SDE: You took on a lot with Viva Hate – production duties, co-writing, playing bass and rhythm guitar. Did you give any thought as to how stressful that might be?
Trying to keep Morrissey happy – as a lot of people have discovered over the years – is quite a difficult thing to do.
SS: I was swept away in a wave of enthusiasm, because obviously this was a marvellous opportunity. You’ve got to remember at this time that Morrissey must have been the most revered pop star in the country. I was very aware of this fact and I’m sure he was – he must have had a huge amount of nerves about it too. My worry was making a record that came out and got slated, and I’d be public enemy number one. So it was a nerve-wracking scenario. Trying to keep Morrissey happy – as a lot of people have discovered over the years – is quite a difficult thing to do. You’re walking on eggshells a lot of the time. It was draining. At the time I dropped everything else I was doing, production-wise, so I could focus purely on being his lieutenant – being his co-writer, producer and making the record. I actually did give myself a stomach ulcer by the end of the session because the pressure was pretty intense. When you consider that we didn’t actually start recording until the end of September/beginning of October and then we took a break and did some more writing, followed by more recording. To have the whole thing written and put together from September to Christmas is pretty good going really. I don’t think I’d ever have the strength to do it again, to be honest with you.
SDE: You get the feeling that Morrissey wanted to get the record out as soon as possible to underline the fact that The Smiths were over…
SS: The Smiths were always incredibly quick. Things would be recorded and Morrissey was always impatient to put it out. They’d finish a new single and it was out within the month or two. And in the case of Viva Hate EMI had been waiting a long time to put something out by The Smiths, and obviously it wasn’t The Smiths, but at least it was Morrissey, so they were very keen to put something out. What happened was that I finished the record, literally, the day before Christmas Eve that year [1987], and I didn’t really hear from Morrissey for two and a half months. It wasn’t until Suedehead [the first single] came out at the end of February – and got fantastic reviews across the board – that he got back in touch with me again. If Suedehead had come out and been a complete failure and hadn’t been a hit, I’d never have heard from him again! [laughs].
SDE: You had an almost Johnny Marr-type role with Viva Hate – co-writing, playing and producing, but since it was a Morrissey solo album you maybe didn’t have the level of ‘control’ in terms of what went on the album and what didn’t. Was that the case?
SS: Not really, because the songs we discarded from that session, we both agreed were not good enough. So everything that went on that album were songs that we both genuinely thought were the best work we had done. I wouldn’t say we were arguing about anything at all. The only thing that has happened recently with the remastering, is that Morrissey has made a few decisions that I don’t totally agree with. I wouldn’t say that we’ve argued about it, but we’ve just agreed to disagree.