The Mirror - 4 de marzo 2005 Out Of Order

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Peter Hook looks back at 25 years of rocking mayhem with New Order

They are undoubtedly one of the most influential and innovative UK groups of the past 25 years. Yet it seems that New Order are always destined to be haunted by their past. Their 2001 comeback album, Get Ready, coincided with the release of the film 24 Hour Party People which showed how the Manchester band was born – formed by the remaining members of Joy Division after frontman Ian Curtis hanged himself in May 1980.

Now, their new single, Krafty, and album, Waiting For The Siren’s Call, coincide with plans for rock photographer Anton Corbijn to make an Ian Curtis biopic. “I was apprehensive at first,” admits New Order’s jovial bassist Peter Hook. “I didn’t know how Debbie (Curtis’s widow) would react, but I think the right people are involved.

“Ian’s never really gone. He might not be here physically, but he’s certainly here metaphysically. We’ve never ever been without him. I’ve got pictures of him everywhere and we do Joy Division songs onstage now so it’s like he’s never left.

“The worst thing was witnessing his death on 24 Hour Party People. It knocked us all absolutely. Going on the set when they rebuilt the Hacienda and seeing those characters was the freakiest night of my life.”

When Curtis died, the group almost immediately took the decision to carry on, with guitarist Bernard ‘Barney’ Sumner taking over as vocalist. But Sumner and Hook’s relationship has been stormy throughout New Order’s career. So how did they get on making the new album, the first not to feature keyboard player Gillian Gilbert who is taking a sabbatical from the band?

“We had producers and that defuses things,” Hook, 49, says. “We produced some ourselves and, as long as I do what Bernard says, we don’t argue,” he adds, chuckling.

Larger-than-life Hook was also the first choice to take Bez’s slot on the recent Big Brother, but turned the offer down.

“The thing I can’t handle is eating with strangers,” he confesses. “I must admit that if I ever do get the chance to appear on one of those programmes, I will trash it. So if anyone wants it trashed, just phone me.”

Indeed. Hooky was once married to Royle Family creator and star Caroline Aherne and, after they’d separated in 1996, got into a highly publicised punch-up with her new boyfriend, TV researcher Matt Bowers. He’s also a past master of rock ’n’ roll behaviour, once demolishing the dressing room of Glasgow’s Barrowlands.

“Barney was being funny onstage so I went off on one,” he says. “Oasis phoned us up the next day to say what a good job we’d made of it. It’s moments like that that you live for in rock ’n’ roll.”

Still, their greatest moment of rock debauchery came after Joy Division recorded their classic Les Bains Douches live album in Paris in December 1979 and Barney, quite literally, peed over the opposition.

“We’d met Spandau Ballet that afternoon and they told us where they were playing that evening,” recalls Hooky, “so we went along and drank all their booze. Bernard was so infuriated by their apparel that he urinated off the balcony onto the stage below. He nearly got hammered by the bouncers too, which could have been another great moment, but he got away.”

Hooky’s list of those who deserve similar attention is endless, but Bryan McFadden is at the top.

“He’s despicable,” he grimaces. “The way he’s treated his missus is disgusting. Why would anyone still buy his record? He makes Darren Day look like a saint.”

New Order recently won the Godlike Genius gong at the NME Awards, but isn’t it about time The Brits gave them a Lifetime Achievement Award?

“They gave it to Duran Duran last year so you think, ‘P*** off’,” he says. “They obviously have no taste. But of course we’d go along again. It’s great. You just get p****d up and abuse young groups.

“I believe at the Q Awards, although I can’t remember too much, I made Travis have my autograph – the four of them in headlocks. And they took it. I also near had a fight with Stereophonics in the bog. Great! A proper afternoon out. You have to put these whippersnappers in their place.

“The great thing about being a musician is that you’re allowed to be a kid all the time. People expect it and they admire it. The more stupid you are, the better really.”

Comparing pictures of a very young Joy Division and New Order now shows the toll that the rock life has taken on the band.

“But I wouldn’t change anything,” insists Hooky. “The only thing I’d do would be to save Ian. I dropped him off at six o’clock on a Saturday evening and he was dead by midnight. If there was a time machine available that’s where I’d be.”