"I never ever get nervous, I never have," says Morrissey inside his small dressing room. Outside, the huge empty stadium will be packed in a matter of hours. "If you look at the stage and see it as a place where you are actually supposed to be, then mild apprehension is perhaps the only thing that would ever occur. But if you feel you're not really supposed to be there and it's some fluke that you are, then you will become nervous." Earlier that day, the dozens of waiting fans that squashed up against the fence outside the stadium since 11 a.m. appeared more jittery than the thin man they came to see, especially the ones that got past security and found Morrissey shortly before soundcheck. Two, quite sizeable Hispanic males and a petite blonde girl gushed with trembling admiration as they came within 50 feet of their hero. When security escorted them away, they called out his name, tears in their eyes. Morrissey never even turned around to see their faces. He admits later in his soft tone how difficult it is not being able to acknowledge every one of his fans, although he says he tries. He's kept his Mancunian accent, unlike other successful Northerners like Sting or Bryan Ferry who prefer to sound like upscale Londoners. "I find it incredible that wherever we go, no matter how obscure, the response is so overwhelming. But I suppose that's the final sign that you have actually made it - not just in Chicago or New York or L.A. - but everywhere else too. I'm not really sure why because I don't get a sense of any degree of support in this country from the media. Therefore, my success, what I've achieved, is completely pure. There's no hype involved anywhere. "Nobody's done anything that they shouldn't have done to get people to buy tickets. It's absolutely pure success and it's the kind of success that Rolling Stone magazine couldn't ever possibly be interested in. They'd rather interview Yoko Ono or talk to Julian Lennon and I think that's really sad. I think that's what makes American music quite sad as well. There's this enormous capacity not to recognize anything until it's gone. That is actually the history of the American rock press - they're never quite there. They were never there for Patti Smith. They were never there when the Ramones were making incredible records. They were never there for the New York Dolls. For Motley Crue, yes, but not for the New York Dolls." At 33, Stephen [sic] Patrick Morrissey still looks eerily youthful except for a few flecks of gray in his neatly groomed hair. His milky complexion wrinkles only when he laughs, which is often. His shy laughter seems to help divert the intensity of meeting someone straight on, and these small breaks in his quiet demeanor keep one from perceiving him as aloof. After producing articulate bits of insight as smoothly as dipping biscuits in tea, he smiles politely then waits for the next question, answering each one as eloquently as if he's been perfecting his reply for months. "I think I embarrass the music industry," explains Morrissey, who hasn't been shunned by England's weekly music press, but rather bashed on a constant and very personal level. "And the people who come to my concerts are ridiculed in the English press as being very weak, ineffectual, effete people who should join the army, etc. and I find that really offensive but that's life really. People can't deal with emotions at all in human life. It doesn't matter what they are - if someone close to you is dying, or having a baby, or whatever, most people can't deal with it. They can't say the right things at the right time. And certainly rock music or pop music doesn't really convey much these days. It doesn't really convey any raw emotion and so therefore, people who do such as I, it just can't be dealt with. It can't be accepted. I feel like I'm embarrassing to a lot of people but I never feel embarrassed at all." Perhaps you're reminding those who bury their emotions of what's really down there. "Well," he smiles, "it shouldn't be 'down there'." Your Arsenal is Morrissey's fourth album since the break up of the Smiths in August of 1987. His stripped-down poetics now ride a meatier pop sound that his previous three albums lacked. Pleasant background music has been replaced by a more stylized feel that incorporates opiated melodies with reeling licks of rockabilly. Producer Mick Ronson is partly responsible for the album's stronger music direction. Ronson was Ziggy Stardust's main Spider from Mars and later co-produced some of Ian Hunter's best material ("Once Bitten Twice Shy"). "I chose him because he's a very strong musician," explains Morrissey, "and I wanted to make a record which had a real sense of physicality and body to it." Aside from pumping up Morrissey's former melt-in-your-mouth sound, Ronson seems to have woven traces of his past into certain songs on the album. "I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday" seemingly winds an infamous Bowie riff into its melodic conclusion. "No, no, no," Morrissey interjects, shaking his head. "The 'Rock And Roll Suicide' riff was an absolute accident. David Bowie mentioned to Mick that he thought the end of the song was from 'Rock And Roll Suicide' and it's true, now that I listen I can hear it, but at the time it was completely accidental. It wasn't something that Mick threw on or instigated. It was an accident." Another reason for Your Arsenal's shake-up of sound is due to Morrissey's replacement of seasoned session musicians with a more permanent band of his own. Far from having an impersonal feel, they add as much color and diversity musically as they do physically. Bass player Gary Day's neck tattoo peeks out from under the lapel of his suave, 1950s lounge jacket, while guitarist and former Polecat Boz Boorer's smile reveals the absence of his two front teeth. Meanwhile, slick-haired guitarist Alain Whyte and drummer Spencer Cobrin hang out like a couple of juvenile delinquents looking for their next purse to snatch. These are the instigators of Arsenal's rockabilly sound and a change of pace for Morrissey. Although he now co-writes his songs with Alain Whyte, the expectations placed on Morrissey as a solo artist are not erased. "The pressures remain, it's not a democracy," he declares quite clearly. That was never more evident than when Morrissey's manager stated that the band didn't like to give interviews, then later one of the band members said he wasn't allowed. The transition from band member to solo artist isn't an easy one - just look at Mick Jagger or David Lee Roth. But Morrissey never planned to go solo; for him, the jump was more surprising than frightening, and he recalls how he felt when his first solo project, Viva Hate, was released in 1988. "I liked half of it, I think the other half was unfortunately rushed, so some of it, no, I didn't particularly like. I'm not one of those people who's fooled into thinking everything they do is perfect or near perfection. I'm quite the reverse. I know I've made a couple of pretty average records but things are much better now." But which albums he believes are less than brilliant he won't tell. "I'd rather not name them because someone might actually like them," he laughs. A collection of singles was released as Bona Drag (1990) but it was Kill Uncle that received the most negative critical attention. It was released to fans who hailed it as another brilliant slice of the world filtered through Morrissey's oddball charm, but critics still adverse to the break up of the Smiths attacked its musical approach, calling it timid. To them, it was proof positive that Morrissey couldn't cut it without his old writing partner and Smiths' guitarist Johnny Marr. And so began the vicious backlash of the British press. The introduction of the Smiths in 1983 brought declarations of celibacy from their odd frontman. Journalists asked for the real Morrissey to step forward, but were further miffed when their mystery man began sporting a hearing aid as a fashion accessory and cultivating small shrubs in the back pocket of his baggy jeans. With no satisfying answers, fiction and fact collided in print, creating a singer who was simultaneously a celibate and a promiscuous gay, a shy exhibitionist, and a bleeding-heart racist. "I think the worst misconceptions are that I'm weak and flowery and too poetic for my own good... and also depressing," he says. "I've never experienced one night, one concert which wasn't a completely exuberant, overblown emotional and loud affair. So, I don't understand this strange notion that I'm some kind of cross-legged folk artist who's lying in a bed of daffodils singing about some twee matters. The opposite is true because all these terms are very submissive and derogatory and I feel that there's more strength, more passion and more anger in my performance than there is in most people's performances." But while British music journalists sum up Morrissey and crown him the "King of Misery," another major part of his personality has been overlooked - his sense of humor. Take the song title "You're the One for Me Fatty" or the lyrics to "Our Frank": "Give us a drink and make it quick/Or else I'm gonna be sick all over/Your frankly vulgar/Red pullover/Now see how the colors blend?" "I think life is serious and I think that simple point has been overblown," he says. "But more to the point is - I'm not moronic, I'm not a pop fool. And I think if you're not a pop fool then you get labeled as someone who is too serious for their own good. I know what I want. I don't need anybody to help me. I don't need anybody to do it for me and that, I'm afraid, is a problem." In the Smith's song "Reel Around the Fountain," Morrissey steals the line, "I dreamt about you last night and I fell out of bed twice," from Taste of Honey, the classic British film about Manchester's working class. He's sung about Oscar Wilde and featured photos of British film stars on posters and singles covers. Although he's admitted to being influenced by the likes of '60s popstress Sandy Shore [sic] and early Bowie, it's poetry, books and films that have fueled Morrissey's writing talents. "There's nobody modern I'm influenced by because I think poetry has died a long, long time ago, and the novel, so it is generally people who lived and died a hundred years ago. It's people who never experienced success, people who were never blinded by money or confused by breakfast television programs. People who just did their art silently, quietly and perhaps unhappily, and then died." England and its inhabitants have also been the center of some of Morrissey's best material. He's been inspired by Manchester's hopeless gray skies and intrigued with very British personalities, from ruthless East End gangsters the Kray Twins to gentle but daring souls like John Merrick, the Elephant Man. Now he sings about the slow death of basic British-ality's all over Your Arsenal on songs like "We'll Let You Know" and "Glamorous Glue": "We look to L.A. for the language we use/London is dead/London is dead." "What I mean by this is all television and radio broadcasters now speak with American accents. The English news is very interesting because it's totally focused on America. Everything that happens in America is constantly reported on the English news while in America, England is never referred to and British politics are completely meaningless. I mean the country could completely explode and disappear into outer space and America would not mention that on the daily news. That's a big failing in American culture, it's entirely self-obsessed. If it finally did realize that other countries do actually exist, this country might be a nicer place," he pauses. "British broadcasting is obsessed with L.A. and it's really upsetting and I think it's sad as well." But his longing for an untouched England has caused Morrissey problems. He's recently been labeled as a racist by the British press and this isn't the first time it's happened. When the Smiths released their 1987 single "Panic" with Morrissey's lyrics, "The music that they play means nothing to me or my life [sic]," he was accused of discounting hip hop and rap - black music - as being unimportant. He was charged with racism regardless of his many declarations that he hated all modern dance music because he felt it was impersonal, especially the brand coming from the white boys of Manchester. Even the song "Asian Rut" from Kill Uncle, a sad tale of racial violence in England, wasn't enough to quell the last onslaught of accusations. When he opened for Madness in England, Morrissey walked out on stage with a union jack draped over his shoulders while a famous photo of two skinhead girls was projected onto the backdrop. British journalists contended that his actions at the show, coupled with the sale of Morrissey union jack t-shirts and a song on Your Arsenal called "National Front Disco," truly revealed Morrissey as a racist this time. England for the English or an overview of what troubled times bring? "My relationship with England has been slandered and ridiculed because in England you're not allowed to actually be patriotic in any way. It's construed as racism. I don't know why, that doesn't happen in any other country in the world but in England if you display the union jack, it's considered racist and extremist. I do that and it becomes very, very difficult. I'm really the last in a long trail of unshakably English pop artists, from the Who, the Jam, the Kinks, whoever you care to throw in there, groups who were just unswayably English. "I feel I'm the last of those kinds and it's very difficult in the current musical climate in England, which is enormously influenced by international music. English music isn't accepted at all or played on the radio. I mean, I've never been played on the radio anyway, since the very first day I made a record, so regardless of what the mood or the trend is at the time, I don't ever benefit from it. But I think a particular English sound and a particular English accent has gone really. Therefore, I seem to not stand alone but be one of the very few."

While Madonna finds her latest marketing angle in trendy S&M, while Ice T gets censored and Pearl Jam takes care of angst in white suburbia, where does Morrissey fit into pop music today? "Nowhere," he answers quickly like he's been waiting to answer this question since the Smiths first alienated the music industry in 1983. "I feel like a complete imposter, a trespasser. I'm trespassing here tonight. I expect to be escorted off the premises," he laughs. But the only people escorted off that night were the highly infatuated fans who made it onstage, while over 30,000 more of them swayed in the stadium, their glassy expressions and content smiles adding to a sort of Morrissey love fest. "Yes, it's very personal," Morrissey says, describing a typical performance, "which is preferable because I don't feel like a pop idol or a pop star and I don't live like one or act like one so I think they simply respond to something they see within me. I think if you like certain groups who are strutting and sexist, then you're responding in that way towards them. I'm none of those things so therefore the response I receive is completely different. It does seem to be absolute, real, genuine love." The love fest has turned into a frenzy on occasion, like in Los Angeles where an in-store record-signing session ended with broken windows, and a show at UCLA's Pauly Pavilion was stopped midway through when fans rushed the stage. "I feel very protective towards them in every single way," he adds. "When it's the issue of hall security, if I see somebody manhandled I become infuriated. I go slightly out of control. It's very hard because they do treat them very aggressively and when I consider that I pay the wages of security, I don't really feel it's fair. Like at the Hollywood Bowl, you pay $45 per ticket and yet you're literally hammered into your seats and you have to remain there. I find it very offensive because they are very gentle people - they just want to stand as near the stage as possible. That's all they want to do. They don't want to pull the venue asunder, so I just hate that aggression. The only aggression that ever occurs at my concerts is purely from security, not from the audience. If they even get on the stage, they're very, very gentle." In 1987, a Denver radio station was held up at gunpoint while the perpetrator demanded that the station play Smiths records for 24 hours non-stop. Countless fanzines dedicated to Morrissey like The Morri'zine or the Japan-based Easy To Laugh feature avid fans' detailed descriptions of close brushes with the Moz. Sometimes they'll even write about the incredible rush of just sharing the same stadium with him. Notes from the editor in one 'zine called Sing Your Life concluded with "Hope to see you along the next tour. Do you know anybody who is happy?" The teenage years can be the happiest time of your life, that is, if you're already so dysfunctional that you've mastered the adult art of denial. But for most kids, there's nothing fun about being trapped in the most isolating time of your life. Maybe it's Morrissey's terminal sense of disillusionment, but somehow he relates to the turbulent teen psyche better than any figure in pop today. "I think it's because lyrically, I'm a very, very lonely figure. I think that it does appeal to a lot of people that are going through that certain lonely time in their teenage life and they feel very isolated. I think that must be the reason." Morrissey doesn't seem to have lost his romantic idealism and plunged into the numb abyss of adulthood. "It hasn't happened to me at all," he says. "Why? I'm sure there's several reasons why. I'm not a very typical person in that sense and certainly not emotionally. I'm not typical in any way but I'm not a crank either." Morrissey's skewed sense of idealism in the face of fame has caused him to give up a lot, forcing him to withdraw deeper into himself, rather than losing his romantic self to either a ruthless press or obsessed fans. Although his retreat from the mainstream makes for incredibly insightful lyrics, it also makes Morrissey a very lonely man. "There is a tiny sacrificial gesture in the whole thing," he says, "but you wanted it, you came into it, you knew what could possibly happen so you can't step back in horror and say 'Ah, I want to be a normal person.' You can't. You can never go back, even if your success completely disappears tomorrow you'll always be associated with what's happened in the past. That doesn't apply to people in normal, daily life but it's just one of those curious tricks of fame. You can see it in Marilyn Monroe. You can see the sense of entrapment. You knew she'd never get out of it alive and that's what made her so appealing. The trapped woman... "It doesn't take things away from me, though, because my life was always geared towards this anyway. I never had another life."