Ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr recently admitted in an interview that he called his Mum due to the excitement of working on the new James Bond movie, and to be fair to him, he had a lot to boast about. The soundtrack for the 25th Bond film featured him working on one of the most famous film franchises of all time, with some of the most well-known names in both popular and film-music circles.
Some of the things he could have mentioned to her include working with soundtrack-extraordinaire Hans Zimmer, or popular US-duo Billie Eilish and Finneas for the film’s title track – “No Time To Die“.
Speaking in an interview on some of the highlights here, Marr noted his excitement in getting to play the iconic James Bond riff on the title track. “That really was a highlight. When I did it, I went and phoned my mum, ‘Guess what I’ve just done, Mum!’“.
However, the Bond movie wasn’t Marr’s first time on a film set. He also worked with Zimmer for the 2010 Christopher Nolan movie Inception, an experience that Marr credits as shaping his music in a more cinematic direction ever since. “It’s made me double down on some things because I didn’t realise until I was told that guitars in films were a no-no for a few decades because of some atrocities that were committed in the 80s. Inception changed that. It was such a big movie …. Also, because I used a 12-string guitar on all of the [scores], it’s got me back to playing the 12-string.“
Marr has also been very vocal about what working with Eilish/Finneas was like, describing the pair as “a natural musical family .… From a technical point of view, [Finneas’] process is so modern that he can make these amazing records on a laptop …. My experience of working with [them] is just that they are musicians. The way that they conduct themselves and their processes are the same as other serious musicians …. Billie and Finneas are no different – they’re just the modern version …. Let’s put it this way, they would have been able to hold their own in any era.”
In terms of Marr’s career outside the world of 007, he’s got a new album soon for release on February 25th, to be titled Fever Dreams Pts 1-4. You can listen to his recent single, “Night and Day“, below. And he’s also got a tour in line with Blondie this April, details of which you can see here.
