On August 31, 1978, while attending a Patti Smith concert, a fourteen-year-old Johnny Marr was introduced to nineteen-year-old Morrissey. Almost four years later, in May 1982, Marr would appear at Morrissey’s doorstep with his friend Steve Pomfret and offer a position in a new band he wished to form. The two spent the next few hours discussing their love for certain bands and the next day Morrissey confirmed that he was interested in forming a group with Marr.

They went on to write a handful of songs together—“Don’t Blow Your Horn,” “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” and “Suffer Little Children,” respectively. Morrissey composed lyrics while Marr provided guitar instrumentation and Stephen Pomfret provided bass. Several months later, Marr and Morrissey had a name for their band: The Smiths. According to Morrissey in a 1984 interview, he had come up with the name as a shoutout to the ordinary people of the world. The group would continue to rehearse until Pomfret reportedly left out of frustration. Pomfret was quickly replaced with bassist Dale Hibbert, and because of his deeper connections with the music industry, The Smiths were able to record their first set of demos with drummer Simon Wolstencroft. Wolstencroft expressed his disinterest in continuing to play with the group and, after several auditions, Mike Joyce was hired.

In October 1982, The Smiths played their first official live show at The Ritz in Manchester. After the gig, Marr and Morrissey expressed their disappointment with Hibbert’s playing and he was forced out of the band, later to be replaced with Morrissey’s classmate, Andy Rourke.

After being rejected by several labels, Morrissey and Marr went to London to deliver a demo cassette to Geoff Travis, the founder of the independent label Rough Trade Records. Travis agreed to release one of the songs—“Hand in Glove”—and it was subsequently issued as a single later in the year. While the band played their second official live show at the University of London Union, broadcaster John Walters was in the audience—from the John Peel BBC Sessions. The group was invited to play and the band’s radio exposure was enough for them to be signed to Rough Trade. Several recordings from the Peel Sessions would later be issued on their 1984 compilation, Hatful of Hollow.

On February 20, 1984, The Smiths released their self-titled debut album. The project was both a critical and commercial success, but was met with controversy over some seemingly disturbing or distasteful lyrics, as the final song was a haunting tribute to the victims of the Moors Murders which took place twenty years prior to its release.

Less than a year later, The Smiths released Meat Is Murder; an album that was more politically charged than their previous effort. Just like their first album, Meat Is Murder was met with controversy due to Morrissey’s interviews that occurred during its promotional period. Despite the controversy, the band would continue to tour around the United Kingdom and the United States, eventually recording what is considered to be their masterpiece, June 1986’s The Queen Is Dead. The instrumentation proved to be more diverse, as Marr would implement string-like sounds on certain tracks—namely “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out.” In the US, The Queen Is Dead peaked at #70 and remained on the charts for 37 weeks.

After the album’s release, the band hired Craig Cannon as a secondary guitarist. Cannon would accompany the group on several singles, such as “Ask,” “Panic,” and “Half a Person.” It was also around this time that the Smiths became upset with treatment at Rough Trades and their partnership dissolved, leading the band to sign exclusively to EMI. The Smiths’ final studio album, Strangeways, Here We Come, was released on September 28, 1987, and by then the band had already broken up due to exhaustion and tension between members. Strangeways, Here We Come was met with commercial and critical success, charting in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

Each member of The Smiths went on to have their own successful solo career. Morrissey’s albums, in particular, have sold millions of copies, and Johnny Marr would form several bands and work with other artists—namely Modest Mouse on their March 2007 album, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, where he provided guitar instrumentation. Rourke went on to join several other groups—some alongside Joyce—and became a radio host. The Smiths have notably influenced other rock bands such as The Stone Roses, Oasis, and more.