Durutti Column NME Interview

RECOVERED GOODS

Veteran Factory workers DURUTTI COLUMN have a new album - 'Circuses And Bread',- and new single to brandish. DAVID QUANTICK uses his loaf. Life of Reilly by A. J. BARRATT.

VINNI REILLY has spent seven years making records with the Durutti Column. Ruminative things these records are; pensive personal objects with Vinni's guitar sending out tiny shards of sound and various shadings of French horn, piano and drums weaving in and out. The latest Durutti Column album continues this tradition, and has a fine attendant single, 'Tomorrow'.

"I love singing." (Vinni's girlfriend collapses in uncontrollable mirth.) "That's one thing I disagree with Tony about. Everyone says my voice is awful."

Tony is, of course, Tony Wilson — Factory supremo and everyone's favourite Granada TV presenter. Vinni formed Durutti Column because Tony asked him to; Tony thought of the name as well.

"Tone and me have a very good relationship, we're close friends. He's like an older brother, and he comes and gives me a kick every so often. Now, if I didn't want to go in that direction,, it would be perfectly all right. But I trust his vision. When he decided to record my solo album, nobody in this couhtry would have touched me with a barge-pole. I mean, 1 was on my way to the psychiatric hospital. They were trying to section 25 me— it used to be called section 25, it's now called section two—where you're forced legally to stay in a psychiatric hospital. So he rescued me from becoming a complete cabbage".

Vinni's various periods of depression and illness—which he's now coming out of—seem to have attracted a curious audience.

"I do worry when I get some of the letters. Some of the people that turn up .. very sick people, people that are dying and people that are suicidal. We had weird letters in Japan, all this tragedy and trauma. I don't know what they expect us to do about it. There was this Japanese girl who'd met me in a past life, and did I recognise her, that sorta stuff. .." r

People attracted to you because of your reputation as the man who's been ill a lot?

"Yeah, I can see it. But I've known people who've been very ill, and I don't go and. . . Human beings are funny."

Durutti Column's other fans range from somebody's grandad — who sits at home and listens very carefully to all the albums—to the Perrys of Manchester— "very hard-faced, mild skinheads in Fred Perry T-shirts". They appreciate Vinni's music for its best qualities.

"The music ends up being very simple, and people can dismiss it as being very simplistic, easy listening or whatever. It's very honest, it's very personal. People say it's ambient, and it's like Eno. I don't like that, 'cos the music's made to be listened to, it's not wall-paper."

It isn't. The best Durutti Column— like Tomorrow', like 'Prayer' and many others—weaves itself around the mind, slips in and out of the heart, and still has a sliver of edge to it that never really makes it "easy" to listen to. However, Tony Wilson has had another idea, and has kicked Vinni in another direction.

"At Christmas, he gave me another kick, he bought me a load of electronic instruments. I never dreamt of getting into this electronic thing, and I struggled and I fought and stayed up 'til half past seven in the morning and really worked on it. I know that Tony's got this vision, and I persevered. And I found a way of using a sequencer that isn't like Joy Division or New Order, it's my way and it's my music".

Thus the present. And the future?

"I'd like to do some film scores."

You might end up sounding ambient. . 

"Oh God!"

Vinni Reilly is a great man.