1984 05 24 - 06 06 New Order, Smash Hits

"WE'VE GOT THIS FAR AND WE CAN"T EVEN PLAY!"

So says New Order's Bernard Sumner. Dave Rimmer isn't saying anything.

"Uuuugh! Who did that?” bellows New Order's Bernard Sumner, nipping swiftly to another table in the pub. "Who farted?" He giggles, then accuses. "It was you, Rob. wasn't it?"

"No," hurls back Rob. their manager, "it was you!"

"We're feeling very accessible this year," Peter Hook is telling me meanwhile. "Accessibility. That's our catch-phrase."

New Order? Accessible? Well, why not? Today is the morning after they recorded that TOTP, playing "Thieves Like Us" live. How did it go?

"It's really weird," shrugs Hooky, "but the other groups come up and apologise for not playing live. They're alright at Top Of The Pops. Nice people."

"We re a bit of a pain in the arse for them, I suppose," mumbles Bernard, almost apologetically. 'Trouble is, we always sound crap on Top Of The Pops.”

"Yeah," continues Hooky, "it'll be straight out with a bullet after last night."

He's right. In the next week's chart, "Thieves Like Us" - one of the two singles they have out at the moment; the other (a Factory Benelux import) is called "Murder" — went down from 18 to 22. But then almost a year ago, after what the group regards as a "totally cosmic" TOTP appearance, so did "Blue Monday". That single went on to become the best-selling 12" single in Britain ever, has hung around the charts ever since and, Hooky reckons, "is going to become a mill-stone round our necks." It also enabled them to put up their wages from £72.50 to £103.50 a week each.

"And then the taxman caught up with us," Hooky grimaces. "We're all up shit street now. I've got an estimate for £10,000."

So while "Blue Monday" was selling like crazy, what were New Order up to? After all, they only played two British concerts last year: one in Brixton and one in Bournemouth. Well, first they did an American tour which all seems to have gone quite nicely, thank you, except for the night in Washington when Hooky got so drunk he forgot to turn up for the show. Then, back in Manchester, they made a film — soon to be shown as part of a Channel 4 series called Play At Home — about their record label, Factory. They're very happy with it, except for the apparently "embarrassing" voice-over which, they're eager to point out, had nothing to do with them.

They then all had a few weeks off. Hooky went to the Greek island of Crete which was "very nice. I got bored and was dying to get home. Just like being on tour really." Bernard tried the Italian island of Capri. That was "dead expensive. The whole place is run by the mafia and they put a tariff on all the drinks." This, as you can imagine, raises the cost of a New Order holiday quite considerably. Steve Morris and Gillian Gilbert stayed at home "knocking out fireplaces and all that" in the "terraced cottage house" they've bought in Macclesfield.

And after that? "We did some producing," replies Bernard. Oh, what groups? I ask innocently. "Well..." They all take a deep breath. There are so many they can barely remember them all.

Bernard did records with: Section 25, Quando Quango (both Manchester groups), Shark Vegas (from Berlin), Marcel King (former singer with Sweet Sensation, who had a Number One in 1974), Foreign Press ("that came out on EMI and no one noticed") and Surprize (Italian group, "pretty weird because none of them speak English. We had to do it all with a phrase-book.")

Steve and Gillian did records with: Thick Pigeon (American and "avant-garde"). Life ('That's Andy Robinson, one of our roadies. It's a single called 'We Couldn't Manage Our Way Out Of A Wet Paper Bag'.") and Red Turns To ("just a group").

And Hooky did records with: The Stockholm Monsters, The Royal Family & The Poor (a "wild satanist" called Mike Keane), La Volta La Kota (a punk band), Nyam Nyam (from Hull), Some Now Are (from Burnley, "mad, they are") and Lindsay Wilson (ex-wife of Factory boss Tony Wilson, "she s mad as well").

While all this was going on, mostly at night, New Order would be rehearsing during the day. "You get really knackered," sighs Bernard. "It's OK doing it because although all the groups are skint, you learn a lot and you're helping somebody. But we've got to cut down now."

Thing is. New Order are having terrible trouble writing songs. "And you can see why." Hooky gestures at the list of those bands I've just made. "We're getting so desperate we'll have to ask Divine to write one for us." He snorts. New Order don't seem to have found "Love Reaction", Divine's Bobby 'O'-produced rip-off of "Blue Monday", very funny. "Actually we've got hundreds of songs but we can't finish any of them."

This problem is further complicated by the fact they've hardly been playing live. Bernard invents all the lyrics on stage, you see. "When you're just about to sing," he explains, "you have to come up with something." No gigs means no words.

They have, however, recently got back from a tour of Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Denmark. "Austria was great," smiles Bernard. "But Switzerland was awful," scowls Hooky. 'It's the most expensive place in the world. It costs about £4 for a corn flake. They hated us there. They were convinced we were a bunch of devout Nazis."

And Germany? "Well." remembers Hooky, "in Berlin the rat went down better than we did.” The rat? "Yeah, there was a girl at the front doing tricks with this white rat. She got all the applause."

"We were going to do a version of '99 Red Balloons' in Germany," Steve chips in. "but we couldn’t work it out. It was too difficult."

"Yeah, when we started," says Hooky, "we found it easier to write all our own material than to work out the notes that others were playing. People copying us doesn't bother me at all. Some of them probably do it better than we do.”

"It's amazing, you know," Bernard muses. "We've got this far — and we can't even play!"

"There's a rumour going round that we can't even play our new drum machine,” Hooky smirks. "We say: 'Pah!'"

"Blue Monday", they tell me. was the result of the last time they decided to "up-grade" their technology. It was simply a song written to find out just how all their fancy new drum machines and stuff worked. No, they don't make any conscious decisions about their music. "We never have done," says Steve. "The  next song is just ... the next song." And, if all goes well, they hope to have enough of those for a new LP this summer.

What do they think about The Cocteau Twins, a band, who, with their no interviews-no photos stance, seem to be a sort of new New Order?

"The new Joy Division maybe," demurs Rob.

"Well, it's about time someone stuck to their scruples," reckons Hooky. 'Their music's awful though."

"Oh, I like it," says Steve.

And do they still get people treating them like a bunch of demi-gods? In Europe, for example. Hooky replies:

"Obviously you still get the odd turkey with his green mac and milk bottle bottom glasses coming backstage and asking what it all means."

"But the people who come backstage are the worst of the audience," Steve takes up. "They just come to complain. I never used to go backstage when I went to see bands."

"I always used to throw cans at them." Hooky grunts.

"Aaaaargh! Rob's done it again," howls Bernard, holding his nose, diving for safety and giggling fit to bust.

"No I haven't," replies Rob, a sad smile spreading across his face.

I never noticed a thing.