Inside Johnny Marr's New Rule: Let Songs Live Onstage Before They Ever Hit Tape

Johnny Marr says almost every band he's ever been in has said the same thing—"we should tour these songs before the next album"—but it "never actually happened." This time, he made it happen himself: eight of the ten songs on the new album were played live for audiences on tour before being finished in the studio.

The former Smiths guitarist turned solo artist will release his fifth solo studio album, 'The Age Of Everything', this Friday (October 2). The songs were written while he was people-watching on the streets of London, while the recording brought him back home to Manchester. He described it to NME as an album made "with intention": "I'm usually pretty deliberate about things, and this time I went in with a clear purpose."

During the making of the album, he kept returning to Boards of Canada, Fontaines D.C. and Gorillaz, while also drawing on his own back catalogue of solo work. He mentioned his experience working with Damon Albarn on Gorillaz's 2026 album 'The Mountain', which taught him to "let things happen naturally, don't force anything, keep your discipline, and just stay calm." He used the same words to describe Brian Eno—decisive, but never rushed.

The Cure in 'Fire With Fire', Depeche Mode in 'All In A Life'

Marr gets specific about the reference points behind several tracks: 'Fire With Fire' carries a gothic Cure-esque quality, and he calls Robert Smith "a guitar player," recalling seeing The Cure live at sixteen or seventeen and being deeply struck by 'Seventeen Seconds'. 'All In A Life', meanwhile, has a touch of Depeche Mode—a band whose 'I Feel You' he's covered before. He also brought up recording 'The Tracers' from 'Call The Comet', when actress Maxine Peake told him it sounded like Sisters of Mercy—the very band that was The Smiths' first major support act on tour in their early days.

He calls it his "most cathartic" album yet, though he admits he wasn't consciously aware of what he needed to release while making it. It wasn't until the night the album was mastered—he recalls walking home at 1:30am after finishing at Abbey Road—that he realized 'Fire With Fire' and 'It's Time' had been quietly carrying everything he'd wanted to say over the past year and a half: about the backlash against capitalism, about friends suddenly voicing opinions that caught him off guard. The improvised "oh oh" harmonies he sang on 'It's Time' surprised even him, he says, but the crowd picked them up and sang along instantly.

He says he believes in the younger generation—and insists it's "not that much of a stretch"

Asked about the album title, he doesn't want it read purely as a bleak comment on "information overload and over-stimulation." When asked whether he feels optimistic about the future, he said: "Not as optimistic as I usually am—at least not about the immediate future." But he stressed he's not pessimistic either, largely because he genuinely admires the younger generation. He described often watching young people on the streets of big cities, saying "they're switched on musically, ideologically, politically, and stylistically," and drew a parallel between his own trust in young people and views once expressed by David Hockney, Aldous Huxley, Joan Didion and Susan Sontag in past interviews.

Toward the end of the interview, he was asked about former Manchester mayor and current Labour politician Andy Burnham, who was once photographed playing one of his songs. Marr's response was blunt: "You list off those qualities—cultured, into music—and honestly, I think that gives him zero chance." But he was quick to clarify that Burnham is nothing like David Cameron, who was famously banned from listening to The Smiths: "He's definitely not banned from it."

'The Age Of Everything' is set for release on October 2, after which Marr will head out on tour, with stops including Liverpool as well as dates across Mexico and South America.