Interview: Howard Devoto, Magazine

In the scheme of things, Magazine's time seemed to last rather less than a quarter of an hour; they were the group Howard Devoto formed after his even more fleeting involvement with the Buzzcocks. Always shy and retiring, you imagine that quitting music to work in a library must have suited him fine, and he stuck at that for 16 years. So how's he coping with being back up there, centre-stage, and singing songs with non-retiring titles like The Light Shines Out Of Me?

"It's a whole new world," he says. "First time round, I found gigging difficult. The shows were always fraught, you always lost money, and the circumstances under which you were doing them could sometimes be quite cruel. For instance, Magazine were on their first tour of the States when I got the phone call that my dad had died. But I was an intense young, or young-ish, man back then. I no longer feel like my entire being is at stake and I've been pleasantly surprised at how much I'm enjoying performing now."

The Light Shines Out Of Me was one of Magazine's lesser-known tracks. Some might wonder which were their better-known ones. But these people do not include Morrissey, who said of their break-up: "Presently in mourning over the death of Magazine. So tragic. My life will change." Panorama presenter Jeremy Vine reckons they're "the most criminally underrated band of all time" and our own Franz Ferdinand are one of many acts who continue to acknowledge their influence, three decades on. And by the way, their greatest track is Shot By Both Sides. No self-respecting punk compilation is complete without it, even though technically Magazine were post-punk.

Today Devoto is in Leeds. This was the city of his childhood and his first musical alliances and he's just moved back to be close to his mum. He's 57 now and bald, the receding hairline which once completed the look of an excommunicated monk experimenting with eyeliner having long since given up the ghost. We're talking on the phone, but he's taken the call via the internet, on a poor connection, so quite often his voice fades away to nothing. Somehow, though, this spectral aspect suits him.

Born Howard Trafford, Devoto was studying humanities at Bolton Institute of Technology when punk changed his life. And it should not be forgotten that Devoto changed punk through his initial role as an impresario, directing the revolution northwards, which inspired others to pick up guitars, if not guitar lessons.

In 1976, the newspaper headline "Don't look over your shoulder, the Sex Pistols are coming" made him crane his neck. Intrigued, he offered to collect a Manchester flatmate's car from the garage – then with fellow student Pete McNeish drove it all the way to their next show in High Wycombe, Bucks. "What was it about them? The name, the aggression, the sexuality, the quote: 'We're not into music, we're into chaos.' Pete and I had been struggling to get a band together until the Pistols just lit up all these coloured bulbs."

Backstage afterwards, the emboldened students urged manager Malcolm McLaren to bring Johnny Rotten and his snotty droogs to Manchester. "He told us we had to organise the gig and gave us some A3 posters. We had no money so we demanded the booking fee: 25 quid. Then Pete and I stuck up posters and handed out fliers. Pete's the historian on this stuff but I'm pretty sure we leafleted a John Miles concert."

It's highly unlikely that any fans of Miles' symphonic pop bombast showed up at the Lesser Free Trade Hall, but Ian Curtis, Mark E Smith and that man Morrissey all did. They scuttled off to form their own bands, Tony Wilson founded Factory Records – and before the Pistols returned six weeks later, our promoters had become Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley and were calling themselves the Buzzcocks, responsible for the first DIY punk release, the Spiral Scratch EP.

So how did the Buzzcocks present themselves? Instinctively, Devoto refers me to the absent Shelley, then has a go: "The shirt I can't remember… Mao jacket, DMs lacquered pink or maybe puke green… oh yes, and these striped blue jeans, originally flared, which I got this shop Othello's to take in, despite them advising caution: 'If you change your mind, you won't get your money back.'"

But, after bashing out punk anthems like Boredom, Devoto changed his mind about the revolution. "Punk was original and it was impure and it had to be short-lived, that was implicit. But it did get aesthetically ugly because it turned into Sid's way." He's talking about Mr Vicious, and maybe there weren't two more diametrically opposed punks than the former John Ritchie, battering the NME's Nick Kent with a bicycle chain, and the Camus-quoting Devoto, who would go on to reference Dostoyevsky in Magazine's lyrics.

Devoto insists he hasn't used Camus's most famous book as his life manual, but in music he's definitely been an outsider. He wanted Magazine to push things forward. "They had to be modern, and to decisively get away from punk." He added some keyboards and to the punk establishment – "A contradiction in terms, but everything goes establishment in the end" – it was as if he'd recruited Keith Emerson from the bad old days of prog, and Rick Wakeman and every other cod-classical noodler.

Magazine only lasted until 1981, so Devoto ended up working for that photographic archive for four times as long. He had a brief solo career, then formed Luxuria with guitarist Noko, who's replaced the late John McGeoch for the reunion, but for long periods he's been very much an ex-musician, not involved in any way, barely giving his former existence a moment's thought.

"With Magazine, and with the music I made afterwards, there were a lot of disappointments," he says. "There were times when my face was being pushed down in the dirt and I was like: 'Get the message, Howard.' I've always been a pretty philosophical fellow; but at those moments I probably became fatalistic as well. A lot of music gets made. There's only so much of it that people can take to their hearts."

But people did love Magazine. Or they loved them in the manner of Devoto: awkwardly, diffidently, from the outside. Or they love them now, having discovered that some of their current favourites were inspired by them. "It's lovely, I'm extremely grateful," says Devoto. No decision has yet been taken about whether they should record some new music. "I think I'd probably quite like us to try," he adds, under-selling himself to the last. And then, having drifted in and out of range all afternoon, he's gone. v

Magazine play HMV Picturehouse, Edinburgh (as part of the Edge Festival), 30 August, 7.30pm