Johnny Marr is no stranger to addressing the world with his music. In the 1980s, while American punk was busy with Ronald Reagan, Marr’s group The Smiths had U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on their radar.
While it’s not necessarily the same frustrations this time around, Marr’s doing it again with his latest studio album, 2018’s Call the Comet. In doing so, Marr goes out of his way not to name check anyone in particular, focusing the album as more of an emotional response to the world.
Instead of dwelling on life during Brexit and Trump, Call the Comet sees the songwriter and guitarist imagining an alternate reality/utopia where values matter. His latest single, the visually driven “Armatopia,” continues in that creative direction, with the idea of escapism as a theme.
The album has a cinematic feel. Marr collaborated with famed composer Hans Zimmer on the score to the film Inception in 2010 and appeared during select dates of Zimmer’s 2016 tour. Marr added strings to new tracks like “Walk Into the Sea” and his work scoring in the film world had a profound impact on the new record.
“My experiences not only recording the film soundtracks but actually playing with the orchestra on the tour with Hans was an amazing experience. When you find yourself playing in front of a 70-piece orchestra, it kind of stays with you, you know?” said Marr of the influence. “I’m proud that I could bring that into rock music, really.”
I spoke with Johnny Marr about his response to the world on Call the Comet, working with Zimmer and the role of rock music in today’s world. A lightly edited transcript of that phone conversation follows below.
Q. Call the Comet is kind of your emotional response to a turbulent world as opposed to a direct political commentary on it. I think a lot of people are trying to figure out how to process everything going on right now. Was it a cathartic process for you?
Johnny Marr: I don’t think it was necessarily cathartic. It hasn’t made me feel any different or any freer than I was before I made the record.
To be blunt, it’s been very satisfying that it’s become the most popular of my solo records. People seem to click with the album and what I was singing about and the sound of the record. It makes me feel like rock music - whatever that means today - is in pretty good shape.
It wasn’t necessarily personally cathartic. There’s always issues in society - it definitely seems that way at the moment. To be fair, if I try and think of a time when something happened en masse in society that made me feel really great, I guess it was the day after Barack Obama was elected. I was in Portland, Oregon. I think we’re very far away from that.
But, on a personal level and a professional level - which is essentially the same thing for me - the success of the record with fans, and dare I say critics as well, has been really, really gratifying. Not only is it nice to have the pat on the back, it’s kind of cool to think that a lot of people are listening to those songs in the car or on the train or on the way to the gym or work, college or whatever. And that’s why I do it.
So it feels good.
Q. You’ve seen firsthand the punk response to Reagan. The Smiths were certainly never afraid to address Thatcher. And, though less directly, you’re addressing the world in your music now. How did those experiences inform your creative process as you sort of headed in that direction again - were you kind of channeling some of that same frustration?
JM: To be honest, it’s kind of a dichotomy or a paradox - one of those two words.
Call the Comet and what I’ve been trying to do over the last year as a writer, has been trying to use music to escape those issues.
Where those political clowns helped me - because I didn’t want to directly reference them in my songs. I didn’t want to be thinking about those people when I listened to it. I ended up, on a lot of the songs, creating an imaginary society to sing about. So it became more of a positive thing in songs like “Rise” or “The Tracers.”
So they did me a favor. Because I had to find some device whereby I could sing about society without those guys spoiling the party. So it ended up being a little more idealistic. And slightly science fiction - which was a good device for me and something I didn’t really see coming. But I kind of own it a little bit now. Songs like “New Dominions,” because I was singing about a futuristic proposition, I had to make slightly more futuristic music.
So those clowns and idiots done me a favor.
Q. Your new single “Armatopia” continues that kind of escapism theme. Was that track left over from the Call the Comet sessions?
JM: No. I wrote that track deliberately when I finished writing Call the Comet. Because I was feeling inspired. And there’s no greater reason to put something out.
But the song itself is sitting on the fence. Essentially, there’s a way of looking at it which is that the world is burning up and we’re dancing to the sound of our time running out… Does anyone really give a s--t? But, then, one of the greatest things about being a songwriter is that you can turn things on its head and posit things as a question.
So the reason that the video is the way it is is that I wanted for it not to be a negative judgement or a criticism of the way we are - because who’s to say that going out and partying isn’t the best way to deal with it? Because people feel ultimately powerless.
And it was important that the first time people heard the song was when the video came out - which is not something I always do - and that the video portrayed and included young people who are globally conscious and socially minded. It’s also got lots of ethnic diversity and cultural diversity. These are people who care about what else there is to do as the seas are rising and then go and party in some weird place with their friends.
So the song is very much sitting on the fence.
Q. There’s been a lot of talk of your work with Hans Zimmer and the way a track like “Walk Into the Sea” has a cinematic feel. But, to take that a step further, your kind of general approach to this album feels cinematic to me. In kind of describing your emotional response to the world, and imagining an alternate future, you’re kind of using music to drive a narrative. Were your experiences in the film world an influence on this new album in particular?
JM: Yeah, I think they were to be honest. You’re hearing that right.
It was partially conscious - but only after I’d actually done the music to the song “A Different Gun.” So when I came to do “Walk Into the Sea,” I was not putting any restrictions on using strings. And I did consider getting Hans to arrange that song but the whole thing came together quite quickly and our schedules didn’t allow. But I would say that’s true.
My experiences not only recording the film soundtracks but actually playing with the orchestra on the tour with Hans was an amazing experience. When you find yourself playing in front of a 70-piece orchestra, it kind of stays with you, you know? It’s been one of the delightful surprises of my career.
It definitely influenced me, yeah. I’m proud that I could bring that into rock music, really.
Q. One thing that really strikes me about the album is that there seems to be a bit of optimism in it… not that you’re necessarily saying everything’s gonna be fine but it is there. I think that may be a hard thing for some people to maintain these days. How important was it to you to maintain that idea on this album?
JM: I think that happened accidentally just because of my nature. I’m not someone who can leave things either unresolved or oblique. So I think that just happened because of the kind of person I am really.
I think I’m a realist. But I’ve kind of had a lot of contact through my audience and my children who are actually now adults. I’m very lucky that I’m around a lot of smart, young people.
And that gives me a certain kind of idealism. Because the younger generation is so smart.
Q. Well, we can go all the way back to the social commentary that defines the folk tradition, through the music of the 60s - we talked about the 80s - when socially conscious music could really make a difference. But these are different times. And everything, even music, tends to get divisive fast. We talked about escapism but what role does music need to play in today’s world?
JM: Well, that’s a good question...
I think that on the one hand, we know that music is now competing with a myriad distractions that it never did before. And, therefore, the power that rock culture used to have is very likely to be diminished.
However… you doing what you do, and your reasons for doing it probably, and me doing what I do, and a lot of the people that I know and mix with - and certainly the people that come to my shows - still need rock music and rock culture like oxygen. They think intensely about it. They like all kinds of things about the culture.
They expect the artists they follow to be serious about what they do and be decent performers, be passionate about what they do, put forward some good ideas and live what they think. I could go on. But there are plenty of people to whom rock music is so, so important. And they’re passionate about it.
So it may be more marginalized than it was from say the 1950s to the 1990s. But the power of it is the same - like any art, people absorb it in a very powerful way. So maybe it has diminished but it had a very good run from the post-war period to the millennium.
It doesn’t diminish what the art form actually is or can be.
*** Johnny Marr launches his American tour Saturday, April 27 at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta with dates through May. The tour hits the U.K. and France in July and August. Click HERE for the full itinerary.
*** To purchase Call the Comet Click HERE.
