It's safe to say fellow mancunians / indie royalty Noel Gallagher and Johnny Marr and good friends – the latter even gave the former a couple of his Smiths-era guitars in the past, but Noel dreams of taking the bromance further if that band ever reunite.
“I would love to be in a band and just be a guitarist for a while,” Noel admitted to Zane Lowe on his Beats 1 show while promoting new single Wandering Star from forthcoming third EP Blue Moon Rising.
“Not that band [Oasis]," Noel added, "but sometimes when I sit in with [Paul] Weller I just think ‘thank god for that’.”
When asked by Lowe which band he would join in an ideal world, Noel revealed that a reunited Smiths would be his dream scenario.
“I would love, and it’s never gonna happen, it’s a thing in a parallel universe, if The Smiths got back together. I’m Craig Gannon and I’d go to Johnny [Marr] and say don’t get another guitarist mate – I’m your man.”
The likelihood of a Smith reunion is at an all-time low of late as principal songwriter Marr and Morrissey move ever further away ideologically. Marr revealed in his 2016 autobiography Set The Boy Free that it had only ever been a "very real prospect" briefly back in 2008.
While working on remastering the Smiths’ catalog that year, he met up with Morrissey for the first time in 10 years at a Manchester pub where they reminisced for hours and “suddenly we were talking about the possibility of the band re-forming,” Marr wrote. “And that moment it seemed that with the right intention it could actually be done and might even be great.”
"For four days it was a very real prospect. We would have to get someone new on drums, but if the Smiths wanted to reform it would make a hell of a lot of people very happy, and with all our experience we might even be better than before."
But it wasn't to be.
“Morrissey and I continued our dialogue and planned to meet up again,” Marr continued in the book. “I went to Mexico with the Cribs, and then suddenly there was radio silence. Our communication ended, and things went back to how they were and how I expect they always will be.”
Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds' Blue Moon EP will be released on March 6 2020
