Wilson: I got it completely wrong. When Steven, who I was very fond of..

Radcliffe: Morrissey for the uninitiated, who only know him by the one name.

Wilson: Sorry, Morrissey. Morrissey was going to be our writer, going to be our novelist, and he rang me up and said, "Could you come and see me?" So I went down to his mum's house in Stretford and he says, "I've decided to be a pop star." And I had to muffle myself, I thought, "Never in a million light years, Steven." So about nine months later, [Richard] Boon rings up and says, "Morrissey's playing a gig with his [band], he's calling it The Smiths or something," it was Manhattan.

Go down to it - stunning, amazing, wonderful. So yes, I didn't get it at first, but the first time I saw the band, absolutely. But that point in history, the label was going nowhere, New Order's album had sold badly or whatever, just nothing was happening. And in all honesty, my response to this was, I'm not going to saddle Morrissey with us, because the label isn't working. That's why I didn't sign him.

Rob Gretton, my partner, kept saying in those months, "The demo's s***." At the same time, he was wandering around Manchester saying, "The Smiths are the new Beatles!" to everybody. But cos the demos were s***, we weren't going to sign them. So everyone has different stories that they tell people about why they didn't or why they did sign the Smiths. I'm sure Mr Morrissey and Mr Marr have their own stories.

Radcliffe: Oh yes, they've got their own stories. Well, Morrissey has anyway.

Morrissey:I don't really want to make life easy. I mean, that's not what I'm out to do. I'm not really out to have an easy time. To make a contribution is more important to me, a significant contribution. One that's provocative, not necessarilly in an irksome way. I mean, to be provocative doesn't always mean to be violent or revolutionary. But really to make people think that at least if you hate or you adore the Smiths that they stand on their own. That's all really.
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Mark Racliffe went on to exhalt the Smiths for making some of the best pop records of the last thirty years before suggesting, backed up by Dave Haslam, that being on Factory would have made them less unique and distinctive.