Morrissey feels like “the world has ended” after the death of his manager Peter Katsis.
The former Smiths frontman has paid tribute to his late manager, who died last Thursday (06.08.26) aged 69, having worked with the likes of Snoop Dogg, Jane’s Addiction, backstreet Boys and The Smashing Pumpkins over an illustrious career.
Days after Katsis’ death, Morrissey has penned an emotional tribute alongside a photograph of the manager in drag at a New York Dolls concert in Chicago back in 1973.
Alongside the snap, he wrote: “He certainly got into the spirit of things. Given his bustling masculinity, he would roar with laughter to know that I have used this shot in summation of his life.
“I am justifiably glum this week, and it has taken me several days to even face writing this because PK was a very unusual star: an adventurer who enjoyed biting off more than most people could collectively chew.
“He was very much liked – which was unusual in a music manager. In a way, a dreamy-eyed romantic, but when necessary, a trick octopus.
“All liberties were taken; all fun encouraged and consumed. He knew how and when to give momentum another good shove.”
He compared himself to Katsis, as someone who was “correct too early”, while using the tribute to call out “most modern bands” for lacking “danger” and “mystery”.
He said: “Sometimes his Chicagoan knuckle-district dialogue was slightly comic strip, but it was all part of his self-destructive charm… taunting an overdose of Dom Perignon because… well, why not?
“At the same time, he was non-performance. He claimed his pleasures but would never skulk away from gunfire, and such people make extraordinary forces of nature.
“We were similar in that we were both correct too early – on all predictions.
“He knew that most modern bands contained neither danger nor mystery, but he gritted his teeth and dealt with the platitudinous industry gabble of Los Angeles.”
Morrissey revealed that Katsis was by his side after his mother passed away six years ago.
He continued: “When my mother died in 2020, he raced to my side. He knew I couldn’t deal with it.
“He immediately introduced me to Andrew Watt and we recorded ‘Bonfire Of Teenagers’ faster than the speed of sound – an undreamed-of rescue at a time when another day, for me, might not have come.
“The future is now merely the remainder of life. Dead brother buried. A world has ended.”