{"id":864819,"date":"2026-09-29T15:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T15:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/864819\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T15:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T15:00:11","slug":"johnny-marr-on-fontaines-d-c-and-fighting-dodgy-views-the-current-young-generation-are-really-switched-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/864819\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnny Marr on Fontaines D.C. and fighting \u201cdodgy views\u201d: \u201cThe current young generation are really switched on\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Johnny Marr<\/a> has spoken to NME about his new solo album \u2018The Age Of Everything\u2019<\/a>, his love of Fontaines D.C.<\/a> and The Cure<\/a>, working with Damon Albarn<\/a> and his hope for the future via the younger generations.<\/p>\n

The former Smiths<\/a> guitarist turned solo star will share his fifth studio record this Friday (October 2) \u2013 a project he said was inspired by \u201cthe idea of perception, and how I perceive not just the world but my own feelings and those of the people around me, to spy on them and then write songs about it\u201d.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Johnny Marr: \u201cBangers? They\u2019re not to be sniffed at\u201d\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Written while people-watching in London before being recorded in Marr\u2019s native Manchester, the LP comprises 10 bright and punchy pop-leaning tracks that look at the human side of societal issues in 2026, with the guitar icon leaning into his own idiosyncrasies more than ever before.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a sense of: \u2018If you\u2019ve got your own sound, do it and do it loud\u2019,\u201d he told NME. \u201cThere\u2019s definitely a time for that. There are other considerations that come into play when you\u2019re about to go into a new phase. There\u2019s reinvention, doing something you\u2019ve not done before, and I\u2019ve done it several times throughout my career.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cI\u2019m usually quite deliberate. I went into this record with a real sense of purpose; that\u2019s why we played eight out of the 10 songs live on the road. Pretty much every band I\u2019ve been in, and most of the guitar bands I\u2019ve been around, have at one point said, \u2018You know what we should do before we record the next album? We should gig the songs\u2019. It never happens, but once I get an idea that I think is a good one, I\u2019m a little like a dog with a bone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember Brian Eno<\/a> is the same in that. I\u2019m not terribly impulsive, but I am decisive. Unless something comes along and knocks me off that course, then I pretty much see it through. Damon [Albarn] is like that too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listening to old-school ambient stuff, Boards Of Canada<\/a>, Fontaines D.C. and Gorillaz<\/a> while making the album \u2013 as well as drawing from his own solo back catalogue \u2013 Marr shared that he took a great deal from working with Albarn for the cartoon pioneers\u2019 2026 record, \u2018The Mountain\u2019<\/a>. \u201cI learned to be open-minded, let some things happen naturally, keep your work ethic, don\u2019t be waiting around for things to happen,\u201d he said. \u201cDon\u2019t force anything \u2013 just chill, really.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JohnnyJohnny Marr live at Manchester\u2019s Castlefield Bowl. Credit: Aaron Parsons<\/p>\n

Check out the rest of our interview with Marr below, where we also told us about healing old rifts between fans of The Cure<\/a> and The Smiths<\/a>, fighting \u201carseholes with dodgy views\u201d, why Andy Burnham gets a pass to listen to his music<\/a>, and more.<\/p>\n

NME: Hello, Johnny. We meet here in Camden \u2013 what does this part of London mean to you?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Johnny Marr: \u201cI first moved down here in \u201884, and things were going pretty well. I found a place called Compendium Books where I could buy books that you couldn\u2019t get anywhere else. You could buy cultural books, esoteric books, the few books about musicians and bands that were out back then. It really was a specialist subject. It\u2019s gone, but it feels like it could thrive now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t part of Camden as everybody knows it from the \u201890s. Electronic<\/a> were doing more of a Manchester route. Most of my pals have nostalgia for Camden through the Monarch [pub and venue, now The Barfly<\/a>] and places like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

You weren\u2019t stumbling in and out of The Good Mixer?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I wasn\u2019t. I was hearing about it, and it sounded ghastly! Me and Bernard Sumner<\/a> were looking for the lost chord and the lost Kraftwerk<\/a> sample in a basement studio in Manchester. What do we know?\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you miss those days?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great how you take for granted those things you once considered normal, then you look back and go, \u2018That was really quite special and unusual\u2019. The Prodigy<\/a>, for example \u2013 \u2018Firestarter\u2019 got to Number One. That\u2019s just unthinkable now, for something that radical and not manufactured. It had attitude, was genuinely street, created by real people. Maybe that\u2019s the way nostalgia works. I\u2019m glad they\u2019re back out there doing it, but that\u2019s an example of why you should keep your wits about you and enjoy good stuff while it\u2019s happening. Appreciate it for the significance it holds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you feel that way about many new bands around at the moment?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve been around for a while now, but I felt that way the very first time I saw Fontaines. I can hear when a song started out in a rehearsal room. That\u2019s one of the first things I talked to Fontaines about when we first met: \u2018Where do you rehearse?\u2019 It\u2019s a fact. Angie [wife] said to me years ago, \u2018Do you always have to ask every support band where they rehearse?\u2019 I didn\u2019t realise I was doing it. That\u2019s where I picture indie music living and being created.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FontainesFontaines D.C. live at Reading 2026. Credit: Andy Ford for NME<\/p>\n

The last time we spoke<\/a> was just after \u2018Fever Dreams Pts 1-4\u2019<\/a>, and as you released a greatest hits album and the book about all your guitars. Was there a sense of closure to that period?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a clearing of the decks, but I think it started a period of my life that has come into fruition with this album. It was definitely a bookmark to put out a \u2018best of\u2019 record after 10 years and then the guitar book. I haven\u2019t really talked about this [new] record at all, but I\u2019m starting to realise that the aftermath of that is why the Christie\u2019s guitar exhibition and auction<\/a> happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking back on it now, the way I went into writing this album wasn\u2019t about reinvention. If I had to put a word on it, my instinct was to be a bit emphatic. I felt that what I\u2019d been doing with the records so far had a thing that I recognise now. Me and my band have got a sound that we\u2019ve carved out. In spite of coming out with the first album pretty much fully-formed in that regard, there\u2019s a lot of the new album that does remind me of \u2018The Messenger\u2019<\/a>. My solo stuff has got a sound, and I just wanted to do the best version of that that I could.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It feels like the pop sing-along elements of this album are really turned up to 11. Did that come out of playing the songs live first?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, they are, and \u2018It\u2019s Time\u2019<\/a> is a really good example of that. I started singing the \u2018Oh oh\u2018\u00a0chant, which surprised me, but the audience just went for it straight away. With my own records, I started out with an agenda to have some energy. It\u2019s almost too easy to write introspective, reflective songs and a challenge to write something upbeat. That challenge suits me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI almost feel like every one of my albums sounds like a first album. That isn\u2019t a boast, and to some people it might sound like a criticism. A friend said it to me about this one, and I took it as a compliment because I know what that means: it\u2019s got that energy, there\u2019s a lot at stake, and things are catchy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m able to write catchy tunes, and there\u2019s nothing wrong with that. There will be times for me to write my acoustic opus where I get miserable. I\u2019ve taken the liberty of sounding like other things over time and I always get, \u2018Oh, that sounds a little bit like what you were doing with Electronic\u2019 or, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s a bit Smiths-y\u2019, but really it\u2019s no more complicated than, \u2018Why wouldn\u2019t you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JohnnyJohnny Marr live at Manchester\u2019s Castlefield Bowl. Credit: Aaron Parsons<\/p>\n

Songs like \u2018Fire With Fire\u2019 have a goth-y The Cure vibe to them, and there\u2019s a touch of Depeche Mode<\/a> to \u2018All In A Life\u2019\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s right. There were a couple of Cure-y moments on \u2018Fever Dreams\u2019 too, like \u2018Aerial\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve done the work to erase the imagined division between Smiths fans and Cure fans<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cOh yeah! Apparently that\u2019s a thing. When The Cure came out, I thought of Robert Smith<\/a> as a guitar player. He\u2019s a frontman, but what he was doing on \u2018Seventeen Seconds\u2019 was really very much on his own and really on point. That was a few years before I came out. I saw them a couple of times when I was 16 or 17 and really liked them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve actually covered Depeche Mode\u2019s \u2018I Feel You\u2019<\/a>, and when I did \u2018The Tracers\u2019 on \u2018Call The Comet\u2019<\/a>, I woke up to Maxine Peake<\/a> praising me because it sounded like Sisters Of Mercy<\/a>. That was great. They were the first big band that The Smiths supported, so it is in my DNA.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember taking a couple of fans that I\u2019d gotten close to for a ride in the car to play them the record, and they thought the whole album was cold wave, which I thought was a compliment.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve described this as your most \u201ccathartic\u201d record. What were you exorcising?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was doing it, I didn\u2019t realise that there was anything that I particularly wanted to get off my chest. I\u2019ve always got one eye on not telegraphing my feelings, but not telegraphing the obvious too much. When it was over, I was walking home from mastering it at Abbey Road at 1:30am. It\u2019s always a big moment for me when I\u2019ve mastered it, as it means that it\u2019s done. I realised that [on] tracks like \u2018Fire With Fire\u2019, parts of \u2018It\u2019s Time\u2019, there are a few things that pop up musically that I\u2019ve wanted to get out of my system.<\/p>\n

\u201cLyrically, I didn\u2019t want to talk specifically about the political climate or \u2018the perils of social media\u2019 \u2013 all of these things that we know are in the forefront of our minds. I just don\u2019t like being too obvious, but it\u2019s in there. There was some stuff that\u2019s a bit more global, like on \u2018It\u2019s Time\u2019. It\u2019s saying, \u2018Open your eyes to know the truth\u2019 and \u2018mobilise to know the truth\u2019\u2026 \u2018Everybody ain\u2019t makin\u2019 it, change the weather and breaking it\u2026\u2019. Those sort of lines, that\u2019s how I\u2019ve been feeling over the last year and a half.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s in \u2018Fire With Fire\u2019: we\u2019ve all had these situations where someone we know, and have known for a long time, suddenly hits you with a viewpoint that surprises you. \u2018Oh really? Is that where we\u2019re going?\u2019 The cathartic thing. When it was over, I realised that there are definitely some songs with a viewpoint.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JohnnyJohnny Marr live at Manchester\u2019s Castlefield Bowl. Credit: Aaron Parsons<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve said that \u2018It\u2019s Time\u2019 also takes on \u201carseholes with dodgy views\u201d<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have hooked in on that, but it\u2019s actually more of a positive thing. It\u2019s about all of us, as well. I know I\u2019m just talking about a pop song here, but if it\u2019s going to be about something, then it\u2019s about the effects of rampant unregulated capitalism and all the attendant things that it\u2019s responsible for.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe line \u2018Feel like going it alone so recklessly\/ I\u2019ll ascend on to somewhere, trying to claim victory\u2026\u2019 \u2013 I was quite defiant, but I\u2019m pointing the finger at all of us, myself included. We all really enjoy the effects of technology, luxury, comforts and aspirations, and the consequences of it are one of the reasons that people have got dodgy views: greed and fear. Social media comes into it. We all complain about it, but we don\u2019t mind posting shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what does \u2018The Age Of Everything\u2019 mean to you now?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I\u2019m asked about the album title, everyone jumps to the conclusion that it\u2019s about overwhelm, overuse and overstimulation. That is entirely true, but because I\u2019ve lived with it and I\u2019m a songwriter and at heart a pretty positive person, I think about it differently. If you were telling a five-year-old what \u2018The Age Of Everything\u2019 meant, you\u2019d be saying something very different. If you start thinking culturally about Buddhism or new age-ism, then \u2018The Age Of Everything\u2019 takes on a different slant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JohnnyJohnny Marr live at Manchester\u2019s Castlefield Bowl. Credit: Aaron Parsons<\/p>\n

Given the optimism on the record, do you feel hopeful about the future?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNot in the way that I usually am, and not for the immediate future. Going back to \u2018It\u2019s Time\u2019, there\u2019s the lyric: \u2018Burning up the sun and moon\/ Holding out for too much too soon\u2019. That\u2019s the way I feel about it. I\u2019ve already written one song about the ecology, but that bit of the song is very much about the weather: \u2018Change the weather and breaking it\u2019. My concerns are like all of our concerns. I\u2019m not doom and gloom because I genuinely do admire and believe in the young.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where does that come from?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I sit and people watch in major cities, you see young people en masse going about their day \u2013 young teenagers to young working people. Genuinely, I really fucking admire them, man. I admire their style, their politics. The current young generation are really switched on musically, ideologically, politically, style-wise. I\u2019m not being too crazy and utopian here, but let\u2019s not forget that.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor older people who have got their heads screwed on, they\u2019ve talked about it for years. It\u2019s in David Hockney<\/a>\u2019s interviews, and it\u2019s certainly in Aldous Huxley\u2019s interviews, Joan Didion, Susan Sontag. There\u2019s a recognition and faith in young people, and they\u2019re the sort of people I aspire to think like.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

What do you make of Andy Burnham\u2019s chances as Prime Minister, seeing as he\u2019s a former Manchester mayor who seems into music and culture, and has even been playing your songs on guitar<\/a>?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNow that you\u2019ve actually listed those character traits, I don\u2019t think he\u2019s got a chance at all \u2013 being into culture and music. It\u2019s heartening to see any Labour leader last six weeks without getting absolutely piled in on by everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe North-South thing, I don\u2019t give a shit about. There are bigger things to think about. I can see that he can post shit on Instagram, but there\u2019s more to running a country and world politics than understanding the algorithm. Let\u2019s start getting serious with some real issues, but we\u2019ve got to give the guy a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s not forbidden from listening to The Smiths like David Cameron<\/a>?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe absolutely isn\u2019t, but some people are alright. I understand cool by association when I see it, do you know what I mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnny Marr\u2019s \u2018The Age Of Everything\u2019 is released this Friday (October 2), before tour dates in Liverpool, Mexico and South America.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johnny Marr has spoken to NME about his new solo album \u2018The Age Of Everything\u2019, his love of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":["post-864819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}