1982 Feature Mist New Order

NEW ORDER: "TOWARDS DEFINING THE NEW ORDER"

Unquestionably the most successful independent band in the world, New Order are not the easiest of bands to get to talk to. The terrific mustique surrounding them and the public's obsession with pursuing them on record, in print, and in flesh, is only equalled by their desire to remain relatively anonymous. That their success is wholly attributable to their artistic talents and their refusal to compromise is undoubtable: that they are still, in the words of Peter Hook, ’'Four ordinary people" is something few people would believe.

And yet, Neil Taylor - tentatively inquisitive - fired some questions at Peter Hook and came away with an image of a man and group very different from how the press (or lack of it) would have us believe. No big showdown, no glorified factory-romanticism, no press fanaticism, just level-headed dedication and at the end of everything an overall feeling of no sell out.

"I don't think that we are being anti-social by not playing encores. I personally don't like doing them. If you've done a really good set going back and playing an encore is such a let down. It's like when you've just had sex - after you've come you just want to lie back and relish it for a moment, you don't want to instantly recapture it..."

NEW ORDER

BLAST: In an interview Bernard once said that most things people write about New Order, as a group and as people, are usually wide of the truth. Why do you think this is so?

PETER: I don’t know, but then I think that it happens with most groups and not just Now Order, don’t you think?

BLAST: Well, do you think that it happens with you more?

PETER: Maybe. I suppose that we don't tell the press much and that means that they tend to dream up a lot. Non-information tends to build up a mystique, and people read so much in to what we say, it's often just unbelievable.

BLAST: Turning from the press, I'd like to ask you some questions about early New Order, though not about Joy Division...

PETER: Why not about Joy Division?

BLAST: Well I suppose it's because everybody says 'don't talk about Ian Curtis'. It's a very sensitive subject.

PETER: Well I find that a bit of an insult, really.

BLAST: To Joy Division?

Peter: No, to me. I mean we were just a normal band. We wrote songs, we played live, and recorded. There was nothing different from the end of Joy Division and the beginning of New Order. When Joy Division finished there wasn't any conscious decision to change at all. Obviously there was a need to change since the vocalist was dead, but we didn't sit and plan change at all. I mean we didn't come up with a name for ages - we were writing without a name and carried on like that for a long time.

BLAST: How thoroughly do you  work out your songs? New Order songs never seem as carefully edged off as, say, songs by a group heavily reliant on instruments, such as Depeche Mode

PETER: Well we work our songs out carefully but maybe they sound more ragged because we're not as good at playing them as they are. That could be genuinely true.

BLAST: How did the Arthur Baker connection develop?

PETER: It came about through the guy that runs Factory. He knew Arthur Baker. Rob wanted us to release '586' mixed by him, but we asked him to do 'Blue Monday'. He liked it but said that be would prefer to do '586'! From then it dragged on a while because he was supposed to be coming over to Britain, but he never came.

BLAST: How did his pace of work compare with yours?

PETER: Good question. He works very fast, but then the whole American scene is fast. I mean, in England when you book a studio you are governed by the fact that the place is shut all night. In America studios open 24 hours a day, and when you go in someone's waiting to come out, and when you go out someone's waiting to go in. You work fast and so you have to get it right first time. You have to hit quality straight off.

BLAST: What about the quality of New Order products - they're all presented with a shrewd sense of packaging?

PETER: That's right, but most of our packaging is deliberately not commercial - if only because it costs such a lot to produce. I don't think that we'd sell any more-records by having the words 'New Order' splashed across the cover.

BLAST: Turning to the sound, I want to mention Gillian. No one ever seems to mention her?

PETER: That's because she never says anything. Her input is not great because Barney does the bulk of the keyboards and we all work out the songs together.

BLAST: How does this work live?

PETER: It works well. I mean we perform all of our songs live when we play.

BLAST: How important is performing live to New Order?

PETER: Not essential, compared with how important it is to a lot of bands. With a lot of new bands playing live is like a social event. 1 like it. I've noticed it with two bands that I work with - La Volta La Kolta and The Stockholm Monsters. When La Volta toured with Death Cult I noticed that the same people turned up at every gig - but then that probably happens with us. It's nice in a way, but if it happened to us a lot I think that I'd get bored. When we used to play gigs in Joy Division we used to go to places like Huddersfield and play shitty pubs and it was good if you had people following you, but when it started to be the same people every evening it started to feel as though we were preaching to the converted. At that point we were achieving nothing.

BLAST: How much do you think that with 'cult' bands it might be because the press won't take then up and give them more exposure, thus helping them draw new crowds?

PETER: I don't think that it's that at all. A band like, for instance, The Sex Gang Children get loads of coverage and yet 1 personally think that they are just Cockney Rebel rip-offs. But bands like them aren't being ignored. Take Death Cult, they're good in their own right but they seem to be locked into this fashion thing. The same applies to the Bat Cave bands - I went to the Bat Cave and I've never seen so many people that looked alike. 1 don't blame them for doing it but it just seems so strange - 1 suppose it all comes back to the concert as a social event thing.

BLAST: Presumably it doesn't happen with New Order because the nature of the set live - i.e. short and no encores - tends to place the audience at a distance?

PETER: Maybe, but I don't think that we are being 'anti-social' by not playing encores. I personally don't like doing them. If you've done a really good set going back and playing an encore is such a let down. It's like when you've just had sex - after you've come you just want to lie back and relish it for a moment, you don't want to instantly recapture it. It's the same with encores. We could go back out and play 'Ceremony' and everybody would love it. You see the whole point of doing a set is to put it together carefully and not have to stick bits on the end. We do play encores: in Italy the promoter made us play encores: there would have literally been riots otherwise.

BLAST: Turning to the records, how satisfied are you with the last album, 'Power, Corruption and Lies', compared to 'Movement'?

PETER: People said that we weren't happy with 'Movement', but that's wrong. It was just the production that we didn't like. I mean I personally think that every song we write is good, otherwise I wouldn't play it.

BLAST: The production of 'Power..' seems much tighter?

PETER: It is, but then we weren't very fair with Martin Hannett on 'Movement'. We said "yeah yeah, produce it" to him and when he did we said "no, we don't like that". Really I suppose there was no point in asking him to produce it if we were just going to bark in his ear. I think that ''Movement' is his interpretation of how we sounded - or at I least of how he thought we should sound. And let's face it, a lot of people like it. I mean I don't think that 'Unknown Pleasures' was a great production, but I can see what he was getting at. He tried to convert us from a 'heads-down-boogie' punk band into something with broader horizons, something which we I didn't appreciate at the time. I appreciate it now, now that I've started to produce myself.

BLAST: Go you look back at that album then and see its faults?

PETER: I. can see what Martin was trying to do and now I can do nothing but thank him for it. The direction he wanted us to go in has undoubtedly influenced our music and it's worked out very well: we've retained independence yet gained great success.

BLAST: Finally, how important is being independent to you?

PETER: It matters a lot to me but then it's great if you're selling records but real shitty if you're not. So whilst I'm grateful for being independent I'd never blame anybody for signing to a major, because that's just the way of the world. If you want a wage every week you get a job or become self-employed. I'm lucky, I’ve been able to become self-employed and pull it off. But then I love learning, I love getting involved with everything - from The Hacienda to production to lighting. I'm even taking a HGV licence with one of the roadies! But I also realise that if I couldn't pull it all off I'd have to go out and get a day job. And if I had to I'd certainly be prepared to do it.