While a Smiths reunion still isn’t happening, Morrissey is now explaining why he wanted one.
Back in August, shortly after the similarly feuding Oasis announced they were getting back together, Morrissey said that he and guitarist Johnny Marr were presented with a “lucrative offer” to reunite and tour together as The Smiths for the first time since the band broke up in 1987. Morrissey said he agreed, but Marr “ignored the offer.” Marr later clarified, “I didn’t ignore the offer – I said no.”
Morrisey has now given an interview to writer Fiona Dodwell, in which he says he agreed to the reunion because “it felt like the last time such a thing would be possible.”
“We’ve all begun to grow old,” Morrissey says. “I thought the tour that was offered would be a good way of saying thank you for those who have listened for what suddenly feels like a lifetime.”
“It wasn’t because I had any emotional attachment to Marr,” he adds. “I have absolutely none.”
To underscore that point, Morrissey says Marr “seems to me to be just as insecure and fearful as he was during the 1980s.”
“But he gains more press adoration by pretending to be the Smiths gatekeeper and custodian in isolation, and as long as he is sitting in a corner complaining about me he has a pedestal which would disappear in the event of a reunion,” Morrissey says. “He claims to find me completely indigestible, but whenever he walks onto a stage he sings my lyrics, my vocal melodies and my song titles. Is this hypocrisy or self-deception?”
He adds, “[Marr] has forced people to choose between Morrissey and Marr, and I’ve had just about enough of his b****slap comments.”
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