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Archive Melbourne Herald Sun

Jacques Lu Cont (Stewart Price) talks about New Order

Some quotes from an article on Jacques Lu Cont in the local paper this week:

"He has Madonna on his speed dial and a day job in her band, and New Order liked his take on their trademark sound so much they hired him to work on their new album. Yes, life is good when you are Jacques Lu Cont.
Born in Paris but bearing the far less glamorous name of Stuart Price, he moved to Britain and spent the 1990s reliving his love of the 80's, in particular Human League and New Order. He signed to dance label Wall of Sound in 1994 when he was only 17 as frontman of Les Rythmes Digitales...

Price has just found himself some more high-profile friends: New Order. They heard the very New Order-esque Jacques Lu Cont remix of Gwen Stefani's What you waiting for when Stefani played it to them while New Order's Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook were working on her album. Price admits he was going for 'something more like Stevie Nicks' Stand Back' but it turned into a New Order vibe. Sumner was impressed and flattered.

He rang me and said: We're finishing the New Order album and there are a couple of songs we want you to work on, so I ended up producing two tracks, Price says. One track is fairly similar in style to the Gwen mix, except it has Bernard on vocals. The other is like a great New Order pop record, like True Faith or Regret, and I got Ana Matronic from the Scissor Sisters to do vocals and it's ended up almost a duet between her and Bernard.

Price says working with his heroes, New Order, was eye-opening. I realised that in basically every song I've ever written I've ripped off Bernard Sumner in every single way possible when it comes to vocal melodies. We'd go over vocal parts and I'd think, Er, that's exactly what I would have done here. All those early New Order singles like Temptation through to True Faith, as a 15 year old kid, they had such a massive impact on me without me even realising it.

But Price is uninspired by the current trend to revisit the 80s.
Some quotes from an article on Jacques Lu Cont in the local paper this week:

"He has Madonna on his speed dial and a day job in her band, and New Order liked his take on their trademark sound so much they hired him to work on their new album. Yes, life is good when you are Jacques Lu Cont.
Born in Paris but bearing the far less glamorous name of Stuart Price, he moved to Britain and spent the 1990s reliving his love of the 80's, in particular Human League and New Order. He signed to dance label Wall of Sound in 1994 when he was only 17 as frontman of Les Rythmes Digitales...

Price has just found himself some more high-profile friends: New Order. They heard the very New Order-esque Jacques Lu Cont remix of Gwen Stefani's What you waiting for when Stefani played it to them while New Order's Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook were working on her album. Price admits he was going for 'something more like Stevie Nicks' Stand Back' but it turned into a New Order vibe. Sumner was impressed and flattered.

He rang me and said: We're finishing the New Order album and there are a couple of songs we want you to work on, so I ended up producing two tracks, Price says. One track is fairly similar in style to the Gwen mix, except it has Bernard on vocals. The other is like a great New Order pop record, like True Faith or Regret, and I got Ana Matronic from the Scissor Sisters to do vocals and it's ended up almost a duet between her and Bernard.

Price says working with his heroes, New Order, was eye-opening. I realised that in basically every song I've ever written I've ripped off Bernard Sumner in every single way possible when it comes to vocal melodies. We'd go over vocal parts and I'd think, Er, that's exactly what I would have done here. All those early New Order singles like Temptation through to True Faith, as a 15 year old kid, they had such a massive impact on me without me even realising it.

But Price is uninspired by the current trend to revisit the 80s. Every major artist at the minute is coming out with their song that sounds a bit like Visage or Human League, but it just sounds like they're ripping something off. They're not trying to take it forward."

From the NewOrderOnline archive.

Thanks to: dub