Shellshocker wrote:
I am getting the same 404 error message as One Brain.
Help!
Don't worry, here's the article that Melly sent to me.
Get Hooked (May 17, 2006 Bangkok Post Online)
Bassist with the influential bands New Order and Joy Division, Peter
Hook chats about surviving 30 years in the music business
Story by Onsiri Pravattiyagul
It's always intimidating to come face to face with living legends.
Things can go either way. They might turn out to be ill-mannered duds or
awe-inspiring icons that equate with their own luminous bodies of work.
Whatever they are, these golden calves usually induce a tinge of fear
mixed with inevitable excitement prior to actual meetings.
Peter Hook, the bassist with much celebrated New Order and influential
post-punk unit Joy Division, activates that certain effect. This is the
man who has had enough press coverage to last two lifetimes. This is the
man who is responsible for the pioneering of angular, droning bass lines
that have left a blueprint for both past and present generations of
musicians to follow. Hook's doom and gloom bass work with Joy Division's
conjured up emotive power and calamity, in contrast to the raw energy,
anger and devil-may-care attitudes of 70's British punk, while his
rhythmic bass lines with New Order have inspired hordes of electronic or
dance rock acts to date.
Based on snippets of his musical achievements alone, there are many
reasons to be abashed in the presence of the 50-year-old. But the
tension soon melts away when Peter Hook merrily arrives for a small
group interview in his white hotel bathrobe that keeps on sliding open
after lounging by the pool for moments of scorching sun. It is rather a
disarming sight to see the much respected figure descending to the posh
hotel's lobby in his bathrobe sandwiched by properly dressed local
organisers.
In person, Hook is witty, funny, sarcastic, straightforward, yet good
natured, and full of lively anecdotes to illustrate his points. He
tackles every question, no matter how silly, with care, answering them
in full and ending his sentences with a hearty laugh and twinkle in his
eyes. Hook seems to be revelling in his new role as a deejay which has
unexpectedly brought him to Bangkok, the role in which he has been
gradually gathering momentum for the past two years.
His blossoming deejay career kicked-off as a substitute for live
performances. It's been well documented that New Order does not tour as
much as they should, no matter how in demand they are.
"The reason we don't tour is because of bad attitudes [toward] touring
... we only do major gigs. We won't get out of bed unless it's for fifty
grand [each]," he said.
"I count myself as a live musician. My first love in the world is
playing live music. I am not being able to do that for one reason or
another, so the next best thing that I have is to deejay, and while it's
different, it's still a performance," he added.
Hook's deejay set, however, elicits the same elation as his live shows,
with hands shooting up in the sky. He attacks the decks the same way he
would his bass, except they aren't hanging as low. Hook plays an
eclectic set full of hard dance numbers with a bit of electro, reggae,
dub, indie rock and punk. His selections are wide ranging and fearless,
showing an extensive repertoire and disregard for conventional
deejaying. Of course, there are Joy Division and New Order mixes.
"I went through a phase of not playing New Order because it seemed
logical to me. I'm in New Order, why would I play New Order? Then I got
so sick of people moaning about me not playing New Order, I started
looking for a way to play New Order by putting weird stuff together,
things that hadn't been heard before, to make it interesting for me
really. Requests? Yeah, I've got a good way of handling it, I just go
'NO'. I have not travelled 5,000 f***ing miles for you to ask me for The
Cure. You know what I mean, f*** off!"
But his attitude toward the craft wasn't always on the bright side.
"I thought they [deejays] were all arseholes. I still do! And now I
include myself. No, I don't sympathise with them. They don't deserve
your sympathy. I am being facetious ... it was very exciting when I
first started because I didn't know what I was doing. I thought it was a
nuisance, but when I started doing it myself, I realised how difficult
and lonely a job it could be."
As a deejay, one suspects that Hook, known for his love of "good times",
would dive into the debaunched night life with gusto, but as a matter of
fact, he has been sober for 18 months now.
"My racy night life days are pretty much over. I am an alcoholic so I
don't drink which is quite ironic ... I have a very different way of
looking at life now. I actually found that [drinking] was getting in a
way of me working. It stopped me working, and I wasn't enjoying it. So I
am sort of on the other side of it now. Do I enjoy being sober? I
wouldn't put it that way. It's like a child not being able to have
sweets even though you know it's not good for you, you still f***ing
want it, don't you?"
Born in February 1956, Hook went with school friends Bernard Sumner
(often known as Barney, aka Bernard Dicken and Bernard Albrecht) and
Terry Mason to the Sex Pistols' first gig in Manchester in 1976.
Inspired by the performance, the three decided to form a band called the
Stiff Kittens. They added vocalist Ian Curtis and renamed themselves
Warsaw. After a brief spell with a new drummer - Steve Brotherdale
replacing Mason - they recruited Stephen Morris. They changed the band's
name to Joy Division in late 1977 (a name inspired by Karol Cetinsky's
World War Two novel, The House of Dolls).
Aided by prominent local figures such as Rob Gretton, a Manchester club
deejay who became the group's manager and Tony Wilson, a TV/print
journalist and owner of the Factory Records label, Joy Division later
recorded their debut Unknown Pleasures with certified madman and
legendary producer Martin Hannett, and released it on Factory Records in
June 1979.
Curtis's manic stage presence, coupled with dark, emotionally anguished
lyrics, Hook's droning bass and Sumner's cleft guitar lines, slowly
gained them a widespread reputation. But he never thought it would make
such an impact. The long-lasting imprint of Joy Division still leaves
Hook in wonder to these days.
"When you're 21, you're consumed with a burning anger, trying to break
out from your Salford roots whatever in 1977, feeling like the whole
world was against you ... at 21, I didn't know why I was doing it, I was
doing it because somebody was giving me free beer, and I got to shag a
few birds. I didn't know I was gonna make the music that changed the
world, that would surpass 30 years later. I was only interested at the
pick up at the bar, and who was paying for the beer," he said.
Suffering from epilepsy, Curtis's stage appearances were riddled with
seizures that were sometimes quite hard to distinguish from the
performance. They began recording Closer in early 1980 and released the
first single Love Will Tear Us Apart in April. But just before the
band's first US tour, Curtis hanged himself in his home on May 18, 1980.
Hook becomes noticeably more softly spoken when the subject touches on
Curtis.
"He's never left me," said Hook. "The illness, I think, changed him. The
medication for his illness did him the least [amount of] help. I was
reading an article very recently actually about the way they used to
treat epilepsy in the 70's. It was frightening. It was the cocktails of
drugs. I think they do it much gentler now, much more awareness about
everything, [including] mental health," he said.
After the death of Curtis, Love Will Tear Us Apart shot up to number 13
in the charts. The release of Closer in August also met with a critical
acclaim and commercial success. Though short-lived, Joy Division had
already booked themselves a place in practically every musical hall of fame.
"We've been very lucky, haven't we? And I don't know why because we
didn't plan it. But we managed to create something with Joy Division
that very, very few people have surpassed really. Even when you look at
a band as popular as U2, their popiness sort of stops them being as
revered. The greatest thing about Joy Division, I think, is that they're
not here, so they're icons. Ian Curtis is like Kurt Cobain or Jim
Morrison," he said.
Rising from the ashes when no one expected them to, Joy Division, with
the addition of keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, who is now married to
Stephen Morris, regrouped and renamed themselves New Order. New Order
took on a different musical direction by incorporating electronic and
dance music sounds. It shouldn't have worked, but it surely did.
With Sumner on vocal duties, the debut Movement came out in 1981,
relying on sysnthesisers and sequencers. And when Power, Corruption &
Lies with the best-selling 12in release of all time, Blue Monday in
1983, New Order had then secured themselves a spot in musical history.
"Joy Division music was darker than New Order because of that age, what
we were coming out of, what we created. It was a dark time. But once you
get over it, it's not too bad this job, innit? You lighten up as you get
older. It's quite simple, really," he said.
The mood of Joy Division/New Order, Factory Records, the Happy Mondays
and the "Madchester" era was encapsulated in 2002's film 24 Hour Party
People. The movie relied heavily on Tony Wilson, Factory Records'
founder and, of course, Hook and co.
"We were quite heavily involved in the film right from the start. It was
nice to see it. The thing I hated the most was f***ing tosser comedians
who were in it. They were all Manchester comedians who wanted to be
musicians, and they were given a chance in 24 Hour Party People to live
the dream, weren't they. It was accurate in a way that some of the
stories were right, but the way they were portrayed, it was a bit like
an ailing comedy, I thought. It didn't have the gritty realism. But
Michael Winterbottom [the director] didn't want it to be gritty. He felt
it was like a pantomime. It was a pantomime, I suppose. I thought he did
a good job, and I enjoyed it. The thing that surprised me about it was
how far it'd gone round the world. The Ian Curtis film (based on wife
Deborah's book Touching From a Distance: Ian Curtis & Joy Division) will
have a completely different mood. I just hope the film will do as well
as 24 Hour Party People."
There was, however, one part in the movie showing Curtis having a
seizure backstage, and Hook just carelessly stepping over him, and
rifling through his pockets for a cigarette and lighting one up. One
can't help but ask whether it was true.
"It isn't true. I don't smoke. I only smoke when I deejay. It was Steve
[Morris] who did that. Steve admits it. He said 'if it were me having a
fit, and Ian wanted a fag, Ian would have taken the fag as well' which
is true. Ian was the worse; he was f***ing awful [when it came to
smoking]. He used to make you drive around everywhere all hours of the
night just to get cigarettes. In 1977, they didn't have 24-hour garages
[petrol stations]," he said.
With eight New Order albums and numerous hits to date, Hook is well
aware that his musical output has been a major source of inspiration
since his Joy Division days. People laugh, cry, fight, despair,
invigorate, or even lose their cherries over Joy Division and New Order,
and they're not shy to let Hook know.
"Yeah, people do say bizarre things to me. I have heard a lot actually.
The weirdest one was when we were playing [on] Jools Holland's [TV show
Later], and Ryan Adams was playing on the same bill, and we'd just
finished, and he went like 'I lost my cherry to Revenge's [Hook's side
project] One True Passion'. That was the weirdest thing I've f***ing
heard in me life."
Not only have they inspired individuals, but Joy Division's and New
Order's musical influence can be found on artistic levels as well. If
you care to check the musical references of today's tunesmiths
(especially the post punk revivalists), it is almost impossible to deny
their influence. Though, some come close to sheer imitation. Does that
bother him?
"Not really. But my mother used to get really annoyed. She used to phone
me up and said 'have you heard that bloody Cure record "In Between"
something [In Between Days], they sound just like you, you should get on
to them, Peter.' God bless her soul. I went to see the Cure once and got
very irate because the bass player was just ripping me off. I thought it
was just disgusting, yet when I saw the guy from Interpol, I thought it
was funny. So I guess it depends on your mood."
During his time away from New Order, Hook also engages himself in side
projects such as Revenge and Monaco. His latest being Freebass where he
collaborates with two other bassists, the Stone Roses' Mani and the
Smiths' Andy Rourke. The idea of three bass players in one band sounds
strange, but Hook insists that the results are far from being ridiculous.
"Everybody laughed at us about having three bass players in a band. I
thought it worked out fantastically because it actually sounded very
good. I am very pleased. We've got a single now. It's f***ing wicked
actually," he said.
"We did have a problem getting a singer because basically after the
bloody Ian Curtis, Ian Brown, Morrissey, Badly Drawn Boy, Bernard
Sumner, Bobbie Gillespie, you tend to be in a bit of a corner really. It
was sort of important for us to have somebody that you could hear
something. Somebody young to balance our age out, somebody that has
something to say really. It took a f***ing long time to find somebody.
"What happened was when we found somebody, we all got loads of bleeding
deejay works. Everybody wants you to deejay now. We keep telling
ourselves we must do it. I am looking forward to it actually," he added.
New Order's latest effort was last year's Waiting for the Sirens' Call
which Hook admitted only received a lukewarm reception.
"Our new record, the record company calls it a 'Rolling Stone moment'
when everybody wants to hear your old stuff, not your new stuff. It's a
good record, but it hasn't sold many. Why? Because people don't like it,
from the top of me head. I don't know; maybe the climate has changed. It
depends what your audience is made of, doesn't it? It depends whether
you can cross to younger kids or you're stuck with the audience of
40-year-olds who just want to get off their tits on ecstacy on Blue
Monday again," he said.
"We've found that our albums cost the same to make, but you're not
selling as many, so you need to restructure. You need to rethink about
the way you do everything. We need to sort of re-educate ourselves as a
group really about how we do things.
"We record much cheaper these days, much more home-based if you like. It
doesn't happen the way it used to. I think we're gonna have to go
through a period of change ourselves," added Hook.
Known for their inter-band bickering, fans are always left hanging
whether there will be another New Order album, and if so, when. Hook
said they haven't started on the new record yet, even though they still
have left over songs from the past album.
"We had a slight disagreement at the end of the record because I wanted
to play more, but Bernard wanted to go into the studio again, so we
didn't reconcile," he said.
There's a lot of in-fighting in New Order as reported and rumoured then?
"No, there's a lot of in-fighting in every group. We're all the bleeding
same. As long as somebody else is there, there's always gonna be a
compromise. As long as it's not too much of a compromise, and you can
live with it, and that's what groups are based on really."
After the 45 minute interview session, Hook got up, shook hands with
everyone, trotted to the posh lobby, and demanded that Outlook take care
of the nervous coughs.
And then he was gone, gone with a swish of his white hotel bathrobe.
Ask someone who knows me cos I don't like to flaunt it that much, then I might come across as a bit of a knob 
We like that quality in you, you know. 
