So what's the answer?
The answer is, we have always done this. Our kids have always absorbed and loved something out of America and created something new from it. It's very interesting that all the new little rock bands -- none of them have been signed yet, they're all still playing in basements, and almost none of them has a DJ or a rapper. The bands are playing in the format of a punk band playing intelligent metal, and their core influence is Nirvana, delightfully.
I wanted to ask you a question about Goth music. Do you think that was rooted in Manchester? You know, with Joy Division . . .
I was never really interested in that. I think Siouxsie, who was kind of one of the underpinnings of Joy Division in terms of musical history, veered towards Goth.
Siouxsie out here is a huge Goth icon, and as a matter of fact, Joy Division is kind of regarded that way too. Not Goth in the fashion sense of putting on white pancake and black lipstick, but soundwise, like theLow/Lodger dark Bowie Kraut-rock thing.
Barney thinks that when punk came along it blew away all the shit with simple instrumentation and all the high energy and the anger, but in the end, that energy, anger and instrumentation could only say one thing: "Fuck you." Sooner or later, punk was going to want to express something more complex, and the first group to use punk to express a more complex emotion was Joy Division, and then U2 followed them, and that is what post-punk is. Sooner or later, someone would want to say, "I'm fucked."
Was the early Hacienda scene concurrent with the Blitz Club in London?
No, no. The early Hacienda was concurrent with nothing. It was concurrent with everything getting a bit boring again after the first four years of punk had raged itself out. It was concurrent with the rise of the Smiths. We always ignored those faddy fashion cultures in London like the Blitz thing. That was just a waste of fucking time.
It's hard to see Boy George and Steve Strange getting any play with the Mancy homeboys.
Much too poncey for Manchester, too London . . .
Your word has become like the Word of God in northwest Britain -- or might someone dispute that and say Tony Wilson's version is full of shit, this is whatreally happened?
They would say Tony Wilson's version is full of shit, but they'd also say it's true. In England they had a picture of the actor playing [Happy Mondays front man] Shaun Ryder with the caption underneath saying, "Poet." They had a picture of the person playing Ian Curtis, and it said, "Genius." Then they had a picture of Steve Coogan playing me, and underneath it said, "Twat." It's just part of my public persona, I suppose.
I wanted to ask you about Manc humor. I was once introduced to Mark Smith in Los Angeles. I was seated in this fast-food restaurant, and he asked me where I came from, and I replied Stockport, and he snorted, "So that's why yer eatin' alone!" The person who introduced us was horrified and later was profusely apologizing. She thought he was being a dickhead to me. I said, "Nah, in Manchester you have to just roll with it, or learn to hit back."
Manky humor is flat, slack, dead-end irony. Howard Jacobs, a Manchester Jew, is a lecturer on the comic novel and talks about doing comedy for a living. He said to me the day after seeing the film, "Bloody hell, Tony, I've always thought my humor was Jewish. I saw your film and realized that it was Mancunian."
Can you give an example?
When I walked out in a stadium to introduce New Order recently and got booed by 35,000 people who I know are all fond of me, that's Manchester. But as soon as I'm offstage, I'm immediately surrounded by people, and they're all shaking my hands and being lovely.
Tony, you'd have to be pretty thick-skinned to tolerate getting booed by 35,000 New Order fans!
[Chuckles.] One time Irvine Welsh came to town to do a book reading, and I was scheduled to interview him for a TV show. He was getting a rock star's attention from all the Trainspotting acclaim. I walked onstage to introduce him to the crowd at the Hacienda, and 2,000 people cheered. I said, "It's a great pleasure to have you here, Irvine." He goes, "Tony, I'd just like to say I love this club, man, and I love you. The things you've done for this town are fantastic." There was dead silence. I said, "I'm sorry, Irvine, we don't do that sentimental crap here. This is Manchester, and I'm a public wanker," and immediately 2,000 people go, "Wanker!"
God, it's ferally anti-sentimental, isn't it? I love the line that Steve Coogan told some reporter, that he was Manchester's second-biggest wanker playing the role of its first! Anyway, what's your biggest accomplishment in all the years in the music and television businesses?
My one talent is that I'm driven to hang out with people who are more clever than I am. My big accomplishment, and I admit that it's probably overreflected in the film, is the fact that my enthusiasm glued together this amazing dog pile of remarkable human beings.
