Johnny Marr and Maxine Peake have collaborated on a new project, which sets Peake’s spoken word performances to Marr’s instrumental soundscapes. The first taster of the project comes with the lead track “The Priest“, which is out now.
“The Priest” is based upon the characters that Joe Gallagher met on the streets in the first few days after becoming homeless in Edinburgh. Gallagher wrote a diary of his experiences for the Big Issue under the pseudonym James Campbell when he first became homeless in May 2015 and continued until he found a new home in March 2016.
“I wanted to do something different and I thought of asking Maxine to collaborate having been a fan of her work,” says Marr. “We started a creative process that clicked and culminated in ‘The Priest’, a song and short film inspired by a facet of modern life as we see it and feel it.”
The accompanying short film for the track was filmed in Manchester and features Molly Windsor, who recently alongside Peake in the BBC drama Three Girls.
Johnny Marr is due to release his third solo album in spring 2018.