Johnny Marr's Guitars, Amps & Gear List

Johnny Marr bought his first Rickenbacker guitar, a 330 model, at the A1 Repairs music shop in Manchester from the money he received after The Smiths signed their record deal with Rough Trade. Following the contract, the band received an advance of £4,000, and Marr used part of that sum to acquire a six-string Rickenbacker 330. Chronologically, this took place around mid to late 1983.

I spent the rest of my money on a bass stack for Andy and a drum kit for Mike, and I got myself a black Rickenbacker 330 six-string. I bought the Rickenbacker because I loved the look of it and also because I knew it would make me play in a way that would be good for my writing.

Some guitars are designed to be as easy to play as possible and are great for a rock approach, but as much as I liked the Gibson Les Paul I was aware that it might influence my style in the wrong way. The Rickenbacker would make it more difficult to fall into an automatic rock technique, and from a sound point of view it wouldn’t be bluesy. It suited me perfectly and it steered me towards writing new songs like ‘You’ve Got Everything Now’ and ‘Still Ill’.

Johnny Marr – Set the Boy Free: The Autobiography

The black Rickenbacker 330 became Johnny Marr’s main guitar during The Smiths’ early tours and played a pivotal role in shaping the sound of their debut studio album. Its distinctive tones can be heard on tracks like Still Ill, You’ve Got Everything Now, and Accept Yourself.

This was likely the first Telecaster-style guitar Johnny Marr ever purchased. Before owning it, he regularly borrowed a Telecaster from The Smiths’ producer, John Porter, which inspired him to search for one of his own.

Quite quickly, I was lucky enough to acquire a few different guitars, but I made it my business to get a Tele. That’s why Angie knew I needed one. The green one I used mostly on Meat Is Murder – Nowhere Fast and the title track.

Johnny Marr for GuitarWorld

Eventually, Porter found a Telecaster he thought would suit Marr perfectly, as it had a similar neck profile to the one he used to lend him (more on that guitar here: 1955 Fender Telecaster). However, Johnny found the guitar too heavy for regular gigging, though it did see some use during the Meat Is Murder sessions.

According to Marr, this Les Paul used to belong to Pete Townshend, who got it through Joe Walsh (The Eagles). As a fun history fact, Walsh also gifted Pete his Gretsch 6120 which he used on Who’s Next?, and he also supplied Jimmy Page with his legendary #1 Les Paul, which ended up being his main guitar with the Led Zeppelin.

Marr used the guitar during The Smiths’ 1986 tour, though, unfortunately, there isn’t enough video or photo material to determine how extensively he played it. He also used it in the studio on the songs “Panic,” “London,” “Ask,” and “Half a Person.”

Sometime in the ’90s, Marr gave the guitar to Noel Gallagher, who went on to use it on almost the entirety of Oasis first album, Definetely Maybe.

Marr acquired this 1963 Fender Jaguar from Isaac Brock. As the story goes, when Johnny decided to join Modest Mouse in 2006, he went out to meet Isaac, and at one of their early rehearsals together, Marr picked up this Jaguar from Isaac’s rig and played a riff he’d prepared. That riff ended up becoming the song “Dashboard.”

I went over to Portland to play with Modest Mouse. The very first night I got there Isaac was playing through these huge Fender Super 6 amps which are really loud. I had a Telecaster, and I thought my guitar was never going to compete [with that]

So I went through a bunch of his guitars, and he had this Jag that I never really bothered with a Jag before. […] I picked up a Jag. which was a ’63, and I just went… [plays a main riff of “Dashbord”]. The guitar made me do that,

In Conversation with Johnny Marr | The Great Escape Festival 2018 | Fender

After that first rehearsal, Marr asked Isaac if he’d be willing to sell the guitar, and Isaac agreed. At the time, though, the guitar was in rough shape—it had been sitting unused and dust-covered at Isaac’s place, with one of the pickups not working at all.

Marr acquired this guitar sometime in the early ’90s, shortly after he met Noel Gallagher. They were sitting together, having drinks and talking about guitars, when Noel mentioned a store in Doncaster called Music Ground, which Marr had never heard of. So, they decided to go and visit.

A few days later, Marr picked up Noel, and along with Owen Morris (Marr’s guitar engineer at the time, who later worked with Oasis), they drove out to Doncaster, where Marr bought this 9-pickup Stratocaster

We [first] went to a sandwich shop, and [Johnny] said to me, ‘A bit of advice: before you go guitar shopping, don’t do it on an empty stomach.’ And I was like, ‘Okay.’ So we had a sandwich and a cup of tea, and then he went and bought a Stratocaster with nine pickups in it.

Noel Gallagher – 24:12 / 1:03:08 Icons: Noel Gallagher of Oasis

Johnny bought this guitar in 1984 at the A1 Repairs shop in Manchester. According to Marr, he was looking for a different sound for The Smiths’ next album, Meat is Murder. This Gibson Les Paul went on to be used not only on that record but also on many other projects, including his post-Smiths performances with The Pretenders, Bryan Ferry, Talking Heads, Modest Mouse, Electronic, New Order, and Noel Gallagher’s Pretty Boy.

My red Les Paul is the guitar that’s on more records that I’ve done than any other guitar, by a mile, It’s on everything I’ve done. It’s my go-to for that thing that I think people think that I do all the time. Which I do a lot, but not exclusively. But I do think it makes me play that way—which might surprise a lot of people, with it being a Les Paul.

Johnny Marr on the Most Important Guitars of His Career | Interview

The guitar was however perhaps most famously used on The Smiths track How Soon Is Now. Marr used his Epiphone Casino for the rhythm track, John Porter’s 1955 Telecaster on the slide part, and he used this Les Paul for the main tremolo riff heard in the intro.

Johnny used this Telecaster on the studio recording of This Charming Man, where it was double-tracked with his black Rickenbacker 330. Interestingly, the guitar wasn’t actually his – it belonged to John Porter, who produced The Smiths’ debut album.

The first time I ever used a Telecaster was the day I recorded This Charming Man. The sound of that intro was always assumed that it was a Rickenbacker because that is what I was most known for at the time, but it is actually – mostly – a ’54 Tele, maybe ’53, that belonged to the producer [John Porter] tracked with a Rickenbacker, so it is quite an interesting sound.

Quite quickly, I was lucky enough to acquire a few different guitars, but I made it my business to get a Tele. That’s why Angie knew I needed one. The green one I used mostly on Meat Is Murder – Nowhere Fast and the title track.

Johnny Marr for GuitarWorld

Marr also used this exact Telecaster on The Smiths’ second album to record the slide parts on How Soon Is Now. By that time, Marr had acquired a Telecaster of his own through Porter, a green sunburst model made by Roger Griffin, but he still occasionally kept using Porter’s Telecaster in the studio.

Johnny received this guitar in early 1984 as a gift from Seymour Stein, owner of Sire Records. At the time, The Smiths were in talks with Stein about a record deal aimed at promoting the band in the U.S. Though the band later expressed some dissatisfaction with the deal they signed, this guitar likely played a key role in Stein’s ability to win them over.

According to Johnny, he joked with Stein, saying they’d sign the deal if Stein bought him the guitar—just as he had done for Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones.

Got this guitar on January 2nd, 1984, because a few weeks earlier, when the Smiths were going to sign to Sire Records, Seymour Stine, he took us out to dinner, wine, and diners. We were getting stories out of him about all of these different bands, and he was telling me about when he took Brian Jones to get a guitar in New York.

I saw my opportunity right there, and I said – if you take me to get a guitar in New York, we’ll sign to your record label. And in a moment of weakness, he took the bait, he said sure I’ll get you a guitar. [,,,] We went over to 48th Street in New York, and I saw in the store this guitar, and it was like there was a light glowing around it. That’s the one I want.

Johnny Marr – NME Song Stories The Smiths, ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’

Johnny used an Epiphone casino to record the rhythm track on The Smiths’ song How Soon Is Now. The slide part was recorded on a 1955 Fender Telecaster, borrowed from the band’s producer, John Parter.

How Soon Is Now’ was in F# tuning. It’s a straight E riff, followed by open G and F#m7. The chorus uses open B, A, and D shapes with the top two strings ringing out.

The vibrato sound is fucking incredible, and it took a long time. I put down the rhythm track on an Epiphone Casino through a Fender Twin Reverb without vibrato. Then we played the track back through four old Twins, one on each side. We had to keep all the amps vibratoing in time to the track and each other, so we had to keep stopping and starting the track, recording it in 10-second bursts.

Johnny Marr – original source needed

According to Marr, he also used the guitar to write the song Nowhere Fast (presumably, this also means that he recorded it with it), and he used the guitar at the Glastonbury Festival in 1984.

According to Johnny’s book, Marr’s Guitars, he owned a Satellite Les Paul copy sometime in the late ’70s, likely around 1978. This was after he traded in his Vox Ace and before he acquired his first genuine Gibson Les Paul.

From what little information is available online, Satellite guitars were produced in Japan and were known for being very cheaply made. The 96/L model featured a plywood body, and although it appeared to have a humbucker, the metal casing actually housed a single-coil pickup. The rest of the space inside the humbucker casing was reportedly filled with a sponge.

Marr used this white 1962 Fender Stratocaster to write and record The Boy with the Thorn in His Side. Since that song was recorded around August 1985, Marr probably got the guitar shortly before that, sometime in mid-1985.

Prior to Marr, the guitar belonged to Gary Shaughnessy from the band Sweet Sensation – an eight-piece soul group from Manchester, England who were active in the 70s.

Marr’s 1962 Stratocaster had an unusual modification: an additional toggle switch was installed just above the standard 3-way switch which controlled the three pickups. However, the exact purpose of this second switch remains unclear.

Johnny got his first “proper” electric guitar with the money he earned from appearing on Devil’s Advocate, a late 1970s UK TV show. The program featured 99 teenagers discussing social issues like unemployment. Although Johnny was seated in the front row, he kept his comments brief due to nerves and the unusual experience of being on TV at just 16 years old.

He bought the guitar secondhand at the A1 Repairs shop in Manchester, the same place where he would later buy his famous red Les Paul.

There was also another reason for his silence: the teenagers on the show were supposed to be unemployed, but Johnny actually had a job working at a clothes shop called Aladdin’s Cave. The shop owner, hoping for some free promotion, made a deal with Johnny. For every appearance on the show, he got to wear a new suit from the store and was paid £20 on top of that.

Marr acquired this guitar from Phil Manzanera, the lead guitarist of Roxy Music. In many interviews, he describes it as a 360 model, but based on photos and analysis by SmithsonGuitar.com, the guitar was actually a 330 model.

Most notably, Marr used this guitar during The Smiths’ performance on Top of The Pops in 1983 and for the main riff on “Headmaster Ritual.”

I’ve got a couple of Rickenbackers, one’s a 360 and the other’s a 330. The 360 was the old famed Roger McGuinn Rickenbacker which I don’t use that much. I haven’t used it on the last few singles anyway, although I used it on the LP.

Johnny Marr – from a magazine clipping, original soruce needed

Sometime before or during the recording of The Smiths’ third studio album, The Queen is Dead, Johnny acquired a 1978 Gibson Les Paul Custom. He used it on the album, though not exclusively, and it became one of his main touring guitars for the 1985/86 tours.

In 1994, Marr gave this guitar to Noel Gallagher after Noel broke the 1960 Les Paul that Marr had previously lent him.

Marr’s Les Paul is a Custom model, finished in black, dating back to 1978. Based on photos, he made some minor visual modifications, such as removing the metal pickup covers and taking off the pickguard.

Marr used a 12-string Gibson ES-335 most famously on “Sheila Take a Bow”, and on a few songs from The Smiths final album, Strangeways, Here We Come. He also used it on the song “(Nothing But) Flowers” which he recorded with The Pretenders in 1988.

I wanted the electric guitar parts a lot less layered and with a lot more weight, which you can hear on I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish. The stuff that wasn’t acoustic was mainly led by my 355 12-string; in fact, a lot of the songs—I Started Something…, Paint a Vulgar Picture, and Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before—were written on that guitar. It gave a really big sound.

Johnny Marr

Years later, in 1995, Johnny gave the guitar to Bernard Butler, who had just left Suede, where he was the lead guitarist. Butler had grown up listing Marr as one of his main influences, and the two eventually became friends, which led to Johnny passing the guitar on to him.

Johnny acquired this Gretsch 6120 through Alan Rogan, a renowned guitar tech who had previously worked with Pete Townshend. According to Rogan, Townshend had used this particular guitar on “loads of Who stuff.”

Marr used the guitar on at least two songs with The Smiths: Stretch Out and Wait and Is It Really So Strange?. Based on this alone, it’s likely that he acquired the guitar sometime in late 1984 or early 1985, as Stretch Out and Wait was originally released as a B-side in March 1985.

The Gretsch 6120 that I used to write and record ‘Stretch Out and Wait.’ You can hear it on ‘Is It Really So Strange?’ too. I got it from The Who, and it’s one of the best old 1960s Gretsches that I’ve played. I was introduced to a guy named Alan Rogan, who used to work for Townshend, Clapton, and Keith Richards. I ended up getting a load of guitars from him.

Johnny Marr

This is Johnny’s second white vintage 1962 Fender Stratocaster, nearly identical to his first one. According to the information from his book, Marr bought this second guitar shortly after acquiring the first one – so probably sometime in late 1985.

I liked it so much that when I came across another one soon after, I got it, and eventually that one became my main guitar with The Smiths.

Johnny Marr – Marr’s Guitars

Unfortunately, not much is known about this guitar, except that, according to Marr, it was one of his main guitars with The Smiths in 1986.

Marr acquired a 1963 Gibson SG Standard sometime in the late 90s when he started recording with The Healers.

It was a good guitar to front a band with. A Les Paul would have given me too much to take care of down there. The SG sat better on me, a little bit higher, so I didn’t feel like I was looking down—I was able to sing.

I always preferred the ’63 Standard, with the stock trem. It ticked so many boxes for me, and I really bonded with that guitar. It sounded dark, but not quite as dark as a Les Paul, this dark kind of sexy blues sound to it.

Johnny Marr on the Most Important Guitars of His Career | Interview

Unfortunately, the guitar was stolen after a gig at the Scala nightclub in London on September 6, 2000. Because of this, it’s possible that it didn’t feature on much of The Healers’ material. The band’s only album, Boomslang, was released in February 2003, but it’s unclear when all the recording took place. Based on some sources, most of the material was recorded in 2000. If you happen to have any concrete info on this, please be sure to post a comment below.

Marr got this 1988 Fender ’62 Reissue Stratocaster brand new from Fender in 1988, apparently so he could have a reliable guitar to carry on tour while keeping his original vintage 1962 safe at home.

After parting ways with The Smiths in 1987, Marr briefly joined The Pretenders before moving on to The The, where he contributed to their hit album Mind Bomb. The album, featuring Sinead O’Connor as a guest vocalist, reached number four on the UK album charts, with singles like “The Beat(en) Generation” achieving significant chart success.

This guitar became Marr’s primary stage instrument during his tenure with the band, especially during their extensive 1989-1990 “The The Versus the World” tour, where it was played at every show and prominently featured in promotional materials.

Johnny Marr’s 1962 Epiphone Coronet is his go-to guitar for Nashville tuning, a unique setup where the lower four strings of the guitar are replaced with higher-pitched strings, similar to the octave strings found on a 12-string guitar. This tuning creates a brighter, more shimmering sound, often used to complement or layer with standard-tuned guitars.

Marr used this guitar extensively during The Smiths’ recordings. Notably, it was featured on tracks like “The Headmaster Ritual”, “The Draize Train”, “William, It Was Really Nothing”, and “Half A Person”. In some cases, such as “William, It Was Really Nothing,” the Coronet was used to double-track other guitar parts. In contrast, on tracks like “Half A Person”, the Coronet served as the primary guitar.

I use Nashville tuning all the time. I’ve got an Epiphone Coronet with one pickup, and I string it with the high strings from a 12-string set. It’s a really zingy, trebly guitar. I used that on a lot of things that people think are 12-string, like the end of ‘The Headmaster Ritual’. I also used it on the studio version of ‘The Draize Train’.

Johnny Marr – original source needed

Johnny Marr’s first electric guitar was a red Vox Ace, which he purchased for £32 at a local guitar shop near his hometown around 1977. He became a regular at the store, building a friendly relationship with the owner and even helping out around the shop.

I had been going into a guitar shop in the nearby town of Altrincham religiously every Saturday so I could be around the guitars and hear the owner’s stories of life on the road as the soundman for The Sweet.

After several weeks of free labour my persistence paid off and Duncan agreed to give me a discount on a second-hand Red Vox Ace that I’d set my heart on and which happened to be the cheapest guitar in the shop.

Johnny Marr – Set the Boy Free: The Autobiography

Unfortunately, the specs and the year of manufacture of his Vox Ace are unknown. There were a few different versions of the Ace guitar, mainly in terms of what pickups they were equipped with, and whether the body was made of solid wood or plywood.

This 1983 Fender Stratocaster was made by the Fender Custom shop and was given to Marr in 1988. It eventually became one of his main guitars and the one he would use extensively with The The, and occasionally with Electronic.

My main guitar with the The is a standard gun-metal blue Fender Stratocaster. It’s an absolutely fantastic guitar with a really beautiful zing to it. The new Fenders are really good.

Johnny Marr, Guitar Player magazine, January 1990

The guitar is unique in the way that it has a very rare finish, called petrol blue. Based on the information one can find online, this is definitely not a standard Fender color, so this was probably the case of someone in the Custom Shop doing a one-off.

Johnny acquired his Gretsch guitar around 1981 in exchange for his old Gibson Les Paul. This guitar has remained with him ever since and played a crucial role in the early sound of The Smiths, most notably being used to record “Hand in Glove” from their debut album. He also used the guitar on the first show he ever played with The Smiths, on October 4th, 1982 at The Ritz in Manchester, England

When he got the guitar, Johnny had just moved out and was living with his college friend Ollie May. In his autobiography, Johnny describes this period as highly inspiring, spending countless hours in his room honing his craft. He would practice relentlessly and experiment by layering guitar tracks on a Teac recording machine.

I’d recently traded my Les Paul for a red Gretsch Super Axe and a Teac cassette machine that had an overdub facility. I’d work on a chord sequence until I was happy with it and then record a second guitar part on top. I would then bounce the two tracks together and experiment with putting more guitars on. I could build up the tracks by bouncing and overdubbing and create my own wall of sound.

Johnny Marr – Set the Boy Free: The Autobiography