Brilliant guide to what’s on

JOHNNY’S HOME FOR AN APOLLO SHOW:

AS a kid growing up in Ardwick, Johnny Marr still remembers the excitement he felt when flashy cars would pull up outside the Apollo with a visiting TV or film star inside.

Back then it was still a cinema, where he’d go to watch action films at every weekend at the ABC Minors children’s club in the late 60s and early 70s. “It was a really bustling, vibrant area, Ardwick Green in the 70s, and it was very strongly working class,” he recalls.

“The Apollo to me was like this big symbol of glamour, I suppose. It was a very exciting landmark. I used to walk past it every day to school on Stockport Road and occasionally there’d be a big car outside, a Roller or a Merc with a visiting TV or film star there signing autographs. It didn’t often happen, but that would be really exciting for all the neighbourhood kids.”

Later, when it became a music venue, he would hang around the back doors trying to sneak in to gigs, eager to see “every band that played there whether I liked them or not - T Rex, Thin Lizzy, Blondie, Fleetwood Mac”. Standing there in the crowd was “an apprenticeship, almost”.

Before forming The Smiths with Morrissey in 1982, he used to dream of being up on that stage, so it’s always a special homecoming when he gets to play there as he does this weekend.

“I used to imagine that, I wanted it to be part of my future. That was what my focus was all about from being a child: being a performer, playing my guitar and people coming out to see me. It’s amazing that it’s come true,” he says.

“[The Apollo] feels like part of my life story as a fan and a musician, as a kid and as an adult. It always feels special to play there; there’s a degree of familiarity and a sense of homecoming.”

His latest tour comes in support of his third solo album Call the Comet, which has received some of the best reviews of his career. Writing it, he says, was an escape from the political and societal turbulence of the last few years, from social media and “all those things we’ve had to adapt to, whether we like it or not”.

“Music is a way of dealing with things. I felt like the best way to deal with the way the world had changed with Brexit and the American election was to do what I’d done from being a child, which is writing and making music,” he says.

“On a personal level it’s therapeutic but luckily I always have an end game, which is making a decent guitar record. I feel a duty to make records that feature the guitar.

“I managed to do all of that without the record being actually political. It’s about personal reaction to it rather than expressing an opinion or dissent.”

Instead, he preferred to imagine an alternative society while writing the semi-conceptual album - “one where equality isn’t an issue and people don’t have to fight for it,” he says.

“One that isn’t completely controlled by corrupt media, one where people who have got fewer privileges feel like they’ve got an equal voice and where everybody feels they are being listened to. All of that would be a start. I think there’s a lot of people who don’t feel that way.”

Marr couldn’t be more different in his politics and the way he voices them than Morrissey, who pronounced his support for far-right anti-Islam party For Britain earlier this year in an open letter on his website. It’s a stance that has alienated some fans of The Smiths - a group of whom staged an antiracism rally in Manchester this summer to coincide with his scheduled, then cancelled, gig at Castlefield Bowl.

“The Smiths were about equality and about a voice for the disenfranchised and disenchanted. No matter what your sexual orientation was or your country of origin or your personality, it was all about equality, and I’ve never really changed,” says Marr.

“Personally, Morrissey and I were always very different and always will be, but that’s okay. Chemistry is the thing that makes creative partnerships very interesting and it’s usually the thing that makes it untenable as well. I understand all of that. I don’t think it’s particularly sad or unfortunate either. I’m glad we’re different.”

A reunion, then, is the last thing on his mind. “I wouldn’t want a reformation because right now my mind is on the shows I play, the songs I write and the collaborations I’m doing,” says Marr. “I’m probably the last person in the world with a Smiths reunion on my mind.”

Those collaborations include a new album he is writing with actress Maxine Peake, following on from the short film and spoken word track they released together last year, The Priest - a first person account of homelessness based on the poetry of former Big Issue salesman Joe Gallagher and starring Peake’s Three Girls co-star Molly Windsor.

“The area we’re working in is a sociological observation and I suppose what we do is we take snapshots and we get our impressions and we then internalise it individually and then work on it together,” he says.

“One of the things that was so great about The Priest was it was something very specific where we could talk about society without putting ourselves in the position of hectoring.

“The film we made with Molly was something that everybody can understand and relate to. If we continue to make the work do that, I would see that as an artistic success.”

The pair hope to resume writing together next year and eventually take the completed album out on the road as a live show.

“Maxine and I are trying to figure that out all the time,” he says.

“We’re both workaholics so Maxine is always busy writing and I’m away on the road but the two of us both want to finish what we started.”

Johnny Marr plays at the O2 Apollo on Sunday.