1988 07 Sky New Order Feature

THE PERFECT BEAT

Once an underground myth, New Order now have loads of children and play at fashion shows in front of Andrew and Fergie. Story by Barry Walters

Black ties and soap opera hairstyles are crowding out the Stock Exchange in Los Angeles - long hair, bleached hair, blow-dried hair, teased hair, Joan Collins hairstyles all turn in unison as a line of models trot down a makeshift runway. Amid the hairspray, the Duke and Duchess of York give their undivided Royal attention. After a few outfits, the models take a break and, as part of the British/Los Angeles fashion exchange, New Order step up to provide the evening’s musical entertainment.

The hairstyles turn to watch the group and for a while don’t know what to do. New Order open with True Faith. Singer Bernard Sumner comes on in a shoulder-padded suit. Drummer Steven Morris and his girlfriend - guitarist/keyboard player Gillian Gilbert - are similarly dressed.

Peter Hook is completely different. He’s wearing motorcycle boots, leather trousers and a sleeveless T-shirt. He's playing bass at knee-level. He could be in Judas Priest.

The song ends. Fergie and company clap politely. New Order launch into a new, untitled, composition and the hairstyles turn from the stage to engage the black ties in cocktail conversation. Fergie and Andrew try to remain interested. New Order leave the stage and the fashion show resumes.

“It seemed like a completely whacky thing to do," reflects Steven Morris two days later, while trying to digest his morning cream cheese bagel at the poolside café. Contrary to the sombre New Order reputation, he’s bright. Chatty. Even in his black biker jacket and Andy Warhol T-shirt, he has the demeanour of a boy you could take home to meet your parents.

So how did he like meeting Royalty?

“Well, we pay them to be nice to people," he replies, dryly.

Still cynical but now less tense, New Order are finally enjoying a massive following in America. Their double best of LP,  Substance, has gone gold after months at the bottom of the Top 50. Michael Jackson’s producer Quincy Jones has just done the remix on Blue Monday. His Qwest label licences New Order records in America. Back here in Britain, there’s also been a book of the group they evolved from, Joy Division, called An Ideal For Living. But New Order aren’t the voice of a new generation, says Peter Hook. ”They/re the people you put on after all the other bullshit."

Gillian Gilbert joins her boyfriend (Steven) at the shaded table and sips a Perrier. Except for a bright burgandy rinse in her hair, there's nothing about her to indicate she's in a mopey new wave band.

“I’m really quite happy to be thought of as one of the guys," she says. “Because, you know, it really annoys me how people sort of pick you out. You get picked on just because you’re a woman."

“Most women in bands are a sales gimmick, anyway," Steven butts in. Gillian doesn’t want anything to do with it. “I mean, I don't like dressing up and being glamorous, because I'm not and never will be. I don't mind being in the background because all that’s important to me is the music and being part of the music. It upsets me when people start making a big deal out of it. Why aren’t you as equal as everybody else?"

So how does it work being in a band and being a couple?

“It makes us half a band," says Steven. “It seems like we're on top of each other all the time. But it’s quite nice, really. You save money - they can stuff you both into one hotel room."

“We’ve been together for 10 years," Gillian adds. ‘When we joined the group we weren’t living together. I was still living with my parents. That was quite weird, because you live with your parents and work with the group - two completely different things."

Do you want children?

“l don’t know quite when we'd fit them in," Steven answers with mock drama. “Before the album or after the soundtrack." And then, completely seriously, almost under his breath. “That's one of the things that isn’t very good."

“Being in a group you think, well, in a couple of years, but it never happens," says his girlfriend. “Because the other members have wives and kids and things and you’ve seen it all happen. You’ve met all the girlfriends. They get houses and then they have kids. They have another life. You haven't got that. You’ve just got us two all the time and it gets a bit much, really. Because if you did decide to have kids, it’s a big responsibility - not just to you, but to the other members of the band as well.
Because they can always leave their kids, but if we had them, what could we do? You'd either not see them for half a year, or you bring them with you. I can’t even look after myself."

Are the other members married?

“Only Barney's married, but he might be going through a divorce, so it’s a touchy subject," says Gillian. “He has a little boy, James, who's five. Peter‘s daughter, Heather, is three."

Bernard Sumner, or Barney as he's often called, comes and joins us. Like the other two, he’s small. Although he's in his early 30s, he still looks like a little boy. He's abrasive, straightforward.

“There's a fly in my egg," he tells the waiter before saying hello.

Why is it that no other Factory band has had the success you’ve had?

“Because they’re no bleeding good,” he says, deadpan.
 Why is Manchester the home of so many introspective groups like the Buzzcocks, Magazine, Joy Division, The Smiths?

“I think if you’re a loud person in Manchester, you tend to get beaten up," says Bernard. “There are a lot of thick bastards up there. And people who aren’t like that don't have anywhere to exist. So they form a group or write or go the Hacienda (the club New Order own with Factory)."

New Order's deal with the Factory label is something Michael Jackson couldn’t hope for. The band get 60 per cent of all royalties and have so much money coming in that, according to Morris, they have to do some things free so Factory can catch up enough to pay them.

“Hip Hop, when it first started, had parallels with punk in Britain," says Steven. “In a way it was the American answer to it. There's only so many permutations of three chords. But there are only so many permutations with two record decks."

Since Ian Curtis hanged himself in 1980, and Joy Division became New Order, the survivors have been one of the few groups to have no figurehead.

Does anyone wish he or she was in the spotlight?

Steven: “No." Bernard is evasive: “Peter's not here, ask him."

Peter Hook comes over and takes me to the pools chaises-longues so he can catch the sun. He takes off his bathrobe and is barely saved from indecency by a pair of Speedo bikini briefs. Unlike the others in the group who are, typically English, ghostly pale, Hook looks like he comes from LA - bronzed everywhere and obviously better for a work-out in the gym. With stubbly beard and Sun-In streaks of blond hair, he looks like George Michael.

“George Michael’s been looking a bit like me," he says. “It’s funny, because he asked us to support him in Europe. He’s a very good friend of Peter Saville, who does our sleeves. Pete always tells us: You’d like him a lot. He’s just like you lot.’

Hook, or Hooky to his friends, is the member most responsible for New Order’s reputation for unpredictability. It’s he who clings most to the idea of New Order as, “some kind of punk band”. The last time we met, when New Order played at the Paradise Garage, a now-defunct black and largely gay New York disco, Peter intruded on my conversation with Bernard by waving his penis in my face.

“Phew! I don’t remember that one," he snorts.

Are you different when you drink?

“I tend to go a bit morose when I’m drunk. It doesn’t uplift me. It’s only the other stuff that makes me obnoxious.”

What other stuff?

“I’ll leave that to your imagination. I tend to stay away from it. I don’t enjoy it. A lot of the time, you just drink out of boredom‘. If I was with the wife and child, I wouldn’t be drinking at all. It can be a very slippery slope, as many people have found out.”

How do you like being a father?

“It’s put a whole new complexion on life. I heartily recommend fatherhood. Even the bit before’s not too bad.”

Does your little girl look like you?

“I don’t think so. She’s got my bum, though.”

Is it true that the band did a commercial for Sunkist?

‘They asked us to try it. So we tried it and it sounded so bad that we wouldn’t let them have it. They originally told us they wanted to use Blue Monday and we thought, ‘Fine, great’. So then they said, ‘Right, when are you going to do this voice-over.’ Voice over? We tried singing the changed lyrics and we started rolling around on the floor. They were offering us a fortune, but the cringe part was too heavy.”

So what were the changed lyrics?

“Sunkist is the one," he sings through clenched teeth. “Oh, never mind."

NEW ORDER TRACK RECORD

If nothing else, New Order have a sense of history. Their latest version of Blue Monday, featuring Quincy Jones as ‘production supervisor', is the third incarnation of the tune which first hit the charts in 1983. The truck has now sold two million copies, more than 800,000 in Britain, and has spent four uninterrupted years in the Top 200. It's the biggest-selling 12-inch single of all time.

The New Order saga began in Manchester in April 1977, when singer Ian Curtis, bass player Peter Hook and guitarist Bernard Sumner formed Warsaw. The line-up was completed by drummer Steven Morris.

It wasn’t until they changed their name to Joy Division in March 1978, that the myth machine began to creak into action. The band's bad-tempered appearance in the early hours of the morning at a Manchester talent contest organised by Stiff/Chiswick Records impressed both Rob Gretton and Tony Wilson, to historic effect. Gretton became their manager, while Wilson, who was then presenting Granada TVs music show So It Goes, was also one of the founders of Factory Records, with whom Joy Division signed a recording contract.

By the time they released their first album, Unknown Pleasures, in June 1979, Joy Division had been adopted by the music press as the major force in punk‘s aftermath. The sky appeared to be the limit until their progress was catastrophically halted by Curtis's suicide in May 1980. The subsequent Top 20 hit Love Will Tear Us Apart sounded like a requiem for the singer, while the band's second album, Closer, provided further evidence of the massive potential which now seemed lost.

But the group coped with the blow better than their fans did. Refusing to be hurried or deterred, they changed their name to New Order - ignoring howls of protest from observers who said the name had nee-Nazi connotations - and hired Gillian Gilbert to play keyboards. ‘We kept going because we enjoyed being together, and we always thought the stuff we were writing was really good,“ explained Peter Hook. At first their progress was slow, and the first LP,  Movement (November ‘81), was a grey and wintry affair.

They didn't release a second album until June 1983's Power, Corruption and Lies, but it was a turning point. The cassette version of the album contained Blue Monday as an extra track. and when it was issued as a single it sped rapidly up dance charts around the world (the tourist-packed discos of the Costa Del Sol were rumoured to have had a significant effect on the record's success).

Low-Life, released in May 1985, featured Sub-Culture, later remixed by Arthur Baker's henchman John Robie. They concluded the year by releasing the album Brotherhood.

Substance, released in August 1987, collected together New Orders singles since 1980, including the chart-scaling True Faith from the month before. It was followed just before Christmas by Touched By The Hand Of God, accompanied by a video in which the foursome appeared dressed (convincingly) as a heavy metal band. Buried beneath their stubbornness and dislike of interview is a streak of bizarre humour. ADAM SWEETING