{"id":398370,"date":"2025-09-04T22:24:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T22:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/398370\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T22:24:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T22:24:14","slug":"morrissey-claims-hes-selling-his-rights-to-the-smiths-catalog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/398370\/","title":{"rendered":"Morrissey Claims He\u2019s Selling His Rights to the Smiths\u2019 Catalog"},"content":{"rendered":"

Morrissey<\/a> would apparently like to divest from the Smiths<\/a>. A post on his website<\/a> claims that he \u201chas no choice but to offer for sale all of his business interests in \u2018The Smiths\u2019 to any interested party \/ investor\u201d because he is \u201cburnt out by any and all connections to\u201d his former bandmates: guitarist Johnny Marr<\/a>, drummer Mike Joyce<\/a>, and the late<\/a> bassist Andy Rourke<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When reached by Pitchfork, representatives for Johnny Marr had no immediate comment to share from the guitarist. And Mike Joyce\u2019s manager told Pitchfork that the drummer does not comment on the actions or comments of his former bandmates.<\/p>\n

Morrissey is apparently trying to offload his stake in the Smiths\u2019 band name, artwork, song titles, lyrics, recordings, merchandise, and rights to publishing and synchronization. There is also a Gmail address for \u201cserious investors\u201d to contact, but Pitchfork\u2019s email to it bounced back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have had enough of malicious associations,\u201d wrote Morrissey. \u201cWith my entire life I have paid my rightful dues to these songs and these images. I would now like to live disassociated from those who wish me nothing but ill-will and destruction, and this is the only resolution. The songs are me – they are no one else – but they bring with them business communications that go to excessive lengths to create as much dread and spite year after year. I must now protect myself, especially my health.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Smiths broke up in 1987, five years after forming. In his 2016 memoir, Set the Boy Free<\/a>, Marr discussed the possibility<\/a> of reuniting with Morrissey in 2008. Music festivals such as Coachella have reportedly offered<\/a> generous performance fees to entice the British jangle-pop staples to get back together, too, but the Smiths\u2019 remaining members have rejected those deals. Last year, Morrissey said that he agreed to a \u201clucrative\u201d offer for him and Marr to perform a global tour in 2025<\/a>, but that Marr ignored it. In a statement to Pitchfork, Marr clarified: \u201cI didn\u2019t ignore the offer. I said no.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also last year, Morrissey asserted<\/a> that Marr obtained the trademark rights to the Smiths\u2019 name \u201cwithout any consultation to Morrissey, and without allowing Morrissey the standard opportunity of \u2018objection.\u2019\u201d Speaking with Pitchfork, Marr\u2019s management said<\/a> that, in 2018, \u201cMarr reached out to Morrissey, via his representatives, to work together in protecting The Smiths\u2019 name.\u201d Following a lack of response from Morrissey, the guitarist decided \u201cto register the trademark himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is also an obvious media shift to delete me from being the central essence of the Smiths,\u201d Morrissey wrote<\/a> on his website in January, \u201cbut this cannot work because I invented the group name, the song-titles, the album titles, the artwork, the vocal melodies, and all of the lyrical sentiments came from my heart \u2026 and so it\u2019s a bit like saying Mick Jagger had nothing to do with the Stones.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>The 200 Best Albums of the 1980s<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Morrissey would apparently like to divest from the Smiths. A post on his website claims that he \u201chas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[77,44107,7900,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-398370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-industry-news","10":"tag-legal","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115148374927625743","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}