Johnny Marr at Summer In The City 2015 (Photo: Gary Mather for Live4ever)
Johnny Marr has unsurprisingly picked one of the most revelatory sections of his forthcoming autobiography Set The Boy Free for publication on The Guardian.
In the extract, Marr details how close he and Morrissey came to putting the wheels in motion for a Smiths reunion back in 2008. “One day in September 2008 we were only a couple of miles apart in south Manchester and arranged to meet up in a pub nearby,” he writes. “I was happy to see him – it was 10 years or more since we’d last met. We caught up with personal news and family and reminisced a bit.”
“The drinks kept coming and we sat talking for hours. We chatted, as we always did, about the records we loved, and eventually we moved on to “that subject”. There had been rumours for years that The Smiths were about to re-form, and they were always untrue. I had never pursued any offer.”
“Morrissey and I continued our dialogue and planned to meet up again. I went to Mexico with the Cribs, and then suddenly there was radio silence.”
“Our communication ended, and things went back to how they were and how I expect they always will be.”
The full extract can be read here.