Part 2: Peter Hook, Joy Division & New Order Legend On Keeping control of your career & creative freedom

Photo by Andi Gibson.

How did you cope when success really hit, how did you handle the attention?

We’ve never really had that huge overnight success. It was a very gradual curve, it wasn’t like the Beatles, all screaming girls and hysteria. We were a very workman like band and people realized we were pretty much the same as them.

Of course, just as Joy Division were gaining world wide recognition Ian tragically died, and you decided to re-form as New Order. How did the band handle that tragic situation?

We didn’t really think about it. We were still very young, we were only 23 and we were desperate to carry on, so we didn’t really change anything. We just wanted to get on with it. This was our way of dealing with the grief of losing Ian, throwing ourselves back into it. The new sound evolved because we didn’t have Ian, plus the technology and line up had changed. Bernard was a completely different vocalist to Ian. So we had to adapt to the situation.

Can you remember your first review?

My first review was “Joy Division are grim, I grinned” that was the first line of it, which was a real slag off.

How do you handle negative criticism?

Well, you get used to it. The thing is that 30 years on, people can write what they like. That’s the wonderful part of our society and it doesn’t have to be true. It’s only their opinion. So as long as they don’t really insult you personally or your family they can get away with it. It always hurts, but you know, it’s water off a ducks back. You just have to get on with it. It’s like your report at the end of school, you don’t pay too much attention, because it’s not going to effect the rest of your life.

Hooky DJing at a Hacienda revival night 10 years after the clubs close. Photo by Andy Golpys

Tell us about the highlights of your musical career, is there anything in particular that stands out?

The fact that I could live off music for 30 years is pretty much a highlight for me. Also I still get an incredible kick from watching a TV program and one of our songs comes on.

New Order were a huge group. We were doing concerts in America for 25,000 to 30,000 people when we decided to stop. That’s bigger than Oasis and the Spice Girls ever were. Nobody in England thinks about New Order as being that successful in America, Canada and South America. But we were huge everywhere.

Photo by Andy Golpys

You mentioned earlier the Hacienda, whose idea was it to buy a nightclub? Why did you get involved in such a big project?

It was our managers idea along with Tony Wilson to open it. It was out of necessity really. We could go to gigs dressed as punks, but you couldn’t go to a nightclub. Manchester was very old fashioned at the time and clubs were strictly suit and ties. The Hacienda broke the mould because you could go dressed however you liked, there was no dress code. It was opened for people like us so we had somewhere to go.

What was the biggest challenge of running it?

The interesting thing about the Hacienda is that it wasn’t opened to make a profit. The idea was that the profits would be ploughed back into the business. It was like a hippy culture thing and it wasn’t intended to make loads of money.

But it was a huge enterprise and if we’d looked at it from a realistic point of view, we would have said “It’s too big, it’s too overstaffed and it’s too risky”. However, we didn’t have a clue what we were doing, so we did it anyway. Luckily we had a lot of money, or Factory Records had a lot of money from our records and they very kindly invested it for us.

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Illustration by Jed Collins

The Hacienda and the music it showcased had a huge impact on club life and culture, but it also had a reputation of drugs and violence, tell us what was really like?

DJ’s at The Hacienda played dance music and acid house, which has had a big influence in clubs all over the world. It’s sort of portrayed, quite wrongly, that the only way to enjoy yourself is to get off your head on drugs. It was funny because when they did a survey in the Hacienda, they worked out that barely 10% of people were actually on drugs. Most of them were just high on life, that was absolutely true. But the thing is, drugs were sold there and gangsters do make a living out of selling drugs. It had a fantastic reputation, but equally terrifying and intoxicating at the same time.

Photo by Andy Golpys

You mentioned how the music industry has changed over time. One big change has been the impact of the Internet. Do you see online music promotion as a positive move?

I do! It’s quite funny though because I think the Internet business can be over-hyped. I remember some time ago, I was doing a tour of America and I was reading about the Arctic Monkeys being big on the Internet. My son had played me some Arctic Monkeys songs and I thought it was brilliant. I thought I’d take some of their music with me, because they’re big online. I got to America and everyone was like “What the fuck is this?”. I realized at the time the Arctic Monkeys were big on the Internet in Sheffield in England. Not the rest of the world.

Just because a band has the ability to upload their music online, doesn’t mean that anybody is going to download it. You still have to do things the normal way, like getting publicity, playing gigs, having bottles thrown at you, being told to get off stage, doing your friends wedding… the music business is still primarily about selling music.

Your right, you still need to do the ground work, but bands have the facility to distribute records themselves, and they can gain popularity even without the backing of a record company. This gives them a lot of creative freedom. So this must be having a negative impact on record companies?

Absolutely, record companies have made a lot of money over the years so personally I don’t feel very sorry for them. They’ve made millions at the expense of artists for a very long time and they’ve got plenty of money.

It’s just changed. In particular record companies don’t nurture bands like they used to. When a band signed to a label they would sign for five albums or eight albums. The record label would stick with them for the whole eight albums, even if the first one wasn’t a huge success, but nowadays they don’t.

Photo courtesy of Fac 51

Some people would say that’s realistic, but the thing is you lose a lot of bands with potential. They only do one record and because it doesn’t sell they get dropped. But their greatest record may have been the second or third album. Pop Idol or X-Factor contestants get dropped, never to be heard of again. That’s because they sign a £1million contract, but that’s £100,000 for your first album and £100,000 for your next nine.

But there are some great new independent acts coming up who know how to use the web effectively, and freedom on the Internet has to be a positive thing.

Thanks for your time Peter, and for telling it like is it.

Action

After being inspired by the Sex Pistols, Hooky took action straight away, he bought a guitar and formed a band, and that single decision ended up helping to shape a generation of modern music. What action are you going to take? Go and do it, and remember to come back and tell us what you’ve started in the comments.

Interview by Angel Greenham
Co editor Sian Claire Owen

Links

www.myspace.com/peterhookneworder
www.myspace.com/neworder
www.controlthemovie.com
www.partypeoplemovie.com

Special thanks to Fletch at One Love Music

This interview is dedicated to Tony Wilson, another Manchester legend, who passed away in August 2007.