Orange unsigned Act winner Tommy Reilly is enjoying every minute of his newfound fame,

And relishing everything from insane music festivals to far-out avocados, he tells Aidan Smith

THE young singer ran at the Sticky Wall as if his life depended on it, even though the acclaimed movie-maker had asked him to do it a dozen times before. BLAP! Tommy Reilly managed to stay glued, Spiderman-like, for about four seconds before crashing to the ground, half in giggles, half in groans. He was getting tired, so Lynne Ramsay, the director of Morvern Callar, glanced up from her monitor with her most apologetic face. "What, again?" said Reilly. "Aye sure..."


Probably, Reilly obliged for a number of reasons. One, he's a nice lad, eager to please. Two, he's a long way off being bored with video shoots – this, for the single Jackets, was only his second. Three, the funfair at Putney in south-west London had been closed in his honour, like exclusive shops are for J-Lo, and what 20-year-old isn't going to savour every moment of that? Four, the sensation of the Sticky Wall – "a crazy head-rush, man, it's bonkers" – felt like normal life to him, or what passes for it now.

Since winning the T4 talent contest, Orange unsignedAct, and the record deal that came with it, Reilly has experienced many such moments, such as the night he was thrust into the role of Clydeside's answer to Cyrano de Bergerac, wrapping a marriage proposal in his lovelorn folkie ballads.

"I was playing this club in Brixton which had a Rottweiler patrolling the roof so I had no idea the evening was going to end so romantically," he says. "The girl in question was up the back of the hall and at first there was no response. I'm thinking 'Gig over' and maybe the boyfriend was thinking 'Life over'. Then she said 'Yes' and the place erupted. I thought that kind of thing only happened at Bryan Adams concerts with 15 million gas lighters in the air."

Then there was the time when this now ex-Glasgow University student, after so many nights gazing up at the bands from the middle of a cider and blackcurrant puddle, returned to the union as the main attraction. "I could see where I always ate my sandwiches, where I tried to chat up girls, where Brown Smoke – my mate Callum – told this really funny joke, where I was for the Temptations' Christmas all-nighter. I'd had so many memorable occasions there that I couldn't remember, if you get me, so I wanted to freeze-frame everything about my own show. I love the union so that was mad, special, an honour."

And then there was last Sunday at RockNess. "Probably the best day of my life, ever," confirms Reilly, with by-now legendary understatement. "Me and the band had been hanging out backstage where there was a massage tent and all sorts other amazing stuff so I hadn't seen the crowd build. When it was time to go on I was like 'Whoa!' – there must have been 2,000 folk out front. At first I was in total shock, but then I was really calm and happy. Everyone was singing along – to my songs! – and even though it was absolutely rammed I got to spot all my mates and my mum and dad too. Ridiculous, insane, completely mental."

If RockNess was the all-time high then today must be the first day of some sort of super-celestial second phase in the musical career of Master Tommy Reilly. Next month he plays T in the Park and in August he brings out his debut album, Words On The Floor. Beyond that he wants to keep visiting new places, meeting new people – beautiful female-type people, preferably, like the Saturdays ("What a genius concept!") and Ladyhawke.

Reilly – Ghostbusters T-shirt, jeans, new regulation-issue pop haircut, pimply face – is sipping Coke at a pavement cafe in Glasgow's Byers Road. When he was younger, and confined to his home village of Torrance in East Dunbartonshire, this was his fantasy. Since January it's fair to say his horizons have broadened.

"I'm living in a van and it's great. York was like being in a Harry Potter movie, Bristol was really cool and Cornwall... awesome. We played this pub then ended up at a house party full of music students who all looked like the girls from Shipwrecked.

"London's too fast for me – everyone's always running – but, man, I have to tell you about what happened to me in Nottingham: I went to an Italian restaurant and for the time ever I didn't have pizza. I felt so sophisticated that I ordered some red wine. Life is full of these far-out new experiences right now. Like avocado. And aubergine..."

But let's get back to Torrance. If he was my tour guide on a visit there what would I see? "It's so close to Glasgow but you wouldn't believe how rural it is. I'd probably take you to the Fairy Glen – people were hanged there in olden times – which was where we hid out as kids. The Wheatsheaf's a good pub – it has regular guitaroke nights where the dads all play Eagles songs, including my dad. He used to be in a band called Empty Pockets. They were a bit punky; unfortunately I lost their cassette. But I remember this line from one song: 'Of all the things in this world/Love is the hardest to lose.'"

I'm eager to share my Torrance knowledge, gleaned from the village's modest Wikipedia page. "That'll be the local Spar winning Milk Retailer for 2005," says Reilly. Right, but did he know he now gets a Wikipedia mention-in-despatch? "You're kidding me!" he gasps, spilling his Coke.

The smallness of the place used to frustrate him. "There was only one bus an hour to Glasgow but my parents wouldn't let me get on it." At 17 he learned to drive only for his first trip into the big city to be thwarted by escaped hens. "But Torrance was good for the songwriting. If you want to lock yourself away in your bedroom with a guitar, there's nowhere better." Reilly wrote furiously, experienced an epiphany during a mass T in the Park singalong for Oasis, enrolled in Electronics & Music at uni but kept bashing out songs – and, almost convincing himself he'd missed his chance, joined a queue round the block of thousands of other unsignedAct hopefuls.

His album for A&M has been produced by Bernard Butler. "I was a bit scared because I'd heard he's very demanding but he told me he believed in me and that gave me confidence." The ten songs including debut single Gimme A Call are like Reilly's Glasgow journal, namechecking Ashton Lane and the ABC, and mainly concerning his pursuit of the elusive butterfly of love.

"A couple of girls who shall forever remain nameless inspired quite a few of them," he says. "I thought they were proper girlfriends; turns out they weren't. But it was amazing how much better I felt when I wrote about those experiences. At first it was like I was deleting them from my life. Now I see the songs as fun things which came out of a shitty time and I can pack them up in a van and go see the world. That's really bonkers, man. And so so brilliant."

The rain has been falling on our table for a while but I've hardly noticed; Tommy Reilly continues to spread his own fuzzy sunshine. But he isn't stupid; he knows his life could just as quickly revert to its previous unbonkers state. "Maybe no one will buy my album and I'll end up back to uni," he says. "That's why I'm making sure I enjoy every single minute of this."

That was his dad's advice only the night before when the old man got home from the guitaroke and Reilly's sole worry right now is that he's running low on heartache. "I might need a couple more terrible months for some new material," he grins. Well, as Torrance's second most famous troubadour once put it: "Of all the things in this world/Love is the hardest to lose." v

Tommy Reilly will be performing for free at Apple Store Glasgow, tomorrow, 5.30pm; HMV Inverness, Eastgate Shopping Centre, Tuesday, 5pm; HMV Aberdeen, Union Bridge, Wednesday, 5pm; HMV Dundee, Murraygate, Thursday, 5pm, and HMV Edinburgh, Princes Street, Friday, 4.30pm. He plays T in the Park on 12 July and Belladrum on 7 August