1985 11 23 New Order Record Mirror

SUB-CULTURE HA! 

PRESENTING THE DARK SECRETS OF NEW ORDER. THEY SMILE, BERNIE GOES TO KINKY CLUBS AND THEY MIGHT EVEN SOUND LIKE MIKE OLDFIELD. CAT-O'-NINE-TALES: NANCY CULP PHOTOGRAPHY: JOE SHUTTER

I was intrigued to say the least. A group I disliked intensely at best, despised with a volcanic ferocity at worst, requested my presence in Manchester to interview them. The gauntlet was well and truly thrown down. How could I resist the challenge? What, Nancy The Knife turn down a chance to confront those I considered to be the most inept, witless bunch of po-faced nonmusicians on the planet? NEVER! So it was, with admirable stoicism, that I did my research and spent an entire weekend drowning in the complete New Order back catalogue. I alternately hooted in hysterical laughter at the unbelievable lyrics, or fell asleep as Boring Bernie droned his way through yet another slab of angst, doom and despondency.

I even began to wonder why I’d said yes, and had to be bodily restrained from jumping off the train at Stoke-on-Trent and retreating back to lovely London.

The only thing that kept me going was that I had one burning question to ask young Mr Albrecht/Sumner whatever he likes to call himself. But more of that later.

Two and a half hours later, Joe Shutter and I are freezing to death outside Piccadilly Station. Rob Gretton, their manager, is over an hour late. We are just pondering the possibility of adjourning to a nearby pub when he appears. We’re led under the arches to his car — a spanking new Audi Quattro — and Joe and I exchange conspiratorial glances.

We’re driven to the depths of darkest Manchester to New Order’s studio. The cast iron door opens and I’m ready for the bucket of flour or the superglued handle. (I'd been warned of their strange sense of humour, you see.)

I’m greeted, however, by a smiling Peter Hook. In the cold, cluttered studio I meet the others, Bernie, Steve and Gillian, none of whom seem to have bayonets at the ready. We drive off to a pub in nearby Prestwich (“Dead posh ’ere,” comments Rob), and battle commences.

All right then, why did you want me to do the interview?

Bernie: “’Cos you didn’t want to do it.”

Peter leans forward and asks me why I didn’t want to do it, and I have to be honest and say it’s because I don’t actually like them.

Peter: “You mean you don’t like us personally?”

No, I mean I’ve never been a fan and I haven’t any of your records.

I don’t let on at this point that I do have a grudging liking for their new single ‘Sub-Culture’, a beefed-up soul-disco version of the track from the ‘Low Life’ album. The group constantly prod me as to my personal musical preferences but I won’t let on. They immediately home in on my like of Dusty Springfield. This starts off a diatribe by Bernie against the trend for nostalgia. “I think the current trend in music where everything...” Peter interrupts: “That doesn’t recognise World War Two and its place in history!”

Bernie continues: “I hate constant references to the past. It’s not just music papers, it’s when you go to a club too. I know it’s really trendy, but it’s like giving up. It’s very sad.” Steve comes out from behind his bitter shandy: “That might be true though, ’cos I can’t find anything.”

OK smart Alecs, what do you listen to, then?

Bernie: “A lot of really good old stuff!”

"The music of tomorrow, man, that’s what they listen to.” Hmm, this Rob fellow (their manager) is something of a fifth member. He practically says more than the rest of ’em put together, and seems extremely reluctant to leave them to it. Or maybe there’s something I don’t know...

Time for the jugular, I decide. Some of your new album sounds horribly like Tubular Bells’. There’s silence, then a sharp intake of breath all round. Bernie is the first to break the silence.

“Who’s that?" he enquires coyly.

Rob leans over the table, flicking fag ash everywhere: “Mike Oldfield... Which parts then?”

How about the last track on side one?

“No,” says Peter. “You’ve got it wrong. It was the first track on side one."

"No, it's not. It's the first track on side two," Bernie smiles winsomely in the corner. "Erm, it depends how you listen to it." 

"It depends whether or not you've heard 'Tubular Bells' as well," adds Peter slyly. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." 

"Yeah, but look at how many people liked 'Tubular Bells' and how successful it was. I thought it was all right in parts. I've gotta be honest." Bernie opines disarmingly. "It's very unhip, I know."

Steve ventures out again — but Gillian remains noticeably silent "I don't think any of it sounds like 'Tubular Bells'. It's like Philip Glass." 

The conversation really gets going now, and a jocularly heated debate ensues on to what extent they mean what they write." 'Blue Monday"!" pleads Bernie. Oh no, not that one. I look at the floor hastily.

Peter: "You don't believe him, do you!" 

Bernie: "What did she say?"

Peter: She didn't say anything, she just had a disbelieving look and I said, "You don't believe him, do you?' - She's now going to tell you why." 

Maybe not. Peter...

"We take the music very seriously, you know. We don't take the things we do normally very seriously."

Ah, just as I suspected. This band have a sense of humour. I had hoped so. Especially in the light of some of the lyrics. I mean, all this nonsense about "I like walking in the park/l move out in the dark/ I'm tied up in chains..." 

Bernie: "I didn't write that actually." 

Steve: "You lickle liar!"

Bernie: "But it rhymes! Those lines you said are trite, but some of the other lines aren't trite." 

Oh, I see you slip in the odd humdinger to throw us off, then?

Peter: "Yeah, but the lines that you think are trite somebody else might think aren't and you'll never know the truth."

Bernie candidly admits here that sometimes he can't think of anything better, and, well, if it’s bad, it might as well be made really bad. “So it's apparent that we can’t think of anything else.” He also tells us later that the lyrics are generally left till last as “they’re the most boring bit."

It’s no good. I can’t hold out any longer. My burning question is setting off a forest fire on the end of my tongue. What’s all this about you down at Skin II, then, BERNIE?

There’s silence, and Bernie turns a delicate shade of white. Skin II is a rather notorious rubber/fetishist club held once a week in London. Usually, it's only frequented by, shall we say, the initiated. Young Mr Albrecht was spotted down there one week, resplendent in his leather togs and motorcycle boots, trying hard to look invisible.

“Where?"

Skin II, Bernie. You were there. I saw you!

“No, we all went to Skin II.”

“I didn't go,’’ says Peter. “Did you go?” (to Steve and Gillian).

Bernie: "They wouldn’t let Rob in ’cos he had Gillian’s dress on!”

Peter turns to me: "You never let on then, did you? Typical London snobbery! You could've come up and said hello. We were strangers in the Big Smoke."

I press him further. Are you into all that, then? Bernie is shuffling in his seat. "Oh, it was just a club — we didn't know it was strange down there. Well, what do you go for?”

I disarm him with my honest answer, along the lines of ‘probably the same thing you went there for, but you’re not man enough to admit it.’

“A good spanking, that’s what he wants," giggles Peter. Bernie is trying hard to disappear under the table now. I can hear a million indie dreams crashing down as this icon drops off his pedestal with a thud.

“Well, you have to admit, after you've been there every other place you go to seems dull and boring. Hooky went as well but he had his leather knickers on! It's more interesting than the Wag Club.”

Oh, and I thought I had a secret masochist here. I’m so disappointed! Bernie smiles his most charming little-boy-lost smile. "You can try it if you want. You don’t know what avenues might open up. I never had the opportunity to find out."

Rob Gretton quickly interjects: “They’re more voyeurs than partakers.”

All this fevered talk of sadism leads on to a discussion of the strangely wild audiences the band attract. Lately they have been pelted with bottles wherever they go, and violence has been the order for New Order. So what happened to the mythological students paying respectful homage?

Bernie: “We’d rather have students."

Rob: “That's assuming students don’t throw the pint pots.”

Strange days indeed ... or maybe it’s just some people’s way of expressing their angst.

So what are you up to at present apart from dodging the slings and arrows of outraged audiences?

Peter: “We’re just about to demo ‘Hergest Ridge’." Not ‘Ommadawn’? “No, it’s too technical for us, we can’t spell it."

You’re getting progressively more poppy now, though.

Bernie: "I’d say we’ve gotten more something.”

Peter: "More New Order."

Bernie: “No, we’re just changing and we want to change all the time.”

Peter: "Well, I’d say people are a bit confused as to how, actually.”

Rob leaps in: "They are going to do loads of Mike Oldfield, loads of Pink Floyd, Genesis ... loads of pop..

Ah, now vye’re getting down to it. Just as I suspected. I can exclusively reveal, NEW ORDER ARE JUST A BUNCH OF OLD HIPPIES!! (Cue faints and gasps from the half million who bought 'Blue Monday’, thinking they were being sooo trendy.) Bernie agrees with me.

Steve shakes his head: "Not any more. I was a complete hippy when I was younger...”

Rob snarls back, but with his tongue in his cheek. “We’re a bunch of hippies compared with you trendy bastards!"

Are you rich, then? All these flash cars (Peter also has a nippy grey number). Purpose-built studios — oh and there’s Bernie’s pushbike! "Does it look it? We’ve made an absolute fortune, but we’ve lost an absolute fortune, too. The thing is we pay huge amounts of tax. Most people who’ve made a lot of money leave the country.”

So you could be tax exiles then? “Probably, but we’re stupid and spent it on equipment and various charities... We invest a lot of it back into the group though.”

All too soon, the train back to London beckons and I’m amused to find myself wanting to stay a little longer. OK, so I still don’t really like their records and I still think they’re a bit amateurish. But do you know something? I thought they were all pretty damn fab!

Sling mud my way if you will. Shout ‘traitor’ from the highest hill. I came away with a chuckle in my heart and a very soft spot for them. Readers, I’ll say it as loud as I have to. Hippies they may be — miserable buggers they ain’t.

New Order are diamond geezers. Long may they continue to make perfectly hideous (but lovable) music...