1986 New Order, Star Hits

They hardly ever do interviews, and when they do, things don’t usually go that well. They can be unpredictable, uncooperative and sulky. So what’s all this about shoving snowballs up girls’ skirts? Chris Heath wonders if he’s talking to the right group. . .

"We used to sit at the back of the class and copy off the people in front,” giggles Barney. "We used to flick ink onto Mr Alkyard, the teacher’s back when he walked past.”

“And we used to get the swot,” sneers Peter, “take his bag off him, sit on him and take his homework."

They both burst out laughing at the thought of all the daft things they used to do together at school. But wasn’t all this a bit, ahem, nasty?

Peter shrugs his shoulders. “Survival of the fittest in the jungle, isn’t it?” he says, and they carry on reminding each other of more of their antics.

"Flicking first years’ ears was good fun,” he announces with the air of a connoisseur. “And shoving snowballs up girls’ skirts.. .just the normal things that boys get up to.” 

Normal?

"Well,” laughs Peter, “everyone that we knew did them!”

It’s a long time since Barney and Peter went to school together in Manchester but they still joke about it as if it were yesterday. Maybe that’s because, even though they’re now in a very successful group, they’re telling the truth when they say “we’re still exactly the same as we were when we were as school’’. After all, these days they’re still just like a couple of lads who swear a lot, laugh a lot, joke a lot, wear "casual" clothes all the time (even on stage) and treat the whole music business as a bit of a joke. But then they never really intended to end up in it. “The last thing I ever thought I’d be in,” remembers Barney, “was a group.” 

And admittedly it can’t have seemed likely. The two of them spent their school years doing almost anything but work (Barney got Art and English 'O' level, Peter just English), and having the odd brush with the law. Peter confesses to having been caught for “cat burglary" and when Barney tries to make himself out to have been a bit of a goody-goody, Peter blows his top.

“You used to nick lead off roofs! he shouts. “And at school,” he explains, “he used to open up his coat and he’d have hundreds of pens for ten pence each which he’d ‘got’ from Boots."

“Jeans too,” admits Barney. “We used to skip school at delivery time on Monday and when the bloke took the boxes in we’d get the stuff out of the back of his van."

Not very impressive behaviour but they’d somehow managed to get themselves decent jobs by the time they’d met up with singer Ian Curtis to form their first band, Warsaw, who soon became Joy Division. Barney was a trainee at a place doing television animation, Peter worked in an office on the docks, Ian worked for a job centre and the strange drummer called Steven, who turned up to their first rehearsal, worked for his father’s kitchen-fitting business.

“He looked like Terry Wogan’s son,” sniggers Barney. "He used to do typing and shorthand and his mum sent him ballroom dancing."

Still, they all got on well enough and Joy Division - labelled by the critics as a doomy, neurotic postpunk band - were soon a very successful “cult” band. Then tragedy struck. Their singer Ian Curtis - apparently depressed about a number of things - hung himself. After a while the rest of them formed a new band, drafting in Gillian because “we wanted someone who couldn’t play so she wouldn’t influence us", but even though they have always insisted that New Order is “the same band” as Joy Division, it’s only recently that they’ve felt able to play any old Joy Division songs.

"It feels really good to play them now,” says Barney with evident relief, explaining how they played “Love Will Tear Us Apart" and “Decades” at a concert on the anniversary of Ian’s death. “It’s like the storm's over.” They're also obviously unhappy about the reputation that Joy Division have acquired since. "People write that we were really doomy and heavy but they didn’t know us. The truth was completely the opposite.”

These days they’re pretty successful despite “holding themselves back from success" by frequently refusing to do interviews or have their photo taken, often only releasing 12” singles, insisting on playing live on Top Of The Pops and generally enjoying being as perverse as possible. And presumably they’re quite keen on their new single, “Subculture”, being a big hit? Peter looks disgusted at the thought.

“I don’t like it so I couldn’t care less. It’s too disco-y, it just sounds too cornball." He explains that he hates the remix done by the producer John Robie in America but was outvoted by the others. Doubtless he won’t be too keen on the follow-up, already recorded, called “Shame Of The Nation” which should be out after Christmas. Though at least that probably won't be quite as risque as the current single.

“It’s about shagging,” explains Barney, but though it has quite a few slightly naughty words in, most people don’t seem to realise. “I thought it was really trite,” says Gillian, “but my mother really liked it. I don’t think she noticed."

Though they all write the songs together, it’s Barney who seems to give the subject most thought. “I think about writing songs a lot,” he explains, “because for me it’s just luck coming up with a good song and I think if you could come up with a way of writing music quicker you'd be perfect. I think it’s important to be perfect.”

Consequently he’s a bit peeved that when he does write something he likes - like the last single “Perfect Kiss" - it isn't always successful. “That’s the best song we’ve ever written,” he sighs. “And that's the most important part of the whole thing, writing songs. It’s like a nuclear reactor, it can’t react without any uranium and the songs are like the uranium. If you haven’t got good songs you've got nothing."

So does he think that all the groups in the charts have that “uranium”? He draws his breath.

“I honestly don’t like slagging groups off,” he says in the voice of a man just about to slag someone off, "but King are absolutely diabolical. It's the way the singer sings, it makes me piss myself. Their recent single isn’t a bad song but they seem to put songs together like you put together Airfix kits. You buy all the bits, glue it together, look at it for a couple of days then throw it away.”

Barney and Peter are very much the “loud” half of the band, cracking jokes, being rude and generally stirring things up. Steven and Gillian, who’ve been going out together for several years and live together in Macclesfield, are much more withdrawn.

"He’s quiet and thoughtful,” says Barney a bit sarcastically about Steven. “But when he does talk he waffles on and on. He gibbers a lot and it’s very hard to understand what he’s on about."

And Gillian?

“She’s also very quiet," says Peter. “Like Princess Di.”

“She’s easy to get on with,” adds Barney. “She doesn't nag you like most women do.”

Gillian seems to get lots of sexist comments like this from Barney and Peter which is probably why she says that when they first met she thought they were “pretty stupid and horrible.

“When you get to know them though,” she considers, “they're alright.”

When Barney and Peter leave the room though, Steve and Gillian seem to chat much more freely, explaining how it can be a bit of a strain going out with someone in the band because there’s nowhere to escape to, and complaining about how pessimistic everything is these days.

"I blame insurance salesmen," says Steven chirpily. “They’re geared to telling you that things will always get worse. Nowadays all you’ve got to look forward to is whether you're going to be well-done or partially-broiled in some intercontinental war.”

And meanwhile New Order will carry on in their own rather charming individual way, trying to make the music they want and standing up for the things they believe in (they play loads of benefit concerts though they tend not to shout about them) without turning into "normal” pop stars. Which, laughs Steven, is how they were treated when they went to America recently to meet up with their American record company, Qwest (owned by Michael Jackson's producer, Quincy Jones). He sounds disgusted at all the fuss that was made over them.

“That sort of thing puts you right off success,” he says as if even talking about it makes him want to rinse his mouth out. “It’s like being chucked onto the set of Dallas when you’re used to Coronation Street."