Matt Johnson was a couple of years too young to be hit by the full impact of UK punk. His urge to make music was a matter of inner demons more than surrounding scenes. The son of an East End publican who used to put on gigs, he grew up with John Lee Hooker, The Kinks and Small Faces dropping by his dad’s hostelry. Going through phases of fascination with The Beatles, Motown and Glam Rock, he left school at 15 and started forming try-out bands.

The advertisement placed in the NME, which recruited synth player Keith Laws to the earliest version of TheThe, read ; “Influences; The Residents, Syd Barrett, Throbbing Gristle, Velvet Underground.” They made their debut as a prototype electronic duo at London’s Africa Centre on May 11th 1979 and began to claw their way onto indie labels 4AD and Some Bizarre, the former releasing a 1981 debut “Burning Blue Soul” as Matt Johnson. Within 3 years, Matt’s nom-de-studio, TheThe would release the most critically-acclaimed album of the year, 1983’s synth-noir classic “Soul Mining”. A further two years along Johnson’s journey into the heart’s darkness, he’d be risking death, strapped to a metal caged chair on top of a boat on the Amazon for “Infected”” the movie.

Charting the limits of the soul within a pop career, while surrounded by big business and cynical 80’s music, was never going to be a smooth ride, but Johnson had a dedication that bordered on insanity. Behind the crafted heartsearching on “45 RPM “ lies an epic story. Studio psychosis in New York and Hunter Thompson-style road trips with manager Stevo lie behind the recording of early singles “Uncertain Smile” and “Perfect”. The mammoth 1986 “Infected” album project- which led to TheThe breaking through commercially with singles like “Sweet Bird Of Truth” and “Heartland” saw Johnson hanging with Tom Waits in New York, and heading for personal meltdown, filming the stunt-filled, groundbreaking longform video in South America.

No phase of TheThe’s progress has been without drama to match the intensity on record. By the time of the globally railing “Mind Bomb” album of 1989- with its banned religious war-alerting single “Armageddon Days”- Johnson was pushing engineers and producers towards nervous breakdowns and mind-surfing on meditation, grape diets and magic mushroom tea. Controversially, he recruited ex-Smiths guitar ace Johnny Marr to join the band and toured the world, topping off with three wild nights at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

The evolution of Johnson’s writing is tightly bound with his personal odyssey. The beautiful singles from 93’s UK No 2 hit album “Dusk” – “Love Is Stronger Than Death” and “Slow Motion Replay” – are shaded by family bereavements. Having shipped out to New York, preferring to conduct from afar his ongoing tussle with the meaning of Britishness, he pulled off a vindicatory feat, covering Hank Williams songs on 1995’s “Hanky Panky” (including ‘45’s stomping “I Saw The Light” single).

It was voted as one of the country albums of the year in the US. As Johnson relocates from NY to Sweden, the personal stories accompanying the new songs on ‘45’ – “Pillar Box Red” and “Deep Down Truth” are bound to be equally vivid.

The refusal to accept that politics, economics and religion are too ‘heavy’ for mere pop music has led to many a misperception about Johnson. His acerbic insight was regularly seen as presumptuous. However, against the recent tidal wave of music as blank noise ’45’ reveals him as a precious, threatened species. After years of being regarded as overzealous due to the desire to talk about globalisation, environmentalism and religious extremism, (both in song and interview) Johnson has entered the new century with a back catalogue of lyrics more in tune with recent events than anyone.

Concerns of country and planet do not, however, dominate on ’45 RPM’. There is as much there about sex and city, relationships from a woman’s eye view (“DecemberSunlight”) and (as long term friend and collaborator Johnny Marr points out) “the idea of change, of something changing, your life changing”. Few who recall the song from the 80s, and many who will discover it in the 2000s, will be able to resist a soul-shiver as the words from ‘This Is The Day’ touch a shared raw nerve of hope and frustration: “This is the day your life will surely change/This is the day when things fall into place”

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UNCERTAIN SMILE (1982)
The original Epic single produced by Mike Thorne and recorded in New York in 1982, featuring the haunting saxophone solo of Crispin Ciao – preferred by some to the Jools Holland solo on the later version. Matt: “Unrequited love. It was a very innocent song. It was written about somebody I was quite obsessed with at the time. And it was completely unrequited and unfulfilled. Perhaps a lot of the best songs are like that in a way, you just have to find a vehicle to contain all of this passion and emotion and if it can’t be the person you really want to be with, then the next best thing is a song or a painting or something.”

PERFECT (1983)
The original Epic single produced by Mike Thorne (Soft Cell and Wire) in New York but radically overhauled by Paul Hardiman and Matt back in London in 1982. Features the brilliant harmonica playing of ex-New York Doll, David Johanson.
Matt: “There was a lot of tension in the studio and I was quite out of it most of the time and must have seemed pretty unprofessional. But I realised then that I didn’t really like being produced. I thought I knew how I wanted it to sound and I just left the studio.”

SWEET BIRD OF TRUTH (1986)
A previously unreleased edit of this infamously banned single. Produced in New York by Roli Mosimann and Matt. Matt: “It was a strange song that one because I was getting more interested in religion or more specifically religious hypocrisy. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism I found really fascinating and terrifying at the same time. I still do. I wrote that song shortly before the air attack on Libya when Reagan tried to assassinate Gaddafi. It’s written from the point of view of a mercenary US fighter pilot who’s fighting a holy war yet has no real belief in God himself until the point of his own death.”

INFECTED (1986)
Extra loud version of this classic track. Produced by Warne Livesey and Matt.
Matt: “I was feeling really pissed off and dismayed by the Thatcher era. It was starting to grip hard and I was feeling pretty affected by all that. The increasing demonisation of the Islamic fundamentalists was another interesting ingredient thrown into the mix…. Also the sexual element is there too of course, and I suppose I was drinking a lot, mainly vodka and probably doing other stuff that I shouldn’t be doing.”

HEARTLAND (1986)
A new edit combines the album and single versions of one of TheThe’s most famous singles Matt: “I suppose in a way that song was ahead of its time because the Americanisation of Britain seems to have accelerated rapidly since then. You see and read about it commented on more and more, just about how much our little island is really losing or has lost.”

ARMAGEDDON DAYS (Are Here Again) (1989)
A previously unreleased edit of this banned single. Matt: “My residual interest in religion and spiritual matters was rekindled… I spent a lot of time trying different things for inspiration. Fasting, living on organic grapes and distilled water for about a month, drinking magic mushroom tea, spending a lot of time alone and meditating constantly. So pretty whacked out in some ways but I got into some very interesting states of mind, that’s for sure. Armageddon Days was scheduled to be the first single from Mind Bomb, the trouble was the week before it was due to be released the whole Salman Rushdie, Satanic Verses controversy exploded. ‘Armageddon’ started to pick up radio play and at least one radio station got a phone call from someone. Basically ‘don’t play this, or else.”

THE BEAT(en) GENERATION (1989)
One of TheThe’s biggest hits of the 80s and featuring the classic Johnson/Marr/Eller/Palmer line up.Matt: “Andrew (his brother) had a painting with that title. I just thought that really summed up the way young people had become so politically apathetic. All hip and cool with no substance at all. All icing and no cake. I recently played that song after some of the globalisation riots and it certainly resonated with the audience”

DOGS OF LUST (1993)
Sweat soaked hit from the Dusk album. Extra loud. Matt: “That song, particularly the video, captured what I’m saying about getting away from me trying to be an actor. It just captured a performance. I just love the performance that Tim (Pope) captured. It has nakedness. But also you (Johnny Marr) brought along that little tub of tablets of medicine and a couple of bottles of Tequila. Then we got the three aircraft hanger heaters and turned them up full blast. I remember James worried that his bass guitar was melting…”

SLOW EMOTION REPLAY (1993)
The last time the Johnson/Marr/Eller/Palmer line up were to ever play together. Probably one of TheThe’s most underrated singles. Featuring the harmonica melodies of Johnny Marr. Matt: “That harmonica part was absolutely beautiful.”

LOVE IS STRONGER THAN DEATH (1993)
Considered by many to be TheThe’s finest ever song. Matt: “It was a very hard song to write because of the subject matter (the death of his younger brother Eugene), but I was very very happy because I thought the version that we did captured perfectly what I was trying to say.”

THIS IS THE DAY (1994)
Previously known as That Was The Day, this newer version of the song is actually still TheThe’s biggest British hit to date. Matt: “My life had just changed dramatically and would never be quite the same again. Just 21 years old and writing a song about money not being able to buy back time. A sweet and sickly nostalgia sickness pervades even from such a young age. It’s very odd. I can’t remember the first time that I started feeling that but that’s a personal dilemma for me, really, trying to live life in the present but trapped between fantasising about the future and dwelling on the past. It’s certainly more relevant to me as a 40 year old than when I wrote it at 20.”

I SAW THE LIGHT (1995)
A huge international hit. Could have been written for Matt by the late Hank Williams. Matt: “Hank Williams is a songwriter I’ve always loved and I just felt like it (‘Hanky Panky’) was a low pressure project to do. I was just enjoying being a singer rather than a songwriter. Interestingly enough in America it was voted one of the top country albums of the year and Colin Escott (Hank Williams biographer) wrote me a nice letter saying he thought they were some of the best versions of Hank’s songs he’d ever heard. To top it off I got a lovely signed book from Jett Williams, his daughter, who said “My daddy would be proud of what you’ve done with his songs.”

DECEMBERSUNLIGHT (Cried Out) (2002)
A brand new version of the song first featured on ‘Naked Self’. Produced by TheThe’s notorious ex-bass player James Eller and featuring the mesmerising duet between Matt and the brilliant Liz Horsman. Matt: “A lot of women talked to me about some of those lyrics, just saying (things like) ‘December Sunlight expressed the way they felt about their relationships.”

PILLAR BOX RED (2002)
Earmarked to become yet another TheThe classic. A direct descendant of Heartland. Produced by the legendary production team of Clive Langer & Alan Winstanley and featuring the Johnson/Schermerhorn/Campbell/Harvin line up. Matt: “Pillar Box Red I’m very happy with. I really think it’s one of the best songs I’ve written in a long time. It’s descended from ‘Heartland’ and is about Britain. I think being someone who’s lived in a lot of different countries and moved around a lot, I feel very conflicted about my roots. It couldn’t have been written from any other perspective but from someone who’s lived outside the country for about 10 years I suppose. It’s just about the British mentality.”

DEEP DOWN TRUTH (2002)
Also produced by Langer & Winstanley with the Johnson/Schermerhorn/Campbell/Harvin line up but this time featuring the wonderful Angela McCluskey of The Wild Colonials and Telepop Musik on vocals with Matt.“There’s a lot of lying in bed, waking up and going back to sleep, you know that twilight zone where you’re half awake and half asleep. It’s about duality really, and just the world that we’re in, the life that we’re in and the concept of time, and the illusion of time. The duality of evil and good, fate and chance, justice, peace and war. Everything is really illusion. So a bit of a difficult concept to put into a little three minute pop song but I was quite happy with it.”

A compilation of singles spanning two decades would normally signal a dimming of the artists’ creativity, but ‘45RPM’ confounds that idea by finishing on a run of recent Johnson work that burns as brightly as anything he’s done. ‘DecemberSunlight’s duet with Liz Horsman is as sharp, moving and joyous a song about escape from emotional enslavement as any of the great Celtic or North American rock bands have lately come up with. ‘Pillar Box Red’ and ‘Deep Down Truth’ smoulder with musical invention and down to the bone honesty. “This album chronicles a 20 year period, an extremely eventful period,” says Matt. “Even though I didn’t make as many albums as I would have liked, a lot of the experiences that I put into them I certainly wouldn’t have changed. A very intense chunk of time.”

A consolidation of this highly personal, stubbornly spiritual ouvre, the inverted commas of ’45 RPM’ frame Johnson as the real deal, wrestling with country and planet, hope and despair, sin and redemption. Through line up changes, music business battles, phases of hedonism and madness, banned works, lost albums, relationship schisms and exile, Matt Johnson has never once shied from his vocation: testifying to the dark truths of our times and exploring the inner corridors of the heart. Not a single cheap shot or easy ride. After all this time, it’s starting to make sense. A fan of Dylan, Lennon, and Hank, a father and a seeker, Matt Johnson is a proper, living national treasure. ‘45’ makes you want to unearth more.

Roger Morton