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Manchester music legend Johnny Marr tells next week's Inside Out programme that he doesn't Twitter or Facebook with his former Smiths chum Morrissey – but the two of them do exchange emails.

Johnny, whose guitar work epitomised The Smiths unique sound, also tells presenter Andy Johnson in an interview that he had no "ill-feeling" towards anybody in his old band.

Johnny Marr says: "We [Morrissey and Marr] send each other emails very, very occasionally when we've got something to say.

"I wake up in the morning with about 200 emails from a lot of people I don't know, so I'm assuming it's going to be the same with Morrissey, that's the way the modern world is.

"So, by the time I've got through the emails I've got to do, I'm not going to go, oh, 'Dear Mozzer, Having a cup of tea, blah blah, blah'."

Johnny Marr, who is now a full-time member of indie-band The Cribs, told the programme he has no desire to play any of The Smiths' back catalogue of songs but that he doesn't get irritated when people still want to talk to him about the seminal Manchester band.

"I never get irritated by it because I figure it's coming from a place of love, really. People love the band."

Asked by Andy Johnson about the band he says: "Oh, I really love the band, yeah. I'm super-proud of it. I can hear it the way other people hear it y'know, and I like it (laughs) which is kind of handy!"

"I've never ever had a yearning to play any of that back catalogue of Smiths songs. Maybe it's because I'm a record freak, but I think that's where they live, they live in my mind on vinyl," he says.

Johnny Marr is touring with The Cribs in Japan before returning to play more dates in the UK in December. The Cribs are three brothers, twins Ryan and Gary Jarman, with younger brother, Ross, on drums.

Johnny believes his current work is as good as anything he's ever done.

"I like being in a two-guitar band," he confesses. "To me there's only thing better than the sound of one electric guitar, and that's the sound of two electric guitars. Literally I think it's the greatest sound in the world."

Inside Out is on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One North West on Monday 2 November 2009 at 7.30pm or, for digital viewers outside the North West of England, on digital satellite. It can also be viewed on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer at bbc.co.uk/iplayer.

JC4