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Chapter and Verse - New Order, Joy Division and Me

Page 26

by Bernard Sumner


  The story hasn’t all been fun, of course, and Anton Corbijn’s 2007 film Control reflected that. A very different entity altogether from 24 Hour Party People, Control took on a part of the tale that lay firmly on the other side of the coin.

  Control was specifically a Joy Division film, with Ian as the central character, based on a book written by his widow, Debbie, called Touching from a Distance. I’ve read Debbie’s book and, while it is the story of what happened, inevitably it’s a view of events seen from her perspective, which was, understandably, not an entirely objective one. Debbie saw one side of Ian, we saw another, and none of us saw the full story. Ian was never a completely open book – none of us are; we all have a bit of a private corner in our souls to which we like to retreat, and rightly so. Despite this potential pitfall, however, I thought the film generally captured the Ian we knew very effectively.

  Again, I’m asked if Control portrays the story and the times with any degree of accuracy, and I reply that it does – except we lived it in colour, of course (also, while they were shooting Control, there was an incredible heatwave; it was unbelievably hot, which was certainly nothing like it was in 1977). The portrayal of Ian by Sam Riley at the heart of the film is very accurate indeed, I was very pleased with how James Anthony Pearson portrayed me and I thought the entire cast did a really good job. Anton Corbijn had taken a lot of the most famous Joy Division and early New Order photographs – including the one on the cover of this book – and we’d known him from the very early days. There were other great photographers around, too, notably Kevin Cummins, but Anton had moved to England from his native Netherlands for love – not for a girl, but for the music of Joy Division. The music had captivated him in a way that compelled him to up sticks and emigrate. Anton was a fan, he’d been around while much of the story had played out, and he’s a brilliant photographer, so it was entirely fitting that he should make the film. It was beautifully shot, as you would expect from Anton. The actors even learned to play Joy Division songs and sounded better in the film than we did on the albums! The footage in the film is much more like the sound I’d wanted on record, but hey, that’s digital technology for you.

  For obvious reasons, Ian’s suicide overshadowed some of the humour and light-heartedness that underpinned day-to-day life in Joy Division, and obviously the music was pretty heavy and dark too. But, as I’ve said before, we were the products of our upbringings and of Manchester itself. I believe very strongly that you’re shaped to some extent by your environment and, visually, ours was a brutal and barren place to grow up, something that was reflected inevitably in the music of Joy Division. Way back then, we were also reacting against what we were hearing on the radio, music to which we just couldn’t relate. We didn’t like it, our friends at school didn’t like it, yet it was everywhere: every time you switched on the radio it would be schmaltzy ballads and acts like Chicory Tip, The Sweet, Tina Charles and Showaddywaddy, the musical equivalent of junk food being force-fed to a sleepwalking nation, and we thought we’d better do something about it. Control captures the difficulty of our battle to achieve a positive outcome from the hand life had dealt us. It captures the atmosphere of Macclesfield, too: it was shot in the town and even used Ian and Debbie’s real home, the very place where Ian killed himself.

  It’s a disturbing story, there’s no way around that. It doesn’t have a happy ending and there’s no way around that either. I’ve given Ian’s death a lot of thought over the years and I sincerely believe that any other outcome was out of the question. We all tried talking him out of it, we did everything we possibly could, but he was a very self-willed person, had set himself on a particular road and he wasn’t going to make a detour for anyone. Again, that’s something that I think the film captures very well.

  Both films are great portrayals and retellings of two very different aspects of a long, varied and fascinating story. We had very little direct input: I think we may have seen an early script for 24 Hour Party People, but that was pretty much the extent of our involvement, partly because we were busy making Get Ready at the time. For Control, we all read through the script, fact-checking with Anton, pointing out things that didn’t happen or things we wouldn’t have said. We were involved with the soundtrack too but, beyond that, we just let them get on with it.

  I wonder what Ian would have made of the films. He would, I think, have liked to know he’d been remembered. Most good people do, and Ian was a good person. I think he made a huge mistake when he killed himself. He was in the midst of an emotional hurricane whose eye passed over him that night, and had he lived to grow older he would have taken a different path in life. He’d have calmed down, settled down and I think would have stopped performing and become a writer.

  As a band, as individuals and as an organization, New Order doesn’t normally mark the anniversaries of Ian’s death in a public fashion, because we don’t want to commercialize it. I prefer to mourn away from the glare of publicity, believing that’s the dignified and proper way. What happened to Ian has always been so public I prefer to set aside a quiet moment in private to remember him, particularly on the anniversary.

  The same goes for Rob, Martin Hannett (who’d died of heart failure in 1991) and, of course, Tony too, who contracted renal cancer and died aged only fifty-seven in the summer of 2007, just a few weeks before Control was released. Tony was one of those people who would never have suited growing old, because he was so inherently young in spirit. He was immersed in youth culture and music and in injecting life into Manchester, attempting a literal rejuvenation of the city. Tony was so shot through with dynamism and ebullience that when he was taken ill it came as a great shock to us all: we had assumed that nothing could bring him down and that he’d go on for ever.

  After the demise of Factory, Tony had tried to start Factory Too (I first wrote ‘Factory had tried to start Tony Too’ there, which is a Freudian reversal I think he would have enjoyed), but it didn’t work. I think the landscape of the city had changed: that particular story had reached its end, it had been told, and perhaps it was time for a new one to begin.

  When he was taken ill, Tony was living in a loft apartment not far from the Haçienda, just across the road from where TJ Davidson’s used to be. He’d stopped working full-time at Granada and was spending most of his days walking his dog and chilling out when he learned he’d contracted this horrible disease. Ultimately, it would defeat him and he died in hospital on 10 August 2007. The last time I saw him was at my wedding to Sarah in July, and it’s hard to think he had only a matter of weeks to live that day. The spirit of Tony is still tangible in Manchester, along with those of Rob, Ian and Martin. If pressed, I’d say the two biggest champions of Manchester were Tony and Rob. I think they succeeded in what they’d set out to do: the city has changed for the better. An indelible layer has been added to its history, a story that will never now be forgotten.

  When the news broke that Tony had died they lowered the flag over Manchester Town Hall to half-mast. I think he would have liked that.

  I’m eternally grateful to Tony because, if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be living the life I am now. I think my life would have been pretty dull without Tony Wilson in it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ‘No matter what you say or who you are, it’s what you do that matters’

  St Catherine’s Court in Bath, where we convened to start work on recording Waiting for the Sirens’ Call in 2005, is a beautiful, peaceful place. The current house dates back to the early sixteenth century when, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, exacerbated by Henry VIII’s desire for a divorce, the house passed to John Malt, Henry’s tailor, whose daughter Audrey was Henry’s illegitimate daughter. The actress Jane Seymour bought it in the eighties but after her own divorce in the early nineties converted the house and rented it out as a recording studio.

  If being in a band really is like a marriage, this centuries-old legacy of nuptial dispute made St Catherine’s Court the ideal plac
e for New Order. Although we didn’t know it at the time, events with their origins there would ultimately lead to Hooky leaving the band for good.

  I found it a magnificent place, if a little bit creepy. Steve’s room was panelled in dark wood, with a painting in one corner of a forbidding-looking couple dressed in Elizabethan clothes, a painting that was hard to escape as it was visible in the many mirrors that hung around the room. Beside his four-poster bed was an antique baby’s cot with a doll in it. Apparently, the skeleton of a baby had been discovered behind one of the fireplaces during a renovation in the sixties and, as a result, you weren’t supposed to remove the doll from the cot. Now, call me a wimp if you want, but that room wasn’t for me. I took the Joan Collins room instead.

  Everything seemed fine when we arrived. We were trying different producers for this album, and things had been going pretty well. We did notice that Hooky was getting very boisterous, particularly when we were out for meals. Sometimes, he was funny, but sometimes you could see people at other tables looking a little uncomfortable. After quite a few weeks at St Catherine’s Court, we moved back to Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Wiltshire. There was an incident when Peter Saville came to visit us and, out of nowhere, Hooky launched into this tirade against the poor guy, calling him a parasite and all sorts. It was horrible, totally uncalled for and unjustified: Peter Saville is the nicest, most inoffensive guy you could wish to meet. With Hooky, I often felt there was some sort of personal agenda and an aura of resentment underpinning things, but at St Catherine’s Court there were indications that things were beginning to rise to the surface. This incident with Peter Saville was mystifying at the time but turned out in hindsight to be a watershed moment.

  Initially, we worked in a different way than we did on our previous album, 2001’s Get Ready, with the band jamming ideas and me concentrating on the vocals and lyrics. On Get Ready, I’d spent a lot of time in the studio, working and reworking the guitar parts, while the vocals stayed much the same as I had written them at home, but on Waiting for the Sirens’ Call, it was essentially the other way round. It wouldn’t be my preferred way of working, as I don’t regard myself purely as a vocalist: for me, the music usually comes first. But I was happy to work in this situation so long as I also had a shot at writing some music at some point, which, to be fair, I did: I’d begun writing late at night back at St Catherine’s Court.

  As ever, we weren’t doing things the conventional way. It’s certainly different being in New Order. It was different being in Joy Division too. Things happen – sometimes, quite odd things. One of them happened at Real World during the making of Waiting for the Sirens’ Call. We’d finished recording for the night and I’d gone to bed but, soon afterwards, I heard a strange noise coming from outside: a kind of snapping sound. I went over to the window and there on a hilltop was this huge barn and house on fire. I went outside for a better look and found Hooky already there, swaying slightly. I suggested that we go over for a closer look.

  It was a really bad fire and the emergency services were already there when we arrived. We could hear shouting coming from the house, so we parked the car in a field nearby and tried to get as close as we could. The next thing we knew a guy was running straight at us, screaming his head off and brandishing a massive piece of wood. Unexpected, to say the least. I turned around and saw Hooky legging it down the hill as fast as he could. I ran back to the car, jumped in and started the engine, just as this madman appeared near the entrance to the field. I skidded past him, just getting away in time and, in true action-film style, looked into my rear-view mirror to see him running after the car, shouting and waving this big bloody log about.

  The next thing I knew there was a huge explosion and flames right behind me – possibly a gas bottle going up – and something hit the back of my car. To this day, I’ll never know if it was the log, a piece of gas bottle or the guy’s head.

  Alas, this wasn’t to be the only explosion during the making of Waiting for the Sirens’ Call. Everyone would stay down at the studio during the week and go home at weekends, although, sometimes, I’d stay later on a Friday with Andy Robinson, who’d help me with some of the engineering. One week I came back on the Monday and it was immediately obvious there was a really weird atmosphere. I’d arrived last, in the mid-afternoon, and walked in to find everyone tense and jittery. I asked what was going on and someone said, ‘Hooky’s had a few and he’s going mad. He said Andy had told him you don’t want anyone to play on any of your stuff.’ This was complete nonsense: I hadn’t said anything like it. I don’t know what Andy had said to him or whether Hooky had misinterpreted something but, either way, it needed sorting out. I found Andy, who told me he and Hooky had been tidying up the studio and he’d told Hooky I’d said that one particular track didn’t need any more bass than it already had. Hooky had decided I’d said, ‘I don’t want anyone else to play on my stuff,’ and gone off like a factory siren.

  I found Hooky in his room, told him I’d heard what had happened and explained there was no way I’d said that to Andy and was sorry if he’d thought otherwise. He seemed to accept this, but was still absolutely furious. He seemed to have it in for Andy after that. Even though Andy apologized, it seemed his card was marked from that day on.

  After the recording was finished we moved on to the mixing stage, at Olympic Studios in Barnes, south-west London. We started working on the first mix with Jim Spencer, our engineer, and almost immediately Hooky became particularly belligerent about the bass drum on one of the tracks. He’d been out to the pub for the Bloody Mary he always had at about four o’clock, and when he came back he started going on about it, insisting that it needed to come up in the mix. I told him it was fine, but he wouldn’t have it. ‘No, it needs to go up,’ he said. ‘Jim, what do you think?’ This was Jim’s first mix of the album, but he agreed that it was fine. So Hooky wheeled round to Steve. ‘Steve,’ he said, ‘you’re the drummer, it’s your bass drum, what do you think?’ ‘The bass drum’s fine,’ Steve assured him. Hooky went quiet for a moment, fixed his eye on me and said, ‘Typical. You know what they’re like, just siding with you. They always just side with you.’ I said, ‘Hang on a minute, nobody’s “siding” with anyone. Steve’s the drummer and Jim’s the engineer and they’re both saying the bass drum is fine at the level it is. That’s pretty convincing, isn’t it?’ He wouldn’t let it go, though, and any time anyone asked about the mix he’d reply, ‘The bass drum needs to go up.’ This went on for most of the night, and to say it was irritating is an understatement.

  I know this sort of incident happens with most bands, but it was the sheer irrational intransigence, this railing against everyone else in the room at the slightest opportunity, that was odd. This incident encapsulated the situation and atmosphere at the time. Reading between the beats – excuse the pun – I’m sure it was nothing to do with the bass-drum levels, it was more about Hooky wanting to be in charge. I felt the issue was control, who was the boss man. I’m certainly not like that and, as a band, we’re a democracy, always have been, always will be. It’s something that was instigated by Rob years ago in Joy Division: if we had a dispute, it was resolved by vote – no arguments, no tantrums – that was how it was. No one person is in charge and never will be.

  One Monday after that we were due to start work, but there was no sign of Hooky. I asked where he was and someone said he’d checked himself into the Priory. I suppose the fact that we all drank a lot and had done for years meant we hadn’t really spotted that Hooky was struggling with it. Fair play to him for recognizing the problem and addressing it, but it came like a bolt from the blue to the rest of the band. He’d not talked to any of us about it, let alone mentioned that he was thinking of going into rehab. In retrospect, this may have explained some of his more recent extreme behaviour.

  While, obviously, we were pleased for him that he was getting himself sorted out, we still had an album to complete, and his sudden absence made this tricky. On some of
the tracks his bass was still in a bit of a mess because it was only half finished. The engineer had to try and figure out where he thought Hooky would want it but then got a load of grief later for not getting it right.

  I’d like to say that when he emerged from rehab Hooky was his old self, with a new perspective on life and what’s important, but the sad truth is that I can’t. To me he seemed to come out of the Priory very uptight. One theory we discussed was that the drink had kept a lid on it all, that all his demons had been subdued by the alcohol, as if it was a pressure valve, and now they’d been unleashed.

  We welcomed him back, wished him well, got on with rehearsing to tour the album and went out on the road. It was then that I started noticing him doing some odd things. He wouldn’t sit near me on a plane, for example, and I’d sometimes catch him giving me strange looks. Then, on other occasions, he’d be all right. There didn’t seem to be any logic or reason behind it.

  It was around this time that he started his ‘celebrity deejaying’. He’d begun doing ‘New Order’ after-show parties on a regular basis to earn more money, because, despite the money we were earning from the tour being pretty healthy, it somehow wasn’t enough for him. I didn’t really like him doing it, to be honest; I thought he was cashing in and it was all something of an ego-feeding exercise. Ultimately, it was up to him, though, and as long as it didn’t interfere with the band then, as far as I was concerned, he could get on with it. DJing is something I have done only a handful of times, nearly always as a favour for friends, but for Hooky it suddenly became a big thing, even though he’d never really shown any interest in dance music.

  Things moved up a notch when we went to Japan to do the Fuji Festival in July 2005. We’d had a very good year; we’d played a lot of gigs and festivals throughout the spring and summer in Europe and America and things had gone pretty well. Fuji was our last show for a few months and it seemed like a nice way to round off what had mostly been an enjoyable and successful time. We were staying in the Park Hyatt Hotel in Tokyo, the hotel where Lost In Translation was shot, and a night or two before we played we went up to the Peak Bar for a drink and a meal (without Steve: he’s got no head for heights and had decided that the Peak Bar, high above the ground and with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at the Tokyo skyline, wasn’t for him). We were in buoyant mood because everything looked positive: the gigs we’d done had gone well and we’d pulled in some massive crowds. I was quite relaxed about everything and in a good mood – we all were – but as soon as we’d gathered around the table with a few drinks, out of nowhere Hooky launched into this unprovoked, finger-jabbing diatribe against me, accusing me of fucking up his past, intending to fuck up his future and telling me that I was responsible for everything that had ever gone wrong with New Order. It was all my fault and we could have been a much bigger band if it hadn’t been for me. We weren’t doing enough gigs because of me, I’d been holding him back and he’d had enough of it.

 

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