Bad Lieutenant VIEWED as part of a rock family tree, Bad Lieutenant should be regarded as latest green shoot to form on the mightiest musical Oak in Manchester.
They’re the grandson of Joy Division, beneficiaries of the New Order estate, a sibling for Electronic… and the result of a very public divorce.
It’s only fitting then that I’m here in a particularly leafy part of Cheshire to talk to the various branches of the group which features former New Order frontman Bernard Sumner on vocals and guitar.
Joining us in the boardroom of a decidedly upmarket hotel – not a bit like Dry Bar and the Hacienda - are Sumner’s Bad Lieutenant colleagues Jake Evans, vocalist, and Phil Cunningham.
And it emerges that even the way that the band formed would keep a rock historian busy.
Evans was singing Neil Young’s Heart Of Gold at a birthday party attended by Sumner and Cunningham, who effectively replaced Gillian Gilbert in New Order, and they liked what they heard.
Then, at a New Year’s eve bash at the Cotswolds’ house of former bass guitarist, Alex James, Sumner, worse the wear for drink, suggested that they work together on a project of their own.
The seeds of Bad Lieutenant were sown.
The plan HAD been that James and Sumner would centre a new super group, but the allure of tending artichokes on telly proved too much for the Blur man.
Undeterred, the rest of Bad Lieutenant decamped back to Evans’ Macclesfield studio to spend 18 months working on a guitar-laden debut album, Never Cry Another Tear, which will be released on October 5, followed shortly by a live date at The Ritz on October 22.
CVs
Given the clear difference in age and CVs – Phil was formerly part of Marion, Jake was also in Marion and also has his own band, Rambo And Leroy – I think I can be excused for asking who this album is aimed at?
“To be totally selfish, it’s got to be for us really,” concedes Sumner.
“Because if we stopped, what would we do? Probably turn to crime….
“You do it for yourself and you hope that people get into it as well. If that’s New Order fans and Joy Division fans, then great.
“If it’s a whole new set of fans, then that’s great as well.”
From the evidence of the only two songs to be given a public airing to date, Bad Lieutenant’s sound is more like Sumner’s Electronic offshoot than New Order.
Space is given to those trademark synths, but it’s what you’d expect with three guitarists and two lead singers, Sumner and Evans splitting vocal duties roughly 60-40 on the album.
Institutionalised
“We feel a bit institutionalised because we’ve been locked away for 18 months, doing 12 or 14 hours in the studio per day and it gets to the point where other band members get attractive,” Sumner smiles.
“These first gigs are just to get used to it again. It’s just to test the water - to see if there’s anyone out there who’s interested.”
Sumner has high praise for Evans too – praise which proves how drinking at the Groucho hasn’t affected his northern working class morality.
“You know, you come from a small town like Macclesfield, it doesn’t matter how talented you are, if you don’t drink in the same pubs as some journalist in London, then no-one’s going to take any notice of you,” he says.
“So I wanted to help Jake gain some promotion through doing this. Otherwise, I thought that talent might disappear.”
Of course, one man who won’t be appearing on stage is Peter Hook.
Whereas fellow former Joy Division and New Order founding member, Stephen Morris has been invited to play drums for live tour, there are no signs of a reunion for Sumner and the band’s iconic bass player, whose very public fall out led to the band’s break-up three years ago.
Emphatic
Sumner certainly seems emphatic when I ask whether we’ll ever see New Order back together again?
“Too many things have been said and done this time I think,” Sumner adds. “I have to be diplomatic about this and people can look on the internet if they want to see what’s been said and done. That’s all I want to say about it.”
But the tsunami wave of Factory nostalgia hasn’t passed him by.
Hardly a week goes by without a film, book or CD release related to the period which started with a Sex Pistols gig and ended with the death of Anthony Wilson.
“I’m very rarely nostalgic,” he says. “But on the other hand I think there’s been a history of Manchester music these past 10, 20, 30 years which should be remembered, because it made Manchester a cultural city and it gave it a cultural identity.
“When I formed a band in 1977 it was a rundown place, and there weren’t many creative outlets for a creative person. And then you start going to see bands playing gigs and you think ‘ah music, I can do that’. I don’t need anyone to employ me to do that.”
Modernist
He agrees that the job of replacing the old Manchester was completed with the closure of the Hacienda. Now there’s a modernist architectural statement on every street corner.
“You’d expect me to say, no, I prefer the old Manchester,” he says. “With the Victorian mills and the old factories, but the new Manchester’s great.
“I like to go to Yo Sushi and get some Sushi and some green tea.”
But whereas Manchester celebrates The Hac, it was something of a money pit for New Order, as revealed in Hook’s new book.
How does Sumner feel about the way the club drained the life out of Factory Records? “Not good,” he says. “It cost us a lot of money but I’m not dying of hunger.
“And we had some great nights there too.
“The funny thing about the Hac, when New Order was on tour in America we indulged too much. It all got a bit wild and hedonistic.
Chicago
“Drinking too much and ending up in hospital in Chicago made me take stock of my life. I requested that we spend a bit more time at home.
“So I came back to Manchester just as the old Acid House thing and Madchester thing took off. So I ended up getting involved in a load of that and going to the Hac and to warehouse parties. And then I just started going mad at home. So it cost a lot the Hacienda but I reckon we almost got our money out of it.”
As for Bad Lieutenant, he adds: “We’re not trying to change the world we’re just trying to do our best to present our songs to the people.
“I think the past should be recognised but I don’t think that we should dwell on it because the present’s pretty good as well.”
