{"id":248932,"date":"2025-11-07T08:04:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T08:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/248932\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T08:04:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T08:04:11","slug":"the-smiths-mike-joyce-im-not-on-morrisseys-christmas-card-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/248932\/","title":{"rendered":"The Smiths\u2019 Mike Joyce: \u2018I\u2019m not on Morrissey\u2019s Christmas card list\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

One Thursday in November 1983, just after 7.30pm, an ex-punk sat bathed in pink light at the BBC Television Centre. Just 20 years old, he drummed in a band that had only existed for 10 months: friend-of-a-friend Johnny Marr<\/a> on guitar, Andy Rourke, Marr\u2019s schoolmate, on bass, and a singer, Morrissey<\/a>, swinging gladioli round his head like a cowboy with a lasso, crooning about punctured bicycles and jumped-up pantry boys.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all clicked straight away,\u201d says Mike Joyce, sitting in a plant-filled room at his house in Sale, Greater Manchester. He\u2019s reminiscing about The Smiths<\/a>, the band he was in for less than five years but will be forever associated with. Now 62, sporting a stripy sweater, smart specs and a tiny, silver quiff, he’s less cool or eccentric rock\u2019n\u2019roll veteran than a sweet, groovy dad with a Tiggerish energy, hard to interrupt as he chats nine to the dozen about \u201cincredible times\u201d. He recalls The Smiths\u2019 iconic Top of the Pops debut playing \u201cThis Charming Man\u201d, after which they leapt on a train to play to a sold-out, 1,500-capacity crowd at Manchester\u2019s Hacienda. \u201cWe\u2019d come a long way from Cath Berry [their hairdresser\u2019s sister] clapping alone in February,\u201d he writes in his new memoir, The Drums.<\/p>\n

Titled after the way Morrissey listed Joyce on their enigmatic, film-referencing album sleeves, The Drums focuses on the group\u2019s giddy lifespan and not what happened next: a seven-day court battle<\/a> in which he fought Morrissey and Marr to claim 25 per cent of recording and performance royalties and, as we discover through a footnote on page 192, eventually won. Biographer Jennifer Otter Bickerdike, who encouraged Joyce to write the book, told him he didn\u2019t have to do \u201ca call and answer thing about the court case, which I\u2019d find it a little bit distressing\u201d, and instead suggested something she felt was missing from Morrissey and Marr\u2019s separate memoirs: what it was really like to be a Smith. \u201cI said, I can talk about the experience, the beauty, the intensity, the wonderment, and she said, \u2018Well, Mike, there\u2019s your book.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

We begin with Joyce\u2019s Irish Catholic upbringing as the youngest of five children, the \u201cspoilt baby\u201d of a miner and a mum working three jobs to make ends meet (\u201cI could\u2019ve asked my mum for the moon,\u201d he writes, \u201cand she would have asked me, \u2018Which one? Full? Crescent? Half ?\u2019\u201d). Aged nine, Joyce was knocked down by a hit-and-run driver and would have died of internal bleeding, he believes, if he hadn\u2019t woken up briefly to tell the nurse she owed him \u00a350 in Monopoly, and that he had a pain in his stomach (a ruptured spleen, on top of the broken collarbone and 30 stitches in his head). He then survived six months\u2019 recovery in hospital, a phase of fits, corporal punishment at school and the hostile attention of Salford gangs before he fell for punk and, at 15, got his first kit. <\/p>\n

He was playing in his second band, Victim, while Marr was running around town, desperate for a drummer. \u201cIf I hadn’t woken up in the hospital, I wouldn\u2019t have been having this conversation with you now,\u201d Joyce says. \u201cIf I had been born in Cardiff, I wouldn’t have been in the Smiths. I feel as though Lady Luck and me, we kind of travel hand in hand.\u201d His punk edge still gives \u201cThe Queen Is Dead\u201d intro and the middle-eight of \u201cBigmouth Strikes Again\u201d a startling power; he mastered a soft, magical style in ballads such as \u201cI Know It\u2019s Over\u201d and \u201cLast Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me\u201d. Meanwhile, Morrissey\u2019s songwriting was universal, but not your usual boy-loves-girl nonsense, he says. \u201cIt\u2019s about being shunned, being \u2018woe is me\u2019, being lustful.\u201d <\/p>\n

In the book, Morrissey is a distant figure, ignoring Rourke on bus journeys home from rehearsals, or nibbling apples in the cab of their tour van while his bandmates got stoned, ate \u201cs*** food\u201d and DJ\u2019d on cassettes on a mattress in the back. Joyce also played on Morrissey\u2019s early solo singles; they last saw each other after the release of Johnny Rogan\u2019s controversial 1993 book, The Severed Alliance, about Morrissey and Marr. \u201cWe just went for a pint in Altrincham \u2013 that was it.\u201d Was that the last time? \u201cNo \u2013 I also saw him again in Altrincham five or 10 years ago, although he didn\u2019t see me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u2018I<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

\u2018I saw Morrissey in Altrincham five or 10 years ago… although he didn\u2019t see me\u2019 (Sal Gig Junkie)<\/p>\n

Morrissey\u2019s mother lived in Altrincham, eight miles southwest of Manchester, and he would visit until her death in 2020. Joyce spotted his former bandmate in the most un-rock\u2019n\u2019roll of settings: a computer shop. Morrissey was buying printer ink; Joyce was by the door waiting for help, knowing his old frontman was about to turn around\u2026 until a shop assistant approached Joyce, unknowingly nixing the reunion. \u201cIt was a kind of revolving door moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

What would he have said? \u201cHi, how are you doing?\u201d Joyce suggests with a grin. He shrugs softly. \u201cI just wanted to speak to him and see what reaction I\u2019d get, but that didn’t happen.\u201d What does he think Morrissey would have said in response? \u201cI don’t think he\u2019d be, \u2018Wahey!\u2019\u201d Joyce bursts out laughing. \u201c\u2018How\u2019re you doing? Long time no see!\u2019 It\u2019s that famous adage, basically. I\u2019m not on his Christmas card list.\u201d It\u2019s hard to imagine many people are. Morrissey has become an increasingly controversial figure<\/a>: in recent years, he has praised Nigel Farage and George Galloway as \u201cliberal educators\u201d, cast doubt on Harvey Weinstein’s accusers, and accused Marr of ignoring offers to reform The Smiths (Marr confirmed in June that he had received a reunion offer <\/a>for an \u201ceye-watering amount of money\u201d, but said no).<\/p>\n

Morrissey had a huge influence on me as a person, not just as a musician<\/p>\n

Joyce mentions recent statements Morrissey made on his website in September<\/a>, about \u201cwanting to sell his back catalogue because of the vexatious behaviour of myself, Johnny and even Andy for some reason [Rourke died of pancreatic cancer in 2023]. I don’t know why he posted that.\u201d He\u2019s happier remembering the Morrissey he knew, doing incongruous things like chatting backstage at Top of the Pops to Page 3 model and pop singer Samatha Fox about the best hairsprays, and introducing Joyce to the work of Shelagh Delaney and Oscar Wilde through his lyrics (\u201dI didn’t know anything about these people before\u201d). He also convinced Joyce to become a vegetarian, the day the band recorded their 1985 album title track \u201cMeat Is Murder\u201d. \u201cI became vegetarian on that day, and I’ve been vegetarian ever since \u2013 my children and my grandchildren are too. So he had a huge influence on me as a person, not just as a musician.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

The Smiths in 1984, L-R: Andy Rourke, Morrissey, Johnny Marr and Mike Joyce (Paul Cox\/Sire Records)<\/p>\n

Joyce last saw Marr, meanwhile, at Manchester City\u2019s Etihad Stadium in 2023, when he was interviewed pitch-side with fellow celebrity fan Noel Gallagher. The Oasis rocker brought Marr, a longtime friend, along with him. \u201cI said to Johnny, \u2018We\u2019ve got to keep meeting like this.\u2019\u201d A few weeks earlier, they\u2019d seen each other for the first time in years at Rourke\u2019s private funeral. \u201cAndy\u2019s wife, Francesca, said, \u2018You know me and Johnny would really like you to come down.\u2019 And then seeing Johnny there\u2026 it was a bit nerve-wracking.\u201d They keep things civil. \u201cThere’s no need to be anything else. I\u2019d like to think we\u2019re above that.\u201d <\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say the split didn\u2019t hurt. In the book, he recalls Marr calling a meeting at Geales fish and chip shop in Notting Hill, where he announced he was leaving the band (Marr puts this story differently in his 2015 memoir, Set The Boy Free, saying he arranged the meeting to tell the band \u201cthat we needed to have a rethink\u201d). It was July 1987; the band split in September that same year. \u201cI couldn\u2019t grasp the finality of Johnny\u2019s departure,\u201d Joyce writes. \u201cThe deflation and sadness that came with the loss of not only my bandmate but also dear friend was almost physically debilitating at times. I saw Johnny pretty much every day from late 1982 to 1986. And I mean every day. So I was mourning his departure from my life. To call it a bereavement might sound dramatic, but that\u2019s how I felt. In my heavy heart I knew it was irrevocably over.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

The Smiths during their career-defining performance on \u2018The Tube\u2019, 16 March 1984 (Redferns)<\/p>\n

He kept close to Rourke through the years (\u201che was one of the funniest people I\u2019ve ever met\u201d), made a DVD with him, Inside The Smiths, in 2007, and flew to New York to see him three months before he died, which he recounts in the book\u2019s epilogue. \u201cI just wanted to tell him, \u2018You always wanted to be respected as a musician, and you\u2019ve become a massively influential bass player worldwide,\u2019\u201d he says today. \u201cIt felt really good to be able to say that.\u201d With Rourke gone and the other Smiths distant, a band reunion of any kind \u2013 the stuff of fans’ dreams \u2013 is clearly out of the question. Joyce does enjoy hearing covers, though, \u201cbecause it shows how far these songs resonate\u201d. He’s friends with Joe Donovan (\u201da lovely lad\u201d) from Blossoms, who\u2019ve performed The Smiths’ catalogue with Rick Astley, but his favourite cover is Jeff Buckley’s take on \u201cI Know It’s Over\u201d (“when I first heard it, my goodness\u2026 that’s just out of this world\u201d).<\/p>\n

The Drums isn\u2019t comprehensive about Joyce\u2019s life. It misses out his time playing with Sinead O\u2019Connor (\u201canother jaw-on-the-floor singer to play for,\u201d he tells me), teaching Maxine Peake to play the drums for a film role (they became friends, as they revealed in a 2014 interview with The Independent), and the time he was, astonishingly, the drummer for Suede. Pre-fame, they had advertised for a drummer \u201cinfluenced by The Smiths\u201d, and were gobsmacked when Joyce himself turned up. He even plays on their first single, \u201cBe My God\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

The cover of ‘The Drums’, the new memoir from Mike Joyce (Putman Publishing)<\/p>\n

But he left soon after. Why? \u201cBrett [Anderson] was singing falsetto, Bernard [Butler] was playing like Johnny, Mat [Osman] did racing basslines\u2026 they were brilliant, but obviously they didn’t sound like The Smiths when they blew up, they sounded like Suede,\u201d he explains. \u201cI would have directed the attention elsewhere.\u201d He\u2019s still good friends with Osman, who\u2019s interviewing him on his book tour in London.<\/p>\n

Joyce is also still close to someone he invited to The Smiths\u2019 Hacienda gig in 1983 \u2013 his future wife and mother of his three children, Tina, although she initially turned the offer down. \u201cIce cold! But it had an effect like our [1985] song, \u2018I Want The One I Can\u2019t Have\u2019.\u201d They have now been together for 42 years \u2013 the same amount of time that Joyce has been the self-described \u201cbiggest fan\u201d of The Smiths. \u201cShe\u2019s kept my feet on the ground,\u201d he says, \u201cbut when people come up to me and say, \u2018I love your band so much, they changed my life,\u2019 I always say the same thing. \u2018Me, too.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018The Drums\u2019, the new memoir by Mike Joyce, is out now with Putman Publishing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One Thursday in November 1983, just after 7.30pm, an ex-punk sat bathed in pink light at the BBC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-248932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248932","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=248932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}