What took so long? Twenty-five years after he left the Smiths, perhaps the most influential British pop band of the 1980s, the guitarist Johnny Marr has finally made a solo album.

On “The Messenger” (Sire), due out on Tuesday, Mr. Marr has written not just the music, as he did in the Smiths, but also the lyrics for all 12 songs, and stepped forward to be the singer too. Every song opens with a guitar intro, and there are even some blazing guitar solos — all big departures for a musician who has always prided himself on his collegiality, rather than seeking the spotlight.

“This record is a little bit of thinking and a whole lot of instinct,” Mr. Marr, 49, said in a recent interview in New York. “From the time I was 13 or 14 I’ve been thinking like part of a group. But in this case I didn’t need to enable anybody else — or be enabled by anybody else.” He added, “To do what I’m doing now I need not to be receptive to collaborations.”

It’s not that Mr. Marr hasn’t been active since the Smiths broke up, in the summer of 1987. If anything, he’s been a wandering spirit, recording, writing for or touring with the Pretenders, Electronic, the The, Modest Mouse, Bryan Ferry, the Pet Shop Boys, Beck and most recently the Cribs. He has also written film scores and in 2010 played on the soundtrack of “Inception.”