Dave Chamberlain

Johnny Marr was 18 years old when he and Morrissey formed the Smiths--who knew that twenty years later he'd never be able to live it down?

"It's ironic," starts Marr with a strong Manchester accent, "that most of the bands who do stand the test of time were sort of pretty much maligned at the time they were really around. Plenty of people were not very big Smiths' fans when you could have actually gone to see the band. And they didn't really care for them very much at the time, so it's kind of unusual."

But regardless of the accolades Marr collects for having been one-half of the Smiths' creative team, he keeps it in perspective. "The idea of discussing a weird little band that started out in a bedsit, twenty years after the event, thousands of miles away, particularly considering the kind of songs we started out writing, is mind blowing really, and I think one would have to have a fairly gargantuan ego to put it down to your own brilliance."

For the first time in his musical career, Johnny Marr is no longer playing behind a lead singer. After the breakup of the Smiths in 1987, Marr's career as a glorified session man blossomed--his most notable work came with the Pet Shop Boys, The The and Electronic--without the guitarist ever stepping out of the shadow cast by eccentric Smiths lead man Morrissey and taking his own shot at the limelight. With Johnny Marr and the Healers, he's not only attached his name to the front of the band, but taken up lead vocal duties as well. The debut record from Johnny Marr and the Healers, "Boomslang," evenly integrates Marr's natural knack for pop songwriting with a modernized, quasi-psychedelic edge.

Oddly enough, Marr never intended to be the guy behind the microphone. "I'd found a couple of guys who wanted to sing," he explains, "and I was pretty sure that one or two of them would have been right. So I was pretty shocked when the band told me that they didn't like them, and that what I'd done on the demos was actually more interesting."

But singing in a studio and getting on stage in front of a live audience are two different beasts. Fortunately, Marr had a tenuous initiation to the task. "The first time," he recalls, "I sung live as a solo guy, as it were, was at the Linda McCartney tribute concert. At the rehearsal, the audience was made up of five people: Marianne Faithful, Elvis Costello, Paul McCartney, George Michael and somebody else. And I had to make out--at that time--that I'd been doing this on a daily basis. So that was a bit of a baptism by fire."

Even after that, he still had to take the songs of Johnny Marr and the Healers and perform. "The next time was the first time the Healers played at a university in England, and I'd kind of put it out of my mind really up until just before we went on stage--so the walk to the stage from the dressing room was pretty intense, because all my apprehensions came and visited me on that long walk. And I just thought, `shit, I hope this works.' Luckily, I hit the stage with the first song, and by the second song they still hadn't fled the place towards the exits."

Alongside the fact Marr plays guitar and sings, his latest musical endeavor marks the initial use of his name as a band's selling point. "The decision to put my name first was made by myself and the band, management and the record company--we figured that we shouldn't try to pretend to be something that we're not. And at this stage, I am writing the songs, and I am singing, I produced it, and although I couldn't do anything without the band, right now it would almost be like Patti Smith calling her band the Shoes or something like that."

Continues Marr, "We're just trying to be fairly pragmatic--we figured that on a wet Sunday night in Ontario, if it says the Healers on a poster, we may get 300 people. But if it says Johnny Marr and the Healers, we may get 303."

But the reason people know the name is, ultimately, because of that little band that started in a bedsit, twenty years ago. After the Smiths' demise, Marr spent the nineties avoiding all discussion of the band. Now, he's learned to embrace it. "Although I am working on the assumption that a lot of people who are interested in what I do now are aware of The The and Electronic as well. But of course I'm most known for the Smiths, and that might always be the case."

Johnny Marr and the Healers play May 8 at the House of Blues, 329 North Dearborn, (312)923-2000.

(2003-05-07)

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