Chords for Johnny Marr shows BBC Radio 6 Music's Shaun Keaveny how to be a guitar hero

Hello Sean!
Hello, how are you?
I'm good thank you.
Oh I can see you!
Can you see us?
Oh what a vision,
I can see the pair of you, hello.
Can you see where Johnny's right hand is?
I can.
Perhaps it's as well.
Whoa it's just it's just disappeared from shot.
_ Yes we are, we're here and in the classic, in the
ultimate studio with the plaque about Bing Crosby on the wall etc and I was very honoured to hear a
little bit of the soundcheck.
Won't give you give too much away but obviously being here with [Ab] the
guitar icon that is Johnny Marr and we're standing before the pedal board and touching the uh what
colour's the guitar again Johnny?
It's Sherwood Green.
It's so beautiful, it reminds me of a
Vico mint uh biscuit wrapper from the 80s.
Is that what you were going for?
[N] No.
Understandable.
Um whilst I've got you here, everybody knows that I'm a guitar geek and I'm not going to go too
in depth, I'm not going to get too deep on this, I don't want to lose too many of your listeners
_ but you you're responsible for some of the most iconic guitar noises of the last 30 years right
and I just wonder whilst I've got you here, if there was any way that you could give us some
little ideas as to how you've got a normal guitar sound and then what kind of little sprinkles can
you put on, little bits of magic to to sort of elevate it and make it become Johnny Marr, what
kind of things do you do?
No pressure then right?
There's absolutely no pressure whatsoever, I don't
know what you're worrying about.
Okay well I have a device here that's got all my effects in it and
when I'm in the studio I use different guitars and different amps but obviously live you just
need to have something that you can [Eb] just press, hit a [A] pedal and it'll make a sound.
So this is a
fairly straight sound.
_ _ [G] I hope you're getting that at home.
[D] _ [A] _ _
Okay that's kind [E] of a straight sort of
rock sound but what I do is I tend to, I do use like a doubling sort of effect [A] and then put a bit
so that'll do like _
_ [C] _ _ [G] I'm home [D] mama, [A] I'm home.
So that's just a little bit of delay, not even reverb, a bit of delay
there isn't it?
It's got some delay on there [F] and it's also got a doubler that I put slightly,
I detune it so it [A] has, it's basically two guitar sounds and if you detune one of them slightly
it does a [Bb] thing called modulation right.
Modulation, slightly different from a chorus?
[Ab] Yeah
I [F] think chorus sometimes gets a little too obvious.
Yeah that became a really big guitar sound in the
80s actually didn't it?
[Ab] Mosk, we utilized the chorus quite a lot and I think that influenced
too many people and then it was overused.
_ Yeah I used it because Mosk were using it.
You say Mosk?
Mosk yeah that's right yeah yeah M-O-S-K-U-E.
No I was a big fan of chorus because when I sort of
started out with the Smiths there was a lot of no-nos that developed in guitar culture like
sort of blues sound was a bit just out of fashion.
Yeah and a lot of the sort of big sort of rocky
solo stuff so I was you know you have a certain sound you have to work within and the chorus was
all right for me back then but I've sort of developed it so it's a little [Gb] more [G] updated I think.
Well [D] also if you are going to rock out, if you [A] are going to beef it up a bit what kind of stuff,
what do you stomp on?
[Am] Oh here we go now [G] that's the juice [D] right there.
[C] _
_ _ [G] _ [Dm] _ _ That's your [Ab] classic sort of
kind of rock, epic rock standing on top of the mountain with helicopters swirling around you.
That's right with it what I usually have in my dream is a big fan here and I've got long hair
and it's all just flowing backwards you know.
That's the sound of it that's so obviously that's
the image I'm going to be thinking of every time I play that now.
Well there you go it's a little
gift [B] from me to you.
I'm happy about it thank you.
And just for the people at home you're not
[A] envisioned you've got [Abm] just on a sort of sartorial point [N] you've got lovely silver nails is that
something you always do or is that a luck thing?
Yeah I kind of I'm quite superstitious [Ab] and I
started doing that it was actually Kate Nash used to yeah for a sort of bit of a joke she's a real
real [G] artist in that department so she used to paint my nails before I used to go on _
and it just sort of stuck [F] but it looks a bit tacky nowadays because when you play the guitar
it gets all a bit chipped but yeah it sort of works I like it I feel a [Gm] bit naked without it.
Well that's it well I think it sounds better as well.
Well you can yeah it just elevates the tone
a bit [A] if there are any traveling manicurists popping by I may have availed if they could just
you know just just top them up that would be fantastic but I think we better go because I
think the audience are about to come in.
Sean Sean can I have [Am] one more question just because it's
great to see Johnny playing and hear you guys talking about guitar but he's such a guitar hero
for so many people listening and also making music can you ask Johnny who his guitar heroes are?
My guitar heroes are without a doubt Nile Rodgers because of his it's that whole sort of
_ _ [G] _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _
_ [F] yes yes yes all that stuff but without so much delay and of course and really much sort of the
favorite that [E] stuck with me since I very first heard him was is James Williamson from Iggy and
the Stooges who played on Raw Power because _ it struck me that he had he had the kind of
attitude of Keith Richards _ and but he had the the sort of the ability or the technicality of
Jimmy Page but the attitude of Keith Richards and Raw Power to me has [F] never been _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _
bettered
Thank you so much thank you Sean thank you Johnny
_ _ [N] _