1984 09 22 New Order, Sounds

TVOD

Bill Black tunes in, turns on and freaks out with New Order

Maybe it's the lamentably low profile Factory's finest otherwise adopt, but it's as if New Order chose August to explode onto a slumbering music scene.

First came their contribution to Channel 4's Play At Home series on a Tuesday night. Generally self-conscious and occasionally infuriating (is Tony Wilson really such a prat?), in the story of Factory Records as told to the demure Gillian sitting in the bath with a naked Wilson, Hookey at the controls of a speeding trial bike and Barney and Steve largely behind the camera, New Order successfully de-mystified themselves and the austere label they support.

If further de-mystification of the band was needed then their simultaneous live appearance on Radio One's Saturday Live slot and BBC2's epic Rock Around The Clock bash spoke volumes for a band who steadfastly refuse to fall in with what the industry deems appropriate behaviour. Like tuning up?

"It was awful, a total f*** up," says Barney. "We'd played in Cornwall the night before and during the day we got stuck in traffic for two hours which meant we had to drive at 120 miles an hour for the last three hours and then we got there only 25 minutes before the programme went out. Not only that, but a piece of equipment had broken down which meant we couldn't play the songs we wanted, and everybody was in a pretty bad state after the horrendous journey."

And your fluffed intro at the start of 'Age Of Consent', did that make you want to give up?

"Not give up, I just wanted to get it over with. And I wanted to do it the best we possibly could and that was the best we could have done under the circumstances.

"The whole thing was daft because we don't record in a studio like that and we never wear headphones. We had four synthesisers, an Emulator, guitar, bass, electronic drums, drum machine, acoustic drums and vocals and trying to put that lot through a pair of headphones with two inch speakers is completely and utterly stupid.

"Okay, so a lot of bands are trained to be professionals and they'd have done a thing like that and still played it note perfect despite all the hassles, but we're a product of whatever atmosphere we have around us. If there's no atmosphere then our music will sound shitty because the feel will be all wrong, we'll be round pegs in a square hole."

At Heaven the other week they were most definitely not round pegs in a square hole. Which brings us to the other reason why the New Orderometer has been nudging 'overkill' for the first time in its short life. Their first ever tour! And it was on the last night of this admittedly short but nevertheless significant jaunt round the rather more poorly served parts of the British Isles that I caught up with the band.

Although hardly advertised, London's most famous gay nightspot (and the centre of Richard Branson's gig universe now that the Venue has finally gone under, one hopes) was beseiged by New Order fans after tickets, much to the amusement of those less wealthy (£5.25 for a ticket anyone? And that's before the touts' mark up) visitors to Charing Cross' salubrious arches.

With the place packed by 10.30pm it was a long wait until, after various technical hitches, New Order took to the cramped stage just before one in the morning, and even later, after an intermittently brilliant set that dealt out treats like 'Temptation', 'Age Of Consent', 'Confusion' and 'Blue Monday' with a glorious and highly-charged abandon, that I finally made contact with the band's singer Bernard 'Barney' Albrecht.

This rendezvous occurred at five am at a sumptuous post-gig party that was still going strong thanks to the staying power of the likes of the Smiths, Genesis P Orridge and an expensively-dressed Paul Morley. It also occurred after four weeks of fruitless phone calls to manager Rob Gretton's office requesting a formal interview. Instead I had to compete with a brain-mashing disco and a free bar in dragging some words from young Albrecht's lips.

This is your first real 'tour'. What prompted you to do it?

"Because we've never done one before."

Is there any particular allure?

"None. We just did it to see what it would be like."

And?

"It's great, it's been really good."

Are there any benefits to be had from playing a series of dates as opposed to the odd one or two?

"None."

Not even an opportunity to develop some kind of durable stage persona?

"It doesn't work like that. Y'see, we do this because it's fun and playing these gigs has been fun. It's also been a gamble, seeing whether it'd work or not, which is exciting. Y'see we're a very unpredictable group and that makes everything a gamble and that makes everything exciting."

What makes you unpredictable, everybody telling you that you are?

"No, it's obvious. We don't play to a formula, we don't decide what we're going to play until ten minutes before we go on so it's unpredictable whether the order of the songs is going to work or not. We also use a lot of technical equipment which is very unpredictable."

Have you noticed any change in the way the band works since this tour began?

"I think we've got more er, what's the opposite of random? Consistent. I think we've become more consistent through these gigs that we've done and that's because every gig you play you learn summat, you learn how to control things."

You've started doing encores, why is this?

"Our reputation wasn't true in the first place; we did encores but we didn't do encores all the time. We do encores now but we only do them when it feels right, when we're enjoying it."

Have you started work on the follow up to 'Power, Corruption And Lies'?

"We go into the studio in two weeks to record an album and a single."

At this stage how does the task compare with that of recording 'Power'?

"'Power, Corruption And Lies' was put together maybe 30 percent in the studio, the rest we had when we went in. Same with the lyrics. Some, like 'Blue Monday', we had written when we went in but most of them were made up on the spot or taken from live tapes. If we haven't got enough songs when we play live we make them up as we go along and we took the best bits from these and condensed them all into one song.

"This time we haven't got as much to start off with. We've got maybe five songs that are finished and loads of ideas that need finishing."

Will the new album have the same electro feel as the last? I fancy you're relying more on acoustic drums and plenty of guitar for the newer songs.

"There's no difference betwen electronic and non-electronic instruments."

Any new ideas you're keen to develop?

"We don't have ideas, we just do what feels right at the time."

When Divine's 'Love Reaction' came out a while ago, Rob Gretton told me that the band was quite happy with the record's plagarism of 'Blue Monday' as they themselves have stolen ideas in their time. How true is that?

"Absolutely true. It's dead interesting what Divine or rather Bobby O did to that record. The new single is another rip-off of 'Blue Monday' but it's good, I like it. It's the free distribution of talent. We've got the talent and it's freely distributed!"

What about James Last's proposed cover of 'Blue Monday', do you have any objections to a cabaret version of that song?

"Not at all because I think there's a place for all sorts of music in the world. James Last's music might not mean a lot to you or I but it might mean something to a pensioner or summat. There's a place for it."

So you're flattered by the attention?

"If I thought about it, yeah, but I don't think about it. It's pleasing I suppose to consider that somebody else you consider to be a musician covers one of your songs, because we don't consider ourselves musicians, well not in the sense of inverted commas if you understand what I mean."

You've been attacked for taking a slack approach to playing live, playing half completed songs and experimenting with those you've already got. How do you react to this criticism?

"I think it's interesting for the audience to hear a song go through the different stages before it gets completely finished. It's interesting for people and it's also a laff to do, makes things a bit more exciting. It also makes playing live a creative thing rather than a purely reproductive thing because you'll suddenly get an idea when you're up there playing and you can do it. It's great."

With the bar forever a-beckoning and still half a room full of people to talk to, Barney was less than responsive to my niggling questions. Like, have you ever played to an audience of non-believers since becoming New Order (I reckon not)?

"It's a case of if we play badly we'll go down badly."

Are you sure that's true?

"Yeah, we've done it. We've played badly and we've had a cool response."

Lastly, the much touted democracy on which Factory is based is generally held to extend to its bands. Is New Order a true democracy?

"Totally."

Have you ever had any really bad rows?

"Well, we've rowed, yeah, but never to the point where we haven't been talking to one another. Y'see, we've known each other for a really long time, I've known Hookey since school and Steve from Joy Division days. And if we do disagree, because we run things democratically we just take a vote and the majority wins."

Simple huh?

EPILOGUE

"The reason we do all this is because er... I dunno."

The reason New Order are so necessary is because they lie outside the bounds of rampant careerism that mark both the leading and trailing edges of the industry.

I believe Barney when he said he wanted to do that Saturday Live prog to the best of the band's ability but I also believe New Order could never get worked up about the consequences of doing it badly (mass exposure equals mass humiliation right? Wrong).

Here is a band to cherish.