Chapter and Verse - New Order, Joy Division and Me

by Bernard Sumner

  ‘All right, Rob,’ I said, ‘how are you?’

  I was just about to launch into what a great day I’d had when I heard him say something about Ian committing suicide.

  ‘Oh, bloody hell,’ I said. ‘He’s not tried it again, has he?’

  ‘No, Bernard,’ said Rob. ‘This time he’s done it, he’s committed suicide. He’s dead.’

  The room swam in front of my eyes and I was hit full on by a wave of shock. I said again, ‘What, he’s tried it?’

  ‘No,’ Rob said. ‘He’s really done it, Bernard. He’s dead. Ian’s dead.’

  Poor Rob, he had to tell me a couple of times before it sank in. I slid to the floor in shock. I didn’t speak, didn’t want to say a word to anyone. Section 25 really looked after me out there. Everyone was good to me, the guys from A Certain Ratio too, but I didn’t really speak until the funeral. Everyone else went to see Ian in his coffin beforehand, but I couldn’t face that. I wanted to remember him as he was when he was alive.

  A curious thing had happened the day before Ian died. I’d been to Heaton Park in Prestwich with Simon Topping from A Certain Ratio and, again, it was a lovely sunny day. There’s a large hill in Heaton Park and, as we stood at the bottom of it, a beautiful white horse came galloping over the crest. It had no rider, no saddle, it was just this amazing creature of pure white thundering down the hill towards me and Simon. The park was busy with people enjoying the sunshine, but the horse made straight for us. It stopped right in front of us, tossed its mane, dipped its head a couple of times, and we stood looking at each other for a full minute or so. Then, as quickly as it had arrived, the horse turned and ran back up and over the hill. It seemed odd even at the time but, given the events of the night that lay ahead, I wonder if it could have been some kind of omen.

  Chapter Eleven

  A new sound in a new town

  Soon after Ian’s funeral, those of us left behind had to decide what we were going to do. Were we going to carry on? The shock had been palpable and this huge presence, this vital part of everything we’d done, had suddenly been snatched away. Would it be right to continue without him? At the same time, we’d had a taste of honey; a glimpse of what life could be away from the drudgery of everyday existence in Salford. We’d all given up our jobs by this time in order to make the band work, too.

  The decision we made, having weighed up all the arguments and listened to Rob’s input and advice, was to carry on. In hindsight, there was never any serious question that we wouldn’t. Having left our jobs, there was neither the prospect of nor desire to do anything else other than make music. We knuckled down and got through it thanks to a combination of sheer willpower and grim determination. It sounds old-fashioned, maybe it’s even a bit of a cliché, but, ultimately, willpower and determination were all we had and we drew on deep reserves of both.

  The first resolution we made was to play no Joy Division songs. Instead, we’d write a whole new set of songs without Ian – the songs which later became the bulk of the first New Order album, Movement. I think Rob wanted to avoid leaving us open to criticism of living off the legacy of Joy Division, but even though we’d made what was unquestionably a bold decision, the music press went ahead and accused us anyway. The British music press at that time was very negative, even vindictive, and they certainly didn’t help us; sometimes I wondered if they were even setting out to destroy us. After what we’d just been through, it’s something we could have done without.

  Another problem we had was with the ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ video. Once we’d got through Ian’s funeral and recovered from the shock of his death a little, we thought we’d better start collating all the recordings that were due to appear on a final Joy Division album, Still. In addition, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ was moving up the charts and we needed to get the video together. We tried to get in touch with Harry de Mack, but calls went unanswered and messages unreturned: he was nowhere to be found. Eventually, Rob received a call from Harry’s girlfriend insisting that we had to hand over a ridiculous sum of money for them. It was jaw-dropping. We’d known this guy for years, he’d hung out with us and he knew exactly what we’d been through, yet he still tried to pull a stunt like that. Rob struck some sort of deal with him and we got the tapes back in the end. Presumably, Harry got some blood money, hopefully with a heavyduty bit of karma attached.

  Obviously, the first decision we had to make after deciding to carry on was how to replace Ian as singer. We’d considered bringing in someone new, and I’d even been approached by people in the street aware of the situation and offering their services. I remember a nice guy who was into Steely Dan coming up to me in St Anne’s Square in Manchester, and that’s when I realised that it would just feel wrong to bring in somebody new. There was no way we could replace Ian, he was a special person – the band was like a family and we’d just lost a close relative.

  From there, it was a short step to deciding that one of us should take over the vocal duties. There was no obvious candidate, so it was agreed we’d all give it a try. We played a handful of gigs in England in the late summer of 1980 – the first was at the Beach Club in Manchester – but then Rob booked us a tour of the eastern seaboard of America and some studio time in Trenton, New Jersey, so that we could get away from the spotlight. The band, the crew, Rob and Martin flew over with us, and we all stayed amid the distinctly seventies decor of the Iroquois Hotel on West 44th Street in Manhattan. It was rundown, with a distinct fragrance of cockroach powder, but it was cheap. And hey, it was in New York, which, after England, was as exciting as it was liberating. From that base, we travelled out every day to Trenton, where we recorded ‘In a Lonely Place’ and ‘Ceremony’, the songs we’d written in an attempt to cheer Ian up. If you’ve ever listened to ‘In a Lonely Place’, it’s no cheerful ditty. In fact, it’s probably one of the most doom-laden tracks we’d ever written – and we’d written a few – so why we’d used it as an attempt to cheer Ian up, I’ve no idea. ‘Ceremony’, on the other hand, was a very uplifting track, filled with and enhanced by Ian’s lyrics. When you listen to those lyrics, it strikes you that they’re quite possibly saying, I’ll show everyone, I’m going to do it this time. Isn’t hindsight a great thing?

  We recorded the music at Ears in Trenton, then everyone tried singing, which was a bit of a trial for all involved, and left Rob to start mulling over who should get the job. It was the live shows that would really test our vocal mettle, though, and the day after we finished recording we took all the equipment into Manhattan, ready to head out on the road. Terry, our genius roadie, and Twinny, our other roadie, had fallen out over something and weren’t speaking to each other, even though they were sharing a room, and when they parked the truck across the road from the hotel, they didn’t disable it. They were supposed to take the distributor cap off so no one could move it but, too distracted by giving each other daggers, neither of them did.

  Tony Wilson had come over from Manchester to see how things were going and, one morning, Rob, Hooky and I, who were sharing a room, were woken by a knock on the door. In breezes Tony with a big grin on his face, saying, ‘This is perfect, darlings, absolutely perfect, but you’re not going to like it. You’ve had the truck stolen, with all your equipment in it! It’s so poetic! The perfect ending!’

  I think I came within a whisker of throttling him. He truly seemed to think this was a wonderful thing when it was clearly a disaster, and one laid upon existing disaster.

  Rob and Hooky went straight down to the local precinct police station to report the theft. In those days, everyone had ghetto blasters with great big speakers and, sure enough, even the cop on the front desk had one, which was blasting out ‘Good Times’ by Chic – to which he was dancing. Rob tried to get his attention.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘We’re from Manchester in England, and we’ve just had £47,000 of equipment stolen.’

  The policeman held up his hand. ‘Just wait for the record to finish, man,’ he said. So t
he pair of them had to wait for the track to end and for him to stop dancing before they could file a report. When they arrived back at the hotel, we realized we needed to phone the insurance company, so Rob picked up the receiver and waved it around, saying, ‘Let me deal with this, lads, I used to work in insurance.’

  The conversation went something like this:

  ‘Had the truck been disabled?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was the truck alarmed?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, in that case, I’m sorry, Mr Gretton, but we can’t pay out.’

  Rob put the phone down and looked at us. There was a brief silence.

  ‘You fucking dickhead,’ we said. ‘Why didn’t you say yes?’

  When the truck was eventually found, all the gear had gone and there were only two things left in it. One was a pair of skis I’d picked up from where they’d been dumped outside a house in New York (I’d just got into skiing, so I’d put them in the truck to take back to England) and the other was Pink Floyd’s transformer. Terry, who was responsible for booking the gear, had booked a generator for the tour because our gear was on UK voltage and we’d be using American. In his wisdom, he’d chosen Pink Floyd’s transformer, the one they used for their entire live sound and lighting set-up. It was massive. All we had to plug into it were two amps, but Terry had booked a transformer designed for stadium gigs. It was so big the thieves hadn’t been able to lift it out of the van.

  Years later, Steve did get his black Rogers drum kit back. The gang, which was called the Lost Tribe of Israel, believe it or not, hadn’t just targeted us, they’d whipped gear from several other British bands staying at the Iroquois. By the time the police caught up with them, they had a whole warehouse full of stuff they’d nicked, but, of our gear, only Steve’s kit was left.

  In the meantime, we had to rush out and hire a load of new equipment and buy what we could to replace what we’d lost. Fortunately for me, West 44th Street wasn’t far from all the guitar shops. I couldn’t find a replacement for my special Vox amp, so I bought a Yamaha, and then found a Gibson 335 for an amazing price. At last, I thought, a bit of bloody luck going our way. This beautifully crafted guitar was on sale for $550, a fantastic price for a Gibson, still a lot of money, but too good a deal to miss. Hooky bought a new bass and hired a six-string one, Steve hired a kit, and we were ready to go on the road.

  Back at the hotel, I put my new guitar in my room facing the wall, went to bed, got up in the morning and noticed something written on the back of the headstock. I picked it up, looked at it, and saw it had ‘Seconds’ stamped on it. Fucking hell, I thought, now I’ve gone and bought a duff guitar. Sure enough, there was a big mark in the finish where the tone switch was: the drill had slipped and left behind a great big gouge. It wasn’t a disaster, but having believed things were finally looking up, I started to think, What next?

  Our first gig of the tour was in Hoboken, then we played Hurrah’s and Tier 3 in New York, before finishing up with a gig in Boston. We were under-rehearsed and playing unfamiliar instruments, so it didn’t bode well. Hooky couldn’t tune the six-string bass he’d hired so he passed it over to me to have a go. I said, ‘There’s something wrong with this bass, Hooky, it’s so tight. I’d need protective eye-wear and a crash helmet to tune it.’ I was breaking strings, and they were whipping about like piano wire. We just managed to get it in tune before we went on, and when he got out there he found it was a shit instrument to play. Years later, I found out it hadn’t been a six-string bass after all, it was a baritone guitar, for which you’re supposed to use a completely different tuning. We had it tuned way too high; the neck was like a banana and could have snapped altogether. It must have been like playing a cheese slicer.

  Instrument issues aside, everyone was worried about singing in Ian’s place. I got shitfaced most nights to try and take my mind off it, but we all had a go, while Rob watched from the sidelines, stroking his chin. Fortunately for us, the audiences were great and really understanding. We got through the tour, and Rob announced that I should be the singer. I’ve no idea why, we must have all been as hopeless as each other, but he told me I’d got the job and, with some trepidation, I agreed to do it. I wasn’t wild about the idea, but I was up for the challenge. My last memory of that tour was the final night in Boston. This guy met us afterwards, said he’d enjoyed the gig and told us he had a loft we could stay in if we didn’t fancy travelling back to New York that night. He gave us sleeping bags and we all, band and crew, lay on the floor in this old factory building. It was boiling hot, so I had my shirt off, lying on the floor half in and half out of this sleeping bag, when all of a sudden I felt something scuttle across my chest. Then something else did likewise in the other direction. Then I could hear everyone else going, ‘Eww, what the fuck’s that?’ We didn’t get much sleep and couldn’t get out of there quick enough in the morning. It was horrible, but it cracked us up laughing after-wards. It was either massive cockroaches or possibly mice, but it went on all night. We were serving our dues, that’s for sure.

  After spending a long time in the shower, we went home and recorded Movement. Making Movement was a struggle because we were in a subdued, sunken, sallow mood, understandably, with Ian’s death still so fresh in our minds. We spent around six to eight months writing new songs, then travelled down to Marcus Music, a studio in London, to record the album. It was a strange time. We were working through the night and sleeping in a pretty depressing hotel during the day. London at the time was beset by rioting, at the height of which the studio bolted the doors, leaving us outside. We’d gone out for a sandwich and they wouldn’t let us back in. We were banging on the doors, and the girl on reception thought we were rioters and was pretty scared and in floods of tears. Ultimately, the whole experience was difficult, and different to Joy Division because, without Ian, obviously, something was missing, never to return. It was straightforward in Joy Division: Steve played his drums, Hooky played his bass, I played guitar and keyboards and Ian sang – we all had our specific jobs. Now, the dynamic had completely shifted, everything was off-kilter, everything was different. We were having to adapt to different roles.

  We felt a bit like we were in a car in which the steering wasn’t quite working properly and we had lost the map. We were trying to find our feet, but the atmosphere was very down in the studio and Martin was necking quite a lot of drugs. To me, it just didn’t feel right, it felt as if we were still standing in the shadow of Joy Division. I’d never sung a vocal before, so at first I based it on how Ian used to sound, because that’s all I knew. Eventually, I’d find my own identity as a vocalist, but it would take time before I’d come to realize that you just need to be yourself. In those early days, I wasn’t being myself and I didn’t sound like myself.

  I don’t have fond memories of Movement, and it’s certainly far from my favourite New Order album. I played it once or twice after it was finished and decided I didn’t like it. I felt all the edges had been smoothed off and it was devoid of its own identity and uniqueness. I really missed Ian being there and his absence was something I was very aware of throughout the entire process.

  I felt bad, too, because I was starting to believe we were never going to live up to people’s expectations. I was convinced we needed to move forward and assert our own identity. For me, that was the only honest way of doing it. In those first months after Ian’s death we were still hanging on to him; he was a crutch to get us through. You have to remember that we’d come from a place where you were told you didn’t have a future, that your career prospects were zero and hence you should accept whatever you got and be happy with it. We’d disproved that by forming a successful group, we’d beaten the system to some extent, and I wanted to continue battling and beating that system. Ultimately, though, I felt Movement was too doom-laden and that we couldn’t persist with this sound any longer. On the bright side, one of the good things that came out of this period was that we were travelling and seeing different
places, especially New York, where we spent a lot of time. We met some incredible people there, including a young Jewish girl called Ruth Polsky, an independent promoter who would have put on the Joy Division tour we’d been due to start when Ian died. She was also a kind of queen of the New York club scene.

  When we finally arrived in the autumn of 1980, we got on really well. She’d sussed within about a minute that we weren’t these serious, earnest young men who wandered around reading Dostoyevsky and quoting Nietzsche but fun-loving guys with a healthy streak of hedonism who were up for a good time. We’d go into Manhattan every night after being in the studio and she’d take us to New York’s best clubs: Danceteria, the Peppermint Lounge, the Mudd Club, Area, Tunnel, the Palladium – wherever it might be happening on a particular night. Even when she wasn’t working she’d come out with us: she knew everyone in the clubs, and everywhere we went she’d give us a strip of tickets for free drinks.

  We were exposed to an entirely different kind of club mentality to the one we’d experienced at home, where it was all jazz funk, sixties nights and, ‘Sorry, lads, not with those trainers on.’ They’d been square, stiff clubs playing old-fashioned music, venues designed more for copping off than anything else. At Pips in Manchester there were always quite a few Bryan Ferry and David Bowie wannabes: the whole thing was posey and contrived. In New York, by contrast, people were just themselves. The clubs played good, interesting, cool music and all sorts of people mingled with each other. They’d play things like ‘Rock the Casbah’ by The Clash and Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’ and mix it up with New York stuff, early rappers like Curtis Blow, music from Sugar Hill Records, Sharon Redd, Chic – music you’d hear over there on the big dance station Kiss FM. It was a healthy, eclectic musical mix, and you could get in wearing a pair of banana skins on your feet if you felt like it, because nobody cared what you looked like. Everyone was dead friendly and relaxed, we met a lot of nice people and had a really great time. We had a very real sense of positive cultural tourism, including a distinct advantage with the ladies, thanks to our cute English accents. Even a rough northern accent could pay dividends. It was exciting to be there. New York was – and is – a great city in which to lead a cool lifestyle and have really good fun. Perhaps not good, clean fun, but fun nevertheless.