"Activity, whirlwind, tension, explosion," asserts Jonny Marr, reeling off the first words that come to mind when considering his bold and ambitious new solo album, Playland. Described as 'songs at the speed of life', it's the sound of Marr comfortably striding forwards, outside of the shadow of his legacy - painting a full technicolour portrait of the world around him in a style that only he can.
While Britain in 2014 has a lot for Marr to rile against (the Government, 'pseudo-folk' bands, bourgeois leeches), there's just as much for him to enjoy and revel in.
"It's important that people don't think that I'm making complaints because I'm not, I'm just making observations," admits Marr. "In some cases, I'm celebrating the culture and purely trying to reflect it. With my solo stuff at the moment until something changes, I'm quite happy to have my own group who make guitar pop music that you can listen to in the day, on the way to work, on the way back from work or school or college, play it before you go out in the evening.
"The words have to be coming from a similar place - they have to be wide awake."
Playland certainly has enough vim, bite and life to get you out of bed in the morning. Bursting with energy as one of the most accessible records he's made since The Smiths, it was written as a dual reaction to life between London and his original hometown of Manchester. But he is far from piously preaching from the pulpit, he's reporting as a voyeur in the pews.
"I tried to focus on what the preoccupations of everyone were, when I was riding with people on the tube and along the Embankment when I go out for a walk in the evening. There's a sense of chasing things around and being in the culture without any sense of detachment. All of things about modern culture are quite evident in London - whether that's good or bad. Traffic, the arts scene, a lot of magazines, people picking up a lot of visual information, a lot of messages, a lot of slogans, advertising."
"I think we've been living in a culture for a long time now that is really obsessed with the self. What's wrong with rock music just making you feel good for three and half minutes and giving you something to think about? It doesn't all to be self-help music."
It's that sense of 'passing through the streets of London' that gives Playland it's infectious and fluid pace. This isn't an aged rocker bemoaning the passing of time, harking back to his own glory days or attempting to render himself as a prophet of social commentary. Playland is just a singular viewpoint, feeding off the horror and joy of everyday life and giving it back to the world, like a documentarian - but within the frame of a bloody brilliant pop song.
"I'm trying to do something that makes you think outside of yourself," ponders Marr. "I think we've been living in a culture for a long time now that is really obsessed with the self and the journey inwards. I know enough about Buddhism to know why that is philosophically, spiritually and theologically necessary, but what's wrong with rock music just making you feel good for three and a half minutes and giving you something to think about? It doesn't all have to be this self-help music."
The mirror that Marr holds up to modern life takes in a pretty widescreen view. There's 'Speak Out Reach Out' ("the story of a guy who works in the city who wakes up one day and finds himself homeless, he's a business type who wakes up one morning and realises it was all a dream, and how he would cope with it), 'Little King' ("it's about a self-made man who uses the city and countryside as his own resource"), but mostly, Playland draws upon the physical and cultural divisions created by the lifeblood of the Western world: cold hard cash.
"There's a track called 'Boys Get Straight', about where the lines aren't really quite divided," says Marr, a curiosity rising in his voice. "That was inspired by Guy Debord of the Situationists and an essay of his where he was criticising the so-called 'enlightened left' for I guess, selling out at the end of the day.
"It's along the lines of that old 60s phrase 'If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem'. I'm talking about people who know better who defect to the other side, if we're thinking about lines.There's a few comments on certain tribal lines in society, mostly from attitudes towards money."
"I'm really happy if the Government just keep their noses way out of pop music and pretending they give a shit. When Tony Blair got his guitar out, I wanted to put mine down."
When it comes the dangers of the onus being on wealth alone, it's the Tories and recent Governments that sit firmly in the centre of Marr's cross-hair. It's the prioritising of commerce over creativity that really grates, so it's no wonder that David Cameron has been 'forbidden' from ever listening to The Smiths.
Marr laughs: "I'm really happy if the Government just keep their noses way out of pop music and pretending that they give a shit, but having said that, Arts Council grants are very important and I'm still waiting for the Olympics to be over. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Arts Council funding that was cut because of the Olympics didn't ever go back up again! It's a shame that you have to be cynical, but we all saw that coming as soon as the Olympics were announced.
"We should be more proud of our creative types and invest more in them, but rock music and alternative music has always needed something to kick against. When Tony Blair got his guitar out, I wanted to put mine down."
Not only is money at the heart of all division for Marr, but it's the very friction where desire meets delusion, where dreams meet reality, where distraction meets destruction. The very title Playland draws upon the cycle of chasing that little white rabbit of consumerism round and round the race track. Inspired by Dutch cultural theorist Johan Huizinga's essay 'Homo Ludens', Marr saw life as a playground - one that's beautiful, ugly, vibrant and terrifying all at once.
Like a roller-coaster, for every thrill, there's a fall.
"Playland started off as a title about 'arcade life', I found that the city and the way we're living our lives was reminding me of kids in an arcade. What Huizinga taught me was that the question of why we're so distracted, why we can't be with ourselves for five minutes, why we chase consumerism and particularly sexual and chemical distraction and transcendence, in a way that we think is celebratory but quite often seems to cause a detachment, separation and loneliness.
"He discusses how the things that we are trying to find in consumerism and play are the result of boredom, alienation, loneliness, distraction, tension and anxiety. Those things are caused by the very chase. The need for the new iPhone, the need to go get drunk, the need for all the Nandos, the need for all the sex, all the distraction, is actually causing all of the anxiety, tension and boredom in the first place. It's like a loop that we're creating in society."
That 'loop' is something that is firmly ingrained in the history of rock and roll too. While Marr has always been a restless creative, other artists have come, gone and remain who fall into the tragedy that comes when bands start deciding what comes first: the sex, the drugs or the rock n' roll.
With his dalliances with the more hedonistic and chemical side of the rock realm behind him, we ask Marr if he sees too many rising bands who have entered the game for entirely the wrong reasons.
"It's not about the 'wrong reasons'," Marr replies. "Let's put it this way: when it was really handy for me to stay up all night, every night, taking loads of drugs and listening to The Velvet Underground with my mates, I did it and it was the right thing to do. It would be somewhat tragic for someone like myself who has been around for a while to still be trying that on. I certainly know it wouldn't work."
"If staying up for days and doing loads of coke and E and boozing made me make great records, then I would probably be doing it, but it doesn't"
"My lifestyle has always been about what's best for me as a creative person, a musician and a human being - it's not a puritanical thing. If staying up for days and doing loads of coke and E and boozing made me make great records, then I would probably be doing it. It's not like a moral judgement, but no one wants to see a guy who's been around for a long time being all messy. There are some people like that, but no one listens to their records any more. They can't go on tour without cancelling, they can't keep their band together. There have been people like that all the way through rock, and it certainly wouldn't work for me."
He chuckles and continues: "It's hard enough just being a person, and whatever a person has to do to get them through life, that's fine by me, but the older guy who's still going on about his old records, hidden behind his sunglasses. No thanks."
This is exactly why Marr is most at ease either in the studio, collaborating, or on the road. You won't see him falling out of chauffeur driven cars, chasing headlines or milking the legacy circuit. You'll find him following his muse to the next project, for as long as there's breath in his body.
"I think there's probably something I've got to prove to myself, and I like that," smiles Marr, eyeing up the future. "I look at people like David Hockney who's still driven to work in his 70s, and Lucian Freud who painted right up until the day he died. It's totally understandable to me. If you're driven by ideas and are inspired and you love what you're lucky enough to have a talent for, why just one day decide that you're too old to do it?
"When you're a rock musician, you're expected to stand up in a line against a wall in your leather jackets with the other three guys who you've been in a band with for 40 odd years. I just know that the pursuit of ideas has always been a buzz for me. Whether it was ideas for a Smiths single, a guitar part with The The or a new song with Modest Mouse of a band when I was a teenager.
"I've never really known anything different, from being 14 or 15 to not going to school because I was playing with bands, it's just the way my life has always been."
It's all we can ask from Marr. As he enters his third decade in the music industry, he's still very firmly rooted in the tension of the real world, still active, still explosive.
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