New Order for Europe - NME Feature

NEW ORDER are sitting in their hotel bar while a pianist begins the nightly rendition of ‘Groovy Kind Of Love’ in his familiar Richard Clayderman manner.

“Let’s get out of here ,” says Barney impatiently. The rest of the band are not inclined to disagree. Even his five-month old baby appears to nod in frustrated agreement.

It’s Friday evening and New Order are in Rome. They’ve been here since Sunday, shooting the video for the new single ‘Regret’ (out in two weeks).

But, for most of the time they've been surplus to requirements for promo director Peter Care - the man behind most of REM’s best work.

Stephen Morris, Barney Sumner, Gillian Gilbert, Peter Hook and manager Rob Gretton have sat in the Excelsior Hotel waiting for Care’s occasional call to stand by tourist attractions such as the Trevi Fountain or the Spanish Steps.

Meanwhile, Hookie snipes at Barney, Barney oozes a cool disregard, Stephen shoots caustic sideways glances at each of them in turn, while Gillian remains calmly aloof of such silly boys' games.

It is the sort of tension which has fuelled rumours throughout their career - increasingly in recent years - that New Order are on the precipice of a split.

Today there are mitigating circumstances. And, besides, the band have just got together to record their first album for four years. argues Hookie.

“You feel like splitting up every time you get pissed off, he says. “But that happens when you have a row with your girlfriend

There has been talk that producer Stephen Hague was a vital cog in recording the album, partly for his work as a mediator. Barney agrees. “He tends to work with one member of the band at a time, which meant we weren't all in the studio at the same time." And are such conditions preferable? He declines to comment.

So how have New Order avoided the Happy Mondays road to ruin? “By not taking heroin," he adds. "Drugs definitely split (the Mondays) in the end. The same didn’t happen to us."

NOW, OF course, New Order are in Rome. But not out of any Mick Hucknall-esque pro-Europe bollocks, you understand. This is business.

Besides their video responsibilities, the band are appearing in public together for the first time since summer 1989 to launch their new album. Fifty European journalists have been flown into the Italian capital for a major international press conference.

Now the band are signed to London Records, and the Italian capital is a central, if picturesque, location to stage the band’s first fully co-ordinated European launch.

After 12 years with Factory Communications, New Order have never managed to sell a Simply Red-amount of records in Europe. But now, with big time record company marketing muscle behind them, that is set to change.

Only one matter casts a minor shadow over the proceedings. Four days ago it emerged that London could face a legal action by Factory’s receivers Leonard Curtis.

The accountants gave the go-ahead for London to sign New Order in December, but that does not include the ‘Republic’ recordings, they claim. Those were paid for by Factory and therefore belong to the receivers.

But London's UK boss Colin Bell is not flustered; he is confident of his rights. “One thing is certain,” he says, “London will release ‘Regret' on April 5 and ‘Republic’ on May 4."

Accordingly, the final pieces are fitting into place. Already an April 8 performance of ‘Regret' on Top Of The Pops - presented live from LA by Baywatch’s David Hasselhoff - is being lined up. And legendary New Order designer Peter Savile sits in the Excelsior bar showing off the artwork. It is striking, if not quite what is expected from New Order.

‘Republic‘ features a shot of a man and a woman frolicking on the beach with a rubber ring, echoing those '70s Thomsons' holiday brochures.

But while that design remains embargoed for the meantime, just a few hours earlier the ‘Regret' seven-inch picture bag was presented to the journalists at the start of the press conference.

On it, two Marlboro Man-style cowboys on horseback light up cigarettes against a flame-red sunset. Peter Savile explains, “it‘s supposed to say ‘Marlboro, the Disney corporation, Coca-Cola’, all those sort of images.” But apparently, he adds, sensitive French souls have insisted that the cigs be erased to appease the Gallic non-smokers.

Not that the press seem very interested in details such as record sleeves. It's the record that counts.

And, 39 minutes before the conference begins - New Order arrive exactly four minutes late - the world’s first official playback of the New Order album begins, to a reverential hush.

Besides the single, highlights include the moody ‘Ruined In A Day’, ‘Spooky‘ with its hints of techno, the dance workout ‘Chemical' and the Pet Shop Boys-tingled ‘Young Offender’. With other tracks ‘World', ‘Everyone Everywhere', ‘Liar', ‘Special'. ‘Times Change’ and the instrumental ‘Avalanche', it is very much a pop album.

The reason is co-producer Stephen Hague, Barney explains. “He is more of a pop producer and (the record) does have more of a pop feel. If we had done it ourselves it would probably have been a bit more hardcore."

New Order get a fairly easy ride during the conference. Most of the questions have been asked in three dozen one-to-one interviews the previous day.

There are certainly no dumb questions to rank with the “So why did Ian Curtis kill himself?" poser thrown by an Austrian hack at Stephen Morris. (“He must have had a bad day l suppose,” was his admirable answer.) Instead, the band explain they will stage 13, as-yet unconfirmed, live dates this year, that England should have beaten Germany in that 'World In Motion’-backed World Cup semi three years ago and four years between albums isn't that long - “It’s quicker than Kraftwerk," says Hookie.

Now, New Order are happy. They even suggest that the press conference should, maybe, have been longer than 35 minutes.

This is not the melancholy band who, over the years, have granted only occasional interviews, let alone 30 in one day.

Hook reckons they have simply mellowed to the media while they’ve been away working on other projects; his own Revenge, Barney’s Electronic and Stephen and Gillian’s The Other Two.

“With Joy Division we had a few bad experiences early on," he says. “But as part of our solo projects, we did interviews and it was OK. We didn’t get treated too badly, so we've come back."

Then they do the unthinkable and pose for a press photo-call.

This is New Order the pop band; upbeat, accessible and still together. It’s enough to give doom-mongers a coronary.