Culture Reporter Jack Murray chats to former Joy Division and New Order bassist Peter Hook about everything from the Isle of Skye to angry calls from the Gallagher brothers, ahead of Peter Hook and the Light’s headline show at the O2 Academy as part of their Substance tour.
Joy Division only ever existed for two years. According to bass player Peter Hook (Hooky), “Joy Division’s first gig was 25 January 1978, and Ian Curtis [the band’s frontman] was dead by 18 May 1980”. Yet in that time frame, the impact their existential, post-punk pulses had on British musical history is extensive. After the passing of Ian Curtis, the remaining members continued under the moniker, New Order. Tensions eventually rose between Hooky and guitarist-turned-frontman Bernard Sumners, so he split off to form Peter Hook and the Light, embarking upon multiple world tours over the last decade to celebrate the music of Joy Division and New Order.
JM: The origins of Joy Division have always interested me, as the band were originally born from a Sex Pistols concert yourself and Bernard went to. In revisiting the Substance albums, is it to inspire new audiences in that same way, or do you feel an obligation to preserve the band’s legacy?
PH: I mean, I certainly don’t feel an obligation, and never have, to do it. The most heartbreaking thing throughout the first years of New Order was having to ignore Joy Division, and we ignored Joy Division completely.
I persuaded Barney to do it again when New Order played at Wembley. We were walking off stage and I remember him saying to me, “I’m never playing that stuff again, it’s miserable.” But I didn’t find it miserable, I found it uplifting! When we split up and I came to finally play again, it was wonderful to get all those songs that you’d never been allowed to play. It’s nice to show the two sides of Joy Division, the depth of their recording prowess as well as their hits.
JM: When coming back to the Substance albums (which arguably symbolise the band’s most commercially successful point) to perform them years down the line, is the music prone to evolving or is there a concerted effort to keep them as they originally were?
PH: Well, as much as I hate to say it, I listen to New Odour [sic] evolving the music and they don’t sound like New Order to me. I loved our music as we did it, and the reason I loved it was because of how me and Mike Johnson [the band’s engineer] made it sound. For me it’s very important to get the sound right, and the songs right, because it is who I am. I also felt that sometimes in New Order we lost sight of a lot of things. The reason we split was because Barney’s attitude to playing live was completely different to mine.
JM: I can’t remember who to credit, but my perception of Joy Division is shaped by someone saying once that, though the subject matters and tones can be heavy, hope’s never entirely lost. There’s always a kernel of optimism. Do you think there’s any truth in this?
PH: Yeah, Joy Division is far more intense than New Order. I think it came from how we felt. From twenty, I had to become the opposite of hope, I had to convince the world that we as a group had something we could offer, and it was really hard work. But people like Ian made sure that you felt hope, all the time. What breaks my heart even now, is that he was the one that looked after us and gave us hope and we couldn’t give him hope.
I would love nothing more than even if Ian Curtis was a bloody recluse in the Isle of Skye, in a bloody cave. I would love nothing more than if he was here. I have had a wonderful life with its ups and downs, and the things that worry me now aren’t the grieving or the music, it’s the things that he missed out on. As a man. With his child. With his lover. The life that he should’ve had.
JM: You were talking about being the frontman of Peter Hook and the Light, mentioning before the trouble Barney had becoming frontman of New Order after Ian passed. Could you relate to some of these difficulties?
PH: I was terrified! I had three singers lined up for the Light and I was playing bass, and the keyboard terrorism was that bad that all three of them quit. It was Rowetta from Happy Mondays that said to me, “Hooky, you’re gonna have to face it. You’re gonna have to do it.” We had one gig at The Factory, my club in Manchester, and we put it on sale, it sold out, and we did a second night. I remember being in the hotel opposite, looking over the blinds at the queue forming. I’ve never been so frightened in all my life as then. Doing it was nerve wracking, and I had no confidence in myself. It took nine months, and about 30, 40, 50 gigs before I actually got to the point where I started to relax. And what made me relax was people seemed to realise that I was doing it for the right reasons. The fans backed me. I’ll never be able to thank them enough for that because it was difficult.
JM: There’s a fairly consistent pattern between your shows in Glasgow and you’ve mentioned a love for touring before, but is there anything beyond that pulling you back to the city?
PH: I always feel like Glasgow and Manchester were separated at birth. From a musical point of view Glasgow backs Manchester to the hilt. New Order were playing [Tiffany’s], and we ended up fighting with the audience more or less the whole evening. It was like what we were born to do! I remember leaving the venue and walking up Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday night, watching all the fights, and I thought “it’s just like Manchester”.
We played a gig in Barrowlands once, and I was sick of [Barney], so I smashed up the dressing room. I got a phone call the next day from Liam and Noel [Gallagher, of Oasis] going: ‘What have you done, you twat? You’ve smashed up our dressing room!’. Because they were playing the next night! So I said: ‘You pair of nancies – phoning me up about the dressing room.’ And hung up. We had such wonderful times.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. Thanks to Ian Cheek PR for setting up this opportunity.