Top 42 Johnny Marr Quotes
#1. I find this kind of folk with guys in Wellington boots and washboards not good to listen to. That music is one step away from barn dancing as far as I'm concerned. Anyone under the age of 60 should not be wearing Wellington boots on stage.
Johnny Marr
#2. I had a feeling about what I wanted to say, and I wasn't really qualified to discuss real things out of America because I didn't grow up there.
Johnny Marr
#3. Now chart music is a genre all of its own and it's slipped away from what I understand pop music as. It's pretty difficult to take; it clogs up the airwaves.
Johnny Marr
#4. I would join a band, learn from that band and be committed and passionate and bring my thing to the band. Then, when I felt like we were going to repeat ourselves, and I needed to learn more, I would go somewhere else.
Johnny Marr
#5. Coming from a working-class background, where my father did manual labor, was a good grounding; I was obsessed with getting a job or getting out of the house at 15.
Johnny Marr
#6. My experience tells me, unfortunately, that so many people ask the question about 'The Smiths' reforming without really caring about the answer. They just really want to ask the question.
Johnny Marr
#7. I think good artists know when they're on a roll, and they recognize when lightning is striking. It's a very fortunate thing to have that inspiration and not to overanalyze it or mess with it; you just follow it if you love what you do.
Johnny Marr
#8. Anything that's ever gotten on the charts as a result of "American Idol" or "The X Factor" in the UK. It's born out of karaoke culture. It's been a long time coming, but it's absolutely affected radio.
Johnny Marr
#9. I explored rock culture and what the guitar can do though people like Jimmy Page and John McLaughlin, and the music moves away from pop.
Johnny Marr
#10. I've also been with the same girl, Angie, since I was 15.
Johnny Marr
#11. I really had a great time working with 'Modest Mouse,' just because of the people. I loved writing songs with Isaac Brock, and Jeremiah Green is probably my favorite musician that I've worked with.
Johnny Marr
#12. A day-time song like 'Word Starts Attack,' I want to make your heart blow up and make you want to punch the air with your fist. It can't be ponderous.
Johnny Marr
#13. As a youngster, I used to try to pick up any bits of wisdom about the guitar I could. It's not like now where you have books and books about every aspect of anything. Any little pearl of wisdom was welcome back then.
Johnny Marr
#14. Don't get me wrong, I think "Portlandia" is really funny, and quite brilliant, but I like to be in a city where I can hang out in Powell's Bookstore most nights and go out with my friends in a liberal, relaxed atmosphere. I wish more cities were like that.
Johnny Marr
#15. Guitars have been the obsession of my life. I first picked one up at the age of four and I've been a guitar junkie ever since.
Johnny Marr
#16. I didn't form a group to perform Cilla Black songs.
Johnny Marr
#17. Andy Rourke and I had been playing together from 14 or 15, and we had a very great musical chemistry. Andy's just a very respected and unusual musician.
Johnny Marr
#18. Some cities are really boring and straight.
Johnny Marr
#19. Now, I'm a dad, I'm an adult. I've been solo for 25 years; I've been in other people's groups but I'm solo [in a broader sense]. I stopped comparing myself to other people's maps when I was maybe 24, really. The trajectory that I've gone on is not one that I can compare with anybody else.
Johnny Marr
#20. The biggest musical influence on me was my mum. We were both enraptured by music.
Johnny Marr
#21. I played guitar from the age of four or five. Every year there would be a slightly larger triangular box under the Christmas tree, until finally I got one that was big enough to make a proper sound.
Johnny Marr
#22. You can grow up without having to conform, stop going to shows, stop having a record collection, start being politically iffy.
Johnny Marr
#23. I am very proud of the fact that 20 years on people tell me they became a vegetarian as a result of 'Meat is Murder'. I think that is quite literally rock music changing someone's life - it's certainly changing the life of animals. It is one of the things I am most proud of.
Johnny Marr
#24. I can show bands how to produce themselves. In the same way, many bands think you can't make it without some fat cat in London or New York to manage you. That's just crap. All you need is someone a bit older than you with a bit of business nous whom you trust.
Johnny Marr
#25. Festivals are great because you get to just walk around the corner and see a new band that you've heard but not had the chance to check out.
Johnny Marr
#26. I seem to attract and be attracted to very willful, fascinating people.
Johnny Marr
#27. If people can finally recognize you on radio without being told who it is, that's what you aim for.
Johnny Marr
#28. Earlier in my career, fans weren't a big consideration for me.
Johnny Marr
#29. Growing up in public is a test, and not many people know how to do it.
Johnny Marr
#30. In the earlier part of the 90s, I was really hell-bent on discovering how new technology works and how to make records entirely without a producer, which isn't necessarily what fans wanted. But I had to do it because I felt it was in my destiny or whatever.
Johnny Marr
#31. I had to work and it never occurred to me not to. But then it's never really been about the money.
Johnny Marr
#32. Occasionally, a great band would come along, like Blondie or OutKast who could be pop and bring interesting ideas into the mainstream at the same time. That's now gone, because of this weird mutation of pop, rap, R&B, bad rave, and supposedly soulful singing on top of it.
Johnny Marr
#33. I don't really care what music's made on - I love guitars, but I'm fine with great electronic music.
Johnny Marr
#34. I live a super-healthy lifestyle not because it's sensible or that I'm contrite, but because I need to keep my focus on the music I'm making. To do that, I need to be wide awake.
Johnny Marr
#35. Joining Modest Mouse was just consistent with what I used to do as a teenager: I followed where I thought I would make some interesting music.
Johnny Marr
#36. No one has any respect for someone who can play a million notes per minute but can't put together a decent tune that someone can sing to or feel some sort of emotion from.
Johnny Marr
#37. When Morrissey and I started The Smiths, we thought pop music was the most important thing in the world. It was almost a spiritual thing for us, and because of that, we knew what it meant to be a fan.
Johnny Marr
#38. I'm not interested in trying to have people who might like other kinds of music follow me. I don't want to please them.
Johnny Marr
#39. If you're in a successful band, you tend to fall into a role. But I'm not remotely laddish. I'm a grown-up. I'm vegan and teetotal. I run 50 miles a week, listening to Franz Ferdinand and the Four Tops at top volume.
Johnny Marr
#40. People say to me, 'Do you dye your hair?' and I say, 'Well, does f**king Siouxsie Sioux? Does Bowie?'. Of course I'm going to have a decent haircut. It's one of the first things I learnt to do - get a few songs together and get your hairstyle right.
Johnny Marr
#41. Nick Zinner has been one of my favorite guitar players for a long time.
Johnny Marr
#42. I've almost never played the 'Smiths' records, once they've gone out. I was always like that and probably always will be.
Johnny Marr
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top