What Can Get You Kicked Off A Morrissey Tour?

Just about anything if this kinda amazing story by Andrew Winters is anything to go by. Winters applied to become “assistant road manager” for Morrissey’s 2007 U.S. tour, and he quickly discovered the promise of “the most unusual gig [he would] ever experience” was quite the understatement, proving no match for Morrissey’s legendarily inscrutable and mercurial moods and sent home to the U.K. after just a day. Why? Maybe it was Winters’ meek approval of Henry Rollins’ radio show? His carnivorous nature? Or that fact that Moz is, you know, nuts?

It is at this point that Morrissey and I have our only line of dialogue – Moz asks his bandmate how his day has been. He replies a bit boring because a lot of it was spent sorting out some business and adds: “But it was good to have Andrew around as company.”

Morrissey looks at me with what seems like a slight smirk and shakes my hand. “Don’t worry, Andrew, it can only get better than this,” he says – and then proceeds to grab his guitarist and rub his fingers through his hair.

All this time I am weighing up quite how not to be boring but to impose myself on the situation. I admit I do give up slightly and just decide to be normal with the band and Moz’s PA and to get to know people.

While this is going on everyone is drinking. Morrissey instructs his PA to order him a large vodka concoction. Then something bizarre happens. A drinking game ensues, where one of the musicians is encouraged to knock back his pint to a chorus of “Down in one, down in one, down in one,” a chant to which Morrissey himself adds flamenco claps, skipping in front of his employee. He immediately beckons for another pint for the same musician and the process is repeated.

So the moral of Winters’ misadventure seems to be: Morrissey… awesome at indie rock frat parties, not so great as an employer?

I Was Morrissey’s Roadie [Times Online]