Tony Tony Tone - the second-ever RYWHM interview.

www.reasonsyouwillhateme.blogspot.com
Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Tony Wilson is a super-tall, super-intelligent, super-nice feller. He has been filling the Triple R airwaves with his booming baritone for about three years and is also the author of kids book Grannysaurus Rex. Recently he's published Players which, if any lawyer asks you, is in no way related to Eddie McGuire and The Footy Show - get it?

Tony was nice enough to do this interview and let me plug his book. You should go buy it.

1. So how do you know me?

I know you as one of my fellow broadcasters at Triple R, and have ridden the same confusion bus as all your friends there, trying to decide whether to call you Ms Fits or Holly C. You actually gave me a mention on Breakfasters before I’d ever met you, calling me ‘the poor man’s John Safran’. At the time I remember thinking to myself, ‘Poor man? Well Holly C is pretty socially aware. She’s all about the poor man. It’s probably a compliment.’

2. You're an amazing self-promoter. You're everywhere I bloody look. Do
you ever get shy or embarrassed about pushing yourself forward?

I’m not really a particularly shy or embarrassable type of person – which is probably bad news for people who are sick of the sight of me. Players was released on March 24th and since then, I guess I have whored myself to the very forces the book tries to some extent to critique. I guess like any author I hope there will be another book, and to some extent that is determined by sales, and sales do flow through from publicityAnd so for as long as it lasts (and with books, the publicity period is notoriously short) I’m not saying ‘no’. Not that that’s the reason I’m doing this web interview M. Nothing so cynical.

2. What's your main selling point for 'Tony Wilson' as a product?

The ‘Tony Wilson’ emblazened across the front of Players is certainly very big and very yellow. As for the corporeal Tony Wilson, I think my success in landing media exposure has come from the fact that I’m a first time author, and can be easily connected to previous media experiences (like being the poor man’s John Safran on Race Around the World. As for how I try to present myself, it’s nothing particularly deliberate. I hope there’s a combination of humour and intelligence.

3. Has Eddie McGuire tried to smack you down WWF style for 'Players' yet?

Eddie has I think been questioned twice about the book (I have no idea why) and he has twice said that Players is on his desk, but that he hasn’t read it. He’s also said that ‘so long as the book isn’t malicious’, good luck to me. It all sounded pretty gracious.

4. What is utterly shit about breakfast radio?

Obviously the alarm at 5.22 isn’t great, and even when I push it back to 5.28 or 5.34, things don’t dramatically improve. But I guess Fee B2 is getting up at 4.15 (with the long drive from Diamond Creek and the earlier arrival) and presenters on other stations would see 5.20 as a luxury too. When guests don’t turn up, or tell you that the traffic was ‘really bad on Punt Road’, that’s pretty ordinary, and when guests answer in monosyllabics or fail to grasp their own project or product, that sucks too.

4. Is it better to write for children or adults?

You get to swear more writing for adults. Also, kids writing tends to be much more proscribed by what publishers want, or what they perceive the market as wanting. Kids authors forever hear things like, ‘don’t be didactic’, ‘rhyming is not in at the moment’, ‘that won’t sell’. Whereas with an adult fiction, I found it to be a fair bit freer. When you’re an adult writing for adults, it seems your voice counts for more. With kids books, the publisher has a degree of expertise that makes it harder to stand up for what you think is right.

I do enjoy both though. The real thrill in writing is getting a good idea and then nailing the execution. The feeling is similar for both kids and adult writing, although its obviously a much longer and more exacting process with 104,000 words, as compared to 500.

5. What is your writing routine?

I leave radio at about 9.30 or 10.00, then go home and do the dishes or have a coffee with Tam (my partner). The I ride down to an office at the back of Triple R finance reporter Tom Elliott’s house at around 12.00, and the ride is super important, because I reckon at least 50% of my good plotting for Players came on the ride between home and the office. I think it’s exercise and the firing of synapses – you know that neurological health mumbo jumbo that’s annoying to read in magazines but might just be right. Then I read the previous day’s words (normally about 500-800 words) and edit for a couple of hours, before writing the new words for that day (hopefully 500-800 again). I’ll normally break for a custard tart at about 3pm. I have eaten so many custard tarts that will die at the age of 61 (15 minutes for every custard tart).

8. If you could make a slogan for a t-shirt guaranteed to offend a majority
of people, what would it say?

‘I rooted a nun once’ (There you go M, it’s a Tickets Thompson quote from Players. Don’t ‘say I’m not the dirtiest publicity whore you’ve ever had on this forum).

9. As a footy player, rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 being the fat
kid in Little League who eats grass and 10 being Bernie 'Superboot' Quinlan.

Let’s say every player who ever plays senior AFL football is an 8 or above, except Richard Lounder and Ian Kidgell. I’m probably a 6.5 or a 7. Good mark, stupidly brave (no peripheral vision, long sighted) a bit slow. I actually have an autograph from Superboot. He turned up at Ant B2’s tip (Fee’s husband) Ant helped him unload a truck, and then scored me an autograph.

10. Where do you feel out of place?

Clothes shops and bong circles.

11. Complete this sentence: 'If you kids want to be tall, on breakfast
radio, all writer-y and well-informed about many topics like me, all you
need to do is....'

Send in the application form. Rejections don’t hurt a bit after the first 15, and it’s the only way to get there.