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Mike Joyce has reflected on the fan response to Morrissey‘s politics and shed light on their “unusual relationship” in a new interview.
The Smiths drummer is set to share his autobiography, The Drums, this Thursday (November 6), promising fans a “no-holds-barred” view of the band from “the perspective of the self-confessed biggest Smiths fan in the world”.
He sat down with the Guardian ahead of the book’s release and looked back at his time in the band, charting their infamously legal battles and the ongoing controversy Morrissey’s worldviews have garnered.
His perceived proximity to the far-right made headlines as far back as 2016, when he hailed the Brexit result as “magnificent” and called Farage a “liberal educator”.
Later, in 2018, Morrissey said that he “despises” racism and fascism in an open letter that threw support behind the far-right party For Britain, which Anne Marie Waters formed following her departure from UKIP after Farage dubbed her and her supporters “Nazis and racists”.
Backlash continued in 2019 when Morrissey wore a badge featuring the logo of far-right anti-Islam political party For Britain during an appearance on Fallon, something he went on to address in an interview held by his nephew, Sam Etsy Rayner.
“From what I’ve gleaned, he’s certainly got very different politics to mine,” Joyce said.
“But that’s his opinion. He just seems very angry about a lot of things. Of course, I hear it – people saying, ‘I can’t listen to the Smiths. I can’t separate the art from the artist.’ If that’s how you feel, that’s fine,” he added.
He did add that the choice to avoid their music didn’t make sense to him, but acknowledged he was “listening to it from a very different perspective”.
We spoke to Marr back in 2019 after Morrissey’s music was banned from record stores over his support of For Britain, and asked the guitarist if he had similar worries about a new generation of fans missing out on the music of The Smiths as a result.
“No. I don’t think you can change history. I’ve said that before, I’m not worried,” he said at the time. “It’s got nothing to do with my world or my life. The songs are out there for people to judge, relate to and hear. I think that’s all going to be forgotten in a few weeks, as these things inevitably are – for better or worse. It’s always been that way.”
We also spoke to Joyce last year about ending his decades-long feud with Marr, who he hadn’t spoken to since he sued Marr and Morrissey in 1996 over The Smiths’ royalties. The drummer won the case and was awarded £1million damages.
Joyce told NME he met Marr at a private service in Manchester last May to mark a year since the death of Andy Rourke from pancreatic cancer.
“I’d seen Johnny at Manchester City games and we’d keep it civil, but there’d be no conversation,” said Joyce. “I knew Johnny was going to be at Andy’s service and I thought: ‘This isn’t about me or Johnny, it’s nothing other than Andy’. With that in mind, I was quite comfortable about seeing Johnny.
“It wasn’t tough when I saw him, it was just unusual, as I hadn’t spoken properly to Johnny for years and years. But we had a good chat there.”
In the Guardian article, Joyce looked back to the band’s formation and said Morrissey “hardly spoke to me”, and explained why he found it hard to describe him in the book. “I don’t want it to sound like I didn’t like Morrissey. He was fucking great. Very funny bloke, cutting humour. But it was such an unusual relationship. There was a distance. I accepted we were just very different people.”
Their differences have seen Morrissey take to his website to confirm that he had “no choice but to offer for sale all of his business interests” in The Smiths to any potential investors or parties.
He explained: “I am burnt out by any and all connections to [Johnny] Marr, [Andy] Rourke, [Mike] Joyce. I have had enough of malicious associations. With my entire life I have paid my rightful dues to these songs and these images. I would now like to live disassociated from those who wish me nothing but ill-will and destruction, and this is the only resolution.”
A subsequent update announced that the email address for offers had been “switched off” due to a “colossal response”.
Elsewhere, he revealed that he had “politely declined” an invitation to perform at Reform UK’s party conference.
The Drums is available for pre-order now, with HMV offering a limited hardback edition – limited to one copy per customer – signed by Mike Joyce himself.
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