{"id":198078,"date":"2025-09-03T23:36:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T23:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/198078\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T23:36:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T23:36:09","slug":"morrissey-selling-his-stake-in-the-smiths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/198078\/","title":{"rendered":"Morrissey Selling His Stake In The Smiths"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAlmost 40 years after The Smiths<\/a> broke up, Morrissey<\/a> is truly leaving the band. <\/p>\n

\n\tAt least the singer\u2019s 50% stake in the iconic Manchester group. <\/p>\n

\n\tOn hiatus from touring this summer and about to start a series of shows in Canada, the East Coast and hitting Smiths stronghold of L.A. on October 25, the man known as Moz has put up for sale his rights to the songs, the name, the merch, and perhaps most importantly and lucratively the publishing.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a post on Instagram Wednesday, Morrissey said he \u201chas no choice but to offer for sale all of his business interests in \u2018The Smiths\u2019 to any interested party \/ investor.\u201d Possibly running into the tens of millions at least, the successful bidder would purchase: <\/p>\n

\n\t1. The name \u2018The Smiths\u2019, as created by Morrissey.
2. All Smiths artwork, as created by Morrissey.
3. All Smiths merchandising rights.
4. All Smiths songs lyrically \/ musically.
5. All synchronisation rights.
6. All Smiths recordings.
7. All contractual rights for Smiths publishing.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf there was any doubt of the origins of this surprise move by Morrissey, who broke ranks with his now ex-reps at Red Light Management \/ Pete Galli Management in 2024 after just a few months, the songwriter made it clear that he feels he doesn\u2019t owe anything, to paraphrase a Smith tune, to his former bandmates living and dead. \u201cI am burnt out by any and all connections to Marr, Rourke, Joyce,\u201d he wrote today of Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, now deceased bass player Andy Rourke and estranged drummer Mike Joyce. \u201cI have had enough of malicious associations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWith legacy artists across all genres like Kiss<\/a> ($300M for everything), Bruce Springsteen<\/a> ($500M for his catalog), David Bowie ($250M for his catalog) and Michael Jackson<\/a> (whose estate sold 50% of the Thriller singer\u2019s music assets to Sony Music Group last year for $1.2B) cashing in, Morrissey\u2019s move is neither crass nor careless by any measure. <\/p>\n

\n\tLooking at The Smiths\u2019 depth musically from their 1984 self-titled debut to their masterpiece of The Queen Is Dead in 1986 and more, plus the generation defining epic \u201cHow Soon Is Now?\u201d song, the band is certainly a money maker even today. <\/p>\n

\n\tPart of any estimation of the worth of Morrissey\u2019s portion of the Smiths, who broke up in after five years together in 1987 not long after Marr left, has to be the stature the band has in contemporary culture. Specifically, as the soundtrack to many a life, from the 1980s and onward on both sides of the pond.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe band\u2019s songs have been used in dozens of films from\u00a0Pretty in Pink<\/a>, The Wedding Singer, Never Been Kissed\u00a0and\u00a0Shaun of the Dead\u00a0to\u00a0Forgetting Sarah Marshall, (500) Days of Summer, The Perks of Being a Wallflower\u00a0and\u00a0Transformers\u00a0spinoff\u00a0Bumblebee.\u00a0The Smiths also have appeared on TV\u2019s\u00a0Sex Education, Black Mirror, American Horror Story, Psych, That \u201880s Show\u00a0and many more. Love Spit Love\u2019s cover of \u201cHow Soon Is Now?\u201d was theme song of original\u00a0Charmed\u00a0series. Lifting a Smiths title for its own, 2021 drama Shoplifters of the World\u00a0 was about a group of fans reacting to the break-up of the band by taking over a local radio station to make them play only the Smiths\u2019 songs.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo all that, like the Oasis<\/a> and Guns\u2019n\u2019Roses reunion tours, a Smiths revival could see the band bigger on tour than they were in their heyday. <\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, the trial balloon of a reunion tour for an an \u201ceye-watering amount of money\u201d was shot down by Marr last year. \u201cIt was a little bit about principles, but I\u2019m not an idiot,\u201d Marr said on a soccer podcast earlier this year. \u201cI just think the vibe\u2019s not right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe offer from AEG<\/a> Entertainment Group came after bassist Rourke had died in May 2023<\/a>. Morrissey, whose bookings are handled by WME<\/a>, initially said Marr ignored the \u201clucrative offer.\u201d In September 2024, Marr posted his response online, stressing he didn\u2019t \u201cignore the offer \u2014 I said no.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\n\tAdding to antagonism between the two songwriting partners, both of whom have had pretty stellar solo careers the past four decades, has been Marr\u2019s 2018 trademarking of The Smiths name. Learning in 2018 that no one had actually obtained the band\u2019s trademark of itself, the guitarist had his team complete the paperwork. Morrissey, a.k.a Steven Morrissey, claimed Marr made the move \u201cwithout consultation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the time, Marr said not true. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA failure to respond led Marr to register the trademark himself,\u201d Marr said in a September 2024 statement. \u201cIt was subsequently agreed with Morrissey\u2019s lawyers that this trademark was held for the mutual benefit of Morrissey and Marr. As a gesture of goodwill, in January 2024, Marr signed an assignment of joint ownership to Morrissey. Execution of this document still requires Morrissey to sign.\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u00ad\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs of now, Morrissey is taking offers. <\/p>\n

\n\tReps for Johnny Marr, who has been a frequent collaborator with Hans Zimmer<\/a> on film scores in recent years, did not respond today to Deadline\u2019s request for comment on Morrissey\u2019s sale news. Then again, to quote the title of one of the band\u2019s 1986 songs, \u201cIs It Really So Strange?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tErik Pedersen contributed to this article<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost 40 years after The Smiths broke up, Morrissey is truly leaving the band. At least the singer\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":198079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[58025,4580,171,109875,11756,1018,98083,975,109876,31285,109877,98084,67,132,68,84033],"class_list":{"0":"post-198078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-aeg","9":"tag-bruce-springsteen","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-hans-zimmer","12":"tag-kiss","13":"tag-michael-jackson","14":"tag-morrissey","15":"tag-music","16":"tag-music-publishing","17":"tag-oasis","18":"tag-pretty-in-pink","19":"tag-the-smiths","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-wme"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115142996026027529","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}