“I got punched by a Hibs fan at a festival in Dalkeith”
Joy Division and New Order co-founder Peter Hook is about to perform in Edinburgh for a much-anticipated show at the capital’s Corn Exchange.
The gig will feature New Order’s 2001 album, Get Ready, performed in its entirety, as well as a selection of New Order and Joy Division tracks. As Peter Hook & The Light, he has revisited many songs that hadn’t been performed live by any of the original members in over 30 years. ‘Hooky,’ as he’s best known, was one of the most iconic figures on the Manchester music scene.
While hunched over a low-slung bass, he played the instrument like a lead guitar, letting distinctive high notes define the likes of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” (Joy Division) and “Blue Monday” (New Order), which became two of the most loved songs of the era. Hook successfully moved over to lead vocals and now shares bass duties with his son, Jack Bates.
The band was originally formed to mark the work he’d done with Joy Division and “celebrate” the life of the band’s charismatic frontman Ian Curtis, who died by suicide in 1980. “I missed it dreadfully,” explains Hook. “In New Order, Steve (Morris) and I would play Joy Division songs in soundcheck. Barney’s (Bernard Sumner) big claim to fame was that he never looked back, but we never celebrated Ian’s life, and I was proud of what we achieved. I took it upon myself to find a way back into music by playing what was rightfully mine. The first night, I was terrified because I didn’t know if people loved or cared about Joy Division as much as I did”.
Almost fifteen years later, Hook has built a global following and a new generation of fans, and not only “old codgers” as he suggests. “I think so many are led by their parents with all those memories and history with the band. “He (Curtis) spoke very well to confused teenagers, not knowing where they were going. His bleakness, storytelling, and his life of unrequited love, having a child, and ending up divorced, as he was going to be, this was all going on before he died at the age of 23. Young people go through the same things now, and they need music for solace and inspiration. Joy Division fills that role.”
As well as revisiting the band he played in after seeing the Sex Pistols perform in 1976, Hook has also returned to several New Order albums that deserved more attention. The bassist was once quoted as saying the band’s hit single Regret was the last great New Order track. He’s since revised his opinion of the band’s 1992 album Republic and later recordings.
“We couldn’t get it together on that record,” he says of the original sessions. “It was supposed to be the saviour of The Haçienda, Factory Records and New Order, but it didn’t manage to save any of those three things, it just sat there and was slagged off by all of us, but now I’ve developed a new love for it”.
The band’s label and the iconic Manchester nightclub club in which they were heavily financially invested had put them under relentless pressure. At the same time, Bernard Sumner was more drawn to working with Johnny Marr in Electronic.
“We actually did write Republic in a New Order fashion with myself, Steve, and Gillian (Gilbert), and she really surfaced on that record in particular, but Barney (Sumner) then came back, and when he got his hands on it, he re-wrote the whole thing and asked for all the publishing. I would love to hear the original tracks we made. Steve Haig, who produced, ended up playing on all the songs, some more successfully than others. He had to make do and mend from a production point of view, which is why he asked for publishing. The whole thing was a massive cock-up but the great thing about doing (Peter Hook &) The Light is we were able to finish it off and it sounds more logical, we had missed a few opportunities so it was nice thing to do.”
Hook has enjoyed playing Scotland for decades but certain gigs stand out in his memory, perhaps some are not his most fond experiences as he explains. “We were doing the Rewind festival in Dalkeith, I had this t-shirt on that said: ‘Heart and Soul’ on it, but the s for soul was next to the heart, and some kid punched me because he thought I was a Hearts supporter, he must have been a Hibernian fan. That was mental because he was screaming and shouting, it was all kicking off, so I jumped down as the security weren’t getting paid much. You know how, on stage, you are six feet taller than everyone else? I got punched, and his ring caught me straight in the eye, and he ran away. You live and learn, I suppose.”
Hooky also recalls another memorable gig in the capital during the early 1980s with New Order. “It’s quite strange with Edinburgh and Glasgow because they are so different, and the people are different as well. One of the worst gigs we ever had was in Edinburgh, it just went wrong and things turned a bit surly and we got bottled off. I think we were tired and hung over so there was booing and the throwing of missiles. I had it down as a bad gig, but I then found a cassette of the show and it was really good, so it must have been our attitude that the Edinburgh crowd didn’t like”.
It’s sure to be a different story when Hook plays some of his best-loved hits at the Corn Exchange later this month.
Peter Hook and the Light will perform at The Corn Exchange, Edinburgh on Friday 14 November
