Exclusive Morrissey interview

Hello M

You make me sound like a Bond extra. Actually, I think I'd have been better than Dame Judi. I'm so much more photogenic.

How are you?

As well as can be expected considering I'm ill.

Ill?

I have a cold.

I'm sorry to hear that.

You will be when I... (sniffs and motions to sneeze)

You've played some new material on your tour - is it for an album and, if so, when will it be out?

The new songs are glorious, tangy and simple. They're pop songs but.. they're not pop songs.

What do you mean?

I mean I consider them pop songs but others may not. In the past, pop music was something stunning and simple and emotive. 3, 4 or 5 human beings got on stage and sung 3-minute songs about something utterly trivial and then came Roxy Music and, well, The Smiths and even him (apparently a reference to David Bowie) before us and injected something poetic and vicious. It was popular and it was pop and it was often poisonous. But look at what has happened. Now we're in 2007 and to most people pop music means Britney, Madonna and Usher and I'm relegated to the level of a circus act with minimal popular appeal. There's nothing subversive, heart-felt or even vaguely interesting in the charts. It is the precise opposite of what it once was. It is now conservative, anti-intellectual and mass-manufactured. At least I'm not doing that much-feared 21 date whistle-stop tour of pubs in the Newcastle/Gateshead area ... yet.

Would you ever consider working with a more mass-market act?

If I ever retire from singing, I may consider going into painting and decorating with Chesney Hawkes.

I'll take that as a 'No.'

Well, Nancy Sinatra was a mass-market act once upon a time; some might say I was too.

How is the new album going?

There is no new album and that's quite simply because, yet again, we do not have a record company. The industry is getting increasingly tedious and almost risible. In the past, we had all these hangers-on and sycophants - it was prostitution - and now there's... nothing. In The Smiths, we would have literally scores of people trying to worm their way into our affections and we always had to keep an eye out for those who didn't have the best of intentions. These days, it's basically you and the record company and they treat you like a commodity. Profit margins, marketing, finance, image is all that matters and these people have no conception that they have no conception of image in the first place. The very reason I am in pop music and they are not is because I know about image and they know nothing about image. They think dressing up in leather jackets and playing air guitar on daytime TV is good for the image while I generally prefer PVC jackets. No, seriously - it is insane.

That as it may be, please don't let it delay your album for 7 years again!

The new material is exciting and different again from Ringleader. I loved and love Ringleader but it was the end of something and this is the beginning of something else entirely. We are in a social and political cataclysm and hardly anyone is even murmuring a sound of discontent about the political situation. I feel the need to articulate my own perspective on things, as foolish as that might sound.

Is this album going to be more political then?

Who mentioned an album? I'm writing material for a 5-track EP for release in Japan only.

Haha. Well, anyone can make it big in Japan.

Try telling that to The Cure.

They probably are big in Japan.

Well, they have probably tried to be big in Japan. Since no one in England listens to them, they've always made a huge deal out of being a global act. The only thing global about the Cure is the indifference they prompt.

What about the album?

An album may or may not happen. I feel the need to write songs but I may go back to releasing singles on independent labels. Let's face it - the only reason I can think of to justify signing onto a record label is for the marketing, which in turn allows one to get one's message across to more people, tour the world and ensure there's a future audience for one's output. Yet the labels I've been with have been so disasterous in their marketing that I can no longer think of a solitary reason to sign a deal. Unless I meet someone interesting working for a label, I may simply avoid them altogether and release singles on my own label in future. I know people say you can't do singles only but just look at the enormous success we enjoyed with the 'Boxers' single!

What else have you been doing lately?

Reading, badger-spotting and watching films - just the usual.

Seen any good films?

I've discovered a French director called Techine. In the past, I refused steadfastly to watch French films on principle but also because they were wilfully perverse with no apparent storyline. Nonetheless, his films are spending large amounts of time on my DVD player. A fan wrote a letter to me recommending one of his films and I was instantly hooked.

Do you read all your letters?

I put them into a tombola and select one lucky letter to read each morning after breakfast. The winning letter gets a bottle of champagne, which I drink. It helps to keep me grounded.

You mentioned Rome a lot around the time of your last album - do you have any plans to return to Britain?

I would dearly love to but I couldn't live under New Labour and still have any sense of self, let alone self-respect.

What do you mean?

There is something inhuman about British politics and that's fine as long as politicians restrict themselves to passing laws regulating the use of combine harvesters in built-up areas and drinking their evenings away in Westminster; the problem is that politics has taken on a fascist edge in recent years, with Thatcher and then Blair and now Brown. I cannot believe the British people have fallen for New Labour again and I cannot live in Britain until they consign the re-warmed Thatcherism therein to the waste paper basket. They are not standing up for ordinary people, nor are they standing up for Britain's interests. There is scarcely a non-homogenised town centre left in Britain and the results are suitably depressing for the people who have to live there.

Do you oppose globalisation?

That's a very smug way of putting it but I suppose I do. I oppose the way powerful interests are destroying everything human in our society and replacing it with something manufactured, crass and frankly preposterous.

That sounds very dramatic.

Suffering is usually quite dramatic.

But is it really so bad? - the homogenisation of the world?

I believe it is, yes. Mrs Thatcher introduced it to Britain and every Prime Minister since has continued it. It's not just the homogenisation of the high stree; it's the homogenisation of humanity.

Is it?

Look at young people today. While there are literally millions of brilliant, interesting young people, there are also precisely 67 million probably young people in Britain and America who purchased a Britney Spears album. This puts all other political statistics into context. Who are these people and how did we - as a society - breed them?

Haha, anyway onto the rest of the band, how are they?

Boz is losing weight at my request but is otherwise well. Alain and Jesse continue to be docked 1 weeks' wages every time they speak in the studio and the drummer and bass player are experiencing a creative maelstrom - they have written half a song together. This is, perhaps, the biggest surprise of my life thus far.

Thank you for the interview - where are you going now?

That's none of your business unless you want to come to bed with me.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.