A Manchester Situational

There is an extensive interview with Vini Reilly (with occasional contributions by Bruce Mitchell) by Wilson Neate at Blurt Online.

In this brief extract, Vini and Bruce talk about Tony Wilson:

BLURT: Most of us knew Tony Wilson only via his media persona; how did the Tony Wilson you knew differ from that?

REILLY: He differed enormously. He was the same only in the sense that he was very confident, but people mistook that confidence for arrogance. He was always being described as an arrogant person, but, in truth, he was one of the most humble people I've ever met. He would never consider any task too trivial. For example, I remember that on rainy, muddy nights he'd be there helping carry equipment for our rehearsals, and on another occasion he was sweeping the floor after everyone had gone home. He was different [from that public image] in many ways. He was also very, very sensitive -- extremely sensitive -- even though he had a smoke screen of a persona, which was the only possible way he could function in the face of some of the hard-core, hard-nosed businessmen that he had to deal with. And also, some of the musicians were very awkward to deal with, so he developed this persona, which enabled things to just bounce off him. You know, people would say the most disparaging things about him, and it would be like water off a duck's back. He developed that persona over the years to a point where people thought that really was him, but he was actually a very generous-natured, warm, lovely human being. People didn't really perceive him in that way -- and I don't think he wanted people to perceive him in that way.

MITCHELL: Yes, that persona was a separate thing, as Vini says. It was a stitch-on piece of work that he enjoyed -- the laddishness of it. Nice and abrasive, we thought. But it's the way he had to be, don't you think? With some of the musicians he had! But he was always stimulating and interesting. He was ever so curious and shockingly clever. All the time. You know the Kurosawa film, Rashomon? It's like the Rashomon effect. I'm one of the "viewers" that liked him a lot: uncompromisingly. Even though he could be really badly behaved, I would always support anything that Tony did. I learnt an enormous amount off him. I'm ten years older than Tony, but I would very often defer to his judgment rather than mine. So I was a solid fan, without reservations.

Read the full article at Blurt Online.