Fact #159559
When:
Short story:
Morrissey of The Smiths holds an indie fanzine press conference at the offices of his record company, Rough Trade, in London, England, UK, Europe, to promote the release of the new album Meat Is Murder.
Full article:
Morrissey : It’s a direct statement. Of all the political topics to be scrutinised, people are still disturbingly vague about the treatment of animals. People still seem to believe that meat is a particular substance not at all connected to animals playing in the field over there. People don’t realise how gruesomely and frighteningly the animal gets to the plate.
When we came to record that LP, we were quite angered. We were quite distraught about the way we had been treated by the music industry generally over the previous twelve months. We felt alone and in control … We produced it ourselves and that was a very important decision to make. For the first time we were on our own and devoid of any other influence.
I didn’t really have any intention of being misunderstood with the words on this LP. A lot of people wrote about the first LP and they said things that were very poetic and interesting and absolutely inaccurate. So I just felt that, on this LP, people should really know which hammer I’m trying to nail, as it were.
Dave Harper (press officer, Rough Trade): They were shuffling back and forwards because they were making the second album (Meat Is Murder) in Surrey, down the A23. So I used to go and get them. The car was fantastic : it was a black Mercedes left-hand drive diesel limo from the mid-70's, an ex-funeral cortege car, which I thought was dead cool. A really long thing, and black, with no hub-caps. You could open the bonnet, but you had to hold it up with a broomstick. Things never quite worked. I was driving Morrissey alone back to Manchester once, and just chatting - he'd be sitting in the back, because there were three rows of seats - but I made the terrible mistake of telling him it was a funeral cortege car and, of course, ooh, no. Wrong. Very wrong. I think it gave him the willies.
Grant Showbiz (soundman, The Smiths) : The Meat Is Murder thing came in and there was that kind of vegetarian watershed. At last we started thinking about food.
Mike Joyce (drummer, The Smiths) : I haven't eaten meat since 1985, and that's purely because of the track. If we hadn't have recorded that track, I'd be eating meat now.
Johnny Marr (guitarist, the Smiths) : For my part, The Headmaster Ritual came together over the longest period I’ve spent on a song. I first played the riff to Morrissey when we were working on the demos for our first album with troy tate. I nailed the rest of it when I moved to Earl’s Court. That was around the time when we were being fabulous.
The real idea (for Rusholme Ruffians) was to do something from the fairground. I’d spent a lot of time at the fair in Wythenshawe Park and I worked at a speedway in a place down in Cheshire. I still maintain that the best place to hear music is at the fairground. If you get your records played at the fair, you’re a great pop group. I used to go there all the time, not necessarily to go on the rides, but to look at girls. I had this really romantic feeling when I was at the fair.
Morrissey : As I child, I was literally educated at fairgrounds. It was the big event. It was why everybody was alive. On threadbare Manchester council estates, once a year fairs would come round. It was a period of tremendous violence, hate, distress, high romance and all the truly vital things of life.
In Rusholme, it was the only thing people had. It was the only pleasurable distraction,and they turned it into a total horror. You couldn’t keep me away from them. I quite liked the idea of seeing people living on the emotional edge. Fascinating.
When I wrote the words for That Joke Isn’t Funny Any More I was just so completely tired of all the same old journalistic questions, and people trying to drag me down and prove that I was a complete fake.
I wanted (in Nowhere Fast) to make some anti-royalist statements. I wanted to say something that was very strong, yet with an undercurrent of absurdity about it.But, in a way, it’s not absurd. The way I feel about royalty is that I don’t even want to discuss it.
Mike Joyce (drummer, The Smiths) : The bass line’s a killer (in Barbarism Begins At Home). It’s interesting to see how Morrissey got his head around it. We’d be playing and, when we’d stop, Andy would often continue with a Stanly Clarke bassline. It’s incredible, the way he can shift into that. The beauty of Andy’s playing is his adaptability. He could play with a heavy metal or a folk band. That shows up right through the Smiths’ career. Andy could play his own song within a song. If you took out Andy’s bass line from every Smiths’ track, it’s a song in itself, not just a contribution.
Johnny Marr : My favourite song on that LP now is "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore". I think Morrissey is incredible on that, the end is brilliant. "Well I Wonder" I really like as well. It's one of those things that a modern group could try and emulate but never get the spirit of. It's so simple. "The Headmaster Ritual" was a favourite of mine for a long time just because I'm really pleased with the guitars on it and the strange tuning.
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When we came to record that LP, we were quite angered. We were quite distraught about the way we had been treated by the music industry generally over the previous twelve months. We felt alone and in control … We produced it ourselves and that was a very important decision to make. For the first time we were on our own and devoid of any other influence.
I didn’t really have any intention of being misunderstood with the words on this LP. A lot of people wrote about the first LP and they said things that were very poetic and interesting and absolutely inaccurate. So I just felt that, on this LP, people should really know which hammer I’m trying to nail, as it were.
Dave Harper (press officer, Rough Trade): They were shuffling back and forwards because they were making the second album (Meat Is Murder) in Surrey, down the A23. So I used to go and get them. The car was fantastic : it was a black Mercedes left-hand drive diesel limo from the mid-70's, an ex-funeral cortege car, which I thought was dead cool. A really long thing, and black, with no hub-caps. You could open the bonnet, but you had to hold it up with a broomstick. Things never quite worked. I was driving Morrissey alone back to Manchester once, and just chatting - he'd be sitting in the back, because there were three rows of seats - but I made the terrible mistake of telling him it was a funeral cortege car and, of course, ooh, no. Wrong. Very wrong. I think it gave him the willies.
Grant Showbiz (soundman, The Smiths) : The Meat Is Murder thing came in and there was that kind of vegetarian watershed. At last we started thinking about food.
Mike Joyce (drummer, The Smiths) : I haven't eaten meat since 1985, and that's purely because of the track. If we hadn't have recorded that track, I'd be eating meat now.
Johnny Marr (guitarist, the Smiths) : For my part, The Headmaster Ritual came together over the longest period I’ve spent on a song. I first played the riff to Morrissey when we were working on the demos for our first album with troy tate. I nailed the rest of it when I moved to Earl’s Court. That was around the time when we were being fabulous.
The real idea (for Rusholme Ruffians) was to do something from the fairground. I’d spent a lot of time at the fair in Wythenshawe Park and I worked at a speedway in a place down in Cheshire. I still maintain that the best place to hear music is at the fairground. If you get your records played at the fair, you’re a great pop group. I used to go there all the time, not necessarily to go on the rides, but to look at girls. I had this really romantic feeling when I was at the fair.
Morrissey : As I child, I was literally educated at fairgrounds. It was the big event. It was why everybody was alive. On threadbare Manchester council estates, once a year fairs would come round. It was a period of tremendous violence, hate, distress, high romance and all the truly vital things of life.
In Rusholme, it was the only thing people had. It was the only pleasurable distraction,and they turned it into a total horror. You couldn’t keep me away from them. I quite liked the idea of seeing people living on the emotional edge. Fascinating.
When I wrote the words for That Joke Isn’t Funny Any More I was just so completely tired of all the same old journalistic questions, and people trying to drag me down and prove that I was a complete fake.
I wanted (in Nowhere Fast) to make some anti-royalist statements. I wanted to say something that was very strong, yet with an undercurrent of absurdity about it.But, in a way, it’s not absurd. The way I feel about royalty is that I don’t even want to discuss it.
Mike Joyce (drummer, The Smiths) : The bass line’s a killer (in Barbarism Begins At Home). It’s interesting to see how Morrissey got his head around it. We’d be playing and, when we’d stop, Andy would often continue with a Stanly Clarke bassline. It’s incredible, the way he can shift into that. The beauty of Andy’s playing is his adaptability. He could play with a heavy metal or a folk band. That shows up right through the Smiths’ career. Andy could play his own song within a song. If you took out Andy’s bass line from every Smiths’ track, it’s a song in itself, not just a contribution.
Johnny Marr : My favourite song on that LP now is "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore". I think Morrissey is incredible on that, the end is brilliant. "Well I Wonder" I really like as well. It's one of those things that a modern group could try and emulate but never get the spirit of. It's so simple. "The Headmaster Ritual" was a favourite of mine for a long time just because I'm really pleased with the guitars on it and the strange tuning.