...Sumner says, “Raise The Pressure didn’t hit the spot, so we felt we had to change things. A lot of the feedback we were getting suggested that there wasn’t enough of Johnny’s guitar and we had to agree he was under-utilised.
“Synthesizers were banned in The Smiths so when we began working together I brought all my synths into the studio and Johnny started to explore them. He wanted a holiday from the guitar, and so did I really.”
The duo’s refocused approach was reflected in the way they wrote the album’s songs. Instead of writing in the studio, putting down the technology first, they simply sat down with a guitar round at each other’s homes, penning melodies and vocal lines.

Marr says, “It felt natural to plug in and write a song on the guitar again. We didn’t want to spend a great deal of time on it. In the past we’ve used the studio as an instrument and we’ve written as we recorded. There’s a place for that but this time we had most of the songs ready.”