http://pitchfork.com/news/36573-bernard-sumner-talks-bad-lieutenant-album-new-order-breakup/
Considering that Bernard Sumner was a pivotal member of both Joy Division and New Order, it's kind of a big deal when the guy starts a new band. Bad Lieutenant consists of Sumner, latter day New Order guitarist Phil Cunningham, and newcomer Jake Evans. Their debut LP, Never Cry Another Tear, also features Blur bassist Alex James and New Order/Joy Division drummer Stephen Morris. Out October 6 on the band's own Triple Echo imprint, the album is filled with unpretentious guitar rock that goes down light and airy. The trio will be backed by Morris on drums when they play European dates starting late next month. (The play to hit the U.S. before the year's out.)
In a recent telephone chat, Sumner was soft-spoken and wildly modest for someone who helped create songs like "Love Will Tear Us Apart", "Blue Monday", and "Temptation". Of his tenure with New Order, he said, "I think we wrote some really good stuff together," which very well might be the understatement of the century.
Click below-- after the widget featuring Bad Lieutenant tracks and a video-- to read about the singer-guitarist-keyboardist-legend's take on New Order's breakup, a new album he's working on with producer Stuart Price (Madonna, the Killers), and why Bad Lieutenant is a good fit for him right now:
Pitchfork: Listening to the Bad Lieutenant album, I was surprised by how it's such a straightforward guitar-rock record. Since a lot of artists like Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem are running with the synth-based formula you built with New Order, it's funny that you're going the other direction now.
Bernard Sumner: Well, when I was making the Bad Lieutenant album I was also making a synthesizer album with Stuart Price-- also known as Jacques Lu Cont-- who produced the last Killers album, and Madonna's last-but-one album. But doing both at the same time was a bit much for me. As soon as I'm free, I'm going to finish the album with Stuart.
Bands like Hot Chip can look back to music that we made in the 80s, but I can't do it because that would be repeating myself. In the 80s, we never looked back to the past, so I don't think I could get away with it now. It's a strange situation.
Pitchfork: Is it flattering for you to hear your influence on new bands?
BS: Of course. Bands go by so quick these days, so it's nice to be remembered not only for New Order but also for Joy Division. On the other hand, it's damning because you've got a lot to live up to. People come up to me and say, "You changed my life." I don't think I changed anyone's life, I think their life changed while they were listening to the music. At the time we made that music, we didn't think, "We're going to make music that's going to change peoples' lives." We were just trying to please ourselves.
Pitchfork: That's a pretty modest viewpoint. I feel like if you asked another big band like U2 the same thing, they'd say that they wanted to change peoples' lives.
BS: Well, we weren't. I'm just a humble musician. When Joy Division started, I was scared to death of having to get a normal day job. I wanted to remain in my adolescence.
Pitchfork: You've worked with a lot of respected artists in the past, so for this project why did you decide to collaborate with a newcomer, Jake Evans?
BS: Mainly, I wanted to work with someone I got on with. I came across Jake when we were at a friend's birthday party and he just got up and sang "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young. I thought, "He's got a lot of guts to do that." I got him a gig supporting New Order and was impressed by what I saw. So when we started working on the Bad Lieutenant sessions, I remembered him.
Along with ability, personality is important, and I liked Jake because he wasn't too serious. If you start off writing an album with a band the reality is that you're constantly in each other's company so it's really important that you get on with each other.
Pitchfork: Do you think that factor has become even more important to you considering your recent rifts with Peter Hook about the breakup of New Order?
BS: Yeah, I didn't want to get into the situation where I was going to have to argue my case on every decision. You've all got this talk about great tension within a band-- like with John Lennon and Paul McCartney-- but it's bullshit really; you've all got to be pushing in the right direction. If your car breaks down and one person tries to push it the opposite direction to everyone else, what's that going to achieve?
Pitchfork: The Bad Lieutenant album sounds like much more of what one would think of as a "Manchester rock album" than almost anything else you've done.
BS: Both Jake and Phil come from a small town to the south of Manchester called Macclesfield, which is where Ian Curtis and Steve Morris came from. There aren't a lot of nightclubs there. Club and dance music just wasn't in the culture of where they grew up. But I'm from a town on the other side of the city called Salford, which is right near the center of Manchester, so club music made quite a big impression on me. There's a subdivision of the Manchester area with regard to music that probably wouldn't be apparent to someone from the outside.
Pitchfork: Now that New Order is ostensibly a thing of the past, is that liberating for you?
BS: It's very liberating. I always felt like there were always egos involved when I was trying to get music finished in New Order. Sometimes it would feel like I was running through water.
Pitchfork: At the same time, you still might hear "Blue Monday" while in the supermarket-- you can't escape it to a certain degree.
BS: I don't want to escape it or belittle it in any way. I think we wrote some really good stuff together. But I'm not the sort of person who just likes looking at the past. We all live for the future, don't we? If we lived for the past, it would be a pretty sad existence. So while I embrace our past with both arms, I've gone on to the future.
