“The devil in me has done this book so they can be asked awkward questions,” says Peter Hook, referring to how he writes about his former New Order bandmates in his new memoir Substance.
The 1980s cult synth-rock band hailing from Manchester in the north of England, which grew out of post-punk band Joy Division following the death of their lead singer Ian Curtis, went on to enjoy huge global acclaim with songs including True Faith, Bizarre Love Triangle and Blue Monday.
Yet as Hook recounts in his wildly entertaining 750-page book, behind the scenes lay constant friction with singer Bernard Sumner over record production, a mad management structure (led by manager Rob Gretton and Tony Wilson of their indie label Factory Records), several break-ups and copious amounts of sex, drugs and alcohol.
The turmoil culminated in Hook – who is widely regarded as one of the greatest bass players of his generation – being ejected from New Order half a decade ago. He is now suing his bandmates in the UK High Court, accusing them of withholding money that he claims is rightfully his. Yet this acrimony has meant Substance is rife with hilarious anecdotes, many about Sumner, or “twatto”, as he is often called.
Substance completes the third volume in Hook’s trilogy following his tomes about Joy Division and the Hacienda nightclub, which he co-owned. Hook, who now tours playing New Order and Joy Division songs with his band Peter Hook and the Light, spoke with Heat Street in midtown Manhattan about re-visiting the high life and low life in New Order and the High Court showdown with the group who form the subject of his new book.
One thing that defines so many successful British music groups of the 1980s is a certain pressure at work, both in terms of their sound and band relations. New Order is no exception. Is this dynamic true of groups generally or is it specific to that time and place?
What happens when you get very creative people together is they tend to fight. The very chemistry that makes musicians make great music is inevitably the chemistry that will tear them apart from each other. If you have a band that are getting on, I would say as a rule of thumb they’re going to make shit music because the best music comes from angst and the energy comes from combativeness, ambition and frustration. That’s what stirs people up. Tony Wilson always used to say to us, ‘You’ve got a lot to thank the taxman for because it kept you hungry.’ Everybody, when they get fat and comfortable, tends to make fat and comfortable records.
New Order were always regarded as much cooler than your synth-pop contemporaries. How did you achieve that image?
We were punk and working class. One thing I noticed when I was doing the book was that all these electro-bands were middle class because they were the only ones that could afford the synths then. Our synths were paid for by Joy Division. Joy Division’s success bought New Order their equipment. To my mind we were the only working-class synth pop band. This was a rich man’s game in those days which went when acid house revolutionized music for the working class. All those synth bands- Duran Duran, Erasure, Blancmange- are all middle class.
Much of your book is devoted to Bernard Sumner or his name Barney?
He hates being called Barney – so I call him Barney all the time! He always says to me, ‘You’re the only one that calls me Barney.‘ Now we’re still fighting I call him it all the more.
Did you and Barney have a consistently difficult relationship or did it get easier at certain points?
Having a couple in a band is difficult because if there’s any tension, they always go off so Barney and I have been beating each other up for years and them two [Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert] just sat and watched most of the time. Being in a group is one of the strangest things because it has those ridiculous highs and then those ridiculous lows that you put on yourself. An outsider would go, ‘You’ve just had a record at number one, a world tour, you’ve got everything you want in the world. Why are you miserable?’ But because you’re in the group, you have that massive high and then you don’t give a shit about being number one. It’s like Trump winning the election and the next day being miserable. ‘You’ve just won the election? How can you be miserable?’ It’s a human trait.
What did you learn about New Order from writing the book?
The book came at a great time for me because the legal battle over the name and the financial arrangements that they made for me is still going on. We’re just getting ready to go to court. At the moment we’re still daggers drawn, at each other’s throats and have been for six years. It’s ridiculous.
Why are you intent on going to court with your former bandmates?
If someone did that to you, you’d have to fight. If you started a business with someone who all of a sudden shut the door and locked you out, you’d go, ‘f**K you, you’re not doing that to me! I put 31 years in!’
How do you stop the case from messing with your head?
Groups are bloody good at arguing for years and years which must be a combination of it being public and about your pride and being disrespected. The actual truth is that when New Order got back together without me, I thought I was going to lose everything: my standing as a musician; I thought I’d lost my group, I thought I’d lost myself. Now, in the same way as I did when I sobered up, I’ve not lost anything- playing the music I love with the Light, enjoying myself immensely. I’m having a great time.
From their perspective why do you think New Order haven’t settled with you?
I don’t know. The interesting thing was they said to me, ‘It’s because you started playing Joy Division on your tours.’ I went, ‘Hang on [Bernard] you played it in [his former band] Bad Lieutenant before me.’ ‘That doesn’t count.’ In New Order it did become a little bit not ‘Do as I do’ but ‘Do as I say’. The contradictions are legion. He doesn’t want to play Joy Division which is absolutely fine. But why criticize another member for doing it? It’s the oddest thing. Anybody can stand outside and play a Joy Division album in full and nobody-not even Trump who wants to put a wall round you- can change it. No-one can stop you playing that music wherever you want. It’s alright for all the tribute bands to do it but not for the guy who was in Joy Division.
What does this objection stem from?
Just because we didn’t ask. If I had asked, he would have said, ‘f***ing no’ anyway. What’s the point of asking? The interesting point at that time was that we had no rapport anyway. We had fallen out before then.
How did relations reach the stage where you fell out irrevocably?
We have fallen out repeatedly since we were eleven! But by the time we got to Brazil, I got sick of dragging a miserable c**t round. He acted so badly to the audience (and these kids were paying the equivalent of four weeks wages to get in) and I just thought, I shouldn’t be dragging him around. He got hold of me and said, ‘I’m only doing this for you because you’re skint.’ Well f***ing, don’t do it for me. All you do is make me miserable.
Throughout Substance, there’s a conflict about how much of your bass ends up on New Order songs. Stephen Morris [the drummer] also experiences this problem.
If I had my time over again, I would have said to [Confusion producer] Arthur Baker, ‘F**k off Arthur. Steve’s a great drummer. Let him play’ or ‘Stephen Hague [True Faith producer], we want Hooky on this. He’s an important part of the band.’ But you don’t for some reason- whether you’re shy or whether you don’t feel it’s your place or you just let your mate handle it. You’re always letting somebody down and then you’re thinking I shouldn’t be letting them down.
My downfall in New Order was that I thought it was all about the group. Bernard’s attitude was it’s all about the singing. It doesn’t matter who you step over or step on, the important thing is to finish the song. But I don’t think it is. The important thing is to keep the group…it had got to the point in the group where I felt that whatever Barney wanted to do, he just got his way. He didn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘compromise’- he just thought it was something you did. That was particularly galling.
How was it writing the book?
It took three years. I didn’t expect it would take that long but the book turned in at 300,000 words and we had to edit it down by a third to get it published. I had to censor stories for libel laws which broke my heart because of Max Moseley and the privacy laws. I had to change so much and I kept saying to them, ‘You may as well get the f***ing lawyer to write the book!’ No-one is going to be able to write a book in future. The great books- like those about the Stones- wouldn’t be able to be written now. A lawyer would be there taking everything out. It’s making it really boring.
Don’t you miss New Order?
I was very close to them recently. I’m in contact with them every day for the court case. I’ve certainly not got rid of them. We’re right at each other’s throats. There is s no way we are apart. We are still together and we’re going to be together forever. When I play New Order, it’s like they’re there.
There’s plenty of drugs and drink in the book. How could you remember what happened?
My mate said to me, you tell a lot of those stories for free. They’ve become New Order-type myths. For the most part in New Order, I was sober. There was only a period of about three years, maybe four years, where I was off it. Because I got into drugs really late. I used to watch them in a room talk shit and think, ‘What the f**k is this all about?’ I never understood it but as soon as I went down the rabbit hole, all of a sudden you become a right boring bastard as well. But it was quite interesting for me to write about the failed marriage, the abuse and to go into my addiction and alcoholism. The scary thing was that when I went into the Priory, I thought my life was over. I was about to lose everything I held dearly. My wife, my child, my job. I was killing myself. I thought, ‘This is it. It’s the end.’ But it was the absolute beginning because I’ve been sober ever since, for twelve years.
You took some flak in the press for recounting in the book the physical abuse you suffered from [Hook’s ex-wife, late comedian] Caroline Aherne:
What I liked about putting the bit in about the abuse from my [ex]wife is that you hope to inspire people to say if you’re going through this, it’s not the end. You don’t have to suffer with it. You can do something about it. It’s not right. It’s not fair. That goes to all the things- New Order, alcohol and abuse in the marriage. I thought I’d be doing a great disservice to myself if I had left it out.
Did you expect the criticism you received in the media and the Facebook posts from her family?
Yes. The only people I get upset for is my wife. I’ve been a musician for 41 years. Everyone’s called me every f**king name under the sun. Bad press, good press. If I look at my Twitter feed and have 50% saying you’re a twat and the other 50% saying you’re alright, then it’s OK. It’s only when it starts going the other way- 65-35%- that it should worry you.
Talking of the press, it was interesting to read that the name New Order originally came from the Sunday Times and that Bizarre Love Triangle was named after a News of the World headline? You were regarded as an alternative band and yet evidently still plugged into mainstream media.
I used to read vociferously. Still do. I won’t throw any newspaper away until I’ve read it…but New Order never courted the press. We were strange like that but we didn’t promote. It was quite simple. Tony Wilson said, ‘Do you want to do it?’ and we said ‘No’! The fact we played Blue Monday live [on Top of the Pops] so it sounded shit and the record went down [in the charts]. We were delighted because we were punks. It was anarchic. That was what we were born to do. When we lost that attitude we’d lost New Order.
Can you ever see yourself playing with them again?
Time’s a great healer. When you’re embroiled in something as angsty as this, you can’t imagine it. If your missus has just thrown you out and cut all your jackets,and someone said to her, “Do you think you’ll ever get back together again?”, the answer is bound to be no. But as we’ve seen with The Beach Boys, The Eagles, Guns’n’Roses and The Stone Roses, bands do play together again because ultimately it’s a job and a lot better than most jobs. It beats working for a living.
Substance: Inside New Order by Peter Hook is published by Dey Street Books