Interview: Peter Hook - How Not To Run A Club

Interview: Peter Hook - How Not To Run A Club

The legendary Joy Division and New Order bassist, Peter Hook, is set to reissue his book The Hacienda - How Not To Run A Club. Released in standard formats late last year it is a candid account of how millions were squandered through mismanagement. Despite making large sums of money through the record sales of New Order, Hook and his bandmates were unable to reap the rewards as all the cash went back into funding the Hacienda's unprofitable enterprise.

Heritage and a romanticised nostalgia seems to have enveloped what could well have simply been a gruesome story mirroring the fate of many other clubs at the time (though few could claim the pedigree or musical legacy of the Hacienda). Interest in the club seems to be just as strong thirty years on and this deluxe reissue is intended as a definitive artifact with which to celebrate the rich legacy of the club and everything that occurred within it's four walls. In fact, so definitive is the reissue that each purchase comes with a literal piece of history included, in the form of a segment of the original dance floor (and in the deluxe edition a bit of the bar aswell).

As gloriously designed as they are, with these reissues being sold for between £400 and £500 Hook was worried he may be seen as shamelessly cashing in on his past glories, but after seeing the final product he feels he has been able to put these fears aside. Just days ago however, former Freebass band-mate Mani accused Hook of having a wallet "stuffed with Ian Curtis' blood money," before retracting this statement and issuing an apology.

It is likely then that this Hacienda reissue will have its critics, and when one of Hook's best friends of the last thirty years temporarily cast aspersions on his motives they will no doubt have a field day. So, what was it all about? Q met up with Hooky on Tuesday to chat with him about the Hacienda, the book and deluxe re-issues to get his side of the story...

Q: What is the motivation behind the reissue of this book? You have said yourself you were worried it might be perceived in a negative way. What changed your mind?

Peter Hook When they offered to do this I thought fucking hell this is shameless cashing in. I really thought it was bad and I thought people would think it was bad. I said do what you want and then when I saw it I thought fuck me it's beautiful and to get a chance to use the dancefloor and bar top was great too. Let's face it I spent most of my time on here (points to a piece of the dancefloor) and the rest of my time on there (looks over to a segment of the bar top).

Q:What have you learned about the experience by writing this book?

PH: I really learned that what happened with The Hacienda was nobody's fault. I used to think Ben Kelly was to blame. Until I did the book I blamed him but then I realised that we were all to blame If you let it happen then you are just as responsible.

Q: Are you not disappointed that others exploited your naivety?

PH: They only really did so with their own naivety. If Tony Wilson had gone off with all our money to Brazil and spent it on coke and hookers then I could've been angry but he gave it all back to the Manchester so I can't be. I don't think any other group in history has ever ploughed their money back into a city, or were stupid enough to and the fact that we did makes the story quite wholesome. There was no expense spared at The Hacienda, it was never designed to make money. Ben Kelly was given a blank cheque and agreed to be as over the top as he wanted to be.

You are very critical of Kelly in the book. You say that he laid the foundations for the fall of Factory. How did he react to it?

PH: He was really annoyed with me but I was careful to word it in a way that would let him know I didn't blame him anymore. I used to go up to him all the time when I was pissed and shout at him for it but through writing the book I realised that it was more Tony and Rob's idealism that was the reason for it. They said we owed something to the city. I didn't realise he meant everything but we didn't check the bank balance.

Q: Where did the floor pieces you are including in the reissues come from?

PH: We have all this spare floor because Kelly used Maple which isn't suitable for a dancefloor because it's too soft. Some of what we are giving away with the reissue is that old floor and it wouldn't be here if Wilson hadn't have had to rip up the Maple. The rest of it just ended up in a skip, we should have kept it. It was the assistant manager of The Hacienda who had most of the old floor and I had to buy it back believe it or not.

One of my friends came in with two big pieces and he said it looked like a guitar, doing little air guitar solos and that's how we came up with the idea for the guitar we have now. I like the idea behind it because the dancefloor was the receptacle for all this sweat that hit the floor and the drugs that we dropped, the atmosphere, it was all soaked into this mess and you can still see the stiletto marks in the floor which wasn't smoothed off or anything. All the shit and music that went into this dancefloor comes out again when you play it.

Q:There's lots of moments in the book in which you talk about how you wish you'd have cashed in on The Hacienda while it was at its height. Do you regret not having done so then and how did you feel when Mani accuses you of living off the past now?

PH: Yes he did say a few things but he's apologised now.

What caused such a strong reaction though?

PH: The reaction was because Freebass didn't work. The group dynamics just didn't work. While it was all quite romantic to have these people together who've been musicians for 30 years and form a group, the truth was we were both too set in our ways that it didn't work. When you look at a couple you think I could live with her but when you get together you think oh fuck I hate her. It was like that even though we're still great friends.

His comments were pretty strong though. He did say you were living off the death of Ian Curtis at one point

PH: (laughs) I've heard worse. I really don't know what prompted that. We were just two big personalities going for one leadership role and he got pissed off by that. He made a huge mistake and I didn't want to rise to it. I did that too much with New Order and people don't like it, neither did I in the end. What Mani will come to realise is that he is going to have to live with what he did forever and he doesn't need me rubbing his face in it. I'm his friend and we've gone through too much together. We're both book ends, he's on one side of Manchester and I'm on the other and in between us is all that's happened to the city and if he wants to let off a bit of steam then so what.

Why when you were working as a roadie in your own club for extra cash did you not question how it was run?

PH: I felt really divorced from it. I didn't know where the money was coming from even though it was all our money, earned by Joy Division and New Order. We all used to sit there laughing at the mistakes we were making. The tax man found a lot of irregularities to say the least and the staff were taking advantage because they thought we were idiots pumping a load of money into the club, they thought we were loaded. When I went to the first birthday party and saw free booze and I thinking that's great but I never thought for a moment that I was the one actually paying for it.

Q: What are your feelings about the upcoming Freebass release now?

PH: Even though you can look at it and think that's gone absolutely tits up I do still have a new record out and that's the main thing. You're only as good as your last record. I'm still doing Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures too so I've got both the past and the future. No-one can say you're living off the past you fucker. I've been lucky enough because the heritage is so rich that it allows me to have a future.

The Hacienda: How Not To Run A Club by Peter Hook, standard, deluxe and ultimate editions are published by Foruli and available to order now from their website. The ultimate edition (of which there are only 2) includes a bass guitar partly constructed with the floor of the Hacienda (pictured bottom below).

Photography: Andy Vella/Foruli 2010.

http://news.qthemusic.com/2010/09/interview_peter_hook_-_how_not.html

For a band that existed for less than four years, and released only two albums - one that was posthumously - Joy Division left a potent legacy. Formed in the industrial city of Manchester, and fronted by the charismatic and chaotic Ian Curtis, Joy Division's dark, angular sound captured the intensity and angst in the punk scene in England's northern working class communities. Curtis' tragic suicide in May 1980 cut short Joy Division's tenure, just as the band were on the cusp of their first ever American tour. While the surviving members - Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris - went on to achieve considerable success in New Order, the image and sound of Joy Division remains as powerful as ever. 30 years after Curtis's death, Hook is bringing his Unknown Pleasures tour to Australia, celebrating the music of Joy Division. "I hate seeing these cover bands doing it," he remarks. "If anyone does it, it should be one of us."

Joy Division took their name from the 1955 novel House Of Dolls written by Ka-Tzetnik 135633: the term 'joy division' was the term afforded to the prostitution wing of the Nazi concentration camp in which the novel was set. I'd read a comment from guitarist Bernard Sumner that the band's name was a sarcastic reference to life growing up in Manchester in the 1960s and 1970s. Bass player Hook is highly amused by the comment, and professes never to have heard it before. "Did he really say that?" he replies. "Geez, he must have been pissed at the time!"

Hook's memories of growing up in Manchester are clouded by the passage of time. As depicted in Anton Corbijn's excellent 2007 film Control, Manchester in the 1970s was a cold, culturally desolate city struggling with the harsh reality of economic transformation; within ten years the city's industrial fabric would be suffering under the weight of Margaret Thatcher's monetarist policies.

But for Hook, life as a child and teenager in Manchester weren't as bad as he once felt. "Memory is a wonderful thing - I only remember the good things," he laughs. "Actually, when I watched Control [the biopic on Ian Curtis's life] I never noticed that it was filmed in black and white, because that's just what it was like to me when I was growing up," he grins. Hook describes Control as a "great film," and says it captured the mood of Manchester accurately. "It was a tough time in Britain in the 1970s," he admits. "There was a lot of unrest."

Hook and guitarist Bernard Sumner had been friends since school, sharing a common bond for music and a disdain for the dominant culture of the time. In 1976 Hook and Sumner headed to the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester to see the Sex Pistols play their first gig in the northern industrial city. "It was a complete shock really," Hook recalls. "We hadn't seen anything like that before." The crowd was replete with teenagers who shared the same sense of alienation and cultural dislocation as Hook and Sumner. "These kids were just like you," the bassist remarks.

It was during a subsequent Sex Pistols gig in Manchester that Hook and Sumner met Ian Curtis. "We met Ian at the second or third gig - they played two gigs, and then another two gigs. I think we met Ian at the third gig," he recalls. The Sex Pistols were coming off the back of the infamous 'Filth and the Fury' social outrage resulting from the band's provocative - and provoked - appearance on Bill Grundy's television show. It was a tense time for anyone who associated themselves with the nascent English punk movement. "That particular evening all the punks were in fear of their lives because it was just after the Bill Grundy incident," Hook remembers with a slight smile.

Indeed, however, the Manchester punk scene had its own distinctive art school element, a characteristic that caused some friction with the London punks who'd travelled north to see the 'Pistols. "There was a new breed of punks who came down and chased the art school punks away," Hook laughs. "But Ian was one of us - he was a punk like us."

Curtis eventually joined Hook and Sumner in the latter duo's fledgling outfit Warsaw - allegedly named after the David Bowie's Warszawa. Later on, drummer Stephen Morris joined - "we met Stephen after we'd had a bunch of turkeys try out on drums," Hook remarks dryly - and the band changed its name to Joy Division in early 1978.

Fronted by the charismatic - and occasionally volatile - Curtis, Joy Division quickly developed a strong local reputation. Hook remembers that the band's distinctive style came together very quickly; there was no period of introspection searching for a particular sound or musical aesthetic to promote. "It was always very unsaid in both Joy Division and New Order," Hook points out. "Our style seemed to fit together very easily. We never sat together and scratched our heads trying to 'work out' what music we wanted to play."

While Curtis was Joy Division's principal lyric writer, Hook and Sumner collaborated to write the band's music. Hook says there was never any problem bringing the two ingredients together in a harmonious fashion. "It all felt very natural and very normal," he insists. "I don't think I ever really heard Ian's lyrics until we went into the studio with Martin Hannett (the band's producer). And it was only after Ian died that I really got to savour what was going on in his lyrics. When I've had to transcribe the lyrics for the Unknown Pleasures tour, I've been able to analyse them a bit more," Hook murmurs.

After a succession of self-produced tracks and singles, Joy Division released their debut album, Unknown Pleasures, in 1979. While Curtis had been displaying, for some time, signs of the volatile personality - and seizures - that would become part of his trademark image, Hook contrasts Curtis's lyrics on Unknown Pleasures with the more frantic lyrical style that characterised the final Joy Division material.

"The lyrics on Closer are more desperate - the lyrics on Unknown Pleasures are not as much so," Hook figures. "The lyrics on Unknown Pleasures are easier to sing."

Unknown Pleasures saw Joy Division working with producer Martin Hannett, and Hannett's role in creating the distinctive Joy Division sound has been widely acknowledged. Hook has been quoted in the past as critical of Hannett's approach; with the benefit of hindsight, however, he recognises the importance of Hannett's production. "Ironically it worked well with the song style," Hook admits.

"The early stuff we did was more aggressive. With Unknown Pleasures there's more depth to the music. At the time I hated it - it lost the anger that we wanted with the music," he nods. "But now realise that it would be a completely different record with Martin's production. Martin's style is a wonderfully evocative sound - it would be very difficult to achieve that same style these days with a 24-track recording," Hook points out. In early 1980 Joy Division began recording what would become the band's posthumous album, Closer.

Curtis's epilepsy had evolved into a significant problem, and Joy Division's gigs were characterised by the sense of chaos and volatility that surrounded Curtis's performance. In May 1980 Curtis hanged himself in his Macclesfield home and the era of Joy Division was over; the emotionally charged Love Will Tear Us Apart (released a month after Curtis's death) came to symbolise Curtis's troubled personality.

Hook, Sumner and Morris went on to form New Order and achieved considerable success, laying the foundations for the Manchester revival ('Madchester' as it would become known as) in the late 1980s. After ignoring the Joy Division catalogue for a number of years, Hook says the surviving members eventually felt comfortable playing the older material. "We didn't play any of the Joy Division songs for about five to seven years," he recalls. "And then we played Love Will Tear Us Apart for a friend's birthday. We literally ignored Joy Division for many years, but then we realised we could do justice to it."

As for the initial thoughts of paying any further tribute to the memory of Joy Division and Curtis, Hook was initially approached to perform a show in Macclesfield on the 30th anniversary of Curtis' death. Despite the brief involvement of both Hook and Stephen Morris, the event never proceeded. Despite admitting being "terrified" of the prospect of performing Curtis' songs, Hook decided to follow up the idea and put together a show based on the Unknown Pleasures album.

"I thought, 'bugger it, I've got my own friends and my own band'," he remembers. "So we put on a show, and we had an exhibition upstairs. On the night there wasn't a dry eye in the house."

Hook is no longer in regular contact with his former Joy Division band mates with the recent re-demise of New Order, and isn't sure what their perspective on the show is. Hook invited Curtis' daughter Natalie to come to the first show and while she was unable to attend, Hook says "she wished me all the best." Performing the show, Hook, says, "was really beautiful - and it was really cathartic as well."

What remains irrefutable is that, 30 years after his death, Ian Curtis remains an iconic figure; his image plastered across t-shirts and posters alongside other tragic rock 'n' roll icons. For Hook, however, the legacy of Ian Curtis is that of a friend from Manchester. "Ian's frozen in time," he remarks. "He'll always be my mate. He was a friend and a wonderful colleague to work with."

As for Curtis' attitude toward Hook's Unknown Pleasures tour, Hook simply hopes Curtis would appreciate the celebration of Joy Division's music. "I like to think if he's up there, he's thinking 'that's not bad, he's done a good job'."

The UNKNOWN PLEASURES tour with JOY DIVISION's PETER HOOK interpreting his band's classic debut album in its entirety (plus playing non-album singles like Transmission and Love Will Tear Us Apart ) will hit Melbourne in the luscious surrounds of The Palais Theatre this Friday September 24. Tickets from ticketmaster.com.au or 136 100.

http://www.beat.com.au/content/unknown-pleasures-peter-hook

Hooky wrote: I thought fucking hell this is shameless cashing in

Really? Tell us more about this profound statement you have made here.

The Teacher wrote:

Hooky wrote: I thought fucking hell this is shameless cashing in

Really? Tell us more about this profound statement you have made here.

I guess he's gone from thinking to knowing now.

His comments were pretty strong though. He did say you were living off the death of Ian Curtis at one point

PH: (laughs) I've heard worse. I really don't know what prompted that. We were just two big personalities going for one leadership role and he got pissed off by that. He made a huge mistake and I didn't want to rise to it. I did that too much with New Order and people don't like it, neither did I in the end. What Mani will come to realise is that he is going to have to live with what he did forever and he doesn't need me rubbing his face in it. I'm his friend and we've gone through too much together. We're both book ends, he's on one side of Manchester and I'm on the other and in between us is all that's happened to the city and if he wants to let off a bit of steam then so what.

So I guess it was pissing New Order off.