Morrissey calls Sparks “headless Palisades savages who threw their old friends into hot molten lava for sexy kicks”
The former Smiths frontman fell out with the band after they criticised him over his views on politics and race The post Morrissey calls Sparks “headless Palisades savages who threw their old friends into hot molten lava for sexy kicks” appeared first on NME.

Morrissey has hit out at Sparks calling them “headless Palisades savages who threw their old friends into hot molten lava for sexy kicks”.
The former Smiths frontman had a dig at the duo in an Instagram post featuring a series of photos from the ’90s.
One of the pictures features a note from Sparks talking about a bunch of demos they had worked on at the time.
In the caption next to the post, Morrissey wrote: “A nice note from Ron and Russell Mael – before they turned into headless Palisades savages who threw their old friends into hot molten lava for sexy kicks.”
The former Smiths frontman and Sparks were close for many years with the former citing the latter as an influence, even writing to NME as a teenager in 1974 to praise their music.
Despite them releasing a single in 2009 entitled ‘Lighten Up Morrissey‘, which appeared critical of the singer-songwriter, he was actually a fan of it according to Russell Mael.
He previously told The Guardian: “We’ve had many meetings with Morrissey throughout the years, and surprisingly Morrissey really loved our song Lighten Up Morrissey, and so much so that he’s used the video we made in a montage before he goes on stage. He was happy enough about it so he’d want to show it to his fans. He was very consistent with our impression we had of him – he lived up to that.”
Despite that, in more recent years Morrissey and Sparks got into a feud after Russell Mael criticised him over his views on politics and race.
He told the Press Association in 2018: “I’m totally in agreement with anybody being disillusioned [with Morrissey] because I am as well.
“It seemed so inconsistent, all these perspectives that he has on those various issues, just stupid, dumb kind of things. I obviously don’t agree with any of these things. They’re just so ill-conceived and wrong.”
Asked whether this upset him, Morrissey told his nephew in an interview in 2021, titled ‘Turning The Inside Out’: “Amazingly, no, because I’m quite used to it.
“I stood by Sparks for many years and I promoted them in my own humble way whenever I could, and they were famously people without opinions so I was surprised that they kicked me in the teeth. It came across as an almost fiendish ingratitude.”
He added: “Oh, the pain of parting! [laughs]. They will always be important to me as a memory.”
Elsewhere, last month Morrissey hit out at “trolls” after it was claimed that his upcoming show in Poland had been cancelled.
He is set to play a handful of dates in Glasgow, Manchester and Dublin, taking place this June. You can purchase any remaining tickets here.
Sparks meanwhile, are set to release their new album ‘MAD!’ on May 23rd via Transgressive Records (pre-order/pre-save here).
They are also set to play across the UK, Europe and Japan this summer, which which will include two nights in London’s Eventim Apollo, two in Manchester’s O2 Apollo and one at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow. Find the full list of shows here and any remaining tickets here.
The post Morrissey calls Sparks “headless Palisades savages who threw their old friends into hot molten lava for sexy kicks” appeared first on NME.