Many books have been written and films made about Manchester legends, Factory Records, New Order and the club they owned, The Hacienda. Michael Winterbottom's brilliant feature '24 Hour Party' told the story both thoroughly and amusingly. Next year will see iconic photographer and promo director Anton Corbijn's debut film about Joy Division's troubled lead singer, Ian Curtis, entitled 'Control'. Following Curtis' death, Joy Division members Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris added keyboard player Gillian Gilbert and became New Order. It is widely thought that this is when they fully cradled electronic dance music to their bosom. However, there is evidence of earlier electro experiments with Joy Division. 'As You Said (Incubation#2)', an outtake from their second album, 1980's 'Closer', is a completely instrumental Kraftwerk sounding track that shows the first glimpses of future New Order electro-pop genius.In a rare interview, Joy Division and New Order bass player, Peter Hook explains how they created some of the most played and copied dance records ever, namely 'Blue Monday' and the Arthur Baker/John Robie collaboration, 'Confusion'. Plus, all the inside info on his 'Hacienda Classics' compilation, released this week and his new band Freebass, formed with Smiths and Stone Roses fellow bass playing legends-come-DJs, Andy Rourke and Mani.It's widely written that New Order first discovered dance music on going to New York in the early 80s and visiting clubs like Dancetaria. But there is evidence of electronic dance experiments with Joy Division too. 'As You Said...', which came out as a Factory fiexi-disc, could almost be described as electro. Do you remember much about making that track?
If it's the one I'm thinking of, it's what [legendary in-house Factory producer] Martin Hannett did. He used a loop and got us to jam over it and then moved things in and out on the desk. It was done by Martin on his ARP sequencer that was triggering an ARP Omni, as I remember. It was like just a few cut-down [tape] loops. He got us to jam over it and he didn't like anything that we did and just used the backing track, so it was really minimal.
It's sort of quite embarrassing when people say to [me] stuff like you invented dance music because of 'Blue Monday', which I think is f*cking drastically untrue; if you look at the bands before that like Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder, Sylvester... The reason we got into pure dance music was because the technology evolved to let [us] do it. Before that, in '79 say, that was when the technology was just being born, it was the birth of your Prophet 5's and [the first sampler] Fairlight. Before that, it was all disco music because basically, people had to play it. They couldn't sample because EMS had only just invented the first sampler, where the triggering was really dodgy. So, I mean the thing was, electronic music as we know it today, wasn't really born then - it was just a twinkle in somebody's eye, wasn't it? The thing was that we were lucky enough to use our influences that we stole from people like Can, Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder...so the group started employing elements like that. We started using synthesised instruments like Syndrums and then we got into the first sequencers. Basically, we were using a home-made sequencer to trigger...you know those organs you used to get in people's front room? We got a guy to build a drum machine off it: so basically, the guy built us a drum machine where you could trigger each individual instrument from a sequencer. So instead of having to use the 'cha cha' and the 'bossa nova', like everybody else had, we had the ability to actually write our own drum pattern.
So you basically had a drum machine specifically made for New Order then?
It was, yeah. Clef Bang Box it was called (laughs). I remember going to meet the guy here in Manchester and he made add-on units for home organs. And it was through a friend of ours that knew him that talked the guy into experimenting with the group and doing an individual output board - not only did you have individual inputs so you could write your own drum riffs with the sequencer but you were using individual outputs
- so it didn't come out as a stereo or mono mix
- the instruments came out individually so you could effect them.
I mean, it was really radical. Bernard and Stephen in particular were the ones that were bang up for it. Bernard built his own sequencer and it went from there really. As the technology became available I guess he realised, to great delight, that he could get rid of me and the drummer!
There's a lot of mystique around the early New Order track '586' (believed to be an earlier version of 'Blue Monday'). It appears on your first Peel Session (from 1982) and I also understand that an earlier version was used as the opening music for the Hacienda.
Yeah that's right; it was recorded in a few incantations actually. It was [first] recorded specifically for a monthly, sort of high-brow magazine [Touch, which is now the avant-garde record label bearing the same name]. I remember specifically because I was away on holiday when they did it and they did it without me, the f*ckers! I came back and it was finished, so it went off with no bass on and I was really f*cking pissed off. I didn't get a chance to record any bass on it until we came to record it for the LP ['Power Corruption & Lies']. When we re-did it, I got a bass part for it and we got a chorus and vocal. I personally, was much happier with the later one than the earlier one. Everyone seemed to think that it was an outtake of 'Blue Monday' but it wasn't, it came after.
`Blue Monday' is quite rightly held up now as a genius record. How do you remember it being perceived at the time? Were you vilified for being a post-punk band that went electronic?
The problem is that when I view it, I view it very inwardly. We'd lived with 'Blue Monday', trying to write it for months and months, it took, like, six to eight months to write it. We actually wiped it once because Steve pulled the power lead out of the DMX [drum machine] and it made the sequencers crash, so we lost everything! Then we had to re-program it all, from scratch, remembering the breaks, remembering the different riffs and remembering it all as we were going because we hadn't recorded it yet; which was, f*cking, absolutely frightening because, I mean, you sort of knew you were onto something but you didn't realise what. We had to re-write it really quickly and the funny thing was that you always felt - as you always do with computers — that it was not as good as the one you lost.
I think [we] were partially aware of what was happening but because of the frustration of working with bad technology, it was a very, very unrewarding experience. Because you'd get something and it was f*cking impossible! It was all one on/one off, one on/three off, one on/four off... f*cking bastard! And then you'd have to start it all again if you ever made a mistake in the way that you programmed. It was just so difficult because it was all like a binary code; it was all on/offs. The thing was, that even though [we] were just starting to use back-up tapes and the Prophet sequencers and all that, the whole thing was just getting more and more difficult, the more equipment [that] you joined together, basically. I remember the relief with 'Blue Monday', when we actually got the f*cker down to tape and we could actually sit and listen to it, without f*cking worrying about the Prophet sequencer or the EMU [sampler] or anything — it was such a relief! The programming chart that we wrote for it was, literally, something like 40 feet long because you had to keep the on and offs because otherwise, you didn't know the riff - you hadn't recorded it yet. It was unbelievably old fashioned and to my mind, dance music was revolutionised once it got the technology. To me, that's the new punk, when you can sit in your bedroom and write a f*cking acid-house tune like A Guy Called Gerald did — that's punk!
When you first heard US electro did you think, hang on a minute, this is very similar to what you and other Factory related bands like Cabaret Voltaire and Section 25 were doing?
The American stuff [like] Arthur Baker, came to us, funnily enough via the guy who used to run Factory New York. He felt that there was this scene that started with Arthur Baker and John Robie and bands like Freeze and Rockers Revenge, that was purely New York and hadn't moved out of New York yet. So what he did was, quite cleverly, he suggested to Tony [Wilson] that we should collaborate - quick. He'd met Arthur and Arthur was wild, that thing about him taking the half finished tapes (of 'Confusion') down to the Fun House to play was true. He'd sit there with Jellybean Benitez and they'd try out tracks that they were using in the studio on quarter inches [tape] it was f*cking wild, it was amazing really; just to see how [the tracks] went down. And that was how they were producing; they were producing for the dancefloor. It was quite a heady mix really, when you think abut it: when you're stoned out of your mind in the studio at 5 o'clock in the morning, really you haven't got a f*cking clue what's gonna work on the dancefloor, have you? You need to observe a dancefloor and I thought what Arthur was doing pretty f*cking wild to be honest.
We went over there and it was the first time we ever agreed to do a session where we had nothing written. We'd never ever done it before and we were f**king terrified! Basically 'Confusion' came about just in the studio, live on the day. I've got a mix of 'Dare' by Gorillaz mixed with 'Confusion' done by the Utah Saints and it's f*cking amazing! It's amazing to think that even now it sounds as fresh as did then, which was 1983.
You witnessed seeing the Sex Pistols play in Manchester in 1977 and then formed Warsaw with Bernard, Stephen and Ian (who became Joy Division). Was there a club night or a rave that was as equally inspiring?
A lot of the raves in Manchester, like Joy in Rochdale and things like that, were really happening. The thing is that's it is very difficult to tell now whether it was the music, the drugs, or the combination. Or the freedom, or the wildness; that sort of anarchic coming together of people, with no license or no restraints, do you know what I mean? It was a very heady mixture.
I sort of have to say that when [New Order] went to Ibiza in 1988 to record 'Technique', we discovered (along with a lot of other people like Oakenfold and a lot of people like that, who were in Ibiza at that time) that revolution in the music they were playing, to be honest with you. I thought the music they were playing was f*cking dreadful! It was f*cking awful; they never played one track more than, like, 20 seconds. It was a complete head-f*ck. It was impossible to dance to; I couldn't get my head around it at all! To me it only mutated into what I call acid house when it came back to England. I don't hear any house records made by people in Ibiza; do you know what I mean? Even though everybody was enjoying themselves in Ibiza [the records] were all made in Manchester, London, Chicago, wherever. There's hardly any - in fact, if there are any, somebody correct me - are there any Spanish acid house records? They had the drugs and we brought them the music, didn't we?
The single 'Round & Round' (1989) from 'Technique' had an early remix by Kevin Saunderson. How did that come about, was it the group's decision?
I friend of ours in Chicago ran a club...in fact, still runs a club, called Smart Bar Metro and he knew all these geezers that were doing [house] music, like Joe Smooth and other people in Chicago, and he also had affiliations with Detroit. It was through the American record company talking to people like that, that it came about. All the first remixes done for New Order were done by Americans. There were hardly any, if any, English remixes; they all came out of Detroit and Chicago and I think we were one of the first groups to embrace it.
How do you think the loss of the Hacienda has affected Manchester clublife?
Time's a great healer and life always goes on. No matter how much you think you've had an influence on it, you find that when you go, life always goes on. And the thing is that life went on without the Hacienda. It wasn't actually that sad to lose it at the time, it feels sad now but not at the time because the gang thing was so bad. And our money problems, and the financial structure of the whole thing was so bad at the time, that it was giving [us] such grief that it was actually a f*cking relief when it went. You were in the sh*t so much, not only financially but trying to control the gang violence — it was impossible. Every week, every Friday or Saturday, somebody was getting battered, some f*cking c*nt was running around with a gun...you couldn't justify your effort when it felt so unsafe. It was the most dangerous, exciting club in the world but you know, clubs should be exciting not f*cking dangerous, shouldn't they?
Why has it taken this long for you to decide to try your hand at DJing and for there to be a 'Hacienda Classics' compilation?
I honestly never fancied it. The only reason I got into it was through Mani out of Primal Scream [and Stone Roses] telling me it was a great way to get p*ssed for nothing! I went along to watch him do it - God bless him — and he had such fun doing it, his attitude to it was so irreverent; he wasn't like these studious types, dead serious that I'd seen at the Hacienda, you know, like your Sasha and your Digweeds, Frankie Knuckles [who were] really serious. He was there, p*ssed, throwing records at people when they were complaining, having a really fun time with it and I thought, 'oh, f*cking hell, I could do that'. When I got over the getting drunk bit, it actually gave me a love for music again. The reason I got asked to do the compilation was that I got asked to do a 'Hacienda Classics' night and I went 'right, yeah, of course I'll do it, it'll be a pleasure' and I sat down and I thought 'f*ck me, I can't remember one Hacienda classic!' That bit between 1988 and 1994 or '96 was a complete f*cking blank. I had to re-educate myself with the music and whilst I was doing that, I thought f*cking hell I should do a comp because the Hacienda never did a compilation; it was all bootlegs, basically. I thought it was quite sad because even when [New Order manager and part Hacienda owner] Rob [Gretton] tried to do one, people wouldn't give him licenses for the tracks, they always felt they could do better if they kept the track. I think and I hope that Rob would've enjoyed it because it's the truest compilation of songs that were played at the Hacienda ever. Every other f*cking one's a bootleg, they were just ripping us off.
How's your new project Freebass going?
It's coming along. All three of us are so bloody busy DJing that we can never get it together to get back to it! But we've finally got a singer who we like — a nice young kid from Wigan called Richard — he's kicked a few of the tracks around and they sound really good. And if I say so myself, considering it started up one p*ssed up night in London, talking about three bass players doing a CD...everybody laughed at us so much; Bernard, Bobby Gillespie, Alan McGee — they p*ssed themselves at [the idea of] three bass players making an LP. And blow me down, it's actually worked and it sounds good! I'm really pleased with it. It requires a little bit of care in how we do it; we don't want to do it slapdash or make a balls up of it because people, rightly, are expecting something very interesting. I'm very confident, I think it will deliver.
Will dance music have an influence in this project?
I think so, yeah! We're using all the elements; Mani DJs all the time, Andy Rourke DJs all the time, so if it didn't then we'd be a right sorry bunch of twats, wouldn't we?
Joy Division, New Order and The Hacienda are a part of dance music's very DNA. A current, 17 year old dubstep producer from Sutton may not be aware who Peter Hook his but if he and his bandmates hadn't began experimenting with an organ rhythm-box all those years ago, he'd probably be taking piano lessons instead.
■ Tony Wilson (Not the Factory one).
