Chapter and Verse - New Order, Joy Division and Me

by Bernard Sumner

  As 1977 turned into 1978, we were aware we needed a new and final name for the band. It was a struggle, though: it’s harder than you might think to come up with a good name for a band. I’d go into bookshops with Ian, looking at the names of books to try and find some inspiration. Around this time I was reading House of Dolls by Karol Cetinsky, a harrowing book about the Nazi concentration camps which someone at work had given me, and I came across a reference to a section where women were housed for the pleasure of Nazi officers on leave. It was known as the Freudenabteilung, the Joy Division, and that phrase just leapt out at me immediately as the perfect name for the band. Of course I knew straightaway that this was dodgy ground, but this was the height of punk, a period where it was acceptable to be unacceptable. After weeks of trying, we hadn’t come up with anything nearly as good as Joy Division. It wasn’t about shock value, not at all – I truly believed it was a great name for a band. Not just any band, either, for our band. For me, it seemed to meet all the criteria we were looking for: our sound, our image, even the way the words looked physically on paper. Ian and I looked at it, thought about it, talked about it and decided we really liked it. We took it to Steve and Hooky, and they both liked it as well, so we were all agreed: we’d call ourselves Joy Division. It might get us into trouble, we were aware of that, but above everything else it was a great name for a band. It certainly didn’t mean we were Nazis or had any kind of sympathy with them, because we didn’t. We knew we weren’t Nazis, so any controversy would pass over our heads. There was a feeling that the name would get up certain people’s noses, though, and we did quite like that aspect of it. Now, in my more mature years, I probably wouldn’t pick it, because I know it would offend and hurt people, but back then I was very young and, well, selfish. Calling ourselves Joy Division was a bit mischievous, yes, but if we got into trouble for it, fuck it, we’d been getting into trouble all our lives. Punk was about upsetting the status quo and upsetting people. Look at the Sex Pistols’ television interview with Bill Grundy: that kind of controversial mischief-making was in the air and we were just one band among many feeling the need to be irreverent.

  The next stage in our slow climb was to go into the studio and record our first EP, An Ideal for Living. We went to Pennine Studios in Oldham and recorded four tracks: ‘Warsaw’, ‘No Love Lost’, ‘Leaders of Men’ and ‘Failures’, tracks that were probably the cream of that tentative first crop of songs we’d written, that first wall we’d built. We didn’t have much money so had gone for a cheap package option: the recording, mastering and pressing all for one price, and financed it with the money Ian had got for his twenty-first birthday. Unfortunately, the cheapness of the deal meant that the finished product was not exactly what we’d had in mind. The economy option we’d taken meant that the studio didn’t exactly knock themselves out making it into something to be proud of and, sure enough, when we heard the record it sounded terrible. Where we’d built up quite a strong, powerful live sound, what came out of the speakers when you played An Ideal for Living was this thin, weedy, tinny noise, barely recognizable as what we’d actually played during the recording. For all the lack of meticulous care in the recording and mastering, though, where we’d really messed up was in putting it on a seven-inch. Having four songs on a seven-inch record meant that the grooves on the vinyl were bunched too close together, something that would have had a hugely detrimental effect on the sound even if it had been produced to a chart-topping standard in the first place. If we’d opted for a twelve-inch, the sound would have been much, much better – in fact, we did do this at a later date – but I don’t think Ian’s birthday money would have stretched that far.

  In the end, the only aspect of the final product we had a say in was the cover, as it wasn’t part of the deal and was something we had to sort out ourselves. I was still working for Cosgrove Hall at the time, and on my lunchbreaks I’d go to Manchester Central Library to research ideas for graphic images for the band. One I’d found was of a Hitler Youth drummer battering a big drum slung around his neck. This really struck me as a powerful image that blended perfectly with our new name, our sound and with the kind of image we had in mind for Joy Division. It was a very controversial choice, obviously, but again I thought, Fuck it. It was rather naïve in hindsight: common sense was overruled by the strength of the image. I traced it with a pencil, inked it on to a piece of paper and the drummer boy became the illustration on the cover of the EP. Which did cause a bit of a stir, it’s fair to say.

  It was on this sleeve that I called myself Bernard Albrecht, something that has been the subject of more than a little speculation and myth-making over the years. Basically, it was just a bit of fun. I’m not entirely sure why I did it. People in bands in those days were calling themselves all sorts of daft names, so I thought I’d call myself a daft name too. I was half asleep on my mum’s settee with the television on and there was a programme about Bertholt Brecht. I half heard it while dozing and it sounded a little bit like Bernard Albrecht, and I just thought, That’ll do.

  There is a bit of context to it, though, I suppose, as I did have an unusual thing going on with names. I was born Bernard Sumner, and then when I went to grammar school, my surname was changed to Dickin, as Jimmy had legally adopted me. I wasn’t happy about it, as I’ve said, so maybe it was some kind of subconscious reaction to that, putting Albrecht on the EP sleeve. Maybe there was a sense that for the first time in my life I had control over what I could call myself. But if that was one hundred per cent the case, I would probably have called myself Sumner, something I did legally on the birth of my first child, James, in 1983 (my mother didn’t speak to me for six months). Essentially, I felt like a Sumner. The older I got the more I felt I should be who I wanted to be but, either way, there was no great intention behind the Albrecht thing, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. Which, in hindsight, it wasn’t.

  Incidentally, another thing people seem to make a big deal about is my nickname, Barney. It came about when a group of us kids were walking down Elton Street in Salford one day: me, Barrie Benson, Raymond Quinn and, I think, David Wroe. One of us said we should all have nicknames and we all made up stupid ones for each other on the spot. For some reason, mine was Barney, and it stuck for a while. It certainly didn’t bother me: I was wholly indifferent to it. Hooky, in particular, would use it, because I think he thought it annoyed me, but it really didn’t. My surname did because that’s more personal, but the Barney thing? Not at all. Everyone calls me Bernard now anyway. Which is my name, obviously, but to be honest I don’t particularly like that, either. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t really feel like a Bernard.

  In any case, An Ideal for Living’s cover caused a bit of a stir, and causing a stir was all very well, but it was now nearly a year since we’d played our first gig. We were keeping busy, but what we needed was someone to take us in hand, to help us achieve what we wanted to achieve and stop us from making daft decisions like putting four tracks on a seven-inch record. Fortunately, exactly the right person was just around the corner.

  Chapter Seven

  The organization

  Our first gig as Joy Division was at Pips in Manchester on 25 January 1978 – a gig notable mainly for the fact that a massive fight broke out in the audience – then we continued playing our itinerary of the north’s red-light districts and endless dodgy pubs in out-of-the-way places. We were busy, and the gigs were great experience, but we felt we were treading water a little. I felt we needed to step up to the next level, or at least get ourselves noticed by someone who mattered.

  In April 1978 we made it on to the bill for a gig at Rafters on Oxford Street in Manchester organized jointly by Stiff Records and Chiswick Records. It was a ‘battle of the bands’ in all but name, designed to encourage local young musicians and give them a chance to get on stage and play in front of two of the country’s most exciting record labels of the time. The names Stiff and Chiswick would bring people in, so you were pretty much guar
anteed to play in front of a decent crowd. It was a popular gig: there were something like seventeen bands on the bill, and we were due to go on last. Inevitably, with that amount of bands, the show soon began to overrun and it was clear that by the time we got on most people would have gone home. One of the acts ahead of us was a pseudo-punk band, a send-up put together for the occasion by Paul Morley, photographer Kevin Cummins and Richard Boon. They were treating it as a big laugh when for us it was, potentially, an important night. This was something that certainly wasn’t lost on Ian.

  Ian was one of the most polite, gentle people you could ever meet, a lovely guy, but if something rubbed him up the wrong way it would fester and flourish, and you’d see him pacing up and down, nurturing this growing rage until, eventually, he’d explode. It didn’t happen that often, but when it did it could be pretty spectacular. And that night it was pretty spectacular. He’d already been up to Tony Wilson and called him a cunt for not putting us on his TV show (Tony was actually very impressed by this, I think, because people were usually hanging off him trying to butter him up), but it was Paul, Kevin and Richard who were really in his crosshairs that night. Backstage, Ian walked up to the dressing room they were in, kicked the lock off the door (or kicked the door off its hinges, I can’t remember which), marched in and started shouting his head off, jabbing his finger at them and screaming, ‘You’re not going on next, we’re fucking going on next or there’ll be fucking trouble. No fucking arguments.’

  Unsurprisingly in the face of this onslaught, Paul, Kevin and Richard gave way immediately, so we went on at about half past one in the morning and played a blisteringly aggressive, angry set. In hindsight, I’m grateful to Paul, Kevin and Richard because they’d inadvertently built Ian up into this fizzing ball of rage. It meant that when we finally went on he just fucking went for it, not because he was trying to impress Tony or anyone else but simply because he was so wound up. Whether we played a brilliant gig or not I can’t really say, but the fallout afterwards confirmed that we’d certainly made an impression.

  The next day I was in a phone box on Spring Gardens in central Manchester when I felt the door open behind me and a tap on my shoulder. I turned round and saw this guy standing there, looking all eager and clearly wanting to speak to me. I said, ‘Just a minute, mate,’ and carried on with my call. No sooner had I put the receiver down than he was introducing himself as Rob Gretton, saying he’d seen us at Rafters the previous night and thought we were absolutely fucking amazing.

  ‘I want to be your manager,’ he said. ‘I’m on my way to a job interview now, but I don’t want the job, I want to manage Joy Division.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said, a little bit on the back foot after this burst of unsolicited gushing. ‘Well, the best thing to do is come to our next rehearsal on Wednesday.’

  By this time we were rehearsing at TJ Davidson’s, not far from where the Haçienda would be, in central Manchester. It was where we’d go on to film the video for ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, and where some famous photographs were taken, particularly of Ian in his big coat looking miserable. TJ Davidson was a nice guy: he looked a bit like Pedro, the drummer from Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and I think his dad was a jeweller; they were certainly a well-off family. They’d bought this old disused warehouse as a potential investment property, and it was in a bit of a state, all smashed windows, no heating, dead rats in the toilet and freezing cold, but it was a good place to rehearse in the sense that it was better than having no place to rehearse at all.

  I’d forgotten all about the meeting with Rob almost as soon as he’d walked off to his job interview, so when we were all playing away and he strolled in, I thought, Oh, fucking hell, it’s him, he’s turned up. Everyone else looked at him as if to say, ‘Who the fuck’s this?’, so I stopped the song and explained. Poor old Rob was really embarrassed – he thought we’d all be expecting him, and instead he’s being looked up and down like he’s just gatecrashed a wedding ceremony or something. Despite having this sprung on him, Ian suggested we all went to the pub at the end of the road to talk about it. It seems strange now, but in those days we didn’t buy rounds of drinks, we each went to the bar and bought our own. I think it might have been a Salford thing, as Rob told us later that it freaked him out a bit, how we’d all gone to the bar and got ourselves a drink and not bought him one.

  We had a chat around the table in the pub, and he immediately sounded both interesting and interested. He told us he was a DJ, that he already managed a local punk band called The Panik and that at Rafters we were easily the best thing he’d ever seen. Not only that, he knew Tony Wilson and said Tony had been impressed too.

  We met up again a short while later and talked about more specific plans, and Rob said, ‘The first thing is, fucking re-release that EP as a twelve-inch with a different sleeve and, in the meantime, I’ll talk to Tony and see if I can get you on the telly. Otherwise, you look really cool the way you are, just keep looking the same and keep doing what you’re doing.’

  And, with that, Rob Gretton became our manager.

  My first impressions of Rob were of someone who really liked us, wanted to help us and clearly knew what he was doing. While he knew how the business worked, he wanted to work as far as possible outside the system. He also saw the potential for the whole thing to be fun, which for us made him fit the bill perfectly. He was one of us right from the start, even though he thought me and Peter were Salford scumbags and that Ian and Steve came from this really weird place called Macclesfield on the peripheries of Manchester somewhere, a place he probably couldn’t even point to on a map. Rob was from Wythenshawe, so it was a bit rich him looking down on Salford.

  Rob was a big Manchester City fan, which he didn’t declare at first, so that was a drawback, but he was properly immersed in the city of Manchester. He loved it. He loved music deeply too, although his taste was geared more towards soul – Marvin Gaye, that kind of thing. Right from the start he gave me the impression of being on a mission of some kind. He’d seen something in us and wanted to make us a big part of this Manchester musical odyssey on which he was embarking. Our job was to play good gigs and write good songs, and his job was to point us in the right direction and get us noticed, a job about which we didn’t have a clue but at which he excelled instinctively.

  While he thought we were a great band, he didn’t take any shit from us. I remember, on one of our first trips down to London we stayed in a place that was more like a youth hostel than a hotel. I immediately set about getting up to mischief, trying to get into one of the other rooms or something, and he dived on me in the corridor, wrestled me to the floor and started shouting at me to fucking behave. He was just what we needed really, a strong figure. He instantly tuned into the dynamics of the band and the dynamics of the individuals. You had me as Mr Mischief; Hooky, who seemed to me to be gradually turning into Mr Ego; Ian, who had the temperament of a volcano; and then Steve as Mr Wacky, who sat on the fence between all of us. Rob could read us all perfectly and knew exactly how to handle us as individuals, trying to calm us down when we got too hyperactive and adolescent and chivvy us up when we were down and needed a kick up the arse.

  Another advantage of being managed by Rob was that he forged close connections with Tony Wilson and his partners. The initial people who set Factory up were Tony, Alan Erasmus and Peter Saville, and thanks to Rob we were right in there at the start. We’d heard they intended to start a record company, Rob and Tony thought we should sign with them and, eventually, that’s what we did. We weren’t really consulted about it, other than Rob saying he thought we should go with a local label. There would be other labels with an interest in us, and vice versa: RCA, Martin Rushent’s label Genetic and an American-based label which could have been disastrous – more of which anon – but a hometown indie label seemed exactly the right fit for us at that time.

  With Rob becoming our manager and his relationship with Tony drawing us all into each other’s orbits, it meant that we could conc
entrate on the music while Rob – and later Tony – looked after the business side of things. Looking back, at least you can say we looked after the music …

  We liked Tony. We’d met him, and he seemed to be really into the music and youth scene of Manchester. Despite this, he got a lot of grief at gigs. I’d seen it myself: you’d be queuing up outside a venue and he’d walk past the queue and go straight in, with his bloody saddlebags and his jacket draped over his shoulders. He’d be getting all sorts of abuse from the punks in the queue: ‘Wilson, you twat, get in the fucking queue like everyone else’ – but he took it all in his stride.

  Tony loved Manchester, too, something he had in common with Rob and which bound them together in their working relationship. They were very proud of the city. Tony loved its history; he’d talk about all the famous people and great things that had happened in Manchester: Alan Turing, how the atom had first been split there. Manchester’s scientific heritage was something of which he was particularly proud. Tony and Rob both felt that the city was losing touch with its extraordinary legacy and wanted to do what they could to revive it, to make the city a better place to live. Rob’s philosophy was that while you lived in Manchester you should strive to make the city better and so make it a better place for you, too. Be proud, Mancunians, that was his attitude.

  To be honest, I don’t really feel this as strongly as Rob and Tony did. I don’t think any one place is better than another, just different, and I certainly never wanted to become a ‘professional Mancunian’. Manchester, as I see it, is a very fine northern British city among other fine northern British cities. To this day, I don’t really have a favourite city: they all have their own distinct characters and aren’t up for comparison. Manchester’s character back then was northern, industrial and Victorian. I’ve never been a fan of Victorian architecture, so I didn’t think it was that beautiful: in those days, it was a decaying city that had seen better times and, as a kid, all those austere buildings kind of gave me the creeps. In Heaton Park you can still see the original façade of Manchester Town Hall, which dates back to Georgian times, a really beautiful thing, but they took it down and replaced it with the harsher Victorian one (though I have to say some of the interiors are quite nice). They did a similar thing in London at Euston train station, a place I frequently travel through, but they replaced a Regency façade with a nasty sixties monstrosity. As the gateway to the north, I have to say it stinks.