Currently on tour across Europe, with a set of UK dates planned for April and May, we sat down with the frontman Peter Hook himself to chat about all things setlists, nostalgia, Louis Walsh and literature. As well as the persistence of his hits and the generational legacy of his musical endeavours over the years.
Music Is To Blame: As you’re on tour right now, I just wanted to know more about your setlists. How do you go about formulating them? Was there a particular thought process behind dividing the New Order and Joy Division songs?
Peter Hook: That’s an interesting question! Was it your thought that you should play them all together?
MITB: Perhaps. I often see when people do similar things they tend to weave a lot of older material together.
PH: You see the problem I’ve got, and the problem I had at the start, was that the Joy Division fans and the New Order fans that were coming to see us were actually quite divided. You could see that when you played the New Order stuff a load of kids in black t-shirts, et cetera, all went to the bar. Then you would see the same thing in reverse when you played Joy Division - all the New Order kids would go to the bar. Now I think - blowing my own trumpet - over the years of playing we've actually managed to give them a middle ground, so while they might prefer one over the other, they won’t all have a massive exodus to the bar. That's been the change.
Now the thing is, my gimmick if you like, is playing the LPs in full. What’s happened is that people have lived with these LPs, because in the old days whatever you were playing you would play the content of that lp. It was only when you got to CDs that you were able to shuffle. Everybody’s grown up listening to [the LPs] in that order. I think that if you asked - particularly the older ones - because we are advertised here in France playing ‘Substance’ New Order and ‘Substance’ Joy Division; people do not want you to mix it up. I could tell you that for a fact. At a festival we’ll do that; I actually went through a phase of saying I wouldn’t do it because I was staying true to the original concept. The concept is to play the LPs as they were written and recorded. So that’s why I don’t mix it up.
So far, after 15 years we've managed to educate our audience into more or less expecting [the full LPs]. And this is the problem I've got with going to the next LP, which is ‘Get Ready’ that we're playing in England in April. Because we've got ‘Get Ready’, which in itself is 11 or 13 songs, so that's like a normal band set. We normally play two band sets. We normally play 15 New Order and 16 Joy Division songs. So we're doing two sets per night, about three hours. So the thing is that when you get to do Get Ready in one, I'm thinking, how the hell do I do Joy Division… and New Order? So do we have three sets? Because that's the way I normally do it! Me and Pottsy (David Potts) my guitarist and my great friend said “maybe we shouldn't, maybe we should just play one set.” And that’s uncanny. He's saying if you do ‘Get Ready’ in one set - which is sounding really good, I must admit - I think we'll get away with it easily. Then you play Joy Division and New Order together. But I don't know, I honestly don't know how you can do it because I've been so used to putting them separately for 15 years!
MITB: It’s like you’re doing all the opening slots for yourself and also headlining in a way.
PH: You know what, the name we had before Joy Division - Slaves of Venus. Right? And the name we had before New Order was The Witch Doctors of Zimbabwe. So what we did for an entire American tour was that when we played New Order, we had slaves of Venus supporting us, which was just us playing Joy Division. Then if we were playing Joy Division, we'd have The Witch Doctors of Zimbabwe supporting, which was us playing New Order. I must admit, I don't know if anybody got the gag.
MITB: I mean for the people who knew they'd probably find it really funny!
PH: I don't think many people did, but it was good for us!
And the thing is that what I went through when New Order were together was a very sort of blanket dismissal of most of the songs that we wrote. Just wouldn't play them. We were playing the same 14, 17 songs maximum every time we played. It varied very little. I thought, particularly for me, it was heartbreaking. To lose all those songs that people love and that I love, I just couldn't agree with it. But, you know, you can’t make people, unless you've got a big gun or a big stick, do what you want. Can you? Wouldn’t life be great if you could make everyone do what you want? So that was a big bugbear for me in New Order.
Now I'm out of New order. I want to play all the songs! The Light can probably play about 120 songs. It keeps me going, it makes me feel good. It actually stimulates most of the audience because they hear things that they've not heard for years and years and years. I mean, it's always a balance. You never know; and there's always somebody who bloody hates everything! But you cannot please all the people all the time.
It's really odd, you see, because when I started doing this in 2011 when New Order had split up I got accused of cashing in - by playing my own material! It was really strange. I must admit, after ignoring [the songs] for 30 years, I thought everybody would have been glad of you playing. But there were a lot of keyboard warriors, as we know, who specialise in that sort of shit, don't they? And yeah, it was quite an odd thing to be accused of. So the thing is that I was very wary and people were very wary when they came to give you the opportunity [to play the songs], but it did work. You do have to prove yourself, in anything that we do in life, you have to prove yourself. It took a while to move it around. I think that there was a lot of industrial sabotage along the way, shall we say, from nameless people. So it has been difficult, but now that I'm able and I have the freedom to play whatever I want, whenever I want, my ambition is to play every LP song that New Order and Joy Division ever recorded and wrote. I've done it for Joy Division and that was 45. We played the 45 songs together one time,it was a hell of a night.
MITB: I can imagine!
PH: Now I'm well on the way with New Order. And again, whilst I don't want to go on about it, you know, I do realize that the grim reaper is loitering, shall we say, round my stage door? So I've got to get it done. I want it done, you know. I sort of have to work on the adage that if I'm happy doing it, as much as I hate to say, that's all that matters. If you do it, someone will hate it. “Oh, why did you play Get Ready first? You should have played it at the end!” You're like “oh fucking hell.” “Why did you play Joy Division second? You should have played it first!” you like that? You know, my son does all our social media. The things that people complain about are unbelievable!
MITB: Thinking along the lines of what you mentioned earlier; the idea of trying to sort of please everyone and “selling out”, which I think is really interesting. There's a really big obsession at the minute with music and looking back. There's a lot of people getting back together and going on tour. I was just wondering what your relationship with nostalgia is? How do you feel about looking back to the past if you do at all, and how it impacts your trajectory as an artist?
PH: That is a very, very difficult question. Somebody was asking me the other day they were saying, “do you get a lot of young people coming to your show? Because you're an old fucker.” They think it's just full of old bastards. Which must I admit I did think it would be, but it isn't. So the thing is you get a lot of young people coming because they've heard the music through their parents. Now, I think that you as a generation are lucky in that you get to share your happenings in your life with your parents, because I never got to do it with my parents. They were from another generation that just wasn't into that. So the thing is that you get a lot of families coming, right? I've had grandad, dad and kid loads of times. and I've had dad, granddad and grandson, granddaughter loads of times. So the thing is that these families are keeping music and using it together, which I think is fantastic. Now, you'd say to the dad, wouldn't you? “Yeah, it’s nostalgia. Because you were there for the first time.” But you wouldn't be able to say to the kid it's nostalgia, because the kid is only hearing it for the first time. So he's judging as to whether he likes it or not. You don't know when you hear this music, how old any of [the songs/artists] are. So, nostalgia is a weird thing.
I mean, you're lucky in that you're quite young. So, really, your nostalgia bank is not really very full. You’re updating it all the time; putting stuff in it every week, every month, every year, every time you listen to a record, it all goes in. And then, when you turn round at, say my son's age, 34, and you'll be going, “am I being nostalgic or is it just good?”
Now, that is the tricky question. Now, the thing about all these bands getting back together is simply, I don't know if you've noticed, but musicians are the worst people that you should ever give money to - because they always fuck it up! I was watching the Boyzone documentary. The interesting thing about that documentary in particular was they never mentioned money. Not once throughout the whole documentary was there a mention of money. Where did it go? Who looked after it for them? Did they come out with money or without da di da... There was no mention of it whatsoever. And the thing that gave it away for me was that when they reformed, which the band said they did because they loved each other again, they did it without Louis Walsh. But they were using the name. Now, I would imagine if Louis Walsh was such a bastard, he would have trademarked the name himself because we're all, at that age, musicians. So how did they get to use the name? You know, it was a business arrangement.. So, a lot of these bands are getting back together again - and I hate to say it - for the money, because it's a big carrot. I mean, it's funny whenever you watch a documentary every band does the same thing. They all go mental at the start, but they don't bother about business. They all end fucking it up and then they have to come back. But then, you know, they actually reap the rewards. I remember when Mani from The Stone Roses was telling me that they were reforming, right? And I said, “you know what, you deserve that reformation!” He had such a bad time from a business point of view, while they were together they really made a mess of it. Their manager ripped him off, all the usual things, so at least this time he was able to do it, for his family and probably very much for his own peace of mind. He was able to do it with SJM and he did very, very well out of it. Because I've known him for years, you know, so it was nice. So really, when you do see those bands get together, just think, oh, at least hopefully this time they'll make a few quid.
And the weird thing is that a lot of us, and I count myself in that as well. You know, I go to see bands that I love - I'm going to see Neil Young in Hyde Park, he's one of my favorite artists of all time! Whilst I know what he is doing Hyde Park for, probably about 10 million quid. But I'm still going because I love the nostalgia. All the LPs that he's released that I've loved have played an important part in my life. What happens is that when I go and I hear ‘Harvest Moon’ or something like that, it takes me back to that time, which I quite enjoy.
Now, our lead singer in New Order (Bernard Sumner) always used to say to me “you’re too melancholic you, you too melancholic. You shouldn't be looking back, you should be looking forward.” I just think “piss off”, because if you've enjoyed something and it's been important to you in the past; friends, happenings, you know, whatever. There's nothing wrong with sitting there and thinking about it. That's what we as human beings do. And that’s probably why he wouldn't play any of the old songs - because he “just wanted to look forward”. But you know, the thing is that you do have to learn; when we were younger, we were very bloody minded. Take ‘Blue Monday’, for instance. We'd be playing a huge gig in America, 27,000 people, as we were really big in America. And we'd go “we won't play ‘Blue Monday’ tonight. No, no, we're sick of it, you know, fuck it”. So you wouldn't play it. And then quite rightly, a lot of the audience would get very upset. But we just, you know, start a fight with them or something. We were young! Punk, that I came from, was all about getting your own way and breaking the establishment and changing the rules to suit yourself - and we still carried that on for quite a while. Now, the thing is that when I play ‘Blue Monday’ now, like I did last night, and I hear the cheers and the whoops and see the look on people's faces, I think “why would I want to deprive myself of that? Or them?” I could play ten other songs that they might not like as much, but I can get away with it by playing ‘Blue Monday’.
MITB: In London, as well as all over the UK there is a big New Wave and Post-Punk disco culture and as soon as ‘ ‘Blue Monday’ comes on at these events, everyone goes crazy! You're waiting the whole night to hear the first few like drum hits, and then everyone just erupts. Why do you think the song has stayed so persistent and so beloved in these spaces and within pop culture over the years? Do you believe there’s a certain reason?
PH: I’ll tell you a secret. As a song New Order weren’t that enamored with it. It was originally meant to be an instrumental, and this was how bloody-minded we were… We wanted an instrumental that we could play just on the sequencers, so we could go backstage and booze. So we did it as an instrumental, and our manager went mental when we wouldn't put a vocal on it. He said, you've got to, and there was no bass on it either. So he said “go put some bass on it, you fool!” So I did. I went and put the bass on, and I think that that gave Barney the inspiration to do the vocal, so we did the vocal. Then, when we'd finished it, we just moved on to the next song. So we didn't think it was the best of our repertoire by any if anything, if you're gonna ask me, I much preferred the next single ‘Thieves Like Us’... I produced [‘Blue Monday’] with the engineer, and with the other members of New Order chipping in. We worked very hard on it as we always did because we'd been taught by a fantastic producer. It went out and it was nine minutes long and Radio One wouldn't play it. So we said “fuck off, if you won't play it, don't bother playing it!” So that was how bloody-minded we were. What happened was, it went into the charts at 13 or something like that, and Top of the Pops asked us to play and we said, “can we play live?” They said no. So we said “well, we're not doing it then”. Then that summer when we'd forgotten about it, all the DJs throughout Europe started playing it in the tourist hotspots, and all the kids were coming back to buy the record and going, “oh, have you got that New Order by Blue Monday? I want to buy it.” They got the name wrong because they didn't know the band. So, we re-released it and then, because of the interest that the DJs had created, it became a hit - and it was a big hit! Then we got to Top of the Pops and because it was a big hit, they couldn't say no, and we played live and our record went down 10 spaces because we were so bad! So yeah, you know, our punk credentials were still very valid at that point. I saw a wonderful um thing in Mix Mag recently; they asked a thousand DJs “what record do you put on to rescue a night? If it's all going wrong, no one's dancing, it’s shit, bad atmosphere. What record do you put on?” Which one do you think?
MITB: ‘Blue Monday’.
PH: ‘Blue Monday’. That was amazing, because after the dalliance I had with DJing, I would never play it. How weird is that? It's one of those things, isn't it? When you're close to something you don't have the objectivity to analyze why it works or why it doesn't. People can listen to it - you know, like when you watch these things on YouTube, where it's reactions, there's a reaction to ‘Blue Monday’ and the guy is totally shocked! Now, I don't get that. I get that with other people's records, but not my own.
All I can say is that there was a lot of luck. Now don't forget, this is how old ‘Blue Monday’ is, it was actually programmed in binary code. The old computer code. It wasn't even MIDI and it certainly wasn't anywhere near a computer. Because of it being in binary code and the sequencers being very old and very new, old-fashioned, shall we say? It gave it a groove. When we programmed it, you couldn't cut and paste, so we made a lot of mistakes, like five bars and four bars, whereas most music is written in prime odd numbers. You know, it's always two, four, six, eight, whatever. ‘Blue Monday’ has a lot of threes and fives in it because we miscounted while we were doing the binary code. In a binary code, you have to go to work in sixteens; you have to do fifteen off one on. Seven off, one on if he's eight. It's a lot of programming and it's a very, very difficult thing to do. And we made loads of mistakes and ‘Blue Monday’ has those mistakes that you couldn't correct and they worked! So it was a lot of luck, a lot of skill. Bernard in particular grasped this new technology. I hated it, I was a rock and roll dinosaur, just wanting to sound like the Sex Pistols. But he embraced these new synthesizers and sequencers. and we made it work together. We were very lucky because of Joy Division's money. New Order didn’t have any money, we hadn't earned any money because we hadn't even released an LP. The drum machine that did the boom boom b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-boom, right? 2000 quid in 1982. That's the equivalent of probably about 14,000 quid today. So we were very lucky that Joy Division had earned a lot of money that we were able to use it to become a synth band. So, yeah, that drum machine was literally hot from the factory when we made ‘Blue Monday’! So you were right on the cusp and you caught it at a certain time. You were in the right place at the right time, with someone who had the talent to program it and someone who had the talent to produce it, put a bit of bass on so he'd do the vocal and there and there's your song. And whilst that sounds a bit glib and easy, it's not that easy. That was how it happened.
I mean, as a musician, I've been very, very lucky, I saw the Sex Pistols in Manchester in 1976. I formed a group that night, and that group went on to be world famous and when that finished, we formed another group that went on to be world famous; and now lo and behold, I'm doing it on my own and as much as I humbly don't admit it - I'm world famous. I can play all around the world… So it is that we were in the right place and the right time, and that's even before you look at The Haçienda!
I mean, I remember seeing my first goth, right? Ever. You know where I saw my first goth? It was a Soft Cell concert at [audio cuts out] University. These oddly dressed people were loitering at the back. it must have been about 19… probably 1980, maybe ‘79, when it really began. The whole Goth thing went into New Romantic, and then went into post-punk. And I remember going, “wow!” We were like “woo, oh, they’re funny, aren’t they!” It was a group of about six of them, and I said to Marc Almond “who are these, who are these?” and he went, “oh, they're Goths. They follow us ‘round. How weird is that?” That was the first time I'd ever heard the word Goth. I can't say that I knew where it began, but I remember my first occasion of seeing a Goth, because I was still a punk then. We sort of went modern when it went into post-punk and we smartened ourselves up a little bit.
I mean, ‘Blue Monday’ is a great song and it goes from generation to generation in the same way that Joy Division does. I must admit the only thing I ever wanted to do was play with people who love my music. That's all I've ever wanted to do. And whilst I was a New Order, I wasn't wasn't allowed to play many of them. So since I’ve come out of New Order, I'm now free. I can play as many as I want!
I always remember Ian Curtis. Ian Curtis always used to say to me; whenever we got down because we couldn't get a gig or it was just going badly, you know, nobody loved us. He would always say “Hooky, Hooky, relax. We will be famous. Everyone know our name. We're gonna go all around the world!” He was one of those people that couldn't help but pick you up, even though he had massive problems himself. So every time I get somewhere that Joy Division didn't, I always think “this is for you, mate”. When we played in Mongolia… we played in Mongolia! We played Joy Division in Mongolia! How fantastic is that? We’ve played Joy Division in China, we played it in Russia. We've played it all around the world, and every single time I get there, I think “fucking hell, Ian was right!” It's just the saddest thing in the world he’s not here to be a part of it. But you know, in a nostalgic way, right? He’s eternally young.
We’ve really done our best to capture the power and the intensity and the passion, which I think I've managed to do. And the boys are fantastic! I do wish my boys would have written these bloody songs, but then again, if they had written them, you'd have had all the angst of writers together, wouldn't you? You know, oh my fucking hell, it drives you mad!
MITB: Thinking back to this idea of a new generation going out and dancing to your music, a lot of people in those clubs are dancing exactly like Ian did and like replicating his moves and things like that. And I think that's like a really nice little piece of him there as well.
PH: A lot of them dress like him as well!
MITB: Yes! I was just curious to know what you think of this aspect of Ian and Joy Division’s lasting impact from generation to generation?
PH: Do you know what, it’s a compliment. I mean it's like if somebody plays bass like me, apart from when The Cure do it, because it really pissed me off when… Oh man, I was reading a book by Matt Haig, ‘The Life Impossible’, and he kept going on about this song ‘The Cure had done called Last Days of Summer’. He kept mentioning it in this book. It was a great book actually. And I thought, you know what? I want to listen to that because I've not heard that track. And I played it and what ripoff bastards it sounds just like me! Unbelievable! Ruined the bloody book for me. But you know, the thing is that when it comes down to it, when you are lucky enough - my God, I can't believe how lucky I am to have a signature sound - and to able to have people that still appreciate it now. For someone to emulate it is the greatest thing in the world! I did it too. When I went to see The Stranglers, I heard Jean-Jacques Burnel play and I thought his sound was magnificent. I wrote down what equipment he had and I said “one day I'm gonna have that equipment and I'm gonna sound like him”. And then when I went to see The Clash play, I watched Paul Simonon and he had a really long strap on his bass, and I thought he looked dead cool because he was really near the floor and he was really like a proper gunslinger. I wrote that down and I thought “I'm going to do that as well”. What happened was, I got Jean-Jacques Burnel's sound, I got Paul Simonon’s strap, put them together and there you go. And the thing is that if somebody emulates me, apart from that bloody Cure record - which is a step too far - I am flattered. I am.
I mean when Damon [Albarn] with Gorillaz asked me to play on 'Aries', you know, that that was so… I mean I've known Damon a long time, since the early 90s - I went through the whole Oasis thing with him, which was quite interesting. When he had this feud with the Gallaghers, it was quite weird. But to play on that track was wonderful. He’s such a lovely person and so prolific, my God. He said “Hooky, I was gonna just play it so it sounded like you because I didn't think you’d do it.” It was one of the biggest honors I've ever had, playing with the Gorillaz because I love Jamie Hewlett. I read his books from years ago, so I knew of him very, very well and to play with Damon, great fan of Blur and all that like, you know.
So yeah, I've been very lucky and don't I know it. Don't I know it! It's amazing how many of my friends and how many people you know that have a go. I always think the most important thing is to have a go! Because you will be kicking yourself for the rest of your life if you don't.
MITB: If you wouldn’t mind, I just wanted to go back to Top of the Pops. I've seen that infamous New Order performance about a million times, and I was just wondering if you had any fun little stories from being on Top of the Pops?
PH: I do! That white shirt I had on I actually found in the dressing room. Some other band had left it there, it was better than my shirt, so I put it on. The weirdest story is that when I went home, I was so full of myself because we'd been on Top of the Pops - man I was like Billy Big Bollocks!. Come on! Top of the Pops! I got to my house and I knocked on the door and my mother opened the door and she clipped me around the ear, and I went, what? And she said, “you, you've shown me up”. And I said, “Mum, what are you talking about?” She said, “you were chewing on Top of the Pops!” She said, “what will the neighbors say?” She didn't speak to me for three weeks!
MITB: I feel like that's the thing now, people are always chewing gum up on stage to look cool. They could be emulating you and that sense as well!
PH: Yes! Oh my god! You know what, if I close my eyes I can still remember that hit she gave me! What a woman!
Peter Hook and the Light will be appearing in the UK playing New Order’s Get Ready in full, as well as plethora of other Joy Division and New Order hits this Spring. Tickets can be found here. Make sure to grab any drinks before the sets begin as to avoid any mass audience exoduses.
Eylem Boz
Image: William Ellis
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