Former Smiths frontman Morrissey has a very polarizing public persona.
Unsurprisingly, he also has immensely devoted fans who have followed him for 30 years plus.
I read a Billboard Magazine interview with Morrissey today. It struck me how this interview is full to the gills of things anyone can copy to have a more dramatic public persona — and therefore a more devoted following.
Here are a few Morrissey lessons:
1. Agree and amplify
What’s the best way to respond when somebody accuses of you of something ugly? Agree and amplify the nasty fact, with humor and without bitterness or trying too hard.
BILLBOARD: “Feb. 20 marked the 30th anniversary of the release of the first Smiths album. How did you mark the occasion?”
MORRISSEY: “Is it only 30 years? It feels like 60.”
2. Use visual, colorful language
People’s brains work in pictures. So use visual language to make a point, and mix in surprising expressions and metaphors. (The good news is that this doesn’t have to be spontaneous. You can collect striking phrases, plan them ahead of time, and pull them out as needed.)
BILLBOARD: “It’s been reported that you’re now working on a novel. Is that true? If so, what are you writing about?”
MORRISSEY: “I can’t christen the baby until I at least see its head. It’s bad form, somehow.”
3. Surprise by inverting
Surprise shocks people into paying attention, and into remembering you. One way to surprise is simply to defy expectations. For example, when people expect you to be serious, be lighthearted. Focus on the trivial and irrelevant instead of the heavy and serious.
BILLBOARD: “In 2013, you endured a series of unfortunate maladies that forced you to cancel many tour dates. Are you still ill?”
MORRISSEY: “Well, I’m expected to see Easter. It was a bad year. I was in hospitals so frequently that the doctors were sick to death of me, and there’s nothing more ageing than lying in a hospital bed, trying to recover from hospital food. If your illness doesn’t kill you then the hospital food sees you off. That’s what it’s there for. Anyway, it was my time to go to pieces. Much overdue.”
4. Surprise by genuineness and sincerity
If you make a career of being tricky and irreverent, that becomes your norm. You can then surprise people further by taking a serious, no-nonsense stance on an issue — particularly one you find meaningful.
BILLBOARD: “You likened eating animals to pedophilia, a comparison some may find … extreme. Care to defend your point of view?”
MORRISSEY: “I don’t need to defend my own point of view. When you eat an animal you subject it to spiritual and physical rape, you eats its breasts … its rump … you cut off its genitals … whichever way you care to look at it, eating animals is violence at its most extreme.”
5. Have high standards
If something doesn’t meet your standards, you can simply ignore it. Another option is to dismiss it or mock it.
BILLBOARD: “Prince recently revealed that he’s an exceptional ping-pong player. What surprising, secret talent do you have?”
MORRISSEY: “I’m an exceptional ping-pong player.”
6. … And go back to surprising by inverting
Inverting the expected into the unexpected is a deep well you can go back to over and over.
BILLBOARD: “Lastly, what’s one piece of advice you wish someone had given you in 1984?”
MORRISSEY: “You should always judge a book by its cover.”