Nile Rodgers Says Johnny Marr Is Like A “Brother” To Him
Nile Rodgers has spoken to Uncut magazine about his relationship with the former Smiths guitarist, Johnny Marr. Rodgers said that Marr is like a “brother” to him as he reflected about the musical bond the two guitarists have shared over the years.
The Chic hit machine, 69, paid tribute to Marr’s eclectism: “Johnny is fearless. If it sounds like a good idea? He’ll try it. When we first met and we wanted to play together, we were going to play either South African Man or Footstompin’ Music by Hamilton Bohannon. If you were to look at Johnny’s big start with The Smiths, you would never think that his desire is to go out on stage and play Footstompin’ Music?!
Nile went on to reflect how close the pair have become over the years, “I feel just as cool with Johnny if we are together in the same place at the same time. We don’t even have to pick up instruments, we could just talk and hang out. But once we were in a dressing room somewhere for a half hour or so, he played my guitar and I played his guitar. It was so cool, man… I was doing my best Johnny Marr stuff and he was doing his best Nile Rodgers stuff, we had a blast.”
“I can bring anything to him, no matter what the topic is, I don’t feel that anything is taboo. That is when you realise that someone is like your family. He’s like my brother. If I were having a really bad day – which I don’t do, by the way – I could call up Johnny and get into it with him. That’s nothing to do with music, it has something to do with being a human being. That’s brotherhood. He’s one of my favourite people and favourite musicians in the world.”