Part 3/9:
Despite taking their demo to Factory Records co-founder Tony Wilson, they faced rejection. However, their first public performance on October 4, 1982, at Manchester's The Ritz, starting a chain of events that would lead to their rise. After a string of member changes, Morrissey named the band The Smiths—one to reflect the most common surname in the English-speaking world, encapsulating the band's ethos of the "ordinary folk."