Johnny Marr is probably most recognised for his work with The Smiths, distinguishing the band’s sound with jangle pop riffs. A band that were not around for as long as you might think. In 5 short years the Morrissey/Marr song-writing team released 73 songs across LP’s, EP’s, Singles and B-Sides. A lifetime’s worth of incredible music. 

Marr has also been a member of The Pretenders, The The, Electronic, Modest Mouse and The Cribs. He has also provided guitars as a session musician for Crowded House, Talking Heads, Hans Zimmer, John Frusciante, Noel Gallagher and Girls Aloud…

He is the guitar anti-hero. Johnny Marr riffs may sound simple and he ensures the listener never gets bored. He combines arpeggios and two-string melodies with countless open tunings and raised tunings and the use of a capo. Sometimes layering 3 or 4 guitar parts on top of one another. When you sit down to learn these guitar parts, you realise it’s not as simple as it may seem.

His guitar playing on The Smiths records is far more advanced and technical than most guitar players. He keeps it fresh by constantly exploring the fretboard and coming up with crazy innovative ideas, for example, when recording This Charming Man Johnny took an open-tuned Telecaster and set it down on top of a Fender Twin Reverb with the vibrato on full. He then dropped knives on the guitar, hitting random strings. This astonishing effect is all buried under a whopping 15 guitar parts in total.

A key part of Johnny’s sound also comes from the effects he uses live and in the studio. From the typical shimmering chorus that really fatten up his sound and give the illusion that there’s more than 1 guitar, to the lashings of reverb and delay on the major 7th chords and intricate lead lines.

Johnny uses a lot of different guitars, most notably the Rickenbacker 330, Gibson 355 along with countless Stratocasters, Telecasters and acoustics. Amp-wise he can be seen using Fender twins, Roland Jazz Chorus and a Fender Pro. The gear he uses shapes his sound but is not essential in order to imitate.