1990 05 19 NME New Order

LOVE WILL TERRACE APART

• Have a word, Ref! What’s this - top disco situationists NEW ORDER in top ’positive vibe’ England World Cup squad anthem shock! A winning combination, says commentator STUART ’Wigan Bastard’ MACONIE, as John Barnes passes and Barney Sumner, kitted out in bonkers Elvis regalia, scores with a hat-trick of revelations on that fated US tour, that Electronic ‘project’ and that NO ‘mystique’ myth. Brilliant shots for the boss, like: KEVIN CUMMINS

Thursday May 3, 1990. The hottest day of the year and, through the shimmering haze rising from the tarmac at the car park of Liverpool FC’s training ground, a tableau of quite uncompromising weirdness is being acted out before our disbelieving eyes.

While the football phenomenon that is John Barnes juggles a ball quietly and expertly in an unnoticed comer of the ground, a man in a vulgar and slightly off-colour facsimile of the kind of outfit Elvis wore at his Vegas shows in the early 70s is clambering upon the bonnet of a Mercedes convertible and thrusting his hips in time to a rather fine example of Disco Techno pop.

A strange vignette... but stranger things are yet afoot. For now that this odd cove has discarded the rather ratty thatch of an Elvis wig, we can see that... surely not? Can this really be Bernard 'Barney' Sumner of top disco situationists New Order? Indeed it is, and as Barney ‘takes five’ from his endeavours, he mutters cryptically to no-one in particular “This should be the last straw for the Joy Division fans!"

ALL, AS they say, will be explained ... albeit in a rather oblique and unsatisfactory manner with somewhat scant attention to the Elvis costume, but stay tuned anyway. Our story begins with some enterprising record company folk and a football team in desperate need of a good song.

As you may know, the English national football squad, thanks to that oddly lovable blend of lumbering stoicism and sporadic brilliance, have qualified for the World Cup Finals in Italy in some two weeks time. For the shebangs it is customary for the ‘lads' to record an ersatz pop ditty as a kind of war cry-cum-souvenir. Needless to say, this is invariably excruciating pap of the worst philistinism, a piss-poor excuse for a song bellowed by men not known for their aesthetic bent. Immediately the elephantine strains of 1970's ‘Black Home' comes to mind or the grovelling and apologetic 'This Time We'll Get It Right’ from 1982. The last such song was produced and written by Stock, Aitken and Waterman for 1988's Euro championships. With ruthless logic, it was shite, no-one bought it and England were dumped out of the competition by Lapland 'B’.

England's official song for the 1990 World Cup is ‘World In Motion’ aka ‘E For England' and is, without doubt, the best pop record ever to be connected with football; perhaps the first such song that you can carry out of Our Price without self-combusting with embarrassment.

How did this come about? Apparently via the good sense of an MCA records official who, mindful of our poor showings in this department in the past, and having heard 'Best & Marsh', New Order's theme for a Granada TV football show, approached Tony Wilson with this curious offer. Curious in the sense that of all the bands in the country, few would have sprung less readily to mind than New Order. The Wedding Present, Snuff, Birdland, any of these purveyors of gung ho populist thrash would have been more obvious men for the job than Manchester's dance theoreticians with their dispassionate allure and obsidian surfaces.

But the result is faultless and a lot of fun. New Order devotees fearing some hideous oompah workout featuring Gascoigne, Beardsley, Shifts et al mumbling their way through some guff about ‘doing it for the folks in Cleckheaton' can breathe again. ‘World In Motion' is pure New Order; an unstoppable, synthetic groove with the odd concession to the terrace viz snatches of Kenneth Wolstenholme (“Some people are on the pitch, they think it's all over.. .it is now.") and a lyric, courtesy of 'comedian' Keith Allen which manages to allude to the noble game without descending to cliche. An (ahem) 'Equity Culture' anthem espousing a more positive vibe for the beer boys? Something like that. The heart is worn pretty blatantly on the sleeve. “This is no football song/We ain't no hooligans” goes the rap section, though this may be the line that potato-skinned stormtroopers in Union Jack boxer shorts omit as they vomit in the back of Luigi's taxi and make 'witty' sexual suggestions at elderly Senoras in the Sardinian streets.

WE ARRIVE at Liverpool's suburban training ground where New Order and John Barnes are filming their segment of the video to be met by a worrying sight. Tony Wilson and Peter Hook, men of some repute, I think you will agree, amble around looking frighteningly like extras from Neighbours in their sloppy joe tops and voluminous shorts.

Being of the opinion that shorts are strictly for the under-tens and, more to the point, having useless legs, I sit on the touch sweltering in my winter togs and muttering darkly about ‘standards' under my breath. Lyricist Alien is showing his near-Brazilian range of ball juggling skills whilst John Barnes commits the song's rap to memory off huge idiot boards.

Steve and Gillian loll in the sunshine, sporadically egged into life by Wilson. ("Get on this f—ing video, Steve. You’re the best bloody dancer in the band!”) Hooky is in good spirits; learning that I am from Wigan he proceeds to make gratuitous, disparaging remarks about this all afternoon. Allen's delight at receiving a fat publishing cheque for the song’s lyrics also prompts some derision from Hook. “Now he's found out there's some money in it, he’s after writing one for the darts team, the hockey team, bloody anybody!”

Barnes is working to a tight deadline, ie he should have been somewhere else an hour ago but is still doing his best to fit in sundry, unconnected requests.

“Why don’t you ask me some questions while I’m juggling the football, doing the rap and making the video?” Okay, are you a New Order fan, then John? “Well, I certainly am now,” he replies diplomatically. So what sort of stuff do you normally listen to?”

“Soul,” he answers controversially. "I have a lot of friends who are DJs.” And were you suffused with excitement at the prospect of doing another football song?” “Man, I thought if it was going to be the same as the usual crap, why bother? But this is alright.” And pausing only to sign an England shirt for Barney's young son, he was gone, leaving the female contingent of our party, raving, rather pathetically I thought, about his legs.

Spying Steve and Gillian at a loose end (or, more accurately, being forced into doing some work by the jibes of Hook and Cummins) I amble over for a quick interviewette. When you first heard about all this did you assume it was a joke?

“Oh yeah. But when it became apparent that it was a serious offer we thought, why not? You see we had a choice of two things; Doing this football song or working with the film director Michael Powell. He was going to make a short film and then we were going to write some music around it. Like a video in reverse. And we thought, that's quite nice, quite arty, you know? But in the end we decided to do this. And on the first morning in the studio we got a phone call saying that Michael Powell was dead. So we made the right decision really. We'd have looked like proper Charlies working with a dead director!”

Does it bother you that the song is going to end up being sung by some fat, bald, tattooed, Sun-reading bastard as he trashes some Sardinian bar?

"Well, if that happens, it’s out of our hands really. We have taken some pains to distance ourselves from that in the song. It’s got a really positive message. In fact, the FA came to us and said ‘What's all this love’s got the world in motion stuff? You can’t sing that! It’s got to be ‘We’ve got the world in motion’ and we just said no.”

At this point Mr Hook takes an interest in our conversation. “Oi, interview me, you Wigan bastard!" Fair enough, seeing as you put it like that. So, tell me Peter, at the end of the day, do you think that you lads done brilliant for the boss?

“Oh aye. We struggled a bit with injuries, like. Brain, spinal cord, nervous system, you know, that sort of thing, but at the end of the day we're over the moon. ”

And is this the best football song ever?

“I dunno. ‘Best & Marsh’ was pretty good. You see, no-one’s ever tried to make a decent song that's got some lasting qualities. They usually do them on the cheap and ... F—IN’ ELL, ITS ELVIS.”

The cause of this interruption is walking towards us from the clubhouse. It is Barney, thoughtful and enigmatic vocalist, strolling along resplendent in full ‘Bonkers’ period Elvis regalia complete with daft wig, huge rhinestone cummerbund, ‘interesting’ lapels and red snakeskin boots. The effect is rather arresting. It could certainly get you arrested. The football connection is a little oblique but everyone agrees that this should clearly be preserved on film for posterity. Barney himself seems to be having second thoughts.

“This costume feels funny. You can tell that someone really horrible has worn this recently."

With video crew in tow, Barney the King sets off for Anfield in his Merc convertible. All along the route housewives gawp slackjawed and scouse children walk into lampposts. Upon arrival, Barney thinks it might be a neat idea to get some scally kids in the back of the car. Until, that is, it occurs to him that the police might take a dim view of a man dressed as Elvis luring small boys into his sports car. Instead Barney suggests we sojourn to a Lime Street buffet bar for a chat.

And so, over fish burgers and sweet Martinis, Barney reveals how a year that began with him sick as a parrot ends with him over the moon.

FIRST, LET’S start with the concept of New Order getting involved with the England World Cup Squad song which is, on the face of it, an extraordinary notion. Are you pleased with it?

"Oh yeah. Personally, I think the mix could have been a little better but there you go. It's mainly been written by Gillian which I think might be the way of the future. I think a lot of people assumed it was a joke but I didn’t see it that way. The thing is we wanted to do a single anyway so I thought it was a good idea. I thought we'd do a good job. And we have. It's definitely the very best football song ever. What do you think? Mind you, there was those Chas & Dave ones."

Were you very aware that English football still has a pretty unsavoury streak running through it?

“At one stage, the FA came to us and made it clear that the song had to really distance itself from hooliganism. Hence 'Love's got the world in motion'. It's an antihooligan song. There's a deliberate ambiguity about the words which don't have to refer to football. I think you're right when you say that pop and football culture are nearer than they have been in years. And from our point of view, there’s been a football element in our fans for about the last six years. Even so there was no way I could have written the lyrics. I really couldn’t write a football lyric... so we got Keith (Allen) to do it.”

Whatever the subject matter, the very appearance of new product from New Order might go some way towards silencing the rumours that have abounded these past 12 months.

“The rumours don’t really affect us but.. .There has been a tension in the group, that is true. We did a three month US tour and by the end of it we were all sick of New Order. It was a massive tour - 36 nights of 20,000 seater venues. And it made me ill. I ended up in hospital with television cameras shoved down my stomach. I was really ill. And the doctor said that I had to give up the drink for two weeks. That’s like asking Bob Marley to go without his dope! So, I was going out facing 20,000 people without a drink, feeling sick all the time, and I just thought ‘I don't want to be here. Why am I doing this?’

“There was no temptation to pack the group in. I just wanted to be at home. We didn’t want to play Reading but we were contracted to do so and I'm glad now because we really enjoyed it. But as for the American tour.. .we did it to see if we could handle a mega-tour. And, to be frank, we couldn’t.”

Are you saying that the ‘New Order to split' stories simply passed you by?

“No. Rumours do bother me and you’re all guilty of it. You print things in the hope that we’ll deny it. If New Order were going to split up, I’d tell you. But it annoys me when people talk about what they don't know. It’s not just me throwing tantrums or being a primadonna. It goes deeper than that.

“When I was ill, getting worse and worse, throwing up 11 hours a day and trying to convince people that it wasn't just a hangover, I thought ‘What the f—ing hell am I doing with my life? This isn't what I want to do.’ And I realised that all I wanted to do is write songs. So the football song is a good way of having some New Order material around right now. I’ve been very busy with Electronic, my solo project with Johnny and the Pet Shop Boys. We should have an LP out in August and then after that it's straight into the new New Order album in September.

“Really, New Order needed a break. We’ve been together since Joy Division days, we've written dozens and dozens of songs together, we needed some time off. I know this sounds like marriage guidance stuff but the Bunnymen didn't get through it. And now I'm enjoying life. I've got the financial security to do what I like and not be treated as someone else's luggage."

Explain to us the rationale behind ‘Electronic’. What's its current state? What does it mean to you?

“Electronic has been really good for me. It’s been really good to work with other musicians. You see, New Order is so close knit that we won’t allow anyone else to be involved with the records. But next week with Electronic, I'm working with Johnny and both Pet Shop Boys and I can really benefit from that. I just want to get better at writing songs. I’m still not good enough.”

Does it rile you when Electronic, like Peter's Revenge, are described as your ‘hobby’ band?

“They know it’s not true. It’s just intended as a dig. It’s a pretty f—ing successful hobby then, innit?! I can't comment on Peter and Revenge but for me it’s just the desire to work with other musicians after ten years of New Order. The basis of it is Johnny (Marr) and I as a duo... well, no, it’s a project under whose name I can work with anyone and Johnny can do the same. And that freedom, that flexibility is cool.

“Neil got involved by phoning me up. I'm a friend of the guy who does the Pet Shop Boys’ sleeves. Through him, Neil must have found out that I was making a solo record and he phoned me up to ask if he could be on it. Corny though it may sound I was really pleased 'cos I've always been a big fan of the Pet Shop Boys though I’ve never told Neil this. So Johnny and I had written the music to ‘Getting Away With It’ and Neil helped out with the lyrics and vocals. Now Johnny, Neil and Chris Lowe have a tune called ‘The Patience Of A Saint' which we’ll be recording in London next month."

I think the permanence or otherwise of the venture has had some people, like myself, a little confused.

“Well, the intention was to record an album first, not a single. But when we’d finished ‘Getting Away With It' it was such an obvious single that we had to put it out. Another frustration of New Order is the inability to get things out that you've just written. With Electronic we did just that. That song was out within a month of being written. There was never a definite time span for the group but after finding that what we’ve done is so good, we’re bound to continue. It's been nice to get on so well with Johnny, musically and socially. We’ve shied away from publicity because we wanted to wait until the album. There’s not a lot to say about a single is there? We'll do interviews when the album appears."

What about live performances?

“Oh, I should think so. There’ll be no tours for sure but there’s no reason why we shouldn't play a few big dates in major cities. But I’ve had it with touring. The most I’d be prepared to do is about five concerts and I don’t really want to think about that. Basically, I’d rather be on the dole than go on tour again. ”

One expects ‘World In Motion’ to be well received a) because it's brilliant but b) because New Order are icily cool; the band who can do no wrong.

“Oh yeah, I’m aware of that. But I believe it's because we aren’t static. We change with the times. And we genuinely are good. Well, not all the time but 70 or 80 per cent of the time. The punters get what they pay for. We did get a backlash straight after Joy Division and that hurt a bit because we weren’t very good at that stage. And we got that right up until ‘Blue Monday’. That shut ’em up.”

In a round up of the ’80s I described ‘Blue Monday' and ‘This Charming Man' as the most important white records of the decade. Would you agree with that?

“Err... yes, I think you're probably right. At that time I was listening to Giorgio Moroder and I thought ‘this is good, this is new'. And I could hear a lot of good in it. f could hear a lot of bad too but it was different. It's like Hooky told me at school about horizontal and vertical thought. Sometimes you have to look in the opposite direction from everyone else.”

With ‘Blue Monday’ and subsequent releases, New Order had the vision to learn from dancefloor culture at a time when white rock in Britain was floundering in the pathetic, sixth form slough of goth. Without New Order (and like minded bands such as Depeche Mode) there would have been no House music. How does this make you view the current infatuation with dance?

“Well, I remember the letters we got when we released ‘Blue Monday'. ‘How could you do it? It’s just another disco record!' Or the one that gives me particular pleasure said ‘ It just doesn't sound like New Order'. Which is ironic because these days it sounds very much like New Order.

“Speaking for myself but not for the rest of the band, Dance is the most interesting musical form of the past ten years. 90 per cent of rock is archaic and dead whilst roughly the same percentage of dance music is wonderful. I appreciate that some of our fans probably regard us as a rock band and some of what we do could be classed as rock but there isn't much good stuff in that line left. The Smiths were the last great rock band.”

Do you think there has been a dance revolution?

“Oh yes, and it started when we recorded ‘Technique’ in Ibiza! It’s changed my social habits completely. It’s got across to your student types who previously had this prejudice that dance was only for scaliies and perries. In some ways it's got too big. It’s hard to have a party or a rave or whatever you want to call it now 'cos there’s so many stiffs involved. People who think that doing gallons of drugs is cool. It's not. Or at least shouting about it isn't.

“Some really positive things have come out of the dance boom. Like the clubs have virtually eliminated violence. I started going to dubs when I was 16 and when I were a lad in Salford you'd see two fights a night, no problem. Now I might see one a month if that. Plus you go to clubs now and it’s genuinely multi-racial. Why can’t the police concentrate on that and ignore the odd dickhead shouting his mouth off about drugs? If the police continue as they are now, clamping down on kids and hassling them for no good reason the frustration will lead to riots again.”

So are you a rock band or a dance band?

“Well, dance music has been a massive influence but we would never go totally over into pure dance. For one thing, nobody f—in’ buys it! I mean, you hear it at clubs and you get tapes off your mates, don’t you? Last Saturday night I went to a party and I had a great time but I couldn’t tell you the name of one record I heard!

“But I do have this theory that dancing is this century’s version of prayer. I think people have a real need to come together in large groups. And there's a definite buzz about being part of a thousand people all dancing. I think they used to get that from churches.”

Do you think this partial embracing of the House/Club ethic means that you've finally shaken that ‘depressing’ tag?

“Maybe some of the songs were a bit depressing. When they’re coming to me it's as if someone else is writing them, as if I'm being told a story. Musically, that is. Lyrically, they’re a joke. Why? Because I don’t take the writing of lyrics very seriously. OK, occasionally I might do but in general I can't muster the effort. I’m very proud of ‘All Day Long' but I couldn’t be that heavy all the time. I like a laugh, you know. We've just never taken the trouble to deny that ‘depressing’ tag. Any band who tries to be serious gets called that because people are shallow. Morrissey gets it because he tries to be different. But to be honest, we're like The Mondays in that we don't give a f— what people think of us. We joined a band so we could get away from having to answer to bosses just like they joined a band so they could party 24 hours a day."

If you really couldn't give a f— what people think, how come you've got one of the most rigorously defined images and identities of any band; that beautifully sustained mystique?

“You see, I don’t understand this. What mystique? There's no mystique from where I'm standing. Are you sure this ‘mystique’ is not just because we've been around for so long and never made it big?”

But from the record sleeves to the merchandising, are you telling me that there isn't a clearly defined image?

“Yeah, and once I was very into it. But as you just don't have the time to work out ideas for videos and the like, it ends up with someone asking you to approve album sleeves while you're sitting on a plane to Brazil or something. You end up losing control. Electronic will not be like that. One of the great things about it is it’s getting away from the corporate rock idea.

“You accuse us of perversity but a lot of things aren’t my idea. I didn’t know New Order didn't mime until I read it in the NME. And this business of not having our pictures on the sleeve. I go to America and they go (adopts American drawl) ‘Hey, Bernard Sumner..' and I’m expected to justify not having band shots on the sleeve. And I don't f—ing know why. It’s not my idea. Ask Peter Savilie. All I know is that he didn’t ask me.”

So there’s no masterplan?

“The opposite. We’ve done a lot of stupid, very New Order things that have held us back. We're mega-cockrock big in the States now and we could have been years ago if we hadn't done so many 'New Order’ things like played small clubs which we thought was cool, when we should have been playing big gigs. Playing live on TopOfThe Pops is very ‘New Order’ and very stupid. You have six minutes to recreate a sound that took weeks in the studio. You sound crap, you should mime but ‘Oh no, we're New Order’. I tell you, I wouldn’t be working so hard now if I hadn't done so many ‘New Order' things in the past.”

But are you proud of your achievements, having been in not one but two legendary bands?

“Yes, I'm very proud. Not many bands would have overcome the blow of their lead singer... (pause) going. After ten years we still make great records. Which is more than The Who or The Kinks could ever say. But it’s funny. In America, Joy Division mean nothing. We’d played the Irvine Meadows amphitheatre and it had gone great so we played ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ as an encore... and you could see 'em turning to each other going ‘what the f—'s this?'”

If you hadn't joined Joy Division, where would you be now?

“On the roof of Strangeways probably. I'd have given up any steady job and turned to something illegal... but not hurting anyone.”

Do you reckon you could have a Number One with 'World In Motion’?

“F—in’ ’ell, don’t ask me. I say every one’s going to be Number One.”

And what's the stupidest thing anyone's ever said about you?

“That the cover of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ was a gravestone and we were cashing in on Ian's death... oh, and when Julie Burchill said that my lyrics to ‘Ceremony’ were trite after Ian’s... which is good 'cos Ian wrote them (pause)... but what do you think of the Elvis suit then? I was on a plane coming back from Crete and I couldn't sleep and the idea just came to me, I had to dress as Elvis for this video. Maybe the great man himself put the idea there...

“I wouldn’t mind but I f—in’ hate Elvis, actually.”