Rocker Johnny Marr almost joined Sir Paul McCartney's band after The Smiths split.

As a guitarist for hire in the late 1980s, Marr was invited to play with MCCartney. Nothing came of their sessions but the How Soon in Now hitmaker tells The Auto Jubilator he was thrilled to get the chance to jam with a Beatle.

He recalls, "We did get together for a good long eight-or-nine-hour day, and just played and played and played very intensely, really loudly. Which was pretty great, obviously. He was pretty good!

"He can play that bass and sing pretty well, I must say. That was a fun time. That was pretty much the first thing I did when The Smiths stopped being together. I’ve seen him a couple of times since. We’ve not played together, but he’s always very friendly and very gracious.

"I think he was just sort of checking me out, because he’d liked what I’d done... I think he liked the way I played, so that was cool."

And Marr reveals MCCartney's late wife Linda came very close to working with The Smiths.

He adds, "We had asked Linda to play and sing on The Queen Is Dead album, which sadly she wasn’t able to (do)."

Marr might have missed out on an opportunity to play with MCCartney, but he followed up his success in The Smiths as a member of The The, Modest Mouse and the Cribs.