Johnny Marr on why The Rolling Stones are “the greatest ever”
In the alternative rock sphere, it wasn’t always necessarily cool to think of yourself as a rock star. For every group that was trying to make a name for themselves as one of the greatest hellraisers of all time, there was also just as good a chance there were artists that were looking to spit in the face of what acts like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin had done in the past. While The Smiths had the weird contradiction of having both kinds of alternative rock stars in the same band, Johnny Marr was more than happy to talk about the power of The Rolling Stones.
When looking at the way that The Smiths songs play out, though, it sounds like Morrissey never understood the power behind Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in the first place. Whereas Keef was known to slap a couple of chords together and make the occasional heart-wrenching, there’s no real let-up when it comes to most of Morrissey’s lyrics. If you weren’t sad by the time the piece started, you were at least going to be feeling a little melancholy when it was over.
Despite Morrissey taking influence from writers like Keats and William Burroughs when sculpting his masterpieces, Marr wasn’t going to spend the rest of his days living like a pretentious music snob. He may have been playing underneath Morrissey’s lyrics, but the textures he created were indebted to the sounds of classic rock.
Besides the strange delay effects that no one could master on ‘How Soon is Now’, Marr was practically a Stones fanatic, down to wearing the same kind of Brian Jones hairdo when the band first played on Top of the Pops. Even though many fans found the next wave of rock and roll through songs like ‘This Charming Man’, Marr knew that there was no way he was going to eclipse his idols.
By the time Marr started to critically listen to The Stones, Jones had been out the door, leading to guitar legend Mick Taylor taking over on albums like Sticky Fingers. After the band had spent time trying out every genre imaginable and making a few duds on the side, Exile on Main St was what really turned Marr’s head around
When talking to Uncut, Marr wasn’t afraid to call The Stones the best rock and roll outfit when he heard songs like ‘Soul Survivor’, saying, “By the time I got into Exile On Main St, I’d already decided The Stones were the greatest band there’d ever been. It took me a few listens because of all the brass, but when I started getting into it from a groove and rhythm guitar point of view, I understood what they were doing.”
Much like Richards, Marr was never clinical in his playing, leading to many works that extended into jams as well. Compared to the lengthy Stones songs, a track like ‘The Headmaster Ritual’ may as well be an extension of what Marr’s idols did, leaving a few minutes of the piece open for the rest of the band to fly off in any direction they wanted to.
That kind of love has only persisted as the years went on, with Marr putting together the kind of lead guitar breaks with a subtle hint of blues that can only come from The Stones. Any artist of Marr’s calibre is reaching for new influences all the time, but you never forget the band that made you fall in love with music.
