John Maher: The man who inspired The Smiths drummer Mike Joyce
During a time of synthesisers, John Hughes rom-coms and voluminous hair, The Smiths cut against the grain, dragging pop music back to the guitar. Led by the talented yet miserable poet Morrissey and innovative guitarist Johnny Marr, the band kicked off the so-called indie-rock wave with the defining product of jangle-pop music. Manchester had previously catered for the depressed and introspective with Joy Division, but Marr’s guitar brought a new dynamic into play.
From a modern perspective, The Smiths are admired mostly for the merits of Marr and Morrissey and the unfortunate differences that tore the band together in 1987. However, the band’s rhythm section, comprising drummer Mike Joyce and the late bassist Andy Rourke, is often overlooked, seemingly eclipsed by the songwriting duo’s highly influential combined talent.
One only has to listen to ‘Barbarism Begins at Home’ to understand Rourke’s indispensable skills as a melodic and inspired bassist. Likewise, Joyce would humbly claim that he simply maintained a steady beat to keep the band on track, but his inventive work in ‘How Soon is Now’ tells a different story. “For a lot of The Smiths tunes, I wouldn’t say they’re very complex, but I don’t really sit on a groove with a lot of them because there’re a lot of guitar changes,” Joyce said of his accommodating approach in a 2022 interview with Far Out.
Joyce continued, discussing the 1984 non-album single ‘How Soon Is Now?’ as some of his best work with The Smiths. “Donald Johnson – one of Manchester’s finest drummers, from A Certain Ratio – said to me about that drumbeat, ‘Mike, I don’t think you realise just how cool that drumbeat is.’ I said, ‘Well, you know, I just played drums for what I thought worked for the track, and that’s all I can do.’”
During the conversation, Joyce remembered how drumming came very naturally to him. As a child, he would always find something to rattle or tap. “I remember playing with two files in a metal work room when I was about 13-14 in school,” he recalled. “I remember really enjoying it. And getting told off, obviously: ‘Put those files down!’”
Joyce’s percussive tendencies found a vocational foothold just a couple of years later when he attended a Buzzcocks gig and saw drummer John Maher in action. “I was transfixed by everything actually: the fact that he had a red kit, the fact that the toms were in a certain position, and his cymbals were all flat playing cymbals, and it just looked like a fantastic… visual,” Joyce said, recalling his awe.
As a progressive unit of Manchester’s burgeoning punk scene, Buzzcocks had Joyce’s full, undivided attention. “I also obviously fell in love with the music that they were producing,” Joyce added. “That was a catalyst for me to go and hound my mother for a little Beverly drumkit.” Meanwhile, Magazine, the band formed by Buzzcocks alum Howard Devoto, and its transformative guitarist John McGeoch had a young Johnny Marr on the road to greatness.
In 1982, following some foundational success playing for The Hoax and the Northern Irish punk rock group Victim, Joyce joined The Smiths at age 19. Over just five years of activity, the Smiths made a permanent mark on the musical landscape across four faultless studio albums. Fans will argue over which member was the most important part of this success, but like the ingredients of a Victoria sponge, all four were indispensable.
Listen to Buzzcocks single ‘Lipstick’ below. Pete Shelley permitted John McGeoch to use the song’s riff in Magazine’s popular debut single ‘Shot by Both Sides’ in 1978.
