The The
are an English rock band from London, formed in 1979 by singer-songwriter Matt Johnson, the only constant member, and often the sole member.
achieved critical acclaim and commercial success in the UK, with 15 chart singles, seven reaching the top 40. Their most successful studio album, Infected, spent 30 weeks on the chart. They followed this with the top-ten studio albums Mind Bomb and Dusk.
The The operated as a solo project from 1982 to 1987, though albums featured contributions from musicians such as Jools Holland, JG Thirlwell and Neneh Cherry. It became a full band from 1988 to 2002 and featured the guitarist Johnny Marr until 1994. The The went on hiatus from 2002 to 2017, and released their first studio album in 24 years, Ensoulment, in 2024.
History
Early years (1977–1981)
While trying to get his band going, in 1978 Matt Johnson had recorded a solo demo album which he sold at various underground gigs on cassettes. In 1979, working with Colin Lloyd-Tucker Johnson recorded his first album proper, Spirits. This album remains unreleased, though the track "What Stanley Saw" was later licensed to Cherry Red Records for their Perspectives and Distortion compilation album, which also featured Virgin Prunes, Lemon Kittens, Thomas Leer, Kevin Coyne and Mark Perry.In November 1977 Johnson had placed an advertisement in NME seeking "bass/lead guitarist" who liked the Velvet Underground and Syd Barrett. In 1979 he placed a second advertisement in the NME, stating his new influences as the Residents and Throbbing Gristle.
made their debut at London's Africa Centre on 11 May 1979, third on the bill to Scritti Politti and PragVEC, using backing tape tracks that Johnson created at his day job at De Wolfe studios for the drums and bass. The band at this point consisted of Johnson on vocal, electric piano, guitar and tapes and Keith Laws on synthesiser and tapes. Laws suggested the name to Matt Johnson.
As was now getting under way, Johnson was simultaneously working with experimental synth-pop combo the Gadgets, a studio group he formed with Colin Lloyd Tucker, his colleague at De Wolfe recording studios.
Peter Ashworth, then known as Triash and later to become a noted photographer, became drummer in 1980, and Tom Johnston was added on bass. Although both Ashworth and Johnston were credited with appearing on debut single on 4AD Records, neither actually played on the recordings, which were produced by Wire members Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis. All instruments were played by Johnson and Laws. Johnston and Ashworth soon dropped out of and returned to their respective day jobs. As a duo, began performing concerts with Wire, Cabaret Voltaire, DAF, This Heat, the Birthday Party and Scritti Politti.
In early 1981 also contributed the composition "Untitled" to the Some Bizzare Album. In September of that year Johnson and Laws signed a recording contract with Some Bizzare Records and released the 7" single "Cold Spell Ahead". By this stage Matt Johnson had begun playing all the instruments himself so Laws left to pursue his studies, leaving Johnson as a solo artist using a group moniker.
Johnson was signed up later in 1981 to 4AD Records by Ivo Watts-Russell to record a solo studio album, Burning Blue Soul. All instrumentation and vocals were performed by Johnson, but the album featured various producers including Wire's Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis, Ivo and Johnson himself. Years later, owing to a request from Johnson, it would be re-issued and credited to so all of his albums would be in the same rack together.
Towards the end of 1981 Colin Lloyd-Tucker and Simon Fisher Turner joined the band for a series of stripped-down acoustic concerts in London.
Matt Johnson solo years (1982–1987)
Johnson spent the next few years collaborating with a diverse range of creative individuals, changing personnel from project to project.next single was a retooling of "Cold Spell Ahead", now entitled "Uncertain Smile". Produced in New York by Mike Thorne, it reached No. 68 in the UK singles chart. This version is different from the more familiar album version, and featured saxophone and flute by session musician Crispin Cioe rather than the piano of Squeeze's Jools Holland.
In 1982, the intended debut album by was recorded, but was never officially mixed nor released. Johnson apparently ran off some cassette copies for friends, and several tracks were subsequently issued as additional tracks on the "This Is the Day" single. "Three Orange Kisses from Kazan" and "Waitin' for the Upturn" also date from this era, and appeared as B-sides. Some of the previously mentioned cuts, along with the tracks "The Nature of Virtue" and "Fruit of the Heart", appeared as bonus selections on a cassette-only issue of the band's eventual debut album, but The Pornography of Despair album as a whole remains unissued.
Around 1982 played a series of four concerts at the Marquee Club in Wardour Street, Soho, entitled 'An evening of Rock n Roll with '. These concerts were weekly for four weeks and featured Marc Almond on guitar and vocals.
released their official studio album debut, the synth-noir effort Soul Mining, in 1983. It featured the minor UK No. 71 hit "This Is the Day", as well as a new recording of performing "Uncertain Smile". Produced by Johnson and Paul Hardiman, it featured guest appearances from Orange Juice's drummer Zeke Manyika, Jools Holland, Thomas Leer and JG Thirlwell.
During more prolific period of releases, from Soul Mining to Dusk, most artwork used on the albums and single releases was produced by Johnson's brother Andrew Johnson, using the pseudonym Andy Dog. The artwork has a distinctive style, and sometimes courted controversy, most notably the initial release of the 1986 single "Infected", which featured a masturbating devil and was withdrawn from sale and re-issued with an edited version of the same drawing.
In 1985, the none-album track "Flesh and Bones" was released on the compilation album If You Can't Please Yourself, You Can't Please Your Soul by EMI.
For their second studio album Infected, still consisted only of Johnson, but was augmented by session musicians and featured friends such as Manyika and Rip Rig + Panic singer Neneh Cherry and Anna Domino. This album spawned four charting singles in the UK, notably "Heartland", which made the UK top 30. It was also unusual for having a full-length accompanying film. Costing hundreds of thousands of pounds, Infected: The Movie was shot on locations in Bolivia, Peru and New York. Different songs were directed by different directors, mainly Tim Pope and Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson.
Throughout 1986–1987 Johnson toured the world extensively with Infected: The Movie, showing the film in cinemas in place of performing live concerts. The film was also shown twice in its entirety on Channel 4 in the UK, on MTV's 120 Minutes in the US, and on MuchMusic's City Limits in Canada.
In 1987, Johnson also took some tentative steps back into live performance. Whilst promoting Infected: The Movie in Australia he had a chance encounter with Billy Bragg, who persuaded him to return to Britain and support Red Wedge, a coalition of like-minded musicians supporting the Labour Party in its general election campaign. Johnson agreed and enrolled longtime friend and collaborator Manyika to join him in performing shows in London featuring stripped-down versions of political songs such as "Heartland". This experience convinced Johnson to put a band together once again.
Return to a full band (1988–2002)
By 1988, was an actual band again, Johnson having recruited ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, ex-Nick Lowe bassist James Eller, and ex-ABC drummer David Palmer as fully-fledged members. This line-up, plus guest singer Sinéad O'Connor, recorded their third studio album Mind Bomb, which debuted at No. 4 in the UK Albums Chart and featured the band's highest-charting single to that time, "The Beat Generation", which peaked at No. 18 in the UK singles chart.Keyboardist D.C. Collard was added to the official line-up in 1989 after the band's former session player Steve Hogarth, who had played on Infected, opted to become the new lead vocalist of Marillion instead. The band embarked on a lengthy world tour in 1989–90 called Versus the World. The live film of the same name, directed by Tim Pope, was filmed during the three nights performed at London's Royal Albert Hall at the end of the tour. Vocalist Melanie Redmond, who had just completed a world tour with Duran Duran, joined the tour during the European leg as a session musician.
The studio EP Shades of Blue was released in 1990. This included cover versions of Fred Neil's "Dolphins" and Duke Ellington's "Solitude" as well as a new original song "Jealous of Youth" and a live version of "Another Boy Drowning" from Burning Blue Soul. This and a later EP of remixes, 1993's Dis-infected, were compiled into a 1994 full-length album for the North American market called Solitude.
In 1993, with Johnson, Marr, Collard, Eller and Palmer, Some Bizzare Records/Epic issued their fourth studio album Dusk, which debuted at No. 2 in the UK and spun off three top 40 singles in the UK, led by "Dogs of Lust". Another world tour followed, the Lonely Planet tour, at which point the band's line-up was reshuffled; Marr and Eller left, and were replaced by Atlanta-based guitarist Keith Joyner and New York bassist Jared Michael Nickerson after Johnson relocated the band to the US. Also added was Boston harmonica player Jim Fitting, who auditioned in New York in early 1993. Palmer bowed out partway through the tour and was replaced by ex-Stabbing Westward drummer Andy Kubiszewski. The band headlined the main stage at the 1993 Reading Festival.
Another full-length film, directed by longtime collaborator Tim Pope, was made for this album. From Dusk Til Dawn was shot in New Orleans and New York. Along with Johnson and Johnny Marr, it also features various characters from the New York underground scene such as sexologist Annie Sprinkle, writer and raconteur Quentin Crisp, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, and pornographic film actor Rick Savage amongst many carnival characters.
Now permanently relocated to New York, next project was 1995's Hanky Panky, an album that consisted entirely of Hank Williams cover versions. Hanky Panky was recorded by a new group consisting of Johnson, Collard, Fitting, ex-Iggy Pop guitarist Eric Schermerhorn, former bassist for David Bowie Gail Ann Dorsey, and drummer the "Reverend" Brian MacLeod. Their cover version of "I Saw the Light" hit No. 31 UK, released by Some Bizzare Label / Epic.
An experimental album Gun Sluts was recorded in 1997, but it was left unreleased by the band after it was rejected for being too uncommercial by their label. severed their 18-year relationship with Sony and moved to Interscope, on Trent Reznor's Nothing Records imprint.
In 2000,, at this time consisting of Johnson, Schermerhorn, Nashville bassist Spencer Campbell and New Jersey drummer Earl Harvin, released NakedSelf and embarked on another lengthy world tour, the Naked Tour, which lasted 14 months.
This same line-up also recorded two new tracks, "Deep Down Truth", featuring Angela McCluskey on vocals and "Pillar Box Red". Both songs were produced by Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley for the 2002 compilation album 45 RPM: The Singles of the The.
In June 2002, made a sole live appearance at Meltdown festival at London's Royal Festival Hall as guests of David Bowie. At this point, the band consisted solely of Johnson, longtime friend and collaborator JG Thirlwell on tapes and loops, and young film director Benn Northover on film and video.