Still, even a rapidly maturing 21-year-old with a few bob in his back pocket and a nice house in the suburbs must cringe occasionally at what the great man has to say.
"Nah, I really encourage all that sort of stuff, the Margaret Thatcher quotes, I love all that. It's as if we went through so much trouble over 'This Charming Man' and The Sun's big piece on paedophiles that now we can deal with all the little bits of nonsense. Things like the Manchester Education Committee trying to ban our shows because of 'The Headmaster Ritual,' it's great. And it's funny because people seem to expect us to be completely separated from what Morrissey says but there are in fact very few times when he isn't speaking for us and I imagine for most young people in this country.
"I phoned him up after that quote about the Brighton bomb and said, 'Brilliant, let's have another one.' What else can we do?"
You could always get up a few more noses by slagging off the pop aristocracy, the Wham!s and Durans of this world, the usual sort of stuff.
"I'm quite wary of being seen as the spoilt brat who dismisses everybody else but having said that, I guess it is exactly what I do. The whole reason for starting The Smiths was in reaction against the horrible state of pop music in Britain and that is just as valid today as it ever was. We are still dead set against the Thompson Twins of this world and their like and what separates us from them is that we don't just replace the mirror in the bedroom for the TV camera.
"I don't want to come over too pompous but you really must believe in your own talent and your own originality and your own... art, I guess. And none of them seem to have anything like that. Let's see if there is anyone I like. Julian Cope's two albums are very good and I thought the Woodentops' 'Move Me' was the best single I had heard in years and should have been a big hit. But then again I was disappointed cos they're crap live.
"The thing that I resent most is that we can sell out any show in Britain and we've had a number one album yet we don't seem to have that mass acceptance that the Wham!s and the Frankie boys get because we're not prepared to play the national media game the way they do. And we're never going to play that game, we demand that we should get the attention because of our songs and our records, not on their terms. And that might sound unrealistic but practically every ideal we have put forward has been met with that accusation and we've achieved every single one of them."
This clear acknowledgement of The Smiths' pre-eminence in terms of record sales and live following, while they're still not being taken seriously by the greater mass of the British people, suggest something of a crossroads in the remarkable career of the one band to have topped the national and indie charts in the very same week. Rock 'n' roll stadia, TVs flying out of windows and the ritual of album-tour-album do not seem that attractive as the next (il)logical step.
"I admit that we are a bit stuck at the moment and in a very tough spot. There was definitely something missing on the last British tour and I think it was the fact that we had ceased to be the underdogs which I quite missed on the first few dates. It was like we had played the Cup Final and come home with the cup rather than the actual playing of the game.
"I didn't like that feeling but I just had to adapt and play on a different level and enjoy it in a different way. But yes, it is a problem and I don't really see a way out because there is absolutely no point in going out and playing the same 2,000 seater venues that we did on the last tour and even less point in playing 5,000 or 10,000. People will always see through that and Smiths supporters would sense a hideous betrayal if we were just to keep on doing that cos there'd be no point, it would just be reduced to an event.
"Every song has to be worth doing every single night. There was one stage where I was playing 'What Difference Does It Make?' seven or eight gigs on the trot and I didn't like the feeling. I knew that this was not why I had got involved in a band in the first place. I don't want to be playing 'This Charming Man' when I'm... 22."
With "selected nice and unusual venues" as the chosen way ahead for The Smiths in the live sphere, it looks as if we are going to be hearing more and more from them on record over the next few months.
"Absolutely. It's all about quality songs and records, which is the whole point of the thing anyway. By the way, I wrote a real beaut last night, along the lines of 'Hand That Rocks The Cradle' or 'Reel Around The Fountain,' so I'm feeling pretty chuffed about that. But yes, we want to release new songs very soon and hopefully we will soon be able to do that because our problems with Rough Trade are in the process of being ironed out.
"All I can say at this stage is that the next bunch of Smiths songs will be on Rough Trade and I'm pleased to be able to say that. You see, it's not nearly enough for us to know that we can sell out venues, because musically I feel that we have done about, oh, one-twenty-fifth of what we can do. Honestly, we have achieved only the tiniest amount of what we are capable of doing and I'm really confident that we have still got so much in store.
"Looking back on the first album now I can say that I'm not as madly keen on it as I was. I think that a lot of the fire was missing on it and most of our supporters realise that as well. Although having said that, 'Still Ill' and 'Suffer Little Children' and 'Hand That Rocks' are all still great songs. The album 'Meat Is Murder' I still rate very highly but again stuff like 'Nowhere Fast' could have been done better. There's just so much to be done and I'm sure, I am absolutely sure that Morrissey feels the same on this."

"Will the new stuff be radically different? Yes. There is the single which will probably be 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side' and then the album which we have pretty much got in hand and which will undoubtedly shock a lot of people. Well, let's hope so. From a purely personal point of view there will be a move away from the old jingly-jangly guitars of old. Everyone knows I can do that.
"I know I can do it, probably better than anyone else and by that I mean guitar playing with hooks and melodies. That doesn't mean that there will be less guitar playing on the album. By no means! It just means I will be playing different kinds of stuff, stuff very much in the R & B groove, not unlike the groove of, say, 'Shakespeare's Sister'. That has got one of the best rhythm patterns and grooves I have ever heard. If Elvis Presley had had Mike Joyce and Andy Rourke in his band he would have been an even bigger name. I'm sure of it."
Choke. R & B? Elvis Presley? And there's more.
"I like to think that it will horrify a lot of people. I am fairly obsessed at the moment with Elmore James and John Lee Hooker and early Elvis and it's going to be very rootsy. I've still got my pop sensibilities and the melodies will still be there but it will certainly be much less of a radio-sounding album than the other two.
"Talking about Elmore James and that actually gives me a chance to say this. I absolutely despise this label we get as a Sixties revivalist band because of our interviews in the past when we talked about Manchester in monochrome black and white from that era. That is still important but I just hate this idea that we are tied to the Sixties pop movement in some way.
"I loathe most of the stuff from the late Sixties and how can I put it? Let's say that if The Smiths had walked onto the stage at Monterey they would have blown away every single one of those bands. We are an Eighties band. There is a LOT of worth in the Eighties. This generation is very honourable and valorous and quite a brave generation, certainly compared to the decadence of the late Sixties."
Know what you mean Johnny, big causes, small minds, big drugs, big charity records.
"Well, as you know, we don't really align ourselves with any one movement and that is just another way in which we can keep our independence. Like if Pete Townshend rings me up tomorrow and asks me to raffle my guitar for the anti-heroin campaign I would probably do it. But we steer clear of benefits, yeah. Maybe something closer to home might attract us like the rape crisis centre here or the plight of the old people in Manchester, but apart from that we do try to avoid big group activities for charity."
Bill Beaumont, what happened next?
"Ah. Nobody can argue, well actually I know someone who can, against the money raised by Live Aid but it is difficult for me to talk about because of what Morrissey said about Band Aid originally. I personally think that the cause is admirable and that Bob Geldof has handled it admirably. The record stank, however, and most of the acts on the day stank but maybe that doesn't matter too much.
"It should be said that Bryan Ferry used the event for personal gain. He disappears for a few years and then comes back with a new record and shamelessly plugs it at Live Aid. The decent thing would have been to play at least one old song, but no.
"The other one who disappointed me greatly was Keith Richards. He came on and played what sounded to me like completely the wrong tune. That man has paid a higher price for his hedonistic lifestyle than any other artist and it's just too big a price for any musician to pay. What I'm saying, Barry, is that Keith Richards cannot play the guitar anymore whereas somebody like Eric Clapton who has been through the same business looked and sounded fine.
"But Keith really disappointed me. He was like my biggest influence in the early days and now I have got no respect for him at all. How can anyone have respect for somebdoy who wants to spike heroin for 10 years and then regards that as his ticket for the whole event? Nobody is impressed with that sort of thing anymore. And it showed. Cos that was a big test, having to play 'Blowin' In The Wind' on acoustic guitar and he couldn't do it. Can't play anymore."
Along with the man once horrendously described as the world's most elegantly wasted blah blah, JM's other teen heroes ranged from George Best (he's back!) to one Martin Carthy (who he?).
"When punk rock started I was, what, 13, so I was too young to go to the clubs and I started to get into, wait for it, folk music. So I was listening to Martin Carthy's guitar playing and Richard Thompson and I just could not have been more uncool at that time. Then Tamla Motown and Holland Dozier Holland and Leiber and Stoller and discovering Fender twin reverbs on the Patti Smith 'Horses' album.
"Also, my parents were real Country and Western fans and used to promote some country acts around Manchester so I grew up listening to Jim Reeves' 'Little Old Dime' and 'Make The World Go Away' by Eddie Arnold and the occasional Hank Williams. It was a typical traditional Irish musical family in every sense."
Irish?
"Yeah, yeah, I'm the first English-born Marr and all that and I spent many summers over there in Kildare with a very hip uncle who wore suede Beatle boots and played a Gibson acoustic. No, I suppose it's not a very conventional background, it was certainly not the 'get a proper job son' attitude, but the trouble did start when I began to take it all so seriously at a very early age.
"I always dressed as if I was in a group because it seemed natural to let everyone know what you wanted to be and most people at school must have really loathed me cos I went around telling everyone that I was going to have a number one album. In fact I remember vividly having a big row with this bloke about just that and two weeks after 'Meat Is Murder' went to the top he wrote to me which naturally gave me quite a buzz.
"But yes. I was an obstreperous cocky little upstart. Interested in playing in a group and nothing else. Still am. Nothing else matters besides that. Which in those days didn't endear me to the teachers although they knew I wasn't malicious. I was just a disruptive force and they didn't like all the disappearing and the occasional trouble I brought to the school."
While realising only too well the nasty stigma attached to the supergrass, it has to be said at this point that the young Marr was a bit of a rogue, making ends meet by whatever schemes he could come up with and eventually leaving home at 15 to move in with his old mate Andy Rourke. All sounds a touch wide-boy Barry Grant of "Brookside" fame.
"Yes! Barry Grant. Only worse! Still, you could have said Gordon Collins which would have had me worried. Obviously I can't talk too much about it, but my attitude basically is that for a lot of people, not me, crime is the only way to make ends meet. Something like burglary is the real pits, a real shame, but I suppose that for some folk it's the only way to get by which is a tragedy. I do read quite a lot about crime but I wouldn't say I was obsessed by it."
Oscar Wilde meets Jack The Lad. It all begins to sound like an increasingly unlikely marriage.
"Well, so much has been made of that first meeting with Morrissey, but I suppose that looking back at it, it must have been the attraction of opposites. Like, he is a very tidy person and very organised and that was a bit of a shock to me, plus I had never seen so many books in the one room. I had certainly never met anyone like him and it still intrigues me why he was interested in JM.
"I'm still a little puzzled. Still a little confused. Because a lot about us is really very different. Like I am quite into rock 'n' roll and he has obviously nothing at all to do with it. I did say before that I think he needs a good humping and I really believe that. I tell him that about three times a week so you can see that there is a lot more humour in the relationship than everyone things. He is certainly the funniest person I know."
And what about Johnny: Is JM a happy boy when he sits in his garden and surveys all that he has achieved in the last 21 years?
"That sort of thing is actually quite foreign to me because I just look at what we have done and it all seems so tiny and we still have the universe to go. Personally, I have always considered myself quite lucky, I've always landed on my feet. And that's not because it has come to me but because on the contrary I have had to work for everything I get. That is what makes me tick.
"And don't forget I'm still only 21. I really do believe that JM and The Smiths have many many years ahead of them and plenty of surprises in store. I can never see myself working with anybody else and like I say, the Smiths have got a long way to go."

Surprise surprise, but Johnny Marr talks so much and with such a rare enthusiasm and exuberance that it is impossible to catalogue fully of his past obsessions, the real importance of his teenage years in Manchester, his crystal-clear love and respect for The Smiths or a whole lot of other little details. And yes, he has his favourite Smiths tunes but he still loves each and every one of them while continuing to write yet another little beaut for us all to enjoy. With The Smiths at the crossroads, all the best paths lead to the House of Marr.

The above article was reprinted without permission from the August 2, 1985 issue of Melody Maker magazine for non-profit use only.