen Is Dead’s opening title track began with Joyce’s tribal tom tattoo, but it’s Marr’s thrilling wah-soaked outro that defines it, the guitarist channeling the Velvet Underground’s I Can’t Stand It as he beats his Les Paul almost into matchwood.

“Johnny did that pretty much live in one take,” recalled engineer Stephen Street. “It was just one of those inspired performances. He just got this great harmonic feedback from his Les Paul and as he changed the angle on the wah pedal, it changed the note.”

At the other extreme, there was the melancholy shimmer of There Is a Light That Never Goes Out, Morrissey’s ode to doomed romance and shared suicide (‘To die by your side, well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine’) driven by a stuttering chord sequence that held magic even in embryonic form.

“I decided to record it using the Martin acoustic I’d written it on,” explained Marr, “and it felt like the music was playing itself. We were high with it, and after just a few takes, we had one of our best ever songs – something that felt at the time like pop music and beyond.”

With the possible exception of the turgid Never Had No One Ever and the demented rockabilly of Vicar in a Tutu, The Queen Is Dead demanded front-to-back listening.

There was the sardonic swipe at label boss Geoff Travis on the aforementioned Frankly, Mr. Shankly (“It was in total contrast to the others and sounded like an eccentric vaudevillian romp”). There was the grave-waltz of I Know It’s Over (one of the few songs where the Smiths deserved their miserabilist reputation). “I’ll never forget when Morrissey did that vocal,” Marr told journalist Johnny Rogan. “It’s one of the highlights of my life.”

On the flipside, that desolate number was countered by the spring-heeled rhythm punch of The Boy with the Thorn in His Side and Cemetry Gates.

“I was on the train,” reflected Marr of writing the latter song, a joyous Kinks-influenced sunbeam that belied Morrissey’s lyric about an afternoon exploring the tombstones. “And I was thinking, ‘Right, if you’re so great, first thing in the morning, sit down and write a great song.’ I started with the Cemetry Gates B-minor-to-G change in open G.”

At the album’s midpoint, meanwhile, was Bigmouth Strikes Again, its visceral minor-key assault establishing Marr among the most muscular players in British indie-rock. “I wanted something that was a rush all the way through,” said the guitarist, who described the song as his take on the Rolling Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash. “I thought the guitar breaks should be percussive, not too pretty or chordal.”

Finally, signing off the album was Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others, a baffling ode to the differing dimensions of the female form that would have been a throwaway curio without the hypnotic glide of Marr’s folk arpeggios. “Some things just drop out of the heavens, and Some Girls was one of them,” he reflected. “It’s a beautiful piece of music.”

So The Queen Is Dead was done, and Marr knew “no-one could touch us – that was the peak of the Smiths’ career.” An unequivocal triumph, then? Not exactly. The laser focus of helming the album sessions had weighed heavy on the young guitarist, whose weight fell to about 98 lbs. as he ran on nervous energy, brandy and cocaine.

“I rarely thought about food unless it was absolutely necessary,” he recalled. “I’d just get on with recording and sometimes someone might make me a sandwich.”

The music was just one of the burdens carried by Marr. Facing legal action over the Smiths’ move from Rough Trade to EMI – and serving as the band’s de facto manager, right down to the logistics of van hire – it’s easy enough to join the dots between the overworked, rail-thin figure haunting the mixing desk and the borderline-alcoholic who would soon write off his BMW, then walk away from arguably the most important British guitar band of the decade at the peak of its powers.

“The more bitter the split became,” wrote Marr of that 1987 parting, “the better off I felt out of it, and soon I was just happy to be out of it altogether. I was in charge of my own life again.”

But that was all to come. For just a heartbeat in the summer of 1986, the Smiths were the greatest band in Britain. With 40 years of hindsight, it might seem gloriously unlikely that The Queen Is Dead came into our lives the same year as Metallica’s Master of Puppets, Van Halen’s 5150 and Poison’s Look What the Cat Dragged In – and stranger still that the album defied the zeitgeist to achieve gold sales in the U.S.

But perhaps that just speaks to the magic of a charmed 12 months in music, when it seemed anything was possible.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

What is it?

Johnny Marr’s first Fender signature guitar was a celebration of the Jaguar but also with a hint of, ‘okay, let’s fix the bits that don’t work’. This new Special Jaguar follow-up doesn’t really change the sentiment except for the obvious addition of three lipstick pickups (that we associate with Danelectro, of course), which replace the custom-wound Bare Knuckle Jaguar-style pickups of the original.

You’re certainly not going to mix up the iterations; the lipsticks’ unique appearance in their domed split-tube chromed covers almost adds a boutique-style mash-up vibe.

The bright plating also matches the guitar’s lower control plate and upper shoulder ‘rhythm circuit’ plate, plus the additional treble-side chrome plate, which originally held three slide switches to switch each pickup on/off, and the classic ‘strangle’ switch, which mounts the four-way lever switch for pickup selection here.

It’s not the only change as, like the original, there’s no rhythm circuit: that bass-side chromed plate holds the ‘universal’ bright switch and another bright switch for the lever switch position 4 (bridge and neck in series). On our new model the addition is the lowest-placed third switch, a three-position switch specifically for the middle pickup: off, on and solo’d.

Pickup and control changes aside, the guitar follows the original JM Jaguar with its all-nitrocellulose gloss finish, although this time the only colour offered is black. Its offset body is still alder and also features subtly enhanced body contours, while the maple neck retains its vintage style with the body-end truss rod adjustment and a profile based on Johnny’s 1965 Jaguar, like the original.

While vintage-style ‘small’ frets are retained, this time they’re on a more modern 241mm (9.5-inch) radiused rosewood ’board; the first version used the original 184mm (7.25-inch) camber.

Another area that Johnny tweaked was the classic offset bridge and vibrato tailpiece. The former swaps the individual threaded-rod height-adjustable saddles for the Mustang style, which uses three different-diameter solid-brass barrels (each with a central string groove) to create the string camber, which can’t move.

The original signature had wider vintage-style string spacing of 56.5mm; here that’s narrowed to 52.5mm and, as a result, the outer strings sit in a little more.

Another tweak is the nylon ‘locks’ for the bridge’s needle-point height-adjustment screws, which stop the screws moving as the originals tend to. Here, these are stainless steel and larger in diameter than the standard Fender screws. There’s also another nylon collar for the push-in vibrato arm, which means it’s not only tight‑fitting, but it stays put where you want it and is also really responsive to the lightest of touches.

Many of the tweaks for the original guitar – and that feature on this new Special, too – were conceived with the help of the late Bill Puplett, Johnny’s long-time repair person of choice.

For example, Johnny shares that it was Bill who suggested swapping to Kent Armstrong lipstick pickups for this Special. Meanwhile, the hardware tweaks, such as those bridge-post locks and the vibrato arm stabilisation, were conceived by engineer John Moore of Staytrem fame.

Specs

• PRICE: $2,999/£3,099/€3,649 (inc case)
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Offset double-cutaway solidbody electric
• BODY: Alder
• neck: Maple, custom shape (based on Marr’s ’65 Jaguar), bolt-on
• SCALE LENGTH: 610mm (24”)
• NUT/WIDTH: Synthetic bone/42.6mm
• FINGERBOARD: Rosewood, ‘ivory’ dot inlays, 241mm (9.5”) radius
• FRETS: 22, vintage style
• HARDWARE: Fender Jaguar bridge with Mustang saddles and vintage style ‘floating’ tremolo tailpiece, split-post tuners — nickel/chrome plated
• STRING SPACING, BRIDGE: 52.5mm 
• ELECTRICS: 3x custom-wound Kent Armstrong Johnny Marr single-coil lipstick pickups, 4-position lever pickup selector switch, 3x slide-switches: Universal Bright Switch, Bright Switch for lever switch position 4, middle pickup off/on/only. Master Volume, Master Tone
• WEIGHT (kg/lb): 3.89/8.56
• OPTIONS: None
• RANGE OPTIONS: Original Johnny Marr Jaguar (£2,619) features a pair of Bare Knuckle Jaguar-style single coils and is available in Olympic White and Metallic KO (red)
• LEFT-HANDERS: No
• FINISHES: Black – gloss nitrocellulose neck/body
• CONTACT: Fender

Usability and sounds

Offset guitars can be heavy thanks to their enlarged bodies, and this sample isn’t the lightest we’ve played, though it is trimmer than the original 2012 sample we had for evaluation. Strapped on, it has a very centred balance and, while it has that shorter scale, it doesn’t feel small. It’s a very comfortable feel.

The same can be said for the neck profile, which is quite full in the hand, even in lower positions where it’s a lot thinner, depth-wise, at 21mm than it is by the 12th fret, where it measures 25mm. This vintage-style profile is also structurally very sound and there’s zero neck-flex here.

You really need to get your head around the expansive possibilities that the array of switches offer – particularly before you head off to a gig. First of all, it might have three pickups like a Stratocaster, but you can also run it as a two-pickup ‘Telecaster’ (like the original JM Jaguar), and that depends on where you set the lower-placed three-position push-switch on the bass-side panel.

Pushed up towards the headstock, the middle pickup is out of circuit so the four-way switch on the treble side gives us bridge, both, neck, and neck and bridge in series like a Telecaster, with the four-way switch series mod.

Move that lower push-switch to its centre position and the middle pickup is now added to the first three selector-switch positions, creating bridge and middle, all three, and neck and middle, while the previous series sound is now just the middle pickup. Finally, with the switch pushed down towards the bridge, the middle pickup is solo’d in all positions of the four-way switch.

Then we have the two bass-cut switches: the universal bright switch (the top one) moves left to right, or treble to bass side. In the treble-side position it’s bypassed; in the bass-side position it’s active on all selections on the four-way selector. The middle switch is another bright-switch, but for the bridge/neck series sound. To add to the confusion this switch moves north to south, or up and down: in up position it’s on; in down it’s off.

To warm up our test amp, we use a ’69 Telecaster with its long-serving Fender Custom Shop pickups and four-way lever switch to add the bridge/neck series voice. And the Special sounds a little polite in comparison. That’s no bad thing, though, as the lipstick voices have something of a purity to them.

There’s a lot of attack, but at the bridge there’s a relatively smooth high-end. The snap continues with the neck pickup, although it’s a fuller and richer sound, of course. Quickly soloing the middle pickup – and, yes, it sits nicely between those two extremes – it’s easy to hear why Johnny Marr wanted to effectively highlight this voice.

Bridge and neck in series is the biggest voice on the guitar, but it only appears with the middle pickup out of circuit. Switching the middle pickup to on (but not solo’d) we get bridge and middle (in parallel), which adds some Strat-y bounce.

Likewise, neck and middle while all-three on (again in parallel) is a subtle shade in between: all three selections are a little softer sounding. We’re beginning to feel spoiled for choice. The two bass-cut bright switches obviously thin out the low-end and enhance the honk.

If you’re after articulate clean jangle and chime, well, this is your vehicle, not least with some – or quite a lot of – modulation. But while that may be a major draw, the Special works extremely well with some much more gained sounds, like a good Danelectro, from spluttery fuzz to heavier and much heavier voicings. Here, again, those bass-cut switches really work, tightening the low-end, and are a great tool for band playing and recording, helping to focus the sound.

One thing to note is that the tone control – which is wired a little differently from standard, and has a lower value capacitor – gives a very usable range and seems to slightly reduce the volume as it’s initially rolled back. Subtle, yes, but another useful sonic-shaping tool.

Verdict

Verdict: ★★★★½

It certainly does what it says on the tin. This really is a Johnny Marr tool with all the brightness and articulation his style demands, but it’s far, far from limited to our man in terms of its potential use. It also builds on the sonic options of his first signature: there’s a bit more Strat in here, plus that ‘all round’ middle pickup, which can be solo’d.

Yet dig a little deeper and there’s a lot more to enjoy, especially when you get your head around the switching options, not to mention the very usable tone control, which does a pretty usable jazz-box impersonation when rolled down, before you turn it back up and launch into Spaghetti Western twang. It loves a pedalboard, too, and takes on yet another character with fuzz and overdrives.

Guitar World verdict: At the time of writing, it is the most expensive USA production Jaguar – nearly double the price of the recently introduced Professional Classic – so its considerable appeal will be somewhat limited, but it remains a beautifully crafted piece with very sensible upgrades and those stellar sounds. A serious outlay, then, but also a very serious and considered pro-level and quite unique instrument.

Hands-on videos

Fender with Johnny Marr

Empire Music

• Fender Johnny Marr Jaguar Signature review
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

Having been in the industry for over 40 years, Johnny Marr knows a thing or two about how the guitar world – and, by extension, the music industry – operates. While many may have been introduced to his work through his early years with ’80s indie rock legends The Smiths, he has since carved a path that traverses genres and labels.

That path has seen him work with a diverse spread of artists from The Pretenders to Modest Mouse, The Cribs, The The, and even Hans Zimmer. In short, a true chameleon – with the guitar serving as the unifying throughline in all his various endeavors.

When he released his first signature Jaguar with Fender 13 years ago, it was clear that Marr had put his years-long experience on stage and in studios worldwide – along with his in-depth knowledge of what makes a guitar tick – to good use. The result? One of Fender’s best-selling signature models.

Fast-forward to 2025, and he took this one step further with the recently released, limited-edition signature special Jaguar, which expands the model’s tonal palette into Strat and even P-90 territory.

“My original signature guitar does so many sounds,” he enthuses. “[For this new one, I've lost count], and the thing I'm most proud of is, it's not active. There’s no batteries living in it.

“Aside from the radius and it being a bit more of a rock sound in quite a few positions, it sounds very much like a Stratocaster, which means that when you play at high gain, it almost does a kind of blues rock sound, which is unusual from a Jag, because a Jaguar is notoriously difficult to get a decent rock sound out of.

“I wouldn't say it’s for metal or for shredding, but you never know!” he quips. “Maybe I'll do a third one that you can shred on.”

What motivated you to create a second signature Jaguar model, and how does it differ from your original design?

[The original] has been really commercially successful, and has continued to sell and sell, which makes me really proud, because other guitar players like it, and of all different kinds of music – it's not just an indie rock machine.

I wanted to continue to do what I do on my [first] signature Jag, but make it for people who wanted a bit more of a conventional feeling guitar – [for example,] make the radius a little bit different [9.5” as opposed to the original’s 7.25”]. It's not me improving my original signature Jag. It's just an alternative to my original Jag.

The new one has a pretty unique pickup selection system, and it also has lipstick pickups, as opposed to the first’s custom-wound Bare Knuckle single-coils. Can you walk us through the thought process behind all this?

For nearly 40 years, I had the same guitar luthier, whose name was Bill Puplett, who sadly passed away a couple of years ago. I don't use the word genius a lot, but there are some people who worked with Billy who would use that word.

Bill got very excited about the idea of the lipstick pickup. And I have to give him credit for putting that idea in my head. And then I had the burgundy Jag, which I thought was a really good-looking guitar, and so we used that as a prototype. So, between Bill and myself, we started to try these different lipstick pickups. But really, it was Bill's ingenuity that came up with the configuration of the pickups.

So, my original signature Jaguar does a lot. It has a Telecaster blade switch [that] gives you four different scenarios: the bridge pickup, the two pickups together, the neck pickup, and the bridge and middle pickup in series.

But with the new Signature Special, you have all of that – but then you also have all of that with the middle pickup added, and then also just the middle pickup.

What the other switches do is all of the above, but with a high-pass filter, which is what I retained from the original ’60s design. And then the third switch [is] a slider switch [that] when it's in series position is an extra notch filter, because when the pickups are in series, they are so fat-sounding that they just take it away from the Fender realm, and they almost sound more like a P-90.

Would you consider it a tribute to Bill?

Yeah, that's right. And we all felt that because it was the last project that Bill was involved in, and he was very passionate about it. The wiring is really ingenious.

This year, I got to collaborate with Gorillaz and also with Franz Ferdinand. Because I've got the prototype, I wanted to see how it would work with a different kind of music to my own, and the fact that it's so versatile has really come up pretty good.

Your first signature Jaguar inspired a new generation of players. What do you hope this new version communicates to younger guitarists?

There are people who bought my signature Jaguar because of its reputation – and because they don't necessarily have to be a fan of my music – but what I feel I did with both my signature Jags [is that] they are more efficient than the original ’60s design. That's to do with the change in the blade switch and the way the bridges behave – staying in tune, the saddles, and all of those things that I felt were necessary improvements.

So I want for that to continue, but also maybe a new person coming along who thinks that they want to do all of that, but also for it to be more of a rock guitar. I think that was my original idea, to not lose anything of my signature Jag, but for it to behave better as a driven guitar.

You've lent a lot of guitars to other musicians in the past, like Noel Gallagher, of course, and Radiohead. Do you still lend your guitars out these days?

Well, I think most of my friends actually own my guitars now [on a sort of] a permanent loan [laughs]. I tend to encourage my friends to try different things. So, for example, when Radiohead were making In Rainbows, I couldn't believe they'd never used a Les Paul before. I think I loaned them an SG for the album. And Thom [Yorke] ended up buying an SG himself.

Who, in your opinion, are some of the artists or bands right now who are really shaping the guitar scene?

I feel a little weird even bringing this up, because I've been around for so long, but I can't help but celebrate the fact that we're just now so used to female bands.

When I was starting out in the early ’80s, particularly when I started with the teenage bands in the late ’70s, women in rock, certainly playing guitar with bands, either as the lead singer or lead guitarist, were nowhere near as common. You had Chrissie Hynde, obviously, Bonnie Raitt, Joni Mitchell… but there were few rock guitar players.

And now, you only have to look at social media for a couple of minutes, and you see all these girls playing dazzling guitar.

I know the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have been around a long time, but I always really, really like whenever they put a new record out, because I think Nick Zinner is a really, really exciting guitar player. I like The Last Dinner Party – [Emily Roberts] is a good guitar player. And also, I'd say Fontaines D.C.'s latest record's [Romance] got the type of guitar playing that I just really like.

Speaking of influential guitar players, what are your thoughts on Oasis’ recent reunion shows?

From the minute the reunions were announced, in the UK, at least, almost three-quarters of the country were cheered up. Because Noel's my friend, to give you a serious answer, I'm very happy that he's reunited with his brother. That's a great thing, obviously, but the concerts had such an elevated atmosphere and a real positive message of the power of music.

When I was in America, because people know that I play with Noel, so many people were telling me that they went to the concerts and how amazing these concerts were – and, sometimes, it was people who you wouldn't think were fans of Oasis.

So it became like a cultural phenomenon, with the main inspiration being about unity. That's something that is very much in need in today's world. So they've done something really great, not only for themselves, but really, for a lot of people. They brought a lot of people joy. And it's something I've never seen in my lifetime. Biggest reunion of all time.

Did they ask you to guest star?

There were three very, very loud guitar players up there, because Gem [Archer] has got a big sound as well, and between Bonehead [Paul Arthurs, bassist] and Noel, I think they've got plenty of decent jackets up there. They don't need me in a good jacket! [laughs]

And finally, which guitar players have inspired you over the years – particularly ones people might not expect?

You know who I think was a really, really interesting guitar player? John Lennon. Some of the things that people don't quite realize he was doing on the White Album... I can go down rabbit holes.

And John McLaughlin. Whenever I mention John McLaughlin, I think people are surprised because I come out of the indie rock scene. But you know, when I started out, I would be talking about Nile Rodgers. And at the time, I remember that all those boys who were working in the British music press couldn't believe what they were hearing when I was talking about Nile Rodgers.

But now, everybody can understand that me and Nile Rodgers have got a lot in common – mostly to do with the way we make music: collaborating with other bands, producing and arranging, and using the guitar as a kind of hook.

The idea of someone standing behind a mixing desk working on vocals with the singer, but with their guitar around their neck, while still being known for playing the guitar – Nile was a bit of an example for me, really. It's [all] an evolution.

• The Limited-Edition Johnny Marr Signature Special Jaguar is available now from Fender retail partners. For more information, visit Fender.

Fender has reunited with Johnny Marr for a limited-edition signature Jaguar that not only builds on the success of his original best-selling signature model with the brand, but promises to blend “vintage character with modern innovation.”

“The Jaguar has been central to my sound and style for nearly 15 years,” enthuses Marr. “With this new model, I wanted to create an instrument that feels classic but also pushes players to explore new tones and possibilities.

“From my work with The Cribs playing gritty in-your-face indie, to the cinematic soundscapes I crafted with Hans Zimmer, the Jaguar has been an incredible asset in helping me expand my sound, no matter the genre or the occasion.”

Specs-wise, the Limited-Edition Johnny Marr Signature Special Jaguar features a custom gloss nitrocellulose black lacquer finish, a smooth custom neck inspired by Marr's own 1965 Jaguar, and a rosewood fingerboard with 22 vintage-style frets and ivory dot inlays. Furthermore, it boasts a Jaguar bridge with Mustang saddles, complemented by a vintage-style ‘floating tremolo’ tailpiece.

Perhaps one of the most interesting additions is the set of custom-wound Kent Armstrong Johnny Marr single-coil lipstick pickups, which offer a “unique range of tonal versatility.”

The tonal palette is further enhanced by the presence of Marr’s personal wiring scheme and an all-new four-position blade switching system – plus three slide-switch options – all of which deliver a “fresh perspective” on the classic Jaguar tone.

Speaking about this new signature release, Max Gutnik, Chief Product Officer at Fender, says, “Johnny Marr’s legacy as one of the most inventive guitarists of the last four decades is undeniable.

“The new Signature Special Jaguar is a versatile, performance-ready twist on his classic instrument that delivers a captivating tone with great feel. We’re thrilled to share it with guitarists everywhere.”

Priced at $2,999.99, the Limited-Edition Johnny Marr Signature Special Jaguar is available now from Fender retail partners.

For more information, visit Fender.

Every guitarist has a missing gear story. Whether it’s a stolen electric guitar or a pedal that mysteriously disappears right after soundcheck, it happens to the best of us.

Unfortunately, Johnny Marr has himself mixed up in a “missing gear” story at this very moment – and he's been pleading online with UPS to help him recover his lost equipment.

Days before kicking off a run of shows, Marr has taken to X to air that his guitars have gone missing, alleging UPS has misplaced, or even lost, a fair few of his touring instruments.

“Dear UPS where are my guitars?” he wrote on X. “They disappeared a week ago. I’m hearing from you now that they’ve been lost. Explain.”

The guitarist goes on to tag Fender and Gibson – meaning that he had at least a couple of Fenders and Gibsons in the mix. However, the final straw for Marr came when he was asked to provide some, er, visual support.

“Asking me to describe what my guitars look like is not filling me with confidence,” Marr continues. “They look exactly like the ones you put in one of your delivery vans days ago. Remember?”

"Look for one that says ‘80’s Icon’ on the case and another one that says ‘Woke As Fuck,’” he quips.

While UPS is reportedly investigating the matter, as of the time of writing, Marr hasn't issued an update on his missing gear.

Late last year, the Smiths guitarist launched a new signature Martin M-7, whose specs don’t stick to the script.

Given that it was designed by the man who quit The Smiths at the peak of their powers in 1987 – having single-handedly invented indie-rock – perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that Johnny Marr’s new signature Martin M-7 doesn’t stick to the script.

Teaming with the fabled Pennsylvania-based luthier for the project is a logical move: Marr has been loyal to the Martin brand since he hired his first D-28 for The Smiths’ 1985 Meat Is Murder album (and refused to give it back).

But from the hybrid body shape to the three-piece back – not to mention the pièce de résistance, an octave G string – the 61-year-old’s creation is anything but a cynical rebadge, its widescreen jangle and seventh tuning peg making fans question their eyes and ears when he walks on stage.

“You have these instruments that you already think are perfection, so, in my case, the D-28 and D-35,” he considers. “But then, when you change or personalise one aspect, you start getting into invention…”

How did this collaboration start?

“Well, Fred Greene [Martin’s VP of Product Management] contacted me a couple of years ago. We got together at a show in Pennsylvania, near the Martin factory, and about halfway through our conversation, I realised I was being invited to invent my dream Martin out of thin air. Which was such a privilege and surprise.

“What Fred drew out of me were my enthusiasms about different aspects of the guitar. So the M-7 and M-6 [the standard six-string equivalent] were designed very organically. I realised I was daydreaming of this ideal acoustic.”

The acoustic has always been in your toolkit, hasn’t it?

“Yeah. My connection to acoustic guitars goes back to the very first guitar sound I was drawn to, which was the strumming of Don Everly on Wake Up Little Susie. But at the same time, also, C’mon Everybody by Eddie Cochran, where the acoustics are layered and loud. There’s this idea that acoustic guitars are about fingerpicking and folk accompaniment.

“I’m an acolyte of Bert Jansch, so I can testify to that. But that really loud, layered, straightforward strumming on those rock ’n’ roll records is a singular sound. You hear Jeff Lynne pay homage to it on Runnin’ Down A Dream by Tom Petty. Or Queen Of Hearts by Dave Edmunds. They’re all echoes of this signature technique that snagged me when I was six or seven.

“I’ve had a lifetime of doing this now, all my adult life. And I’ve always incorporated acoustic guitars into what I do. I mean, this thing I’m talking about – just really driving the acoustic into the ground – I did it on a song from my last solo album called Counter Clock World.

“Other times, I’m playing in tunings, which is something I got from Joni Mitchell, via David Crosby. Through all the records I’ve made, I was very deliberate in putting acoustic guitars to the foreground.”

You’ve said Rory Gallagher was the player who turned you onto Martins.

“Well, that was the first time I ever saw a D-35, when Rory used to do Out On The Western Plain. Sadly, but luckily for me, I got to play that very D-35, not long after Rory passed away.

“And then, my D-28 that I got in the Smiths days in around ’85 – I hired that, and within about 10 minutes, I said to myself, ‘This is not going back.’ That one has magic in it, and I’ve done a lot with it over the years. But then, almost to break out of that, when I started playing with Bert, I used a 70s D-35.

“When I was a kid, I could name the owner and whereabouts of every guitar within a 20-mile radius. And as an adult, I can reel off a whole load of musicians and what acoustic guitar they own.

“For example, Bernard Butler’s got an amazing J-200, as does Ronnie Wood. Then again, one of the best D-28s I ever played belonged to Beth Orton. They really make an impression on me, these guitars. Always have done.”

Let’s talk about the M-7’s flagship feature. What inspired that octave G?

“My friend Bill Puplett – who is sadly no longer with us, but he worked on my guitars from 1987 – we had a conversation about a British blues player in the ’60s. I’ve forgotten his name, but he added an extra tuning peg, pin and string to his acoustic, and pioneered this seven-string model.

“I also saw Roger McGuinn talking about his signature model on stage in the late ’90s. I’d never played a seven-string – or heard one in person. But the concept intrigued me and I hoped it would do what I thought it’d do, which was to behave, technically, like a regular six-string acoustic but have something that just delights your ear.”

Sonically, the M-7 seems like a close cousin of a 12-string guitar.

“Over the years, I’ve always kept up playing 12-string. Every so often, I’ll go through phases of playing 12-string to keep my acoustic chops up and not get lazy.

“And then, a few days into that, I always go through the same thing, which is, I think, ‘I’m going to get rid of every six-string I own. There isn’t a better sound than this, and anyone who bitches about them being hard to grapple with – buy a tuner.’

“However, sometimes you just don’t want all of that high-octave stuff. So my M-7 does what you think it’s going to do, but it sounds like it’s got added production on it. When I’ve been using it live, I tend to forget that it’s even got the high octave on it.

“And then, sometimes, I’ll really dig in and make a point of playing a little more around that octave. I’ve been living with it now for a long time and I’ve found that regular six-strings almost sound like they’re missing something to me now.”

It’s that little bit of extra harmonic information, isn’t it?

“Exactly. Within minutes, you forget it’s there. But you’d notice if it disappeared.

“In spite of that, it was my idea to do the six-string version [M-6] because when I was talking to other players, I could see that when I said ‘seven-string’, they got stuck on that information and I had to qualify what I’d done by saying, ‘But even without the seventh string, it’s still a great instrument.’ I thought we should offer people who may only want one luxury instrument the option of not having that seventh string.

“The six-string version is killer anyway because of all the other things about it. Y’know, the bracing, the shallower M-style body, the three-piece back, et cetera. The neck, as well, is not trying to be all things to all men.

“Which I find frustrating with some modern guitars because in trying to please everyone, sometimes the feel is just so generic. So I was very specific about the dimensions and absolutely adamant that we didn’t have any satin finish nonsense on the back.”

You’re not a fan of satin necks?

“As I understand it, satin necks were a ’90s idea. But I’m of the opinion: ‘If it’s too problematic moving your hand up and down a glossy neck, you’re in the wrong job, mate.’

“I used to read that in the ’80s with some metal players: ‘Oh, I can’t handle it when there’s too much gloss on the neck.’ The only person who’s allowed to say that is Eddie Van Halen.

“I’ve got friends who have taken sandpaper to the neck because they can’t handle the gloss. But it’s like, ‘Stop being a baby. Put the hours in and wear it down yourself.’”

How did you settle on the body shape?

“The seventh string was the first thing I thought of, and then the dimensions of the M-7 was the last remaining piece. I said to Martin, ‘Can I make the front like a D-28 and the back like a D-35: has anyone ever done that?’

“What I love about both the six- and seven-string version is that the bottom is essentially the size of a dreadnought but the depth means that if you want to play unaccompanied arpeggios and do the West Coast thing – without a pick, just with fingers – it really holds up. But then, if you hammer it like a rhythm guitar, it sounds like The Who.”

Martin guitars have a reputation for mighty bottom-end.

“That’s right. I’ve got a friend in a well-known band, and he’s sometimes peeved me about my use of Martins because he says they have unnecessary bottom-end. My retort was always: ‘Well, you need to learn to play properly using the lower strings and start writing songs in tunings.’ Because he’s a Hummingbird and J-200 freak.

“But with my signature models, I’m trying to do that thing where they sound good recorded and they will take that really punchy rhythm playing. That’s why I say it sounds like The Who. I think a bit of that is down to them being slightly shallower than the dreadnought, but they still have the rest of those dreadnought dimensions.”

Do you find the M-6 and M-7 more comfortable than a dreadnought?

“Well, that was an unexpected bonus. As soon as it arrived, I went, ‘Oh, hello – I could get used to this.’ I’ve been touring with my seven-string and I don’t miss that extra depth of a dreadnought, particularly on stage when you’re going through a PA. You absolutely don’t need it.

“As for the electronics [LR Baggs Anthem], I just went with Martin’s advice. I’ve used them live and they sound great.”

The new model sounds like it would really sing with a guitar capo.

“I almost use capos too much. I’m trying to wean myself off ’em somewhat. I’m not joking. Just Google pictures of me: more often than not I’m using capos, and so many times on the 4th fret. For some reason, guitars like capos on the 4th fret; they sing out really well. In my live show, I move capos around all the time.

“That’s something I learnt really young, when I was copying players like Stephen Stills, and what Bert, Martin Carthy and John Renbourn were doing. These days, on electric, I use G7th capos, but the last few I’ve been using [on acoustic] were actually my old Jim Dunlops, believe it or not. They’re fantastic.”

The spruce top and rosewood body have a lovely warm finish.

“I was really pleased to get the top colour in a shade that I consider to be ‘classic’. Because there’s a lot of acoustics that come out, for some reason, in a shade I don’t like.

“Martin were great about it. I drove them a bit mad about the shade. And I had the option to relic it, but I wasn’t going to do that, given my feelings about the neck.

“The thing about old guitars is that people beat them up through playing them, and that’s what I wanted. If someone buys one of my guitars, one day it will be old. It doesn’t need to come out of the box looking pseudo-old.”

Finally, what inspired the retro-cool Souldier strap supplied with the new guitars?

“I’ve had all kinds of different designs with Souldier, and when I came to do these acoustics I wanted a classic colour scheme, and Jen [Tabor, founder] gave me a few options. Because I was a kid in the ’70s, I was seeing a lot of acoustic players, so I went for a sort of ’70s style.

“I get quite obsessive about these things, so I tried out way more designs than I ought to have, but I got there in the end. I remember when you couldn’t get decent straps – I call them the dark times.

“In the ’80s, when I was coming up in the Smiths days… Oh, man. I’d go into guitar shops and could I find one without skull and crossbones on? No. So it’s definitely progress!”

• Johnny Marr’s M-6 and M-7 are available now from Martin Guitars. 
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

It was December 2023, and backstage at Manchester’s Aviva Studios, Johnny Marr was wrestling with a dilemma. Playing the same venue the night before with a 30-piece orchestra, he’d turned to a Martin D-28, of the kind that propelled him to ’80s stardom in the Smiths, and gifted him classics like There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.

Now, flanked by elite classical musicians and facing an expectant hometown crowd for the second show, Marr found himself debating whether to give a trial by fire to the prototype of his new signature Martin M-7, which was delivered half an hour earlier.

As the man who jumped from that most cherished of British indie-rock bands with no safety net in 1987, perhaps it’s no surprise to learn that Marr took the leap of faith that night, walking from the wings with the head-turning seven-string model.

“The minute I took it out, people noticed the tuning configuration and did a double-take,” Marr tells us. “But the most striking thing is when you hear it.”

Conceptually, the M-7 is not quite without precedent. Back in 2005, that other great master of crystalline chime, Byrds icon Roger McGuinn, launched a signature Martin guitar that also offered a doubled G string.

Even so, it’s remarkable to hear how Marr’s new model sings, its jangle-ready format accentuated by a wishlist of build features including an all-solid Grand Auditorium body, full-thickness mahogany neck and three-piece back (a regular six-string, the M-6, is also available).

“It was all instinct for me,” he says. “But the really exciting thing was whether all those different features would work together as one instrument.”

Do you remember the first time you saw a Martin?

“Yeah. It would have been Rory Gallagher in 1976, when he did that acoustic bit in his set. Before that, it was Neil Young, Stephen Stills and Joni Mitchell.

“I was just a kid then, but in the ’70s, it was mostly American artists who were playing Martins. It was the Californians’ choice. I don’t think John Martyn played Martins. And I think Bert Jansch would have played whatever he could get his hands on at the time.

“I was always into D-28s – from before I could get one, really. A lot of my heroes were playing them and I thought they were dead cool. The first Martin I got myself was the 1971 D-28 that I wrote loads of the Smiths stuff on. I got some great songs out of it, straight out of the gate, and it recorded really well.

“I think the first song I wrote on it was Well I Wonder, and I used it from the Meat Is Murder album onwards. It was from some hire company – I just refused to give it back! I did end up paying for it, by the way. And I’ve still got that guitar.”

What was so good about that particular D-28?

“Well, I think if it’s a Martin from the early ’70s, it’s gonna be a good instrument. We all know there’ll be some narky idiot on the internet who’ll want to contradict me on that – but they’re wrong.

“Every early- and mid-’70s D-28 I’ve played has always been really musical. It seems an obvious term to use about a guitar, but that’s the best way I can put it. I did notice that mine was a particularly good one. But I’ve got loads of mates who bought early-’70s Martins, and they’re all great.”

Which other Martin models have been in your lineup?

“Usually, I don’t go for lots of pearl and fancy designs. I like things that feel a little more pragmatic and straightforward. So the D-28 appealed to me on that level. That was my main six-string until the early ’90s, when I got into D-35s with Electronic and Pet Shop Boys. I guess I just fancied a change. I also used a D-41 on Strangeways, Here We Come, so I would flip between that and the D-28.”

Let’s talk about the standout feature of your new M-7 – that octave G. Were you aware of Roger McGuinn’s model?

“No, I’ve never come across it, although I saw him talking about it once. I think the idea came out of conversations with my dear friend Bill Puplett. He told me about some obscure blues player in the early ’60s who played around the clubs in Soho with a seven-string.

“Conceptually, it seemed like a good fit for me, because of the ringing thing I do. I just thought, ‘Seven strings are probably better than six.’ In that regard, anyway. I wouldn’t be interested in a seven-string electric with the low B.”

The M-7’s tone has a 12-string guitar flavor, but how does it compare to play?

“With the way I play – which is a bit of a ‘one-man band’ approach – I’m trying to play the whole song, a cross between rhythm and top lines. You can do that on a 12-string, but you have to apply yourself and you need a big breakfast. It’s not for the faint-hearted.

“I’m really glad I persevered when I was younger and it didn’t alienate me too much, because I know a few players who just don’t want to know.

“So I’m au fait with 12-strings, and the seven-string is definitely a different beast. It’s much easier to negotiate, and in terms of technique and application, it’s hardly any different to a six-string, but sound-wise, it adds a new dimension. With some of my old riffs that would have been played on a regular six-string, it sounds more like the ‘deluxe’ version.

“It’s definitely different, particularly if you lean into it with voicings that have a lot of activity on the G. What can I say? Ring ring, y’know? But some of that sound is also down to the construction of the actual guitar, more so than just the extra G string. That’s almost as significant as having that extra string, which is why we’re also doing the six-string version.”

You’re known for using dreadnoughts, but this is a Grand Auditorium.

“That’s right. I wondered whether the narrower body would be more comfortable. Had that not worked, I would have gone back to a regular size. But it makes me want to play with more attack. I’m playing more like Pete Townshend, because my ear instinctively wants me to get more juice out of it.

“I think that’s what certain players – some of whom are my friends – like out of [Gibson] J-200s and Hummingbirds, that are traditionally used for rhythm. This is a really strong rhythm guitar. I think it’s the closest that Martin has got to those rock ’n’ roll records that usually have J-200s on.”

And you specified a full-thickness neck with gloss finish?

“I have to try and talk about the neck without sounding offensive or angry. Satin finishes: why? No need. You’re really playing that fast that you need to have a satin neck? Really?

“Like, a beautiful glossy neck, that was on all the old guitars since time immemorial – your technique is so dazzling, or you’re so uncomfortable putting your hand on that gloss, or you’re so affronted by it, that we’ve had to have years of really bad finishes on necks? No need. Wear it down yourself, you lazy sod!”

Why did you decide the L.R. Baggs Anthem acoustic guitar pickup would bring out the M-7’s voice?

“It’s a little bit of a throwback to the Baggs on my D-35 I used with Bert Jansch. Bert – who was a great lover of guitar technology – always remarked on my Baggs pickup. It was a coincidence that Baggs was the Martin company’s pickup of choice anyway. So that was a lucky thing.

“It’s really nice to calibrate, the preamp is great, and then, as I was saying, I got to try it out literally 30 minutes after it arrived with an orchestra. I wasn’t sitting around for two weeks being conceptual, because there’s no better test than getting up on stage in front of 2,000 people.”

What was it about the acoustic guitar that called to you as a teenager?

“Well, unlike my pals, I didn’t feel the need to abandon the acoustic as soon as I could get an electric. It’s partly the reason why I play electric the way I do, which is born out of moving first-position chords around the neck and finding melodies within those shapes.

“A couple of my pals wanted to be Ritchie Blackmore and Jimi Hendrix – and I get it. But I wasn’t intending on forming a band that sounded like Voodoo Child or Highway Star.

“I liked the sound of Bus Stop by the Hollies, and what Tony Hicks was doing on those records. Going even further back, to being a little kid, the first guitar sound I was hooked on was what Don Everly did on Wake Up Little Susie, and those early Everlys records, because my parents used to play them at parties, very loud. And the acoustic overdubs on C’mon Everybody by Eddie Cochran.”

You’ve talked about the Stooges’ Gimme Danger as a key influence.

“A hundred percent. That’s a great example, now you bring it up. And Nils Lofgren – a big track for me is Share a Little, off of Cry Tough. It’s so compressed, and because he plays with a thumbpick, he’s got so much attack on his downstrokes. The sound of that, for a long time, I thought was one of the best things I’d come across.

“He also had a band called Grin, and there’s a similar sound on a song called Love Or Else. You can hear the bridge rattling because he’s hitting it so hard. And then, of course, growing up in the U.K. in the ’70s, you can’t ignore the Who’s Pinball Wizard.”

Likewise, you’ve said you wanted your Smiths acoustic parts to have attitude…

“I was determined that this aspect of the band was going to get noticed. I was so proud for us to be an all-out guitar band, that I didn’t want to be polite about those things. The songs I’ve mentioned – the Everlys, Eddie Cochran, etc. – were in the rear-view mirror in the culture of the early ’80s. But not in mine. So it was my agenda to push that.

“You know, like on the start of Bigmouth Strikes Again, say, and Unhappy Birthday. At the time, I was conscious that no-one else was doing that, even after I’d been doing it for a few years. That was another one of the things I was proud of the band for.”

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke supposedly once said he considered the Smiths to be a powered-up folk band. Would you agree?

“Yeah, I like that. I really liked Bert Jansch. And because of Bert, I listened to Martin Carthy, John Martyn, eventually Nick Drake and Donovan. So folk is in there.

“I did go through a time where I thought of us exactly the way Thom puts it, a folk band but [fused with] the Patti Smith Group. I think I was pretty deliberate about that. And d’you know what? A lot of the Velvet Underground sounds like folk to me.”

Do you feel like the M-6 and M-7 have good songs in them?

“Oh yeah, I absolutely do. Let’s put it this way – since I got my signature Martins, I really don’t feel the need to pick anything else up.”

You could have easily just stayed in the Smiths. Where did that musical curiosity come from?

“I think it’s just my personality. I can’t remember a time when that impulse and that broad remit as a musician wasn’t there. Everything was fair game to me, although there’s definitely things I don’t like – some classical music just doesn’t resonate with me, and there’s a lot of extreme metal I’m not interested in, obviously.

“For some reason, the only word I can find for it is ‘wonder.’ It’s that, really – wonderment in music. I didn’t know it was going to happen, but working with Hans Zimmer now makes total sense to me. I had to kind of beat through the undergrowth for that privilege. But it comes as no surprise to me.”

• Find out more about Johnny Marr's signature M-7 at Martin Guitar.

Gibson has partnered with Johnny Marr to produce a highly limited run of hand-signed Gibson Les Paul signature electric guitars, which are inspired by The Smiths legend’s 1984 Les Paul Standard.

The partnership has been formalized to celebrate the first anniversary of Gibson Garage London, whose birthday will be commemorated by the Gibson Garage Fest.

News of the festival that arrived earlier this month promised it would include the release of high-profile six-strings designed in collaboration with some big-name artists, and now we have our first of the event.

As such, the new LP will be available exclusively from the Gibson Garage London starting next Friday (February 21). Only 20 will be made, and each will be hand-signed by The Smiths icon himself.

They will be up for sale at an as-yet-undisclosed price until they are sold out, following which they will be gone for good. All the profits from the LPs will be donated to Teenage Cancer Trust.

As for the guitar itself, Gibson and Marr have clearly pulled no punches, opting to recreate one of Marr’s most important Les Pauls. Specifically, they’ve reissued the Les Paul that was first played during the recording of The Smiths’ Meat is Murder record, and that promptly became one of his go-to guitars.

It featured heavily both on stage and in the studio with The Smiths, and was one of Marr’s guitars of choice during his time with The The, The Pretenders and The Cribs, as well as during his work with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

Not only that, Marr once picked it as one of his favorite guitars, and revealed it to be the one he has used on more records than any other.

“I bought this guitar from A1 Repairs in Manchester for the second Smiths album, Meat Is Murder,” Marr once told The Guardian. “It may surprise some people to learn that this is the guitar I’ve used on more records than any other.

“When people think of me having a ringing sound, they usually assume it’s a Rickenbacker, Fender Telecaster or Fender Jaguar, but it’s often been this 1980s Les Paul. It’s the guitar I played on the last song the Smiths played together in concert.”

Marr has waxed lyrical about this particular Les Paul in the past, and included it in a run-down of his most prized guitars during a conversation with Guitar World last year.

“I got it to write on and used it a lot during that album,” he said at the time. “Before the Jag days, that Les Paul was on more records than any other guitar I owned. Many people think I was doing it all on the Rickenbacker in the ’80s, but a lot of the clean arpeggio stuff was done on that Les Paul.”

“These guitars are a faithful reproduction of my beloved 1984 Gibson Les Paul, bought in Manchester back in the day,” Marr explains in a new Gibson release. “It’s the guitar I’ve kept and used since that time on loads of different records, so I was beyond delighted to see it recreated in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust.

“It’s an amazing organisation that I've had an association with for about ten years. It’s a privilege to be involved in this good cause and I’m very glad to be affiliated with it, especially when it involves making a fantastic Les Paul.”

To ensure their authenticity, each guitar was created through Gibson’s Made-to-Measure program, which employs “the artisans of the Gibson Custom Shop locations in Nashville, Tennessee, and Bozeman, Montana, handcraft the world’s most desirable electric and acoustic guitars”.

It features a classic Les Paul spec sheet, and boasts the same small B50 Bigsby tailpiece that can be found on the original.

“It’s a great honour to continue our partnership with the Teenage Cancer Trust for another year, and for 2025 we have the legend that is Johnny Marr adding his support,” adds Lee Bartram, Head of Commercial, Marketing and Cultural Influence – EMEA.

“These guitars Johnny has signed take inspiration from his 1984 Gibson Les Paul Standard with Bigsby which has been featured on many British classic records over the years, and are a fitting tribute to the amazing work the TCT continue to do.”

It’s the latest addition to Marr’s stock of signatures, which now spans a number of different guitar manufacturers. Not only has Marr now been the recipient of both Fender and Gibson signature guitars, he also partnered with Martin last year for a seven-string acoustic model.

Visit Gibson to find out more.

Gibson Garage Fest will also see Jack Bruce's iconic EB-1 bass – which starred during the Cream reunion in 2005 – be put up for a one-time-only public display.

Yet another eyebrow-raising best guitar riffs of all time list has been published, and – as is usually the case with such round-ups – it has drafted up some rather interesting results.

The 40-strong list comes from uDiscoverMusic, which is part of Universal Music Group’s stable. With that in mind, it's noting that, in the list, the top five riffs all come from Universal artists or bands signed to one of its numerous subsidiaries.

Other notable caveats are that some big hitters and popular Guitar World poll-toppers are questionably relegated to more humble positions (or omitted entirely, in some cases) and the most ‘modern’ offering of the compiled list dates back 22 years to 2006.

That means that none of the riffs of our best riffs of the 2010s poll feature, as the likes of Tool (7empest), Arctic Monkeys (Do I Wanna Know?), and Gary Clark Jr. (Bright Lights) all miss out.

However, there is never an exact science behind compiling such lists, and while the resulting run-down leaves plenty of room for commenters to swing an argument, it’s still an interesting list nevertheless – even if there are some totally bizarre absences.

Kirsten Hersh’s acoustic-led Your Dirty Answer creeps in at the 40th spot on the list, hailed for its “pulsating main guitar riff” and deemed more worthy of a spot than White Stripe’s Seven Nation Army, which is left out entirely.

Eddie Van Halen and Van Halen make one sole appearance with Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love peaking at a fairly lowly 25, one place behind Johnny Marr's spangly This Charming Man riff, and two behind Mark Knoplfer's dancefloor-filling antics on Money for Nothing.

Led Zeppelin’s hip-shaking Whole Lotta Love, which topped Guitar World’s poll of the 50 best guitar riffs of all time in 2023, has to settle for 7th place, not even making it into the top 10. AC/DC’s Back In Black, triumphant in NME’s 2012 poll, falls to 16th.

They weren't the only world-conquering riffs to be humbled here, either. Crazy Train (15), and Enter Sandman (14), both nestle outside the top 10, while The Kinks' You Really Got Me (10) just makes the top bracket.

ZZ Top's ever-cool La Grange (9), Hendrix's Purple Haze (8), and Link Wray's hugely influential 1958 cut Rumble all follow, before Guns N' Roses Sweet Child O' Mine – which Slash says did not come from a warm-up routine, despite popular belief – kicks off the top five.

But it's Nirvana's '90s-shaping Smells Like Teen Spirit that reigns supreme, edging out Smoke on the Water (4), The Rolling Stones' (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction (3), and Chuck Berry's Johnny B Goode, despite the poll describing the four-chord smash as “unoriginal”.

UDiscoverMusic notes: “The four-chord pattern of the riff is unoriginal but the quiet-loud dynamic contrasts of the song, and Cobain’s visceral delivery, add to the potency of one of the best guitar riffs of the ‘90s”.

As reported by Guitar World, “while the Studio preamp, Boss DS-1, and Small Clone provide the essence of Cobain’s guitar tones on the song, several other production flourishes influence the finished recorded sound.”

Luckily, replicating the song's iconic tones can be done on the cheap. Check out Guitar World's guide to nailing Smells Like Teen Spirit's tone.

Check out uDiscoverMusic to see the riff list in full.

A Crowdfunder campaign has been launched to have a mural of late The Smiths bass guitar player Andy Rourke painted in the heart of Manchester, UK.

The bassist passed in May last year after a battle with cancer. This new campaign will see Rourke become the latest in a long list of iconic Manchester musicians to have their legacy remembered via murals across the city.

It’s been spearheaded by his former bandmate and drummer Mike Joyce in partnership with Pancreatic Cancer Action, a UK-based charity. The Crowdfunder is looking to raise £15,500 and at the time of writing is just under a third of the way there already.

The mural will be created by street artist Akse P19, who has painted murals all over the city in Northern England, including ones of Kurt Cobain, soccer player Marcus Rashford, and Joy Division’s Ian Curtis.

The latter has been a point of pride for Mancunians over the years but was controversially painted over for an Amazon Music advert. The mural was then repainted in a different spot.

Rourke's tribute will be emblazoned on the side of the Wheatsheaf Pub on Oak Street of Manchester’s Northern Quarter. It's an area home to much of the city's alternative scene and was loved by Rourke and his family.

“Andy’s passing left us all absolutely devastated and I’ve been wanting to do something to celebrate his life and contribution to music,” says Joyce. “The idea of a mural in the center of Manchester feels a fitting place and way for all his many fans to come and pay tribute.”

He adds that securing a site for the mural has proved “challenging” and thanks the pub for providing the perfect canvas.

“The mural will not only serve as a permanent tribute to Andy's legacy as a brilliant musician but also as a memory of the funniest, sweetest lad I had the pleasure of knowing,” he continues, with funds also helping support its charity partner.

A small run of 100 A4 prints of the mural will also be available to those who pledge £50, with 30 A3 prints priced at £100. Handily, these costs include international shipping.

The mural will be unveiled in November, coinciding with Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month in the UK.

Speaking to Bass Player in 2016, Rourke admitted his obsession for his instrument, saying, “If I wasn’t eating or in the bath, I had a bass in my hand. I played it constantly.”

In his tribute to his hero-turned-interviewee, Joel McIver reflected that Rourke's basslines “refused to go away” from the moment he firs heard The Smiths as an impressionable teen.

“With the high mids dialed up to maximum and inventive fills thrown into what seemed like every bar, bassist Andy Rourke’s staccato-picking dexterity blew my stupid teenage mind,” he continues.

“Not that I was thinking about the bass parts in even those slightly technical terms: all I knew was that those slinky, twangy lines sounded incredible.”

Head to Crowdfunder for more information.

Johnny Marr has long been known as “the man who would not solo”. But that’s kinda inaccurate, as Marr has soloed, sometimes in decidedly sing-song fashion, like on the Smiths’ Shoplifters of the World, for example. So maybe, Marr should be known as “the man who used crystal-clear arpeggios and interesting chord inversions rather than pulling off divebombs via big-ass amps” instead. Then again, legends via folklore aren’t born through literalism.

Anyway, as per the perpetual positive vibes slung Marr’s way, we can agree that he’s the proverbial king of the antiheroes – regardless of whether he solos. None of that has mattered to Marr, though, as he continues to craft landscape-defining indie music. But beyond that music, Marr’s life has been defined by utter devotion to all things six-string.

Marr is so intertwined with his now-massive collection of curios that he’s decided to celebrate them via Marr’s Guitars (HarperCollins, 2023), a 288-page book that reads more like a life story than an art project. To that end, Marr agrees.

“I’m glad it reads that way, because it’s basically my life story through the lens of photographing my guitars”, he says. “The original inspiration came through photo shoots with Pat Graham while he was working on a book called Instrument. I recognized his unique way of photographing guitars, which I found very beautiful. 

“Pat takes these close-up, abstract shots that show a bit of rust on the bridge or a scuff on the neck, and I was fascinated by that. I originally wanted Marr’s Guitars to be full of abstract photos, but as more guitars were photographed, it evolved.”

If you’ve been following along with Marr, you’ll know he’s almost never without his trusty Fender Jaguar. It’s understandable, as he has done some incredible things with the guitar that figuratively and literally bears his signature. 

When asked what drew him to the offset, Marr says, “The Jag, specifically my signature Jag, is a cross between a Gretsch and a Rickenbacker. And it plays like a Fender, but sonically, it’s like playing all three. It’s completely custom-made to sound like me. Like the Rickenbacker, the Jag made me play like me. 

“When I picked up Isaac Brock’s [Modest Mouse] ’63 Jag while writing Dashboard, it was life-changing. And here I am still playing the Jag. I don’t even like guitar changes in my live set.”

Putting together Marr’s Guitars has re-established Marr’s connection with many long-relegated axes in his extensive collection. “When I picked up my Epiphone Casino that I hadn’t played in 25 years, I was transported back to the last time I played it. When I grabbed my green Fender Tele I got in ’84, I remembered the clothes I wore when I got it. It’s hard to explain; guitar players will know what I’m talking about.

That “hard to explain” thing is precisely what Marr’s Guitars is about. Sure, Marr has a massive, covet-worthy collection of guitars, but if we step outside the grandeur and dig into the crux of the thing, undoubtedly, one can understand the relationship. More so than any other instrument, a guitar in hand can transport the player to a time when a literal millisecond defined a feeling.

“There’s tiny little messages you get from your brain when you put your hand on a neck,” Marr says. “You expect it to be slim, and it’s not. It’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, this is like a 1960 neck.’ Or you pick up a Tele, and you’re like, ‘I was expecting this to be much lighter,’ but you remember why it’s not.”

Marr smiles before adding, “And when you plug it in, you hear that sound and the nuances that make old, non-generic guitars different. The pickups are hand-wound, and human beings carved out the neck. You forget how individual guitars are and how they get that character – until you pick them up again.

“A vintage guitar isn’t rad because it’s old and cool,” he says. “It’s about the unusual things that – as soon as you grab it – make you say, ‘Okay, yeah, that’s right. I remember that about this guitar.’”

Tell me about how you came upon your Rickenbacker 330. 

“I got it when the Smiths started taking off. It was the first ‘Does this mean I’ve made it?’ thing I got. Before that, I had been playing a Gretsch [Chet Atkins] Super Axe and constantly snapping strings because I was tuned up a whole step. I was forever snapping strings, and when the band got a deal, I got the Rickenbacker to be my backup guitar,’ but that changed because it was better than my ‘main guitar.’ [Laughs]”

Did you immediately know it was special?

“I knew it would make me play a certain way about chords and arpeggios. I knew the strength of the Smiths in those early years was the chord progressions I was using, and I didn’t want to do anything that reminded me – or anyone else – of pentatonic stuff. 

“The Rickenbacker steered me in the harmonic direction of unusual arpeggios and chord changes. It was an excellent instinctive choice; I’ve had friends buy Rickenbackers, and they’re never as good as mine. It turns out that in the early ’80s, Rickenbacker made some particularly good guitars.”

Have you figured out why?

“I used to think it was the finish. But then Martin Kelly [musician, label boss] told me that John Hall took over Rickenbacker in ’84 and spent 18 months getting all the specifications improved. 

“And it’s often said that ’86 is the vintage year, but I bought mine in ’84 when John Hall took over the company, and it’s been great. I’ve always had an instinct that those few years in the ’80s were particularly good, and I was right. Those were the comeback years for Rickenbacker.”

And how about the 12-string sunburst ES-335 used during the Strangeways, Here We Come sessions?

“At that point, I liked 12-string guitars, but like almost every other player on the planet, I learned that they took some application. I had been playing a Rickenbacker, and a 12-string was a hassle for an impatient guy like me, who was now working with some impatient tech. 

“I had to get used to it, and it was a bitch keeping it in tune, especially those ’60s ones. But when I discovered the ES-335 12-string, I said, “Okay, let’s give this a go,” and it immediately clicked. It was a big guitar, but the humbuckers were dialed down and a little darker. That was the guitar I gave Bernard [Butler] from Suede, who remains the custodian of that guitar.”

Do you subscribe to the idea that we’re only temporary stewards of our guitars, as the best guitars will outlast us?

“That’s a lovely notion, and I agree with that, but that’s not why I’ve given guitars away. I gave them away because I’m close with people like Bernard, Noel [Gallagher] and [Radiohead’s] Ed [O’Brien], and I did it as a sign of respect. It was an act of sharing because I’m close to them. 

“As you can see from the book, I’ve got a lot of guitars, so it was a way of letting go and letting my friends love them. But I will say the Oasis thing with Noel was different because in the very early days, they’d only played a few shows, and no-one knew they’d be so big. I just liked Noel and wanted to help him as he was just starting. When I was starting, I got a helping hand, and I wanted to help a fellow Mancunian, Irish fellow, so I gave him the Les Paul I wrote Panic on.”

These days, you’re most often seen with your Fender Jaguar. Does it carry the same cache as some of the guitars you’ve had longer?

“Oh, there’s no competition when it comes to that. No guitar will ever come close to the Jag because I’ve played it exclusively for years. I’ve had these moments with the Jag, like doing the [James] Bond thing with Billie Eilish, the Inception thing, and playing Glastonbury. 

“When I had 60,000 people singing There Is a Light That Never Goes Out back at me… I’ll never forget that because it was so brilliant. As for the older guitars, I became famous for using those through photographs from the ’80s, and they were close to me. But nothing comes close to the journey I’ve had with the Jag.”

Is there one guitar of yours that people don’t pay enough attention to?

“One guitar that people who have followed me probably know about but maybe don’t realize is such a big deal is my ’85 Gibson Les Paul. It’s the cherry red one I got when the Smiths were about to start recording Meat Is Murder. 

“I got it to write on and used it a lot during that album. Before the Jag days, that Les Paul was on more records than any other guitar I owned. Many people think I was doing it all on the Rickenbacker in the ’80s, but a lot of the clean arpeggio stuff was done on that Les Paul.”

One oddball guitar I can recall is the nine-pickup Strat used in your Spirit, Power, and Soul video.

“Ah, yes. [Laughs] That was created by some crazy loon, who I imagine is somewhere in the north of England; they did that to a guitar. I got that Strat in the early ’90s, while I was out with a young Noel Gallagher. 

“Back then, I used to drink, and when Noel and I went to a guitar shop after a long night out, I saw that guitar, and it made total sense to me. But the thing about that guitar is it sounds terrific! There are nine on/off switches and nine out-of-phase positions. She’s a guitar tech’s nightmare, but I used it on [2022’s] Fever Dreams Pts. 1-4, and I wrote Spirit, Power, and Soul on it.”

Are there any guitars or tones you’re still chasing?

“The answer is not in buying another guitar, only because I bought one a few days ago. But I am sort of working on a sound… I’m chasing a sound I hope to use on the next record. You can have all these things, like a Uni-Vibe; I can have that, but I’ll only ever sound like Jimi Hendrix, you know? 

“As the years go by, it gets harder to do things that haven’t been done, and you end up sounding like yourself anyway. So there’s always a bit of chasing, but maybe the point of it all is adventure. I look around at all this tech, and I remind myself not to let it overtake me. I love adventure, but what I love most is the element of mystery that comes with it.”

• Marr's Guitars is out now via HarperCollins.

As we commemorate the life of influential bass great Andy Rourke, who has died aged 59, we are unearthing his most memorable conversations. This interview with Joel McIver was originally published as the cover feature in the September 2016 issue of Bass Guitar Magazine.

I credit my brother Robin with introducing me to the Smiths, perhaps the 1980s’ most significant force when it came to British guitar music. I was completely smitten. A lot of my acne-ridden teenage peers couldn’t abide Morrissey’s ‘unique’ vocals, but coupled with Johnny Marr’s shimmering, layered guitar tracks, it couldn’t be denied that the Smiths’ songs sounded completely different to the cheesy synth-pop and thrash metal which I thought represented all that popular music had to offer.

As the songs wafted out of Robin’s crappy hi-fi and into my ears, the bass parts stuck in my head and refused to go away. With the high mids dialled up to maximum and inventive fills thrown into what seemed like every bar, bassist Andy Rourke’s staccato picking dexterity blew my stupid teenage mind. Not that I was thinking about the bass parts in even those slightly technical terms: all I knew was that those slinky, twangy lines sounded incredible.

The Smiths split after only four albums: devotees know the tracklisting of The Smiths (1984), Meat Is Murder (1985), The Queen Is Dead (1986) and Strangeways, Here We Come (1987) by heart.

Andy Rourke spent the intervening decades playing with a long list of musicians, from Morrissey and Marr (separately) to Sinead O’Connor and beyond. After, he embarked on a new musical project with Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries and his colleague Olé Koretsky. Called D.A.R.K. after a combination of their initials, the trio released an album called Science Agrees in 2016. 

If you’ve read all my fanboy gushing so far, you can imagine that interviewing the guy almost 30 years after I first heard his music was quite the thrill. Read on for insights into the life and times of one of the bass community’s finest...

It’s great to finally get you on our cover, Andy.

“Well, thank you for giving it to me. It’s my first ever cover!”

D.A.R.K.’s new album sounds amazing. How did the project come about?

“It came from my manager Melissa Aubert, Dolores’ former manager, and our shared publishers at BMG, who told me that Dolores was looking for a new project. Me and Olé Koretsky had been working on a project called Jetlag for several years, but we didn’t really know what we were going to do with it. It was just there! 

“So we sent it all off to Dolores, and she loved it, and gave us some really positive feedback. We went over to Canada, where she was living, and met her. She re-recorded the vocals, and we put live drums on it, because it had had drum machine parts before that. 

“Finally we called our friend Rob Ritchie, our guitarist, in for his services. It was like a big jigsaw puzzle that we put together. We used commercial studios for the drums and the vocals, but the rest of it was done in Olé's basement where he used to live in Brooklyn. We spent hours down there.”

Did the bass go down smoothly?

“Yes. I prefer not to overthink the basslines. I like to just get stuck in there and go with my instincts. If I fuck up I’ll do another take, but otherwise I’m not that picky.”

What basses are you using these days?

“I’ve still got my old faithful – my 1964 [Fender] P-Bass. It’s all beaten up: about half the lacquer is missing from the body. I got it fixed up a month ago for a hundred bucks. It really needed it. Apparently the neck was all out of whack, and the intonation was wrong, and the electrics were fused and dodgy, but now it’s in better shape than ever. The best hundred bucks I ever spent! 

“I’ve also got a black Fender Jazz [Bass], which I use for rehearsals and so on. I don’t like taking the old girl out too much because she’s fragile. I’d be absolutely heartbroken if it got damaged – I don’t know what I’d do without it.” 

Any endorsements you’d like to mention?

“I don’t actually have any endorsements. I should have, shouldn’t I? They must be too shy to approach me! [Laughs]”

How did you get into bass?

“I was always fascinated with musical instruments in general, as far back as I can remember. Every Christmas, and every time my birthday came round in January, I’d ask for a trumpet or a saxophone – obviously plastic ones. At Christmas when I was eight, I asked for a guitar, and my parents bought me a plastic one. 

“I was getting tired of plastic instruments by this point, so I stamped my foot and demanded a real guitar, and in January they bought me a real one. My dad’s secretary’s daughter gave me some very basic guitar lessons and it went from there. I learned how to play along to the radio and my parents’ records and stuff like that. I was obsessed.”

When did you switch to bass?

“Bass came along when I joined a band called the White Dice, which is a terrible name, with Johnny Marr. The bass player was Kevin Kennedy, later known as Curly Watts [a character in Coronation Street], and the only song he could play was Don’t Believe A Word by Thin Lizzy. 

“After 20 rehearsals that became a little bit tiresome, so Johnny suggested that I try the bass. I was a bit offended at first, because I thought I was being demoted! But I tried it and I liked it, because it changed my whole way of thinking. Before that, I’d never consciously listened to a bassline in any song, I’d just listened to songs as a whole. After that, I became obsessed with the bass.”

Which bass players did you admire?

“John Entwistle was a big influence, and McCartney, obviously. One of my unsung heroes is Bill Wyman: no-one ever mentions his basslines, but I think they were fantastic, and really funky as well.”

What was your first bass?

“A friend of Johnny’s acquired an SD Curlee fretless, and because I had to learn on fretless, I became obsessed with Mick Karn, Japan’s bass player. I’m still a great admirer of his work, God bless him. 

“And Jaco Pastorius, obviously. It just kind of opened me up, melodically, and when I finally got a fretted bass three or four years later, I still played in the same style as the fretless bass. That’s where the melodies in my bass playing come from, originally, if that makes sense.”

That’s odd, because your tone in the Smiths was nothing like the usual fretless bass sound.

“Yes, my tone was the opposite, really. The nature of the music that we were playing in the Smiths meant that the sound needed a bit more of a kick. The tone of a fretless would have been too smooth. It wouldn’t have gone with the music we were playing, so I had to switch it up. And because it’s me, and every time I do something I do it big, I exaggerated the new tone and made it super-twangy.”

When did you acquire the Precision?

“The P-Bass came along on one of the first times we came to New York to do a gig at the Danceteria on New Year’s Eve, 1983. We had just signed to Sire Records and [label co-founder] Seymour Stein invited us to go to Manny’s Music on a shopping spree. Johnny chose a red Gretsch, and then Seymour said to me, ‘What do you want?’ 

“I saw this sad-looking bass on the wall, and I saw that it was made the same year I was born, 1964. Even though it was all beaten up I told him I wanted that one. He couldn’t believe it and said, ‘What? I’m trying to buy you a new guitar, and you want this?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I want that one.’ I fell in love with it.”

What other basses did you play in the Smiths?

“I had a Yamaha BB 3000, which is currently under my dad’s bed in Manchester, and I’ve had many other basses over the years. I also had a Rickenbacker, the stereo one. I played that on a couple of Smiths records. I always took at least two basses out on tour with the Smiths because we used different tunings: one of them was tuned up a tone to F#, B, C, A because it worked better with Morrissey’s vocal range. It made the strings like cheesewire – it was fucking painful! We also used a drop D tuning.”

What about amps?

“I used Trace Elliot back then. Nowadays I use a Marshall valve head, a big heavy beast from the '90s, and an 8x10 cab. I should get more familiar with the new small amps, but I’ve never really tried. I try not to carry the Marshall around, because it’s heavy and I don’t have any roadies anymore. 

“Technology’s come along a lot since back in the day, and you can get away without an amp, or you can ask the venue to hire one for you. It’s not ideal, though.”

You were only 19 when you recorded the first Smiths album in 1983, but you already had a very precise, melodic style. How come?

“It was just my love of bass playing. I rehearsed a lot. If I wasn’t eating or in the bath, I had a bass in my hand and I played it constantly.”

What Difference Does It Make? is a high point of that album in bass terms.

“Actually, there are two different versions of What Difference Does It Make? – the very early version is a lot more busy in the bass, with an almost rockabilly style. On the second version, when [producer] John Porter got involved, he wasn’t happy with the bass so I tried another approach. I like both versions, though.”

How did you hit on the trebly tone for the Smiths’ bass parts?

“The bass sound in the Smiths came about from me trying to overcompensate, because there was only me and Johnny Marr. Some of the later recordings have a million guitar overdubs, but in the early days it was just me and Johnny, both playing overtime to make the biggest sound possible. I used Rotosound roundwounds because I needed the twang.”

Did you use any effects?

“In the early days I had a Boss chorus pedal and a flanger. You can hear a bit of chorus on How Soon Is Now?, although I’m not a big fan of the way the bass is produced on that song. It sounds a bit muddy to me. Personally I would like it to have been a bit more present.”

Did you have autonomy over your bass parts in the Smiths, or were they collaborative?

“99 percent of the time I had autonomy. Occasionally Johnny would give me a little nod about what he liked, but that was rare. All the bass parts are my babies, and you’re not supposed to have favorites, are you? I’m proud of them all.”

After the Smiths, what was next?

“Directly after that I did Morrissey’s second album and a bunch of singles and B-sides. That was a weird time, because me and Mike [Joyce, Smiths drummer] were his rhythm section and at the same time, Mike was suing him. I was subpoenaed to give evidence for Mike, so that was a difficult time.”

Then you toured with Sinead O’Connor. What was that like?

“Sinead was great. She’d recorded I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got and was looking to put a live band together, so me and Mike got the call from her then-manager Fachtna O’Ceallaigh. She was living in Willesden in London at the time, so we went to meet her and then I toured with her for a year and a half. 

“When we joined her band, it was the calm before the storm: the gigs got bigger and bigger until we were doing amphitheatres, and all the craziness started happening. It was intensive: I think we had one day off a week, and that was probably a travel day. Tour buses, hotels, gigs... I just remember being exhausted by the end of it.”

Did you play bass differently after the Smiths?

“My playing definitely changed, because I was thrown into all these different situations. I felt as if I had to be more flexible. You can’t just be a one-trick pony when you’re playing with different artists. It was good discipline for me, and I’m sure it helped my bass playing. Then again, I played with the Pretenders and went back to basics, almost like the style I was playing with the Smiths. Chrissie Hynde was great to work with.”

Did you ever upgrade your bass gear in line with newer technology?

“No. I just stayed with what I had.”

Ever been tempted to play a five-string?

“Definitely not. Why do you need a five-string bass? It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t sound like a bass. I tell you what, though – I’m about to order a Fender baritone bass, which is in between [a four- and five-string in range]. I can understand that. You can hear me playing a baritone bass on Vicar In A Tutu – that twangy, Duane Eddy kind of style. But why you’d have a five-string bass, I have no idea.”

Was slap bass your cup of tea?

“I was really into it, yes. I listened to a lot of Stanley Clarke records, School Days in particular. He’s amazing. Slap appeared here and there in the Smiths. Barbarism Begins At Home is slap bass with a pick: I don’t think Morrissey thought it was cool to do slap bass. But I bought Level 42’s records and went to see them: I thought they were great. 

“And I definitely admire Flea’s playing, he’s a really accomplished player. I also admire how he can jump around at the same time, because when I’m playing on stage I’m just focused on playing the bass. If I even tap my foot, I’ll fuck up! I can’t multitask like he can.”

The list of sessions and gigs you’ve done has stacked up over the years.

“It’s adding up, yeah. My bass playing’s definitely changed. Like me, it’s become more mellow. If called for, I can go back to the old style, but I’ve gone back to playing with my fingers and using a more rounded sound.”

How’s your back holding up after lugging a Precision around for 30-plus years?

“Not bad, actually, I can’t complain. Maybe the bass has got woodworm, it seems lighter every year. When I pick up a new P-Bass it seems twice as heavy as mine.”

The Freebass project, with you, Peter Hook and Mani from the Stone Roses, sounded promising when it was announced a decade ago, but it failed to materialize. How come?

“I don’t know. There was a clash of personalities and it was a strange time. Initially I quit, and then Mani quit. But I love those guys. They’re my friends. We just couldn’t work together, but we tried.”

What do you do when not playing music?

“I like to cook, but I’m not very good at it. I like to experiment, so I’ll start making a pasta and sauce and my wife will taste it and say ‘That’s really good’, but then half an hour later I’ve destroyed it by putting in too much pepper or salt. I never know when to stop. Apparently you have to be very disciplined to be a cook.”

It’s funny that you lack discipline in the kitchen, because your bass parts in the Smiths were very nuanced and precise.

“Yeah, I don’t know what came over me. It was effortless. I wish I could have those moments every day.”

So is D.A.R.K. taking up all your time at the moment?

“That’s what I’m focused on. We’re off on tour in the UK and Europe in September, and then hopefully we’ll do some North American dates in the winter.”

It’s a while since you’ve played live, isn’t it?

“You know what, I’ve not played live for 10 years, apart from when I jumped on stage with Johnny a couple of years ago when he played in New York. We did How Soon Is Now?”

• Andy Rourke obituary.

Andy Rourke, best known as the bassist for UK indie icons The Smiths, has passed away aged 59, following a diagnosis with pancreatic cancer.

Johnny Marr initially announced the news via his social media channels, posting it alongside a picture of a youthful Rourke from the band’s early days, holding his Fender Precision bass.

“It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Andy Rourke after a lengthy illness with pancreatic cancer,” wrote Marr. “Andy will be remembered as a kind and beautiful soul by those who knew him and as a supremely gifted musician by music fans. We request privacy at this sad time.”

Rourke was born in 1964. He grew up in Manchester and became a childhood friend of Marr’s, after the two met in 1975. Later Marr would live with Rourke, moving in at age 15. 

“Andy and I spent all our time studying music, having fun, and working on becoming the best musicians we could possibly be,” said Marr in his full tribute post. 

“Back then Andy was a guitar player and a good one at that, but it was when he picked up the bass that he would find his true calling and his singular talent would flourish.”

Rourke joined The Smiths in time to record their first ever demo and remained with the group throughout their career, developing a distinctive bouncing, melodic style that proved an ideal foil to Marr’s jangling, experimental guitar work.

As is so often the case with bass players, it’s fair to say that Rourke’s contribution was at times overshadowed by Marr’s innovative six-string work and vocalist Morrissey’s talent for a biting lyric and drawing the proverbial spotlight. 

Nonetheless, Rourke’s energetic lines were the propelling force in early hits like This Charming Man, while the likes of Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now and the formidable Barbarism Begins At Home show an ear capable of cribbing more than a few funk and soul licks. 

The track widely considered to be Marr’s masterwork, How Soon Is Now?, is so laden with thickly layered guitar tracks that many bass players would have struggled to find room. Not Rourke, though – who opted for an almost Meters-like percussive bass line, adding a swaggering counterpoint to the guitarist’s siren-like slides. 

Essentially, Rourke is the reason you can dance to The Smiths.

The bassist was not immune to the pitfalls of the rock lifestyle, though, and was arrested for heroin possession in the ’80s – which led to him briefly getting sacked from the band in 1986, though he rejoined in time for the release of the band's seminal LP, The Queen Is Dead.

Following the breakup of The Smiths the following year, Rourke continued to play with Morrissey in the frontman’s early solo work, before undertaking various stints with other artists, among them Sinead O’Connor, The Pretenders, Killing Joke, and fellow Mancunian songwriter Badly Drawn Boy. 

He also formed Freebass in the mid-2000s alongside fellow Manchester bass icons Peter Hook and Mani (formerly of New Order and The Stone Roses, respectively), and worked as a DJ on UK radio station XFM. 

“Andy reinvented what it is to be a bass guitar player,” Marr wrote in his tribute. “I was present at every one of Andy’s bass takes on every Smiths session. Sometimes I was there as the producer and sometimes just as his proud mate and cheerleader. 

“Watching him play those dazzling bass lines was an absolute privilege and genuinely something to behold. But one time which always comes to mind was when I sat next to him at the mixing desk watching him play his bass on the song The Queen Is Dead. It was so impressive that I said to myself ‘I’ll never forget this moment.'’’

Read Marr’s full tribute post below.

For Johnny Marr, the idea to record a 16-song double album came to him in a flash of inspiration. The title Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 simply popped into his head one day, and that was it. 

“That title solved a lot of problems for me,” he says. “First off, it’s a great title. If I just called it Fever Dreams, you know, that’s good, but it’s not that good. Fever Dreams Parts 1-4 makes you go, ‘OK, what’s that all about?’ It made me think that – ‘All right, what’s this business of four?’ 

“So I had to work backward from the title, and immediately I realized, ‘All right, it’s got to be a double album, and we can release it in stages.’” He laughs. “The record company thought I was a marketing genius, but it was purely because I had this title.

From there, all Marr needed was enough songs to match the expansive nature of his concept. Fortunately, the British guitar legend found that he had plenty of time on his hands. 

After wrapping a 2019 tour in support of his previous album, Call the Comet, he began work on new demos just as the Covid pandemic forced much of the world into lockdown mode. “I had already planned to make the record anyway, so in a funny way I was kind of fortunate in my timing,” he says.

During this period, the only project that conflicted with Marr’s album schedule was his work with composer Han Zimmer on the soundtrack to the new James Bond film, No Time to Die. It’s their third collaboration, a relationship that began with the dream-based movie Inception in 2010, and continued five years later with The Amazing Spider-Man 2. 

“I worked on the Bond film for a few months, but even then I was still able to write songs for my album,” Marr says. “As most people no doubt know, there’s plenty of downtime when making movies.”

Although the guitarist insists he was dead set against making a straight-up Covid-influenced album (“that would come off as dated very quickly”), he admits the day-to-day experience of recording in relative seclusion subconsciously permeated his lyrics.

“I wanted to avoid being too direct about the state of the world, singing about stores being closed and all that,” he says, “but a lot of the album is about how I perceive things, and I made the leap to presume that my audience might be feeling the same way.”

He cites the dark and dramatic groover All These Days as an example: “On that I sing, ‘Drinking with my shadow / escape the sensory / another day tomorrow, tomorrow, endlessly.’ A lot of people were doing that, sitting and drinking on their own late at night going, ‘What’s tomorrow going to bring?’” Similarly, there’s the surging disco-pop gem Night and Day, which finds Marr singing, “Just want to breathe in the hot spots / it’s all TikTok to me / stop the clocks, please.” 

“That was being really informed by all the imagery I was seeing from your country in the United States on the television,” he notes. “The album is littered with all these references without being too overt to the point of losing the poetic sensibilities, I think.”

Taken as a whole, Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 is something of a masterstroke – a meticulously plotted 70-minute opus that breezes by like a record half its length. Throughout much of the album, Marr surrounds his songs with au courant electronic rhythms while drizzling his arrangements with the kinds of sweeping, kaleidoscopic guitar textures that have been his calling card since the early days of the Smiths. 

Whether he’s dabbling in driving electro-disco (Spirit, Power & Soul), getting introspective inside sophisticated balladry (Rubicon), rocking a rootsy rave-up (Tenement Time) or luxuriating in arty dream anthems (Ariel, Sensory Street), his rousing – and at times, symphonic – six and 12-string guitar treatments brim with commanding authority and crafty individuality. 

At 58, Marr still maintains the seemingly ageless mod hairdo he’s worn for years, and he boasts the kind of resume (the The, Electronic, Modest Mouse, the Cribs, and for a brief time, the Pretenders) that would make most guitarists green with envy. 

As he eases oh-so-coolly into elder statesman status, he considers his legacy as a pioneering modern rock guitar hero: “I was never a shredder, but the term ‘guitar hero’ to me sounds actually quite noble. Back when I started, I wanted to be a guitar hero who played great songs. This was at a time when there were a lot of things being done on guitar that I felt were outdated and corny. 

“But there was also a generation of young men in the U.K. and America who were onto something new – Robert Smith, John McKay, Will Sergeant. A lot of us took note from Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine. Those guys were game-changers. I loved all that… and still do.”

On the topic of game-changing guitarists, a lot of people would cite you and Peter Buck for how you both popularized the rhythm-lead style of playing in the early Eighties.

“Well, I wouldn’t disagree with that.”

While other players showboated their skills, you both seemed to operate with a kind of tasteful restraint. 

“A big lesson I learned when I was very young – maybe 11 or 12 – was when I read an old interview with John Lennon. He was talking about serving the song and being a really good rhythm player. And then growing up in the Seventies, it seemed as if one of the Ten Commandments of Guitar was, “Thou shalt be like Keith Richards” – you know, be the engine of the band. There’s people like Mike Campbell, too.”

I remember that Lennon interview. He said, “I play rhythm. It’s an important job. I can make a band drive.”

“Exactly. There it is. Now, to be honest, I’m still not above fetishizing the guitar the way we all do. You get me with another guitar player, and we’ll trade our stories about the SG we got in 1980 or whatever. If there’s a room full of guitar players, I’m the last to leave, man. I’m just as hooked as everybody else, and I have been since I was 5 or 6. 

“I just think that the way I looked at guitar playing was perhaps a little different from what others were at the time, and I think somebody like Peter Buck felt the same way. We both loved the look of Rickenbackers. 

“In my case, it was actually to restrict me and force me to play a certain way, believe it or not. With a Rickenbacker, I had to focus on chords, which was the right thing to do. Peter and I have that in common. Over the years, we’ve become friends, and of course, he’s someone I’ve got great respect for.”

Not to belabor the Smiths, but does your time in that band now seem like a million miles away at this point?

“Oh, yeah. Without a doubt. I’ve never felt like I’ve been running away from it, but I left that band when I was 24. Any 24-year-old leaving any job wants to not be defined by that. I’m proud of the records the group made, but in all honesty, I’d say I feel like I’m probably on part four of my career now.” 

After the Smiths, you’ve played with quite a few other bands. Do you go into these situations thinking they’re temporary, or do you sometimes think far beyond that? 

“Actually, I go into each situation with no idea how it’s going to turn out, and that’s the exact same headspace as when I was 13, 14 or 15, when I would go around the neighborhood and play in different bands. The first major band I joined was called Sister Ray, and they were these really gnarly adults. 

“I wanted to play with them because they sounded like a cross between the Stooges and Hawkwind, and I’d never played that sort of stuff. I thought, “Well, I’ll be a better guitar player if I learn to play at very high volume with these fairly druggy sort of reprobates who have a reputation for being amazing live.”

Sounds like a solid career move.

“Yeah. And then this other band that I joined had a really talented songwriter who lived just a few blocks away from me. It was a real challenge for me because he used to employ all these key changes and tunings. He was into Todd Rundgren and Andy Partridge, so we were playing all these passing chords. I got quite a lot of chops from that. 

“Going into Modest Mouse, for example, was the grownup version of that. I was invited to go to Portland, Oregon, as a 10-day experiment, and what happened in that scenario was we got tight as pals very quickly. It was like a brotherhood, and then it was just too fucking weird to bail.” 

Did the same thing happen with the Cribs?

“Very similar situation. We were supposed to cut four songs for a seven-inch or a 45 EP. I went in with all these riffs, and we just kept writing. The inspiration was flowing, so we went, ‘Let’s make an album out of this.’ From that experience, we formed a very strong friendship. So it’s actually the opposite of what it may appear to be on the outside. If you ask people I’ve been in a band with, they’ll tell you that I get very committed.”

Why then don’t you tend to stick around longer?

“I was in Modest Mouse for four years, and I was in the Cribs for three years. In each case, pretty much, I was ready to make another album, and the other guys weren’t. So I’d just go somewhere else and make an album.”

Let’s touch on some songs on your new record. Tracks like Receiver, All These Days and a few others have guitar sounds that hark back to the early days of the Cure and U2, but they also recall the early days of… Johnny Marr. Do you hear that? 

“Yeah, that was a conscious thing. I like those sounds. OK, I really have to put a kind of a modest disclaimer here: Along with some other people, I’m one of the reasons why those sounds exist. I like them, so I use them. On the other hand, it’s not like I haven’t gone out of my way to do other shit. 

“For example, on the song Ariel, or on Receiver, as you mentioned, there’s a real kind of flange thing going on, which is very much of my generation. And you know what? The part sounded great because of it. 

“On Ariel, when I played the main riff, I thought, ‘This is either me or Will Sergeant – or it’s both of us together.’ Those sounds were the vocabulary I used in the Eighties. They were useful then, and they still hit the spot when required.”

Tenement Time is drenched in delay sounds that collide off each other. And in Speed of Love, you play a heavily delayed solo that sounds as if you’re using an E-Bow.

“That’s me playing one of my Jaguars that’s customized with Fernandes Sustainer pickups. The guitar becomes a six-string E-Bow. Those pickups are amazing. If you’ve got the guitar on low, you can feel all the strings vibrate while you play. It’s beautiful, like an electrical storm all through the track.” 

Are you using that on the solos in Human?

“The first solo break has the sustainer on, but the end solo is a 12-string SG, which is pretty rare. I’ve got it going through a Leslie. If anyone can be bothered getting that together, I really recommend it for the sound.”

In many ways, the album is like an instructional course on the many ways a guitarist can use delay and reverb pedals. As it is with the Edge, those sounds are a real part of your approach to composition. 

“I just assume that delay is going to be part of the equation. I didn’t realize how much delay I’d grown into using until in the early 2000s, when a friend of mine picked up one of my guitars in the rehearsal room and started to play. And I thought, ‘Shit, man. There’s so much delay on there.’

“Around about the same time, Neil Finn pointed out to me that I play very loud yet gently. I never knew I played loud, because it doesn’t sound loud to me. My amps are very hot, but they’re also clean. As far as delay, I think I differ from somebody like the Edge, where it’s almost a mirror of what he’s doing. I play to it, so it’s just this halo.

“If you took it away, you would really notice. But while you’re listening to it – well, maybe you would notice, but a lot of people don’t realize just how much is on there. When I do sessions, which I still do, people are usually quite surprised how much delay I’m dialing in at first, but it usually kind of disappears behind what I’m doing because I’m quite a busy player.

You mentioned your Jaguar. Was that your main guitar on this record?

“Yeah. Over the years, I’ve kind of honed things down. The Jag does a big job. In short, my Jag sounds exactly like a Rickenbacker crossed with a Gretsch, but it plays like a Fender. It would’ve saved me quite a lot of money back in the day. I use that, but I always use a Gibson, as well. These days, I use ’73 Les Paul Customs for that dark thing. 

“For the last seven or eight years, I’ve also played Yamaha SGs for their articulation. The guitar I’ve recorded with more than any of the guitar is the red Les Paul Standard that I got in 1985 when the Smiths did Meat Is Murder. If I’m ever doubling arpeggios, that’s my go-to clean arpeggio guitar. 

“A while ago I started to use a Gibson doubleneck. Now I’m never without one because it’s just the best 12-string sound. It started with the movie Inception. It would be 3:30 in the morning, and I’d be jet-lagged and driving engineers mad while we were making a movie about people putting themselves to sleep. I realized the sound I was chasing was this distorted harmonic 12-string. And the only one that was in the building belonged to another composer. 

“It was this funky old EDS-1275. I started using it, and I realized that it’s the best goddamn electric 12-string sound. For a start, you’ve got the old humbuckers on there, but then you’ve also got this massive wood. 

“That gives you the option of letting the other neck ring out if you want to put it in a drone, which I sometimes do. That’s why I’ve recently acquired this very rare SG 12-string, because moving the other one around London, it’s like carrying a friggin’ sideboard.”

Any other guitars?

“I use a few acoustics that I’ve been using forever – Martins. There’s this company in the U.K. called Auden that makes these beautiful 12-strings, all handmade. So that’s it then – my Jags, some with the sustainer and my regular Jags, and then all the other ones. I try to keep things honed down.”

• Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 is out now via BMG.

He’s the Smiths guitar wizard who inspired a legion of indie guitarists to experiment with jangly tones. And, from the Madchester scene and 90s Britpop to later acts like The Killers, The Decemberists and The Drums, Johnny Marr’s influence is truly lasting. 

Notably, he’s created his legacy without languishing in one band for four decades – Marr’s influence comes from the breadth of his career’s work with acts such as The The, Electronic, Modest Mouse, The Cribs, and in more recent years as a solo artist. 

Here, we’re looking at some key elements of Johnny’s playing style; parts of his playing that were at the core of the sound of The Smiths in the 80s, right up to today’s solo work. Our tab examples showcase some of the technical and compositional approaches Johnny has used over the years. 

Work through at your own pace and appreciate the magic...

Example 1.  Sophisticated chords: Slash chords

Johnny Marr is a fan of using rich sounding chords in his arrangements, such as the C/F slash chord here – it’s a C major chord over an F bass note. 

F doesn’t appear in the C chord (the notes are C, E and G), so you can be sure you’re adding colour to the sound of the basic chord. To record our part we used a 12-string electric guitar, inspired by Johnny’s use of the Rickenbacker 360-12.

Example 2.  Sophisticated chords: Extended major chords

This example showcases a great way to play the major 9 chord sound, but listen out too for those dips on the tremolo arm, which are key to the sound. 

We used a trem-quipped Gretsch but Johnny is better known for his Bigsby-loaded Gibson ES-355, which featured on tracks such as The Smiths’ Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now. 

Example 3.  Sophisticated chords: Major 7ths & minor 9ths

Here we’re using one chord shape in two different contexts. Firstly we play the shape at the 12th fret with the bass guitar playing an E note, creating an Em9. Then the shape is played at the 7th fret over a D bass note to give a Dmaj7 sound. It’s a trick Johnny used in The Smiths’ I Don’t Owe You Anything.

Example 4.  Acoustic strumming

Johnny has a great rhythmic sense, and songs like Bigmouth Strikes Again by The Smiths or Hi Hello from Marr’s Call The Comet 2018 solo album feature strummed acoustic parts. 

The galloping rhythm here features on many The Smiths songs; the open strings help create continuity between the chords and add to the ringing jangle. 

Example 5.  2nd fret capo

In this example, we add a simple electric guitar line over our strummed acoustic example – similar to Marr’s work on The Smiths’ Back To The Old House or This Tension from his 2014 Playland solo album. Use alternate picking and make sure the strings ring out constantly.

Example 6. 2nd fret capo

In some recording sessions with The Smiths, Marr would tune his guitar up by a tone to F# standard tuning (F# B E A C# F#). Obviously a capo at the 2nd fret is the more practical choice for the sake of experimenting. 

Our example is inspired by 2nd-fret capo songs like Barbarism Begins At Home and This Night Has Opened My Eyes. 

Example 7. Fuzzy tones

There are several The Smiths songs such as What Difference Does It Make and Sheila Take A Bow that feature fuzz distortion tones, in addition to more recent songs like Tenement Time. Our example has a shuffle feel, so all of the eighth notes are slightly swung. The open strings provide sustain, ringing out to provide a denser texture. 

Example 8. Funky partial chords

For this example, we’re embellishing the acoustic guitar foundation we laid down in Example 6. Johnny’s two-note chord approach can be heard on Smiths tracks such as This Charming Man and Meat Is Murder. The main consideration here is to maintain the muting of the open strings with your idle fretting fingers. 

Example 9. Layering parts 1: Jangle chords

Marr is known for his multi-tracked soundscapes with layered guitar parts. For our example we started by double-tracking an acoustic guitar part with a 2nd-fret capo. The next layer is notated here and consists of simple spread chords played on a 12-string electric guitar with a capo on the 2nd fret. The idea is to add to the track, but still leave enough space for the next layer.

Example 10. Layering parts 2: Doublestops and harmonics

Inspired by Cemetry Gates and This Charming Man, we’re adding another layer to the previous part here with a simple motif using doublestops and natural harmonics.

There’s a handful of players out there that have carved out their own style and flavour, and Johnny Marr is definitely one of those. He and The Edge were the most interesting guitarists from that ’80s era with what they’re playing, and they both had a great band. 

For sure they did something worth noticing, instead of a slew of guitar players just doing rock chords or whatever. It’s hard for me to know exactly how much each one of my influences has influenced me, but Johnny Marr, Robert Smith, Billy Corgan and Angus Young are all part of the recipe of who I am. They pop their head out at different moments.

I’ve been listening to The Smiths recently while I’ve been working on stuff with The Killers. When we’re writing, I try and I go back to the old influences because there’s still plenty more stuff I can do. I haven’t sat down and learned every Smiths song. I’ve only learned a handful of them, so there’s always something more to discover.

A lot of people try to say the coolest answer to why they picked up a guitar as a kid, but when I started I wanted to play songs that were fun – and what was fun on guitar was AC/DC, Mötley Crüe, Guns N’ Roses. There are Smiths songs like This Charming Man that are fun to play too, but with Johnny Marr some of the songs aren’t entry-level guitar, so it had to come later.

There were some Smiths songs I grew up listening to, but I got more into the band in the late ’90s, when I was looking for more music post-Kurt Cobain. The Cure, New Order and The Smiths – those are probably the three biggest [bands] I was listening to in the early Killers days. We talked about countless Smiths songs. 

I like a certain sound that’s clean but tough. I like my voicings to be heard. And that’s what’s beautiful about some of Johnny’s stuff, like Back To The Old House – there’s these cool voicings that if it was full of gain you wouldn’t really hear. It sounds geeky, but as a guitar player I really enjoy new voicings.

If I’m practising on something like The Smiths or The Beatles, from time to time I’ll still stumble onto a new chord voicing after all these years. It’s cool because to my ears each one evokes a certain emotion, a certain flavour that’s unique to it. 

You’ve got to appreciate all the different chords to really understand that. I like it when there’s a song full of seventh chords and you hear the voicings, and you’ve got to have the right sound for that. When Johnny has chorus on it, it sounds even more beautiful. 

I like the sound right down the middle. That’s why I like the Fender Hot Rod Deville. I want to take a different approach with every song, and Johnny has definitely has been an influence on that. You don’t have to be dirty. You can let your chords speak for themselves. But Johnny has got plenty of dirty songs, too. London has got heavy guitar. There’s a time and place for it.

There’s a certain jazziness to some of Johnny’s stuff – and I don’t like jazz – but like a willingness to play different jazz chords and great clean, pretty parts. I always liked the Smiths song Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want. 

There’s just a lot of beautiful chords in it that evoke emotion, a lot of major seventh chords. That stuck with me. Johnny also has a lot of dirty, great single lines, too. He was ahead of his time just playing all this single line, angular stuff.

I think of Johnny sometimes when I write a pretty acoustic song with cool voicings. I usually think, ‘Oh, is that too much like some of that Smiths stuff?’ But no, I usually just go with it. I’m probably influenced more by his guitar playing, but I wish the songwriting would be the bigger influence. 

He throws in a lot of sudden out-of-key chord movements. He’s out of key just for a second on a couple chords, but it’s all really cool. I wish I would do a little more of that. Not to mention the quality of his songs is really good as well, so I might have to learn a few more and try and let those influences sink in!

It was an honour to see Johnny play Mr. Brightside with The Killers at Glastonbury 2019 [Dave did not perform with the band]. It’s pretty cool that I’ve learned a few of his songs and then he had to learn one of my songs. He played the riff a little differently from me. If he wants to do a different interpretation, I think it’s great.

• Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 is out now via BMG.

On October 4, 1982, an 18-year-old Johnny Marr walked on to the stage at the Ritz in Manchester to perform his first gig with The Smiths. A lifelong guitar devotee, Johnny had been playing in various local bands since the age of 13. 

The Wythenshawe lad had “served an apprenticeship” and was ready to take on the world. Four decades on, as he speaks to Total Guitar from his Manchester home, it is obvious Johnny’s enthusiasm, curiosity, and love for playing guitar remains as strong as ever.

His latest solo album – Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 – is an expansive sonic masterpiece that brings together myriad styles while somehow managing to retain that quintessential Johnny Marr sound. The secret lies in his instrument of choice. 

“Me and my band feel a duty to represent the guitar,” Johnny says. “As more time has gone on, I’ve reverted to the idea that if there is space for an instrumental passage then it has to be done on the guitar, because that’s what people want from me.”

Johnny Marr co-founded The Smiths, the groundbreaking British indie band, just when the guitar world was in dire need of a new kind of antihero. Johnny’s inimitable tone underscored the band’s gritty elegance and forged an aesthetic that has galvanised generations of guitar players since. 

Within The Smiths’ five-year lifespan, Johnny recorded a slew of timeless tracks that remain touchstones of guitar technique. By the time the guitarist had parted ways with his band in 1987, he had established himself as one of the most in-demand players around. 

At the age of 23, Johnny had already created the kind of legacy many hope to achieve in a lifetime. And yet the young guitarist’s musical life was only just gathering momentum.

Before long, Johnny found himself in the studio with the likes of new wave pioneers Talking Heads and The Pretenders, even touring with the latter for a brief period. Since then, his work as a session player has seen him hopping genres with a plethora of musicians including Bryan Ferry, Billy Bragg, Bert Jansch, Hans Zimmer, Noel Gallagher, Beck and John Frusciante.

At the same time, Johnny has pursued various longer-term projects. Riding high on the wave of Manchester’s late 80s rave scene he joined forces with Joy Division and New Order founder Bernard Sumner to form Electronic, releasing a trio of albums throughout the 90s. 

Simultaneously, Johnny became a fully-fledged member of post-punk outfit The The, stamping his unique identity into the band’s sound as they scaled the charts with hits like The Beat(en) Generation and Dogs Of Lust.

As a new millennium got underway, Johnny’s career took a more direct turn with Johnny Marr + The Healers. Having self-produced the group’s 2003 album, Boomslang, Johnny confidently stepped into his role as a name artist and frontman (though fans would patiently have to wait another decade for his first bona fide solo release). 

In the meantime, Johnny immersed himself in several other collaborative projects, notably American indie rockers Modest Mouse, with whom he recorded 2007’s US Billboard 200 number one album We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank. 

The following year, Johnny teamed up with Wakefield alt-rock brothers The Cribs – a creative venture that culminated in the 2009 UK top ten album Ignore The Ignorant. Appearing at major festivals including Glastonbury and Lollapalooza, he toured extensively with the band until finally deciding to focus on a solo career.

Unveiled in 2013, The Messenger album heralded the arrival of Johnny Marr the solo artist. Co-produced with long-time collaborator James Doviak (better known simply as Doviak) this was quickly followed up by Playland in 2014 and the Adrenalin Baby live album in 2015. 

After spending a year writing the candid autobiography Set The Boy Free, Johnny then continued to follow his calling as a solo artist, emerging triumphant from the studio in 2018 with a third album, Call The Comet.

Now, Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 continues his trailblazing trajectory. “If people want to know what I do as a solo artist,” he says, “it’s all there across four or five albums.” In a lengthy conversation, Johnny talks in depth about his latest endeavours as a solo artist and reflects upon his long and varied musical career as one the UK’s most influential guitar players.

How does Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 compare to your previous solo album, Call The Comet?

“With Fever Dreams, I was going into my studio in this old factory building during the daytime on my own – this big industrial space with all these windows which were flooded with light. 

“It was completely the opposite to my experience recording the previous album which was very much nocturnal. And that’s why the album cover is the way it is – the picture of me in a completely empty room with no one else around. 

“That was my experience of making the record and I think that’s seeped into a lot of the music. I get a lot of the basic ideas together on my own in my own setup and then I call [James] Doviak in, my co-producer. He’s a Jedi on Pro Tools. But I’ve also been operating Pro Tools for many years, so I do know that stuff. I got even more into the sonics on this album than any other. 

“For a very long time, I was the guy who was first in the studio in the morning and the last to leave. Like when I was producing with Electronic, I tended to be in there first thing and leave last because it was my studio. 

“In my thirties and forties I was very into engineering and programming, but then when I started with the solo band it was just a good idea to get someone in who can take over.”

What were you going for in terms of overall sound with this new album?

“I wanted it to be slightly more hi-fi than the last record. My frame of mind was more about the kind of technology I was using. I think that may have been something to do with the pandemic, but it was also just where my head was at. 

“Because I’d decided it was going to be a double album, that gave me the idea, maybe subconsciously, that the sound was going to be a bit more expansive.”

What does the title Fever Dreams mean to you?

“I had the title Fever Dreams before the pandemic, but what was happening to everybody fed into the concept of the record. I wanted to write about consciousness and perception. For the song Hideaway Girl, I wrote the lyric ‘Every day is a fever dream’. 

“I don’t know about you, but my experience of lockdown was of time not meaning what it should. I’ve had conversations with people where it seemed like weeks were whizzing by in seconds. And then other times a day would feel like a week.”

Practically speaking, how did you go about fine-tuning the sounds to fit your vision?

“I paid more attention to the software plug-ins I’d bought whilst being out on the road. I also borrowed a drum machine from Steve Morris [Joy Division, New Order] which was a good thing because he was very helpful when some of the software wasn’t behaving like it should have been. So, thanks Steve!”

What guitar effects did you use across this album?

“Like pretty much everybody who reads your magazine, I’m a sucker for guitar gadgets and technology. But I tend to have a pretty good and quick instinct for what sounds are going to work for overdubs. I’ve always tended to be able to find a sound to go with a part. 

“Usually, the part comes first in my ears. And then I kind of go, ‘I know that’ll work really well on an MXR flanger’ or ‘the Carl Martin chorus pedal on a really slow speed will really do the job there,’ for example. 

“There is a lot of Uni-vibe on this record. I’ve got a 90s Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe – they’re really great. And I’ve got a Fulltone Deja’Vibe. It’s a sound that not every pedal maker gets right. The song Sensory Street is built on a Uni-Vibe riff. That was a Hendrix-style riff I was kicking around. 

“There’s also a fair bit of the Boss RT-20 Rotary [Ensemble] used on the album. The other Boss pedal I really love is the TR-2 Tremolo. During my days in The The and Modest Mouse, I experimented a lot with modulation – even ring modulation. There are a few different things I like. 

“You can go round and round forever with these things, but the chorus in the Kemper is really good, I like Electro-Harmonix stuff, and the [Strymon] BlueSky, Eventide... the list goes on and on. But overall, Boss pedals are great, and the Carl Martin pedals are really beautiful. I use the Carl Martin [Headroom] reverb pedal a lot.”

What gain pedals do you like to use?

“For years now I’ve used the Carl Martin AC-Tone and PlexiTone. They work really well with my [Fender] Jaguar[s].”

What guitars did you use on the album?

“I used the new Jaguar a lot, of course. I also used a Yamaha SG-1000 quite a bit. The Yamaha SGs are really great instruments to play. Around the time I left school in 1980, a lot of the innovative players had switched to the [Yamaha] SG, most notably John McGeoch [of Siouxsie And The Banshees]. 

“Andy Partridge was playing one in XTC for a while. Stuart Adamson was playing one with Skids. And also [Be-Bop Deluxe founder] Bill Nelson, who was very important to my generation. As good as those players were, when I left school, I wanted to do something of my own. Vintage guitars were the holy grail for me. So, I sidestepped the Yamaha. 

“My thing with The Smiths was about Gretsches and Strats and Rickenbackers. Doviak and I decided to track Yamaha SGs down about ten years ago. They do the thing a Les Paul does, but with a different kind of articulation. And those pickups are a little more hi-fi. They’re a good alternative to a Les Paul. And they were beautifully made. They make me play in a very precise way. 

“I also used my Smiths 1980s red Les Paul with the Bigsby. That’s always on the records. That’s been on more records than any other guitar, including [The Smiths’ 1985 classic] Meat Is Murder. I use that a lot to play clean arpeggios and to double [track] the Jag. It adds a real creaminess. 

“I use a couple of ’73 Les Paul Customs for that kind of glam thing. You can hear that on Tenement Time particularly. I always have the Jag in there somewhere. But the Les Paul made me come up with the riff for that song. It’s a very glam rock kind of song.”

Which 12-string guitars did you use?

“I used a new Auden 12-string acoustic. They’re really beautiful, well-made acoustics. I used that on Counter-Clock World to do a pseudo-Eddie Cochran thing. I sometimes double lead parts to make it stand out a little bit. 

“For my 12-string electric sound I used a Gibson EDS-1275 double neck. I discovered those by accident when I was recording Inception [with Hans Zimmer]. It was about one o’clock in the morning and the sound still wasn’t right, but I wasn’t ready to call it a day. I knew it had to be a 12-string but the only one in the building happened to be a double-neck. 

“I thought, ‘alright, I’ll give it a go,’ and so I strapped myself in and it turned out to be the best 12-string sound ever! The combination of the [shallow] SG depth, that larger width, and the humbucker sound all adds up to a darker, deeper picture. It darkens that 12-string top-end chime up in a really good way. Also, you can leave the other unused half of the guitar ringing out in an open tuning, which sometimes works well at high volume.

“When I was recording the Bond movie [No Time To Die] soundtrack, I happened to come across a single-neck 12-string SG, which is a bit of a rarity. I owned a black [Gibson ES-] 335-12 back in the day. In fact, up until the last album, that’s what I was using.”

What guitar amps did you use this time?

“I tend to always use the same amps – my ’64/’65 Fender Deluxe Reverb and a Fender Super Reverb from around 2008 (my Modest Mouse amp). I also used an early 60s Fender Twin and a late 60s Marshall Plexi. But for some parts I used an HH Electronics combo – it’s got some really nasty solid-state distortion. 

“For this album, I also dug out my old Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus amp. Transistor amps have a sonic presence that puts the sound right in your face. It’s sort of an Ennio Morricone sound. 

“Some of the best examples of transistor amps are on the first Buzzcocks album, Another Music In A Different Kitchen – songs like Autonomy and Fiction Romance. Mic'ing up a Roland JC-120 is very pleasing. The chorus sound is incredible.”

The Roland JC-120 was one of the amps you used during the earliest days of The Smiths. It’s nice to hear some of those familiar sounds on Fever Dreams...

“Sonically, I feel like I was let off the leash a little bit. I kind of decided to just do what the hell I wanted. When I’ve been talking about the album, I’ve started to notice that some people are mentioning bits of it sound like stuff I did in Electronic, stuff I did in The The, stuff I did in The Smiths. And I realise that’s not only because of the 90s electro sounds. 

“It just didn’t occur to me that some people might think, ‘he’s quoting himself,’ or, ‘he’s being self-referential.’ I had to answer that with: it’s my sound; I fucking invented it. I can use it as many times as I like!”

Where in other people’s music do you hear your influence?

“I suppose you hear echoes of what I’ve done in what got called dreampop several years ago – but with other people’s own twist on it. Just when you think it’s been done to death, a new generation runs with their own imaginations. 

“Which is very gratifying and very flattering to me. When I was asked to do The Avalanches collaboration a few years ago [The Divine Chord from 2020’s We Will Always Love You], they sent me the track and I almost thought, ‘I should do someone trying to do me.’ 

“That was a bit of a first. When they sent me the track, I could hear what they were going for. It was like, ‘I see, you want a kind of dreampop thing here.’ But I’d rather do that than just me doing a version of me.” 

How would you define that sound?

“The thing we’re talking about here is a clear ringing sound that is modulated and quite dreamy. When I hear it, I just think I’m listening to like-minded souls, really. I don’t think I’m hearing people who are copying me. I think they probably would have done it anyway. 

“The stuff I’ve done may have inspired their imagination, but everyone’s approach is a sensibility. If you’re playing with the sort of sound I use, I think it’s a sensibility and it is kind of a statement. I still think that sound is trying to be out of the box a little bit and fighting against anything that is too kind of gnarly. In my case it was trying to be heady, in a way. 

“I don’t see it as being particularly polite though. Something like [The Smiths’] The Headmaster Ritual or The Messenger are quite neo-psychedelic, if I was going to put a word on it. To me, it’s heavier than someone who thinks they’re trying to do Led Zeppelin. And it’s more interesting. 

“The guitar really helps you stamp your own identity – on your band and ultimately on the world, or at least anyone who’s listening anyway. I love that about the guitar. 

“You obviously have to get past the initial bit of finding your vocabulary and being adept, but that thing I’m known for with my sound was fairy deliberate. That’s one of the great things about the instrument – you are expressing yourself and you are taking a position.”

What artists influenced your approach to guitar tone early on?

“My approach to sound had been on my mind quite a lot. When I left school, there was a new movement of people who were thinking along the same lines. But they were all a little older than me – people like Will Sergeant [Echo & The Bunnymen] and Robert Smith [The Cure]. 

“People often overlook what Robert Smith was doing on guitar. The fact that he joined Siouxsie And The Banshees was really fucking cool. Keith Levene [Public Image Ltd] and John McGeoch, too. In our own little ways we were all thinking along the same lines, which is anti-rock. 

“But we also wanted to bring a certain kind of mystery and, dare I say, an underground kind of ‘drugginess’ to it. In other words, it wasn’t about being pretty and polite just because you were playing clean. Listen to Charlotte Sometimes by The Cure and what Robert was doing on that. I went to see a lot of these bands when I was a kid and I have to give credit to the times. It rubs off on you. We were all young, and it all added up to this feeling of futurism. 

“The main proponent of it who had kicked that off in the UK was Bill Nelson with Be Bop Deluxe, and his first couple of solo records with Red Noise. Bill Nelson was very respected. Be Bop Deluxe were pre-punk – around 1974/75. 

“I saw Be Bop Deluxe a couple of times and he was great because he was doing flash stuff on guitar that all teenage boys like, but his songwriting and approach was not hoary old blues rock; he was doing this kind of glam art-rock thing.”

In more recent times you discovered an affinity with the American indie scene...

“I’d gone off British rock music because I felt that a lot of it from the late 90s was starting to sound like a lame imitation of OK Computer. A lot of the things I liked on the guitar were coming out of America. Broken Social Scene’s first album [Feel Good Lost] restored my faith in what guitar bands can do. 

“When I started to explore that American scene a bit more, I realised all roads led to Modest Mouse. But I couldn’t work out what their influences were. And I found that really refreshing. I just knew I liked it. We really hit the ground running and got on a very creative streak. 

“I fell back into my experience of being a teenager when the chemistry is really good. The Cribs happened like Modest Mouse happened in that we initially got together to do something short and temporary. When it comes to me joining bands it’s really a matter of having been through such an intense experience with other people making music that it would just be plain fucking rude to bail. 

“When I’m writing songs at a rapid rate and having a great time in a creative situation, everything in my life comes secondary to that. I just get completely focused and single-minded. To get serious for a minute: I’m not really sure how great that is for you as a human being. But that’s the way I’ve been since I was a kid. And that’s what I’ve had to do to make this double album.”

So you’re still as single-minded as you’ve always been?

“Yeah. It’s not just my name, but it’s the next chapter in my life and I know I’m going to be judged on it and it’s got to sustain me and my band for the next couple of years. I know this all sounds very serious. But I don’t know any other way.”

• Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 is out now via BMG.

Johnny Marr has announced details on Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 – his upcoming 16-track, double-album effort that will be released early next year.

Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 will be Marr’s fourth solo studio record proper – after The Messenger (2013), Playland (2014) and Call the Comet (2018) – and is set to be divided into four individual chapters that contribute to the record’s overall sound, which has supposedly been in development since The Smiths split up.

The first installment of the saga – Fever Dreams Pt 1 – will be released digitally and on limited-edition 12” silver vinyl on October 15, with the rest of the album due to drop February 22, 2022.

Of the album, the Smiths icon said, “There’s a set of influences and a very broad sound that I’ve been developing – really since getting out of The Smiths until now, and I hear it in this record. 

“There are so many strands of music in it,” he continued. “We didn’t do that consciously, but I think I’ve got a vocabulary of sound. And I feel very satisfied that I’ve been able to harness it.”

The album is also set to be a compositional tour de force, taking inspiration from “wildly diverse music from across Marr’s career” and featuring “lyrics that are direct, emotional, deeply human, and thereby true to what Marr calls The Language of the Song”.

Marr also commented on the impact the pandemic had on the album’s creation, saying it encouraged him to dissect his own interior life and explore the emotional and psychological states of others.

"It's and inspired record, and I couldn't wait to get in and record every day," he continued. "But I had to go inwards."

An insight into the record’s sonic universe has already been released in the form of Marr’s electro-soul anthem Spirit, Power and Soul, for which the Smiths guitarist wielded an utterly absurd nine-pickup Fender Stratocaster, dubbed the Spirit Strat.

Joining Marr on the credits sheet is his longstanding band, comprising bassist Iwan Gronow, drummer Jack Mitchell, and vocalist Meredith Sheldon, a Massachusetts-based singer-songwriter.

Doviak – another one of Marr’s collaborators – has also been drafted in to helm co-production duties.

The tracklist for Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 can be found below.

1. Spirit Power & Soul
2. Receiver
3. All These Days
4. Ariel
5. Lightning People
6. Hideaway Girl
7. Sensory Street
8. Tenement Time
9. The Speed of Love
10. Night and Day
11. Counter-Clock World
12. Rubicon
13. God's Gift
14. Ghoster
15. The Whirl
16. Human

Accompanying the album news is the announcement of Live At The Crazy Face Factory – an intimate livestream that will premiere on November 10 and be available on demand until November 14. 

The event, which will take place at the Crazy Face Factory studio where Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 was recorded, will feature a set of full-band live performances from across Marr’s career, and will see the Smiths icon discuss his creative process and songwriting career.

Tickets for Live At The Crazy Face Factory go up for general sale on October 20, though will be available early to those who preorder Fever Dreams Pts 1-4.

• Fever Dreams Pt 1 will be released on October 15. Fever Dreams Pts 1-4 is available to preorder now ahead of its February 25 2022 release.

When Johnny Marr announced his all-new double album, Fever Dreams Pts 1-4, and celebrated the news by releasing the record’s lead single, Spirit, Power And Soul, many were taken aback by the Smiths hero’s exciting new project.

However, six-string-keen individuals tuning in to witness Marr’s new outing were even more surprised by the electric guitar he employed for the song – an absurd, totally bonkers nine-pickup Fender Stratocaster.

Making its debut in the Spirit, Power And Soul music video, Marr’s eye-catching axe bamboozled viewers, striking awe and an element of intimidation into the hearts of keen guitar players around the world.

After the dust settled, there was one question on everyone’s lips: when can we see more of the nine-pickup Strat?

Now, due to “popular demand”, Marr has shared an up-close shot of his new model to social media, allowing us to gaze upon the beastly, SSSSSSSSS-configured six-string in all its glory.

Dubbed the “Spirit Strat”, Marr also took the opportunity to respond to a fan who enquired about its unorthodox pickup pairing, revealing the nine pickups “all feed into each other” to make “one giant one”.

One giant humbucker with nine coils, or nine single coils wired in series? That’s just one part of the puzzle – we’ve yet to even begin unpicking the 18 toggle switches littered across the pickguard.

Nonetheless, there are a few familiar features, including the suspected master volume and tone controls, which are a friendly sight amongst the rest of the mind-bending appointments.

It would take one truly brave soul with an incredibly impressive memory to wield such a complex-looking axe and operate the absurd switching system – one capable of executing numerous nimble-fingered mid-gig switch flicks with pinpoint accuracy.

So, are we about to see one of the wildest Fender signature guitars to ever be released? Or is Marr’s new model merely meant to be admired from afar, as opposed to wielded by mere mortals? 

Whatever the answer, the Spirit Strat should come with a disclaimer – that thing does not look safe for the faint of heart.

Johnny Marr may be best known for his signature Fender Jaguar, but the Telecaster also holds an important place in the indie icon's recorded history.

Here, Marr details his own relationship with the first mass-produced solidbody guitar, and why it features on more Smiths tracks than you might expect…

“My most famous one is my green sunburst Roger Giffin. My wife, who was then my girlfriend, very kindly wanted to get me a gift and the great Alan Rogan [Pete Townshend’s guitar tech] tipped her off to this one-off that Roger Giffin had made.

“A lot of people remember it because it is very distinctive-looking, but Alan recommended it to me because it sounded very unusual. It’s maple, so it weighs an absolute ton, and it has a lot of brass on it. It has a very distinctive sound. I was only a little slip of a thing when I got it [laughs], so I could only play two songs with it before I had to go and lie down.  

“I still have that guitar. It has a coil-tap on it, which I disabled. To this day, I do not know what the pickups are on there. They might be really early Seymour Duncans – knowing Roger. The first time I ever used a Telecaster was the day I recorded This Charming Man. 

“The sound of that intro was always assumed that it was a Rickenbacker because that is what I was most known for at the time, but it is actually – mostly – a ’54 Tele, maybe ’53, that belonged to the producer [John Porter] tracked with a Rickenbacker, so it is quite an interesting sound. That was a refinished ’53 or ’54 Tele and it was the first time I had used one. It really suited my super-clean sound. But it still had plenty of attitude.

“The combination of that '50s Tele sound and the Rickenbacker was perfect for what I was looking for. That was my first experience with a Tele. Quite quickly, I was lucky enough to acquire a few different guitars, but I made it my business to get a Tele.

“That’s why Angie knew I needed one. The green one I used mostly on Meat Is Murder – Nowhere Fast and the title track. I guess by the time of the last [Smiths] album, I acquired a mid-’60s Tele which had been customised with a humbucker in the neck position.

“Right now I have got four or five Telecasters, mostly ’60s models. I’ve got a ’64, and I really like that period, because I want that clean, classic Tele thing but they’re just slightly darker. It’s a combination of the bodies and the fingerboard being rosewood. I like that darker clang. I’ve still got the black and white Custom one, and in the 2000s, Fender gave me a Custom Shop early ’60s reissue, Olympic [White] with the black 'guard.”

Apparently, Brian May isn’t the only British guitar legend spending his quarantine time demonstrating how to play his famous songs.

Recently, former Smiths electric guitar player Johnny Marr jumped into the riff-teaching game as well, posting an Instagram video in which he implored fans to “leave your questions or requests in the comments section and I’ll respond via my stories over the coming weeks.”

As Marr says in the video, “If you’ve got any questions that maybe haven’t been asked before, or you want to know where I’m at or what books I’m reading or anything like that, I can’t promise it’ll be earth-shatteringly fascinating, but I’ll do my best.” 

“Hopefully we’ll have a little bit of fun, maybe play a couple of riffs here or there.”

And play a couple of riffs Marr has.

So far, fans have requested, and Marr and his Fender Jaguar have demonstrated, three Smiths songs: Girl Afraid, Nowhere Fast and the classic Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others.

And Marr plans on keeping them coming.

“Don’t be shy,” he says, “and I’ll try my best to be entertaining.”

Recently, Kiss’ Paul Stanley began demonstrating Kiss riffs, including Love Gun and Got to Choose, from his LA home.

Johnny Marr said he wanted the intro to the Smiths’ How Soon Is Now? to be as potent and recognizable as Layla. But instead of writing a catchy melody or bombastic riff, he took an entirely different approach by crafting a hypnotic, pulsating groove by running his rhythm electric guitar track through four amps to generate a lush, complex stereo tremolo effect. 

That trippy tremolo rhythm track along with several inventive guitar parts throughout helped make How Soon Is Now? one of the most memorable and enduring alternative music recordings of the '80s.

Marr’s performance can be broken down into five distinct parts: the tremolo-heavy rhythm, a howling doppler effect slide, a melodic line during the chorus, random lead noodling and a marimba-style line played with harmonics.

For the main rhythm track, Marr recorded a simple rhythm part using his 1963 Epiphone Casino tuned up a whole step to F# with a blackface Fender Twin Reverb with the tremolo effect off.

Next, he and producer John Porter re-amped the rhythm guitar track into four Twin Reverb amps, all with the tremolo effect engaged. The key to the pulsating rhythm is to set the first amp’s tremolo speed to about 125 bpm then run it into a second amp with the tremolo speed set to about 375 bpm to generate a bouncing triplet pattern that pulsates in a somewhat random manner.

Those same tremolo settings are duplicated with amps three and four, with amps one and two panned to the left and amps three and four panned right to create a stereo spread. The amps’ reverb provides sustain that accentuates the pulsing tremolo effects.

For the doppler effect train horn, Marr tuned the Casino’s second string down a half step to C and used a slide on the second and third strings. Then Porter had Marr record overdubs of Marr playing the same part on single strings through an AMS-DMX 15-80 set to pitch-shift settings that replicated the same intervals, raising the pitch a third on the G string and dropping the pitch a third on the B string. These three tracks were then blended together, with the AMS processing giving the tone an otherworldly texture.

The melodic single-string line during the chorus was recorded in a straightforward fashion with the Casino going into the Twin with generous reverb (and possibly additional digital reverb added) and a hint of overdrive to enhance midrange, body and sustain. The random noodling lead is a sample recorded into the AMS unit with the pitch transposed up an octave that was triggered at strategic points. 

The crowning touch was the marimba-like melody that Marr created by tuning each open string to the desired notes for the melody and playing harmonics at the 12th fret. He plucked the strings near the bridge to create a percussive attack and recorded several unison layers. 

Individually, each part is not particularly complicated (with the exception of the meticulously crafted tremolo rhythm) but together they add up to a distinctive symphony of sumptuous sounds.

TONE TIP: Set the Mustang amp’s tremolo to a fast speed (about 375 bpm) while the TR-2’s speed is set to about 125 bpm to create a bouncing, pulsating triplet effect. The TR-2 should also be set to a smooth triangle wave rather than choppy square wave tremolo so the individual effects blend more hypnotically.

Producer John Porter chimes in

After the online publication of this article, producer John Porter wrote in to Guitar World to add further info on the recording of How Soon Is Now?…

"The article makes for interesting reading; however, having produced, largely arranged and mixed the track I’d like to correct a few inaccuracies.

"I played the slide guitar part, which to be a little more precise was a ’54 Tele (in open A tuning) through an MXR Dynacomp into an old tweed Fender Deluxe (volume 4, tone on full) then into two outboard UA 1176s.

"The main rhythm guitar track (which I believe was initially recorded through a stereo Roland Jazz Chorus as well as a DI, which I always recorded with Johnny Marr) had no tremolo at first, but after the track was put down I fed it through a Drawmer noise gate triggered by a 16th note cowbell coming from my LinnDrum.

"There were a number of other tweaks and additions to this initial guitar track, including (as Marr recalls) feeding the DI through three Twins, one of which I recall was a Blackface, and I think the other two may have been those models with the red knobs [Fender “The Twin” from the early '80s].

"On the final mix, the initial guitar DI was also fed into two separate hard-panned AMS delays - a combination of whole notes, quarter notes and triplets feeding into each other. i set them at what I thought was the appropriate level then flicked them on and off throughout the mix in a random Bo Diddley kind of pattern (the old New Orleans “shave & a haircut” groove). I then trimmed the levels of the returns and, although it’s not obvious in the mix, it did make a noticeable difference to the groove.

"Anyway, I just thought I might try to clarify matters somewhat, as I’ve been reading misinformation about this track ever since I did it. Also, anybody notice the 'Leslie' guitar in there on the B sections?"

Get the sound, cheap!

• Epiphone Casino 
• Fender Mustang GT100
• Boss TR-2 Tremolo

Original gear

GUITAR: 1963 Epiphone Casino (both pickups for rhythm track and slide overdubs, bridge pickup for other tracks), Neck Volume: 10, Bridge Volume: 10, Neck Tone: 10, Bridge Tone: 10
AMP: (rhythm track) Four c. 1965 Fender Twin Reverbs with two 12-inch Jensen C12N speakers (Vibrato channel, Input 1, Bright: On, Volume: 6, Treble: 7, Middle: 7, Bass: 4, Reverb: 5.5, Speed amps 1 and 3: 1, Speed amps 2 and 4: 6, Intensity: 10); For slide, lead and harmonics parts turn up reverb control to 7 and turn vibrato effect off
EFFECTS : AMS-DMX 15-80 (pitch shift function on slide overdubs: +third on G string track, -third on B string track, +1 octave for lead fills); Boss OD-1 Overdrive (for melodic lines, Level: 7, Overdrive: 5)
STRINGS/TUNING: Ernie Ball Regular Slinky .010-.046/F#, B, E, A, C#, F# (rhythm part), F#, B, E, A, C, F# (slide part), F#, E, F#, G#, A, C# (harmonics)
PICK/SLIDE: Ernie Ball Medium/chrome-plated brass

Noel Gallagher keeps rather busy releasing new music with his band, the High Flying Birds, and, on occasion, shooting down continual asks about an Oasis reunion.

But in a recent interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1, the electric guitar player and frontman did acknowledge that there’s one other musical endeavor he’d make time for, should the planets align – being part of a reunion of legendary Manchester band the Smiths, headed by singer Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr.

“I would love, and it’s never gonna happen, it’s a thing in a parallel universe, if the Smiths got back together," he said. "I’m [one time Smiths guitarist and bassist] Craig Gannon and I’d go to Johnny [Marr] and say don’t get another guitarist mate – I’m your man.”

Marr, for his part, has dismissed suggestions of a Smiths reunion. But Gallagher also hinted he’d be okay with filling the guitar role in another band.

“I would love to be in a band and just be a guitarist for a while,” Gallagher said, adding about Oasis, “not that band.” 

Today we bring you the latest episode of String Theory, this time starring The Smiths axeman, Johnny Marr. You can watch it above.

A web series created by Ernie Ball, String Theory explores the sonic origins of influential and innovative musicians. In the episode, Marr discusses his beginnings with music and guitar, his love of playing, plus his relationship with Ernie Ball and much more. 

Speaking of his relationship with music, Marr says, "There’s politics in it, there’s obsession in it, there’s romanticism in it, there’s poetry in it, and there’s your own personal relationship to it. It’s an entire world, really."

You can check out over 40 String Theory episodes featuring artists like Kirk Hammett, Steve Vai, Courtney Barnett, Kurt Vile, J Mascis, Daron Malakian, Lzzy Hale, Dave Navarro, Mick Mars, Laura Jane Grace, Justin Chancellor, Robin Finck and more at ernieball.com/stringtheory. 

For the latest on Ernie Ball, head over to ernieball.com.

Johnny Marr released his third solo album, Call the Comet, this past June, and he’s about to embark on a tour through the U.S. and Europe that begins in Nashville on September 15 and wraps in Belgium on December 7. 

In anticipation of the upcoming dates, Marr sat down to discuss how many instruments he takes out on tour, how his gear load has changed over the years and why he loves his signature Fender Jaguar guitar.

“People who would have seen me in the Smiths would have seen me play, like, seven or eight guitars in a show," he says. "And a couple of people thought that was cool and great."

But, Marr adds, "I guess I’ve kind of perfected what I do a little bit. So rather than have a bunch of guitars, I’ve made my own guitar that takes care of a bunch of guitars.”

Watch the full clip above, and check out the video for "Hi Hello," from Call the Comet, below.

Johnny Marr Call the Comet tour dates:

Sept. 15 - Nashville, TN - Cannery Ballroom

Sept. 16 - Chicago, IL - Riot Fest

Sept. 17 - Minneapolis, MN - Varsity Theater

Sept. 20 - Vancouver, BC - Vogue

Sept. 21 - Seattle, WA - The Showbox

Sept. 22 - Portland, OR - Roseland

Sept. 24 - Santa Cruz, CA - The Catalyst

Sept. 25 - Berkeley, CA - UC Theatre

Sept. 26 - San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore

Sept. 28 - Sonoma, CA - The Fillmore

Sept. 29 - Dana Point, CA - Ohana Music & Arts Festival

Sept. 30 - Tempe, AZ - The Marquee

Oct. 2 - Mexico City, MX - Plaza Condessa

Oct. 4 - Los Angeles, CA - Theatre at Ace Hotel

Oct. 8 - San Antonio, TX - Paper Tiger

Oct. 9 - Dallas, TX - Granada

Oct. 10 - Austin, TX - Empire Control Room

Oct. 11 - Houston, TX - White Oak Music Hall

Oct. 13 - Athens, GA - 40 Watt Club

Oct. 15 - New York, NY - Irving Plaza

Oct. 16 - Brooklyn, NY - Warsaw

Oct. 17 - Silver Spring, MD - The Fillmore

Oct. 19 - Toronto, ON - Phoenix

Oct. 20 - Buffalo, NY - Town Ballroom

Oct. 21 - Boston, MA - Paradise

Oct. 22 - Philadelphia, PA - Theatre of the Living Arts

Nov. 1 - Belfast, UK - Ulster Hall

Nov. 2 - Dublin, Ireland, National Stadium

Nov. 4 - Norwich, UK - UEA

Nov. 5 - Birmingham, UK - Forum

Nov. 6 - Bath, UK - Forum

Nov. 8 - Cardiff, UK - Great Hall

Nov. 9 - Brighton, UK - Dome

Nov. 11 - London, UK - Roundhouse

Nov. 13 - Sheffield, UK - O2 Academy

Nov. 14 - Newcastle, UK - O2 Academy

Nov. 15 - Glasgow, UK - Barrowlands

Nov. 17 - Liverpool, UK - O2 Academy

Nov. 18 - Manchester, UK - O2 Apollo

Nov. 21 – Madrid, Spain –  Sala But

Nov. 23 – Lisbon, Portugal – Super Bock Em Stock

Nov. 26 – Barcelona, Spain – Bikini

Nov. 27 – Lyon, France – L’Epicerie Moderne

Nov. 29 – Milan, Italy – Fabrique

Dec. 1 – Vienna, Austria – Flex

Dec. 2 – Munich, Germany – Technikum

Dec. 3 – Cologne, Germany – Gloria Theater

Dec. 5 – Hamburg, Germany - Gruenspan

Dec. 6 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Melkweg Max

Dec. 7 – Antwerp, Belgium – Trix Club

For additional information and to purchase tickets, check out JohnnyMarr.com.

Former Smiths axeman and session guitar veteran Johnny Marr has announced a new solo album, Call the Comet.

The new album—Marr's third solo effort—is set for a June 15 release via New Voodoo. You can listen to the album's first single, "The Tracers," and check out its tracklist below.

“Call The Comet is my own magic realism,” Marr told NME about the album. “It’s set in the not-too-distant future and is mostly concerned with the idea of an alternative society. The characters in the songs are searching for a new idealism, although there are some personal songs in there too. It’s something that people like me can relate to.”

You can preorder Call the Comet right here.

Call the Comet tracklist:

1. Rise
2. The Tracers
3. Hey Angel
4. Hi Hello
5. New Dominions
6. Day In Day Out
7. Walk Into The Sea
8. Bug
9. Actor Attractor
10. Spiral Cities
11. My Eternal
12. A Different Gun

WatchMojo.com posts top-10 "list" videos about just about everything. They've done lists about spaceships, explosions, deaths you didn't see coming, theme parks, good robots, evil robots, robots that die and make you sad, skyscrapers, zombies, sexy aliens ... you get the idea. They do a lot of lists!

Sometimes, they even do lists about guitars and guitarists.

For instance, there's The Top 10 Guitar Models of All Time—and who can forget The Top 10 Heavy Metal Guitar Riffs of All Time? To be honest, I forgot it.

Anyway, the WatchMojo.com crew recently posted a very guitar-centric video, and we think you should check it out. It's called "The Top 10 Hardest Rock Songs to Play on the Guitar." It starts off with a Smiths song, followed by a classic Jimi Hendrix tune, followed by a Red Hot Chili Peppers song...

We'll let you take it from there.

Be sure to tell us what you think of their 10 choices, either in the comments below or on Facebook, where you most likely found this story. We expect the list will ruffle a feather or two! In fact, check out the "Thumbs Down" vs. "Thumbs Up" figures in the photo below. Yikes.

Last night was the NME Awards, an annual award show put on by one of Britain's leading music magazines.

On hand to receive the award for Best Reissue for the Smiths' Complete box set was guitarist Johnny Marr, who, of course, fielded questions about whether or not the Smiths would ever reunite.

"We won't be reforming this week," he said. "Maybe if the government stepped down. If this government stepped down, I'll reform the band. How's that? That's a fair trade, isn't it? I think the country would be better off, don't you? I'll do it if the coalition steps down."

So there's still hope!

You can check out all the highlights from last night's awards show here.

Fender has introduced the Johnny Marr Signature Jaguar.

Marr, a master of melody, layering and texture, is best known as the guitarist from Manchester, England's The Smiths. His instantly identifiable ringing, jangling sound also can be heard on recordings by The The, Electronic, the Pretenders and Johnny Marr and the Healers, and right up to the present with Modest Mouse, the Cribs and innumerable guest appearances.

The Johnny Marr Signature Jaguar is a non-standard version of the model that is as distinctive as the sounds Marr wrings from it, with a wealth of highly specialized features including:

• Custom-wound Bare Knuckle Johnny Marr single-coil neck and bridge pickups.

• Custom-shaped maple neck based on Marr’s 1965 Jaguar, with vintage-style truss rod, lacquer finish and Marr’s signature on the front of the headstock.

• Four-position blade-style pickup switch mounted to the lower-horn chrome plate (bridge, bridge and neck in parallel, neck, bridge and neck in series).

• Two upper-horn slide switches (universal bright and pickup switch position four bright).

• Jaguar bridge with Mustang saddles, nylon bridge post inserts for improved stability, chrome cover and vintage-style floating tremolo tailpiece.

• “Taller” tremolo arm with arm-sleeve nylon insert to prevent arm swing.

Other premium features include the classic Jaguar 24-inch scale length, lacquer-finished alder body, 7.25-inch-radius rosewood fingerboard with 22 vintage-style frets, master volume and tone controls, three-ply pickguard (white-black-white) and chrome hardware. Accessories include a custom case with blue crushed velvet interior, strap, cable and flatwound strings. Available in Olympic White and Metallic KO (a distinctive orange tint derived from the heavily faded Candy Apple Red finish of one of Marr’s favorite ’60s-era Fender models).

"Making this signature Jaguar has been a four year journey,” Marr said. “I've taken all the aspects of the guitar in every direction I could, to improve it without losing the classic features that I liked from the original design. It's been a labour of love and obsession, and a privilege. I've used it for everything I've done since I started making it. It's my perfect guitar."