While the feuding between former Smiths singer Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr gets the headlines, it's not the only fraught relationship between the ex-members of that band. Until recently, their only other living member, drummer Mike Joyce, hadn't spoken to either Morrissey or Marr since 1996, when he sued them over unpaid royalties.
Joyce tells Britain's NME that a slight thaw has recently penetrated the iciness between him and Marr. It started when the two both showed up for a private service in their hometown Manchester, England a year after Smiths' bassist Andy Rourke's death from pancreatic cancer on May 19th, 2023. Joyce says he and Marr had a "good chat" there that broke the nearly 30-year silence.
They then had a chance meeting less than a week later at Manchester City soccer game, where Joyce and Noel Gallagher of Oasis had been invited to appear. Unknown to Joyce, Marr was there with Gallagher. According to Joyce, he told Marr, "Alright, mate, we’ll have to stop meeting like this." He described the rest of the meeting as "funny" and said the two have decided to "keep it civil about things and businesslike in business."
Meanwhile, a crowdfunded mural of Rourke that Joyce had commissioned will be installed at The Wheatsheaf pub in Manchester, will be unveiled on November 21st, which not coincidentally is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Day.
AND what about the feud between The The Cure and Oasis? Here's more on that !