\u2018It was terrifying,\u201d says Mike Joyce, sitting in the palatial suite of the Stock Exchange hotel in Manchester. The drummer is talking about his favourite gig with the Smiths: the night in July 1986 when The Queen Is Dead tour hit Salford Maxwell Hall. \u201cThey weren\u2019t taking ticket stubs off people coming in. So they were giving their tickets back out through the bog window.\u201d The show ended up at double capacity. \u201cThey had to evacuate the bar downstairs because the sprung dancefloor was collapsing. Delirium! There were people crying their eyes out, strangers hugging each other \u2013 and that was before E!\u201d<\/p>\n
Joyce, garrulously upbeat company, has just written a warm, engaging memoir, The Drums, celebrating the Smiths. It\u2019s a \u201cright place, right time\u201d story of his memories as the great indie band tore down the boundaries of British guitar music, with Johnny Marr\u2019s beautifully intricate playing merging immaculately with Morrissey\u2019s words, resulting in devastating, romantic and witty vignettes that perfectly captured everyday life.<\/p>\n
Some guy opened the door and told me to fuck off<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted the book to be about the majesty of it,\u201d says Joyce. \u201cHow it was wonderful and interesting and crazy and weird. Not the negatives.\u201d That\u2019s why The Drums stops just after the 1987 split, before Joyce went on to work with the likes of Sin\u00e9ad O\u2019Connor and Julian Cope, and before the Smiths\u2019s infamously chequered legacy of court cases, spats and the ongoing drama of Morrissey\u2019s controversial worldview. \u201cFrom what I\u2019ve gleaned, he\u2019s certainly got very different politics to mine,\u201d Joyce says. \u201cBut that\u2019s his opinion. He just seems very angry about a lot of things. Of course I hear it \u2013 people saying, \u2018I can\u2019t listen to the Smiths. I can\u2019t separate the art from the artist.\u2019 If that\u2019s how you feel, that\u2019s fine.\u201d Does that make sense to him? \u201cNot to me. But I\u2019m listening to it from a very different perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joyce was born in Manchester in 1963, into a \u201cstrongly Catholic\u201d Irish immigrant family. \u201cThe fear of God was absolutely entrenched in our lives,\u201d says the drummer, although he does still remember a \u201chappy childhood full of love\u201d. It was not without its traumas: Joyce spent six months in hospital after being hit by car outside his house, an undiagnosed ruptured spleen causing internal bleeding that nearly killed him. The seizures faded after a year.<\/p>\n
\u2018The majesty of it\u2019 \u2026 the Smiths in 1984. Photograph: ITV\/Rex Features<\/p>\n
Seeing Buzzcocks live was his ground zero, John Maher\u2019s drumming inspiring him to buy a kit. Joyce became so obsessed with the band, he once tracked down frontman Pete Shelley\u2019s house. \u201cSome guy opened the door,\u201d he recalls, \u201cand told me to fuck off.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his teens, Joyce joined punk bands, first the Hoax and then Victim, before a friend who also knew Marr invited him to audition for the Smiths. Before he got there, he took mushrooms but \u201cnot a call-an-ambulance amount\u201d. He played well enough to get the job, before he started to hallucinate. Band dynamics were already in place: Marr as MD (\u201cI\u2019d never heard anyone play guitar like that\u201d) and Morrissey, then still plain old Steven from Stretford, an aloof presence. \u201cHe hardly spoke to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joyce says he found it difficult to describe Morrissey in the book. \u201cI don\u2019t want it to sound like I didn\u2019t like Morrissey. He was fucking great. Very funny bloke, cutting humour. But it was such an unusual relationship. There was a distance. I accepted we were just very different people.\u201d<\/p>\n
I went to court because I wanted what was due to me \u2013 and what was right<\/p>\n
He\u2019s more comfortable talking about his bandmates\u2019 talents, in particular Marr\u2019s inexhaustible productivity. \u201cEvery day, you\u2019d go round the house and he\u2019d play some riff sat having a spliff in his jimmy-jams. You\u2019d be like, \u2018That\u2019s amazing. What\u2019s that?\u2019\u201d Then there were Morrissey\u2019s lyrics. \u201cUnique. Nobody writes like that. The introduction of gruesome, handsome, vile, charming elements. A brilliant voice. Stage performance interesting, intriguing, incredibly skilled. It\u2019s a potent brew.\u201d Andy Rourke, a friend for life who Joyce writes about lovingly, was last to join on bass. \u201cI\u2019d heard bass played like that, but I\u2019ve never seen it played like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
It all left Joyce feeling slightly intimidated. \u201cI struggled because Andy and Johnny were miles ahead of me.\u201d But he says he never felt unappreciated as the Smiths quickly caught fire. In November 1983, the band played This Charming Man on Top of the Pops, the same night as a wild show at the Ha\u00e7ienda. But in 1984, Joyce was called into a meeting with the band\u2019s accountant. He hadn\u2019t paid too much heed when only Morrissey and Marr signed the contract as the band joined Rough Trade.<\/p>\n
\u2018We sound like the Smiths because of the four of us\u2019 \u2026 Marr, Morrissey, Joyce and Rourke in 1985. Photograph: Icon and Image\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI assumed it was on behalf of all of us,\u201d he says. \u201cI was wrong.\u201d Now he and Rourke were being told they couldn\u2019t expect recording royalties in perpetuity after the band split. \u201cI just said, \u2018That doesn\u2019t sound right.\u2019 It was never mentioned again.\u201d In 1985, he took a call from Rough Trade employee Martha Defoe, who on Morrissey\u2019s behalf suggested Joyce take a pay cut, from 25% to 15%, because he didn\u2019t do interviews or create artwork. He refused point blank.<\/p>\n
Does he mean to imply, in the book, that they were being underhand? \u201cYou can call it that. I mean, that\u2019s why I went to court.\u201d Both Joyce and Rourke began a lawsuit against Morrissey and Marr in 1989, claiming a 25% equal share of performance and recording royalties \u2013 they had subsequently discovered they were paid 10%. Morrissey and Marr argued the band members were not equal partners, though that\u2019s not how Joyce sees it. \u201cI think it sounded like the Smiths because of the four of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rourke settled out of court (under \u201ca lot of duress\u201d) but Joyce proceeded to trial in 1996. He says if he\u2019d lost, he would have been ruined. \u201cBut I 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 Despite calling him \u201cunintellectual and not financially sophisticated\u201d, Judge John Weeks ruled in Joyce\u2019s favour<\/a> after a brutal seven-day hearing, awarding him \u00a31m. Weeks famously stated he found Morrissey \u201cdevious, truculent and unreliable\u201d and Marr \u201cwilling to embroider his evidence to a point where he became less credible\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The case caused a schism that is still playing out. Joyce says he regularly gets trolled by Morrissey fans on social media. \u201cI wish you were dead, how dare you, all that stuff.\u201d He says he last properly spoke to Morrissey in 1992 when they bumped into each other in Altrincham. Aside from occasional glances in the crowd at Manchester City matches, he had no contact with Marr until the memorial service for Rourke, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2023 aged 59<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was good to see him. Because it wasn\u2019t about court cases or who did what. It was about Andy.\u201d Is he still glad he went through with the case? \u201cYeah. I don\u2019t regret it.\u201d Even with the personal cost? \u201cYeah,\u201d he says hesitantly. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t take Julian Cope to court and I haven\u2019t spoken to him for 30 years. To not be in touch with people you\u2019ve been in bands with isn\u2019t that strange.\u201d<\/p>\n Joyce, now 62, chooses to take a positive outlook, talking enthusiastically about his favourite Smiths moments, from the studio playback of debut single Hand in Glove, which was the first time they\u2019d heard themselves recorded as a band, to the time a rendition of I Don\u2019t You Owe Anything made him so emotional he started crying as he sat on his drum stool. \u201cI\u2019m getting goosebumps talking about it now,\u201d he says. From 1985, he adds, Morrissey would record his vocals without the rest of the band knowing what he was about to do. \u201cHe never had any light in the studio. It would always be pitch black so we couldn\u2019t see him.\u201d Then he\u2019d start singing. \u201cMindblowing,\u201d says Joyce. \u201cWhen he did I Know It\u2019s Over for the first time? Tears.\u201d<\/p>\n The Smiths\u2019s split was sudden. Marr summoned them all to a fish and chip shop in Notting Hill, London, and told them he was leaving. Joyce was blindsided \u2013 \u201cI thought we were going for chips\u201d \u2013 and writes about feeling bereaved. Having been a radio DJ in Manchester, Joyce has just come out of a 21-year touring retirement to drum for Pete Doherty. Yet Smiths reunion rumours haven\u2019t stopped. Last year, AEG offered a reported $25m for the band to tour. Joyce learned of this via the press and doubts he\u2019d have been asked to join. \u201cI think I forfeited that with the court case.\u201d<\/p>\n