![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/bf8ece1174b97bca69d26f6b9e50ca80ee-the-smiths.rsquare.w330.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n The Smiths
\n Photo: Icon and Image\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
Back in 1989, the Smiths<\/a> as we knew them crashed into a double-decker bus because of a lawsuit jointly initiated by drummer Mike Joyce and bassist Andy Rourke, who claimed Morrissey and Johnny Marr owed them a higher percentage of the band\u2019s royalties. Moz and Marr took a very un-R.E.M. stance<\/a> and argued that their bandmates weren\u2019t equal partners, and several years later, Rourke settled out of court and Joyce won his trial. Speaking with The Guardian in a new<\/a> interview about his time with the Smiths and the impact of the lawsuit, Joyce, now a popular radio DJ, said he hasn\u2019t spoken to Morrissey since 1992. \u201cI think it sounded like the Smiths because of the four of us,\u201d he explained of his hi-hats in court. \u201cI thought that if I didn\u2019t, then nobody would ever know what happened. I just wanted what I thought was due to me, and what was right.\u201d Morrissey fans still regularly harass him on social media because of it: \u201c\u2018I wish you were dead, how dare you,\u2019 all that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n Joyce and Marr reconnected at the memorial service for Rourke, who died in 2023<\/a> from pancreatic cancer, after several years of estrangement. \u201cIt was good to see him,\u201d he explained. \u201cBecause it wasn\u2019t about court cases or who did what. It was about Andy.\u201d Joyce was completely out of the loop, though, regarding the revelation that the Smiths were offered a huge payday<\/a> to reunite \u2014 he learned about it when the story broke in the press. \u201cI think I forfeited that with the court case,\u201d he added. The light, indeed, has gone out.<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Smiths Photo: Icon and Image\/Getty Images Back in 1989, the Smiths as we knew them crashed into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,102578,44785,128,44786,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-244616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-good-for-him","10":"tag-morrissey","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-the-smiths","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}