NOISE
News
The Times
GET READY FOR THE OLD ORDER
MONDAY AUGUST 20 2001
Pop
Return of the old Order
BY PAUL CONNOLLY
After eight years New Order, titans of Eighties rock, are back with a new album. What kept them?
Bernard Sumner glares balefully at 60,000 apathetic German Robbie Williams fans in Cologne’s Mungersdorfer stadium. “Do you like dance music?” he asks. No response. Even from way back in the crowd I can see him bristle at the lack of reaction. It’s clear he’s dying to let rip. He can’t keep it in any longer and growls menacingly, “Do you like marching music?” and New Order rip into Touched by the Hand of God, one of their huge fund of classics.
Backstage after the gig Sumner grins when I remind him of his comment. “That was the least offensive thing that sprang to mind. I had to keep biting my lip. Robbie Williams fans aren’t really our audience.” Peter Hook, the band’s bearded bassist and master of melody, quite enjoyed the show. “As Bernard often tells me, ‘You’d enjoy playing in Beirut.’ But I like a challenge. After the show Robbie Williams hugged me and said ‘Well done, you did well to get through that.’ Mind you, Bernard was so annoyed I thought he was going to start World War III.” New Order are playing at the request of Robbie Williams, but most of the crowd were probably still at primary school when the band released their last album, 1993’s Republic. It’s no surprise that the sight of these fortysomethings playing music that still sounds futuristic doesn’t stir their hormones.
But for the few New Order aficionados in the crowd the sight of the band dubbed “the post-punk Beatles” playing again after such a long hiatus is a near-religious experience. They are the most influential band of the past 25 years — without New Order there would be no U2, Primal Scream or Pet Shop Boys.
Sumner, still ridiculously youthful-looking at 45, is the complete antithesis of the monosyllabic curmudgeon of popular lore. He’s a bright, softly-spoken, sardonic Mancunian who, although clearly intolerant of fools, is, and he’ll probably hate me for saying this, a real sweetie.
When I tell him that their new single Crystal, from their seventh album Get Ready, is astonishing and one of the best things they’ve ever done, he just whispers, “Thanks, that’s really nice,” and looks away embarrassed. Sumner is also willing to accept his portion of the blame for New Order’s extended break after Republic. “I’d turn up for gigs knowing that I didn’t really want to be there. And that made me angry because I felt I was letting myself down. So I’d be sulking and the others probably, and quite rightly, thought I was being a twat. It got a bit silly after that. Apparently I was out in Manchester and walked right past Stephen (Morris, drums) and Gillian (Gilbert, Morris’s wife and the band’s keyboardist). They thought I’d blanked them but I honestly didn’t see them.”
Did he ever think that New Order were finished? Sumner sighs. “I guess I did. I didn’t see any way back. Luckily I was wrong.”
The story of New Order is a long, tortuous one, shot through with tragedy, misfortune and incompetence. Sumner met Peter Hook at Salford Grammar School where they both sat at the back of the class reading comics and messing about.
Although Sumner is scathing about his education there’s enough distance for him now to be able to joke about it. “I found an old school report a couple of weeks ago,” he smiles. “In nearly every category it said things like, ‘He’s a waste of space.’ But one comment said, ‘Bernard's very creative.’ When I saw that I just thought, ‘Yes, you were right!’ ” As with many musicians of his generation it was seeing the Sex Pistols that energised him. Sumner realised you didn't have to be a virtuoso musician. Soon, after he and Hook had spent time rehearsing in his grandmother's front parlour, a band, Joy Division, had been formed with Stephen Morris and the practical joke-loving but depressive Ian Curtis.
Their ascent was swift. Unknown Pleasures (1979) had critics in raptures with its angular, otherworldly melancholia. After their second album, Closer (1980), all seemed set for success. But then Curtis, the lead singer and lyric writer, hanged himself in May 1980.
Sumner is forthright on Curtis’s suicide. “We were devastated . . . but, to be honest, we were angry too. We were like, ‘What are we supposed to do now, you bastard.’ We’d toured like mad. This was the time of the Yorkshire Ripper and a lot of our gigs were in the red light districts of Yorkshire towns. We played in these areas so often that Hooky and Stephen became suspects for the murders. You know, driving around red light areas in a van. We were stopped loads of times.” Sumner can’t suppress a wry smile. “We’d endured all that and were this close to making it and he goes and kills himself.”
So they continued. “It was all we knew. We’d given up our jobs. What were we supposed to do?” They recruited Morris’s girlfriend Gillian on keyboards, Sumner took over vocals and they renamed themselves New Order. Their first album, Movement, was a tentative attempt at being Joy Division, but it didn’t really work. The band felt they needed to lighten up.
“And then we went to New York and heard this electronic music. Ian had introduced me to Kraftwerk and even then I’d liked it.”
Sumner laughs and agrees when I suggest that he has an anal side. “I like things to be square and tidy. Electronic music appealed to me because of its precision. I don’t like mess.”
Blue Monday was a happy accident. “We would never play encores,” says Sumner. “So we had this piece of music that we'd cobbled together, on a synth, from a Donna Summer drumbeat and other bits and pieces which we’d play at the end of a gig. And it was really popular. So we thought maybe we should do something with it. We all quite liked Giorgio Moroder’s music but didn’t like his cheesy vocals. So I thought why not put a melodic vocal over the top? It was a real Frankenstein’s monster of a song.” It has since sold more than three million copies and only four singles have spent longer in the charts.
Thereafter New Order were that rare animal — a commercially successful band who were ahead of their time. Moreover, they were a group who were not only a huge influence in the early Eighties but also instrumental in the acid house boom of the late Eighties. Their masterpiece, Technique, was partially recorded in Ibiza just as the rave generation was donning its smiley face, and their Manchester club, the Hacienda, was central to the “Madchester” explosion of 1989.
Just as they were at the zenith of their powers New Order were brought down by a potent mix of over-familiarity and business naivety. The Hacienda, plagued by drugs and violence, was losing money hand over fist, while band members couldn’t stand each other.
“We just needed a break because we’d been in each others’ pockets for 16 years,” says Hook, “and the Hacienda had been draining us financially (reputedly £10,000 a week per member) which caused all sorts of ructions. It was time to do our own things.”
Sumner had already recorded an album, Electronic, with the former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr in 1991. Hook, in the meantime, had ventured into extra-curricular activity with the mediocre Revenge and then later with the New Order-like Monaco, while Morris and Gilbert enjoyed a modicum of success as the dryly-monickered the Other Two.
In the intervening years the band’s manager, Rob Gretton (who died in 1999), had fielded countless requests for the band to play live. Then in 1998 he informed the band that another raft of gigs had been offered. To his surprise they agreed to meet up to discuss the propositions. “I asked the others if they had a problem with the idea,” Sumner says, “and they said, ‘No, but do you have a problem?’ And I didn’t. It was as if all the resentment had just disappeared.”
Their 1998 comeback at the Reading Festival is a show talked about with reverence by all who saw it. Not only were they clearly ecstatic to be back but, for the first time, they played several Joy Division songs, including that band’s biggest hit, Love Will Tear Us Apart. “It was time for us to come to terms with our past,” Sumner says. “I think we knew then that we were going to make another album.”
Get Ready’s gestation was lengthy. Made at Morris and Gilbert’s studio in Cheshire, the recording was sporadic, taking second place to family life. Sumner now has three children, Hook has two (one with his new wife Rebecca), and Morris and Gilbert have one. In fact Gilbert has been absent from the band’s recent American and European jaunt staying at home with their young daughter who has been seriously ill.
But it’s been worth the wait. The first four songs on Get Ready are equal to anything the band has recorded before. The guitars are more pronounced but Sumner’s frankly ludicrous but oddly moving lyrics are still evident. Slow Jam contains the immortal lines: “The sun was beating down on me/I got thirsty for a beer/but I had to go to sea/the sea was very rough/it made me feel sick/but I like that kind of stuff/it beats arithmetic.”
Sumner laughs loudly when I mention this. “It’s about a day when you’ve just had a row with your girlfriend.”
But, arithmetic? “I just hate it. When I was at school I took a maths exam and got 5 per cent. The maths teacher was so incensed he told the class that if Bernard Sumner was still at the school next term he’d resign. The next day was the start of the summer. I came back in September but I didn’t see him.”
Hook, a lovely man whose bluffness seems to mask huge insecurities, is thrilled that his band are still considered important. “Bono said the other day after a U2 gig in Manchester, ‘I’d like to thank Ian Curtis, Joy Division and New Order because without them we wouldn’t be here today.’ Which was lovely.” He pauses and then guffaws, “Twat. He could have just given us a couple of million instead.”
He suddenly becomes serious again. “Those eight years away from New Order were our frivolous years. But we’ve come back and we’re serious. We can’t waste any more time.”
Sumner, as always, has the last word. "You see, right from the start, there was something special about this band, something, and I sound like a right wr here, spiritual. I think we all finally realised that we'd be stupid to throw that away. ”
Pop
Return of the old Order
BY PAUL CONNOLLY
After eight years New Order, titans of Eighties rock, are back with a new album. What kept them?
Bernard Sumner glares balefully at 60,000 apathetic German Robbie Williams fans in Cologne’s Mungersdorfer stadium. “Do you like dance music?” he asks. No response. Even from way back in the crowd I can see him bristle at the lack of reaction. It’s clear he’s dying to let rip. He can’t keep it in any longer and growls menacingly, “Do you like marching music?” and New Order rip into Touched by the Hand of God, one of their huge fund of classics.
Backstage after the gig Sumner grins when I remind him of his comment. “That was the least offensive thing that sprang to mind. I had to keep biting my lip. Robbie Williams fans aren’t really our audience.” Peter Hook, the band’s bearded bassist and master of melody, quite enjoyed the show. “As Bernard often tells me, ‘You’d enjoy playing in Beirut.’ But I like a challenge. After the show Robbie Williams hugged me and said ‘Well done, you did well to get through that.’ Mind you, Bernard was so annoyed I thought he was going to start World War III.” New Order are playing at the request of Robbie Williams, but most of the crowd were probably still at primary school when the band released their last album, 1993’s Republic. It’s no surprise that the sight of these fortysomethings playing music that still sounds futuristic doesn’t stir their hormones.
But for the few New Order aficionados in the crowd the sight of the band dubbed “the post-punk Beatles” playing again after such a long hiatus is a near-religious experience. They are the most influential band of the past 25 years — without New Order there would be no U2, Primal Scream or Pet Shop Boys.
Sumner, still ridiculously youthful-looking at 45, is the complete antithesis of the monosyllabic curmudgeon of popular lore. He’s a bright, softly-spoken, sardonic Mancunian who, although clearly intolerant of fools, is, and he’ll probably hate me for saying this, a real sweetie.
When I tell him that their new single Crystal, from their seventh album Get Ready, is astonishing and one of the best things they’ve ever done, he just whispers, “Thanks, that’s really nice,” and looks away embarrassed. Sumner is also willing to accept his portion of the blame for New Order’s extended break after Republic. “I’d turn up for gigs knowing that I didn’t really want to be there. And that made me angry because I felt I was letting myself down. So I’d be sulking and the others probably, and quite rightly, thought I was being a twat. It got a bit silly after that. Apparently I was out in Manchester and walked right past Stephen (Morris, drums) and Gillian (Gilbert, Morris’s wife and the band’s keyboardist). They thought I’d blanked them but I honestly didn’t see them.”
Did he ever think that New Order were finished? Sumner sighs. “I guess I did. I didn’t see any way back. Luckily I was wrong.”
The story of New Order is a long, tortuous one, shot through with tragedy, misfortune and incompetence. Sumner met Peter Hook at Salford Grammar School where they both sat at the back of the class reading comics and messing about.
Although Sumner is scathing about his education there’s enough distance for him now to be able to joke about it. “I found an old school report a couple of weeks ago,” he smiles. “In nearly every category it said things like, ‘He’s a waste of space.’ But one comment said, ‘Bernard's very creative.’ When I saw that I just thought, ‘Yes, you were right!’ ” As with many musicians of his generation it was seeing the Sex Pistols that energised him. Sumner realised you didn't have to be a virtuoso musician. Soon, after he and Hook had spent time rehearsing in his grandmother's front parlour, a band, Joy Division, had been formed with Stephen Morris and the practical joke-loving but depressive Ian Curtis.
Their ascent was swift. Unknown Pleasures (1979) had critics in raptures with its angular, otherworldly melancholia. After their second album, Closer (1980), all seemed set for success. But then Curtis, the lead singer and lyric writer, hanged himself in May 1980.
Sumner is forthright on Curtis’s suicide. “We were devastated . . . but, to be honest, we were angry too. We were like, ‘What are we supposed to do now, you bastard.’ We’d toured like mad. This was the time of the Yorkshire Ripper and a lot of our gigs were in the red light districts of Yorkshire towns. We played in these areas so often that Hooky and Stephen became suspects for the murders. You know, driving around red light areas in a van. We were stopped loads of times.” Sumner can’t suppress a wry smile. “We’d endured all that and were this close to making it and he goes and kills himself.”
So they continued. “It was all we knew. We’d given up our jobs. What were we supposed to do?” They recruited Morris’s girlfriend Gillian on keyboards, Sumner took over vocals and they renamed themselves New Order. Their first album, Movement, was a tentative attempt at being Joy Division, but it didn’t really work. The band felt they needed to lighten up.
“And then we went to New York and heard this electronic music. Ian had introduced me to Kraftwerk and even then I’d liked it.”
Sumner laughs and agrees when I suggest that he has an anal side. “I like things to be square and tidy. Electronic music appealed to me because of its precision. I don’t like mess.”
Blue Monday was a happy accident. “We would never play encores,” says Sumner. “So we had this piece of music that we'd cobbled together, on a synth, from a Donna Summer drumbeat and other bits and pieces which we’d play at the end of a gig. And it was really popular. So we thought maybe we should do something with it. We all quite liked Giorgio Moroder’s music but didn’t like his cheesy vocals. So I thought why not put a melodic vocal over the top? It was a real Frankenstein’s monster of a song.” It has since sold more than three million copies and only four singles have spent longer in the charts.
Thereafter New Order were that rare animal — a commercially successful band who were ahead of their time. Moreover, they were a group who were not only a huge influence in the early Eighties but also instrumental in the acid house boom of the late Eighties. Their masterpiece, Technique, was partially recorded in Ibiza just as the rave generation was donning its smiley face, and their Manchester club, the Hacienda, was central to the “Madchester” explosion of 1989.
Just as they were at the zenith of their powers New Order were brought down by a potent mix of over-familiarity and business naivety. The Hacienda, plagued by drugs and violence, was losing money hand over fist, while band members couldn’t stand each other.
“We just needed a break because we’d been in each others’ pockets for 16 years,” says Hook, “and the Hacienda had been draining us financially (reputedly £10,000 a week per member) which caused all sorts of ructions. It was time to do our own things.”
Sumner had already recorded an album, Electronic, with the former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr in 1991. Hook, in the meantime, had ventured into extra-curricular activity with the mediocre Revenge and then later with the New Order-like Monaco, while Morris and Gilbert enjoyed a modicum of success as the dryly-monickered the Other Two.
In the intervening years the band’s manager, Rob Gretton (who died in 1999), had fielded countless requests for the band to play live. Then in 1998 he informed the band that another raft of gigs had been offered. To his surprise they agreed to meet up to discuss the propositions. “I asked the others if they had a problem with the idea,” Sumner says, “and they said, ‘No, but do you have a problem?’ And I didn’t. It was as if all the resentment had just disappeared.”
Their 1998 comeback at the Reading Festival is a show talked about with reverence by all who saw it. Not only were they clearly ecstatic to be back but, for the first time, they played several Joy Division songs, including that band’s biggest hit, Love Will Tear Us Apart. “It was time for us to come to terms with our past,” Sumner says. “I think we knew then that we were going to make another album.”
Get Ready’s gestation was lengthy. Made at Morris and Gilbert’s studio in Cheshire, the recording was sporadic, taking second place to family life. Sumner now has three children, Hook has two (one with his new wife Rebecca), and Morris and Gilbert have one. In fact Gilbert has been absent from the band’s recent American and European jaunt staying at home with their young daughter who has been seriously ill.
But it’s been worth the wait. The first four songs on Get Ready are equal to anything the band has recorded before. The guitars are more pronounced but Sumner’s frankly ludicrous but oddly moving lyrics are still evident. Slow Jam contains the immortal lines: “The sun was beating down on me/I got thirsty for a beer/but I had to go to sea/the sea was very rough/it made me feel sick/but I like that kind of stuff/it beats arithmetic.”
Sumner laughs loudly when I mention this. “It’s about a day when you’ve just had a row with your girlfriend.”
But, arithmetic? “I just hate it. When I was at school I took a maths exam and got 5 per cent. The maths teacher was so incensed he told the class that if Bernard Sumner was still at the school next term he’d resign. The next day was the start of the summer. I came back in September but I didn’t see him.”
Hook, a lovely man whose bluffness seems to mask huge insecurities, is thrilled that his band are still considered important. “Bono said the other day after a U2 gig in Manchester, ‘I’d like to thank Ian Curtis, Joy Division and New Order because without them we wouldn’t be here today.’ Which was lovely.” He pauses and then guffaws, “Twat. He could have just given us a couple of million instead.”
He suddenly becomes serious again. “Those eight years away from New Order were our frivolous years. But we’ve come back and we’re serious. We can’t waste any more time.”
Sumner, as always, has the last word. "You see, right from the start, there was something special about this band, something, and I sound like a right wr here, spiritual. I think we all finally realised that we'd be stupid to throw that away. ”
Thanks to: Allen Jarvis
