"I've got something to get off my chest"

(Pictures, by Naomi McArdle, were taken at Morrissey's June 28 gig at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham)

Twenty-four years after The Smiths released their debut album, Morrissey remains one of the most intriguing figures in music. He has enjoyed a huge critical and commercial renaissance in recent times, with 2004’s You Are The Quarry (his first album in seven years) initiating a career resurgence that continued with 2006’s equally well received Ringleader Of The Tormentors. These records demonstrated that the singer had lost none of his trademark lyrical flair; the subjects addressed ranged from isolation and loneliness to religion, politics and Morrissey’s Irish heritage.

However, despite his creative rejuvenation, it has not been all plain sailing for Morrissey, who has found himself at the centre of two major press controversies in the past six months. First, NME published an interview in which the singer allegedly made negative comments about immigration, which resulted in Morrissey’s legal team issuing a writ against the magazine for defamation. Next, Word magazine was forced to apologise to Morrissey in court, after it was adjudged that one of its articles had suggested Morrissey was a racist and a hypocrite. Ongoing legal cases prevent Morrissey from commenting on either story.
Nonetheless, there is still much to discuss with the singer, whose enigmatic aura has no equal in rock save Michael Stipe. Ahead of his eagerly anticipated dates in Cork and Dublin's superbly-appointed Royal Hospital grounds this month, Morrissey – who has been based in Los Angeles since the late ’90s – agreed to be interviewed by Hot Press, with topics up for discussion including David Bowie, The New York Dolls (who provide support at both of his Irish gigs), Nancy Sinatra, Brian Cowen, his upcoming album Years Of Refusal, the state of contemporary music, sex, relationships, and why he won’t be living out his retirement in Clare. Oh – and the occasion on which he was asked by the BBC to represent Britain in Eurovision.

PAUL NOLAN: Bearing in mind David Davis’ past criticisms of your comments on animal rights, were you sad to see him resign as shadow home secretary?
MORRISSEY: I wouldn’t feel sad if David Davis was eaten alive in the middle of the street by a pack of hyenas. People who oppose animal rights are usually guilty about something. David Davis put himself forward for the Premiership and about seven people backed him. He is right on his views on civil rights for humans, but he is wrong to think that animals should have no rights. We are all beings. Some of us talk, some of us don’t. Some of us gallop, some of us don’t. I think people like David Davis only go into politics because it’s the only arena where atrocious haircuts are permissible. Look, for example, at Ireland’s Taoiseach, Brian Cowen – he looks dreadful. He makes Gordon Brown look like Patrick Dempsey. Could Ireland really not find someone better looking? Is it completely impossible? Even now, in 2008?
Interviewing Kele Okereke of Bloc Party last year, he expressed the opinion that “Morrissey was the last true pop star who was an interesting kind of person, who I’d actually want to know.” Do you feel that there is a deficit of interesting front people in bands these days?
I think it’s rare to come across anyone anywhere who has independent thought, and the music press struggle terribly these days to make modern groups seem interesting. But then you must take into consideration that the population as a whole aren’t particularly seeking singers or musicians who are individual or intelligent. Once the masses get hold of an artist that artist is usually finished. Massive success is usually the end. The majority are always wrong. I think so, anyway. Plus, many people actually want to be mediocre. I mean, look at Saturday night television… things like Ant and Dec… it’s like watching Christmas Eve in a mental institution.
I also think the importance of a band hinges on their initial impact – the first television appearance, or early tours. What we remember about groups is how we felt when we first saw them, when they were just being themselves prior to any record company meddling. I can’t recall one single TV appearance by any new artist in recent years that has had everyone gasping in disbelief. It just doesn’t happen anymore. Also, when groups try to emulate the past it’s pointless because great pop music is all about the moment; which comes, and definitely goes.
Do you think that your huge resurgence in popularity over the past few years is at least partially attributable to that same lack of truly compelling and original contemporary songwriters?
I think it’s because the songs are better now, and that’s the only reason for which I register or want to be considered. I’m not here for any other reason, thanks all the same. I don’t think I’m anyone’s idea of Mr. Universe, for example. Mr. Cul-de-sac, perhaps… also, the recent three albums, You Are The Quarry, Ringleader Of The Tormentors and Years Of Refusal, are the best of me. A lot of people acknowledge this even if some people don’t. I know the trend is always to hark back to ‘What Difference Does It Make?’ etc, but I think people generally say that because they think it’s the acceptable thing to say when assessing Morrissey. But my life has moved on and has changed in so many ways.
Tony Visconti was reported as being the producer of Years Of Refusal at one point. To what extent was he involved?
No, Tony wasn’t ever in line for the job. He had started working with a band Kentucky and tied himself up with that. I wanted to try Jerry Finn again – he had produced You Are The Quarry, and we were in the enviable situation of having worked with both Tony and Jerry and had really enjoyed both. I’d love to do another album with Tony, and I feel blessed to have eventually found two ideal producers. They are both fantastic in equal measure. I wish I had met them earlier.
Is it true that ‘I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris’ was written as a Eurovision song?
No. I had just said that onstage somewhere as an extremely unfunny joke. Thankfully, no-one laughed – as usual. I had been approached by the BBC two years back to represent the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest, and I said, ‘Yes, as long as I don’t have to compete against anyone else’. Cliff Richard didn’t, so why should I? They agreed, but a few weeks later changed their minds and said they’d rather have a competition phone-in thing with me pitted against people called Splooch from Sidcup. I said no thanks. In the event, whoever was chosen came last, and the UK also came last this year, so obviously the BBC just don’t know what they’re doing with the contest. I was spared. Anyway, I think they’ll ask me again and allow me to sing ‘Life Is A Pigsty’ – that should do it.
Did you envisage when you asked The New York Dolls to reunite a few years ago that it would lead to them playing so many shows together?
I had no idea what the Dolls would do. It started so well at the Royal Festival Hall – those two concerts were very dramatic and powerhouse and the audience were rapturous. Then Arthur Kane died, and we were surprised that David (Johansson) carried on since there would now only be two original members. But there are only two original members in The Who, and they continue. The Stones are down to three original members. As they stand now, the new Dolls are incredibly strong, and, historically, David Johansson is right up there with Iggy Pop and David Bowie in impact. But their comeback album reached #125 in England, which was worrying.
How did you find touring with David Bowie on the Outside tour? I remember seeing an interview with him in which he said he’d asked you to do it after hearing a particular song of yours, which was a parody of ‘Rock N Roll Suicide’.
That song was produced by Mick Ronson, and it was Mick who added the “rock n roll suicide” tag at the end. It wasn’t a part of the song originally. I actually didn’t notice it at first, which I know sounds unbelieveable, but I honestly didn’t. Weirdly, the very first time my name was printed in the press was in 1972 because I had entered a competition in Sounds magazine to win the forthcoming David Bowie LP – which was Ziggy Stardust – and I won, and my name was printed in Sounds and I was dazed. I had bought ‘Starman’ but didn’t know anything about David, and hadn’t even seen a picture of him. I know it’s difficult to imagine for very young people now, but Bowie cropping up on BBC’s Nationwide in 1972 alongside Arthur Scargill and elderly people trapped in their own maisonettes was jaw-dropping.
He was so important to me because his vocal melodies were so strong and his appearance was so confrontational. Manchester, then, was full of boot boys and skinheads and macho-macho thugs, but I saw Bowie’s appearance as the ultimate bravery. To me, it took guts to be David Bowie, not to be a shit-kicking skinhead in a pack. At the time Wayne County had a song called ‘Are You Man Enough To Be A Woman?’ and I thought it applied to the Manchester thugs of 1972, which is why I actually saw Bowie’s bravery as very strong, and not floppy or dippy. He just did not care. And all people care to a ridiculous degree – we’re all so frightened and boxed-in.
Bowie would roll into Doncaster and Bradford in 1972 looking as he did, and if you had a problem with it then it was your problem – not his – he was the one who was always laughing or smiling. He wasn’t persecuted by anything. It was the people who objected who were persecuted. I was very grateful, even though it wasn’t in my instinct to dress like him or imitate him.
It also seemed to me that his impact was bigger than punk, because he was a one-man revolution, yet it is punk that’s remembered as the big turnaround of the ’70s. The Outside tour didn’t work, though, because after a time knowing David I realised that he actually thought I was the singer from Suede – a fate worse than life. Can you imagine the indignity? I hope not…
I saw a documentary on yourself a few years ago in which you talked about your friendship with Nancy Sinatra. Do you see much of her these days?
I can’t speak highly enough of Nancy. She is incredible. She is Lili St Cyr to me, but she is low on the self-esteem bit – which is crazy. I don’t actually have many friends who are famous. I haven’t, for example, ever met The Krankies.
Talking to Hot Press a few years ago, Nancy said that in many ways you reminded her of her father Frank, in your passion for the causes you support, your body language, the magic you create in a room and your connection with your audience.
This is something she has often said to me and of course it sends me into a head-spin. Even now, Frank is bigger and more loved than any American President… which certainly says something.
The song ‘Something Is Squeezing My Skull’ is about anti-depressants. Are you sceptical about their usefulness?<.b>
Whatever gets you through. I’m not judgemental about these things… Booze, drugs, if it helps you, then take it. Life is a difficult business, and most people find it to be actually impossible… even Jesus only made it to 33. I don’t know why we’re all so hard on ourselves. We all need the same things from life, and they’re very simple things, yet we all make sure that the other doesn’t get it. People are pathetic, on the whole. I mean pathetic in a sad sense.
You’re playing the O2 Wireless Festival with Beck, and I know you wore a Beck t-shirt in one of your videos. Are you a particularly big fan of his?
No, I don’t really know much about him. I knew a woman at the time of that video who dared me to wear the t-shirt, so I did, and she was thrilled. I didn’t assemble the bill for the 02 festival. I’m actually surprised I’m even on it.
What do you enjoy about being based in LA as opposed to, say, New York?
I like the film history of Los Angeles, and I’m constantly searching for the smogginess and dim-light of those old films… Susan Hayward in Smash-Up, or Susan Hayward in I Want To Live… or anything starring Richard Conte, John Garfield, Dana Andrews, Kirk Douglas… or Barbara Stanwyck dumping the body on the railroad tracks… Build My Gallows High, The Killers, Kiss Me Deadly… things like that. I also like the Herb Alpertness of it all, and the Burt Bacharachness and the Wayne Manor bit. You know, Bruce Wayne and his youthful ward Dick Grayson? No? Oh. Well, then.
Are there specific songs from throughout your career that you’re particularly proud of?
I love most of them. My favorite is ‘Life Is A Pigsty’ from Ringleader Of The Tormentors. That song just about covers it. Perhaps there’s about six that I can’t stand, but even they are not hysterically bad. There are a few older songs that absolutely confuse me – I have no idea what I was thinking of. ‘Roy’s Keen’ for example. But over a 25-year recording stretch there’s bound to be a few stinkers. It’s a long time to expect anyone to be constantly compulsive. If most singers make one or two great records in a lifetime it’s a miracle. For me, the low spots are there to make the high spots all the more sharp. It’s all personal stocktaking and songwriting doesn’t work when you try to force it to happen. That’s my view, anyway.
Any chance of a Morrissey covers album?
Yes, I’d like to do it now, even though it’s become a bit of a minor cliché. But, so what – we’re all minor clichés.
On the subject of sex, you are quoted as saying in an interview, “I always found it particularly unenjoyable. But that again is something that’s totally associated with my past and the particular views I have.” Has your view changed radically?
Hasn’t changed at all. But there’s no point asking me anything about romance because I know nothing about it, and that’s just my tough luck, end of story.
I have a volume of classic Melody Maker interviews, called First Among Sequels. There’s an interview with you in there, and there’s this quote that I really find quite striking: “I just really don’t have a tremendously strong belief that relationships can work. I’m really quite convinced that they don’t.” Do you now associate that view exclusively with your youth, or do you still feel there’s a grain of truth in it?
It seems to me that people are compelled to pair-off, mainly due to companionship and really nothing else, and even then it doesn’t work. Marriage is a business exchange – you do this for me, and I’ll do that for you. People who are married are also easy to govern by the state, so this is why marriage is shoved in our faces as being the ideal. On the other hand, people who remain single into their 30s and 40s are a social threat in several ways. Having a wife or a family is always viewed as a man’s weak spot, whereas if he’s 44 and unattached he’s a mystery.
But if we ever come across two people who have been married for decades we’re usually amazed. It’s like peering at a strange headless species. People like me prove that you can survive without romance, even though you end up a bit unbalanced and you tend to argue with your own reflection. If you can manage to find someone who loves you and whom you love then it strikes me as an absolute miracle, and you should hang on to that person. Most people use up their entire lives trying to find that special unity with one other person, and you have no control over who that person might be. It leads you, you don’t lead it.
In the current climate of religious extremism, a song title like ‘I Have Forgiven Jesus’ seems potentially foolhardy – did you ever give it a second thought?
No. The way I write is similar to the process of what is known as automatic writing, as associated with séances or spiritualism – you know, where mediums communicate with the dead by allowing the spirit to control the pen, and the medium is unaware of what he or she is writing because it’s coming from an altered state, blah blah blah. That’s my excuse, anyway.
Have you ever feared getting assassinated by one of the legions of adoring fans?
Well it’s very me, isn’t it? There’s bound to be an unnecessarily dramatic end to all this – fate just wouldn’t allow a gentle conclusion, ending my days running a fruit and veg shop in County Clare. No. It’s bound to be a burst of gunfire as an ex-manager makes a bolt for the exit.
Was ‘Irish Blood, English Heart’ as important a song to you as it seems from the outside?
There’s millions of us stuck in the midst of the Irish-British divide, and it’s not a bad place to be, and I dislike any isms towards either country even though I obviously acknowledge that, historically, the British were as nasty as you can get. This is why I’m baffled by any adoration of the British Empire or the so-called Royal Family since the basis of their foundation is aggression and terror. The British Museum is full of stolen goods. Buckingham Palace is full of stolen goods. Yet kids who robbed apples off street-barrows in 1855 were hanged in Kilmainham Jail. I think people who are very rich or very poor ignore the law – and can do so, and it’s only the respectable working-classes who live in fear of it because it’s fear of social embarrassment.
Just last week I saw the film See No Evil: The Moors Murders, with Sean Harris and Maxine Peake. Did you find it cathartic to write about that subject? And is it true that you at one point developed a friendship with Lesley Ann-Downey’s mother and stepfather?
Yes, I knew Ann West, who died a few years ago. She was a remarkable woman because she didn’t ever give up her fight to keep Brady and Hindley in prison, but she was dismissed by the establishment because she was very working-class Manchester. I gave her one hundred pounds once – I can’t remember why – but her eyes welled with tears. The murder of working-class kids isn’t considered as lamentable as the murder of middle or upper-class kids. You only need to look at the Madeline McCann saga.
If Madeline had been a great fat spotty blob from Hartlepool, the media wouldn’t be remotely interested, but because she was ideally pretty with photogenic parents, it’s a big seller and it fits the newshounds’ fantasy, in much the same way that newspapers gorge themselves on the murders of female prostitutes – but not to pull us into the plight or identities of the victims, just to sensationalise the murderer. When a man murders a slew of women, the press love it and give him a fantasy Ripper-type name; but if a man murders boys then the press play it down and don’t give the murderer a fantasy-Ripper name.
Jeffrey Dahmer or Denis Nilsen were never given Ripper-type nicknames, and this is because the press love the heterosexual fantasy of young petrified women – preferably blonde – scared to death of leaving their homes. When the murderers are homosexual there’s thought to be no mileage in the story. I think Ann West lived her entire life in the midst of all of this media rubbish and injustice. The murderer becomes the star and the victims aren’t even named.
I mean, Jack The Ripper is famous to everyone, but can you name one of his victims? Precisely. I mean, there isn’t even any evidence that Jack The Ripper was a man, but newspaper folklore always insisted that it was a man. This is probably because the idea of Jack The Ripper actually being a determined and excitable lesbian would take the glamour out of the working-man’s daily read. It’s a weird world, isn’t it?