Johnny Marr talks collaborating with Beck

As Team Hot Press prepares itself for the annual trip to Stradbally, there’s one friend of the magazine who is sad to miss the Picnic; guitar legend Johnny Marr.

In Ireland for his recent gig at Leopardstown, he told us there’s plenty of reasons why he’ll be sorry to miss out on a weekend in Laois.

“The Pet Shop Boys are amazing live, as is Beck,” he notes. “And it’s a well-known fact that Chic are the greatest thing in the world and should be on everyone’s bucket-list!”

Johnny has had the privilege of working with all of the above; we imagine collaborating with Mr Hansen was quite an experience?

“I worked with him on Midnight Vultures, which was the album after Mutations, which I loved,” he explains. “I remember when I turned up there were pictures of Prince all over the studio so I was like, ‘OK, this is what we’re doing is it?’ (laughs)

“The first thing we did was a song called ‘The Doctor’ which is really good but didn’t come out for some reason. Whenever I see him he always mentions releasing it. I played on a song called ‘Milk & Honey’. It was really interesting and he was very gracious, I was grateful to be invited. We talked about doing some gigs together at some point, like having a band, but it hasn’t materialised…… yet!”

Beck and Johnny Marr; a musical power couple if ever there was one. We live in hope…