00:00 It's a very odd thing because I've been doing it for a very long time.
00:04 And it's been a very natural thing because of when I was growing up.
00:12 I think I've got a unique experience on this one that others may not have.
00:17 Others will give you a very different answer and they may feel that they have to assume
00:21 almost a theatrical role, as if they're playing a part.
00:26 I don't, because of my age I was a first generation Smiths fan.
00:33 Listening to John Pill, hearing what the new single would be,
00:36 going to the record shop the following week and buying the 7" and the 12",
00:40 watching the TV shows as albums were launched and they were playing the following week.
00:45 I was recording on a VHS the TV performances as they were being broadcast.
00:50 So I was a teenager growing up affected by my pop idols.
00:56 And I would say that I absorbed, just like you sort of tend to do,
01:01 teenagers become influenced by their heroes.
01:07 I think I sort of either I responded to Morrissey because I felt that I was,
01:14 that there was a lot, I saw something in him that I saw in myself,
01:17 or that I became affected by him as a teenager.
01:20 And these have then become traits that are now just part of my personality.
01:23 But I've said to many journalists that if you catch me in the supermarket squeezing fruit,
01:29 I squeeze fruit like Morrissey squeezes fruit. And it's very natural.
01:35 And so I take it on to stage with me and I don't have to worry about trying to affect
01:45 studied moves like, oh, he did that on TV. I better do this.
01:51 It doesn't go through my head. It's a very natural performance.
01:54 I was as an original performer back in the day, unless so now because of the nature,
01:59 because also I now play, I sing and play guitar with my original band, Beautiful Mechanica.
02:05 We're more sort of dream pop placebo, Swady type band,
02:08 cocktail, twin cigarettes, after sex influence, all the stuff.
02:11 So it's very different. But when I was with Ted, I was a Morrissey like performer anyway.
02:16 I was a very flamboyant sort of front man with a sort of tongue in cheek humor.
02:21 So that's carried into what I do with the Smiths.
02:24 But if someone said to me, I don't know, you're less like Morrissey and a bit more Jarvis Cocker or Brad Anderson,
02:30 I would go, yeah, OK, I can see how that seeped into my performance.
02:34 It's a very odd thing. And I think it's another part of us sort of just not playing by the rules.
02:39 We're just not we're just not textbook. We're very authentic.
02:43 And our huge fan base has allowed us to be authentic to ourselves because
02:50 they're less bothered about whether I come on stage brandishing gladioli or wearing glasses.
02:58 They're more concerned of like the gig sounding like a Smith show and the energy of a live band
03:05 who've been playing for so long that they just just know instinctively what's coming next.
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