The feud at the heart of New Order
The tragic suicide of Ian Curtis in 1980 changed the course of his bandmates’ lives irrevocably. While Peter Hook, Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris confronted life without their troubled and deeply poetic singer and songwriter, they immersed themselves in music as a distraction. With multi-instrumentalist Gillian Gilbert on board by October 1980, the band created material under the New Order banner.
In a 2022 interview with Far Out, bassist Peter Hook lamented the band’s unwillingness to confront Curtis’ death and celebrate Joy Division’s success. “[New Order] never celebrated anything to do with Joy Division after Ian’s death,” he said. “We never celebrated one year after his death, we never celebrated nine, ten, 20 years, and now it’s gone 40 years.”
Over the past decade, Hook has resolved to celebrate Joy Division’s seminal oeuvre in his Peter Hook and the Light venture. Sadly, he no longer plays with Sumner, Morris and Gilbert following a tempest of legal drama and bitter internal disputes.
Through the 1980s, New Order helped to revolutionise the post-punk era through a series of highly acclaimed albums that blended Joy Division’s gothic edge with synth-heavy composition. Such releases were often flanked by more danceable 12″ singles, such as ‘Blue Monday’ and ‘True Faith’. With club anthems in their canon, New Order became an early proponent of Manchester’s rave scene and even financed the famous Haçienda club.
By the 1990s, New Order had much of their success behind them. The 1989 album Technique was steeped in acid house and showed a band yearning for nuance, but a loss of direction and identity was palpable. Reluctantly, New Order regrouped in 1992 to record a follow-up, Republic.
For many years, Hook had an irrational hatred of the album simply because it reminded him of the acrimony between himself and Sumner at the time of recording. They were “at that point in the relationship where you hate each others’ stinking guts,” he told Yahoo’s ‘Backspin’ in 2021. “I used to be very vocal about Republic being an album to avoid because we were so disengaged from each other doing it, and I couldn’t listen to it without feeling sick.”
After Republic, the band entered into a hiatus which lasted until 1998, when they reunited for several reunion shows. Throughout the 2000s, New Order released Get Ready and Waiting for the Sirens’ Call, the latter marking Hook’s final album with the band. In May 2007, Hook appeared on XFM, stating that “Me and Bernard aren’t working together,” indicating another breakup.
“The news about the split is false… New Order still exists despite what [Hook] said … Peter Hook can leave the band, but this doesn’t mean the end of New Order,” read a response statement on the band’s website. However, in 2009, Sumner expressed that he, too, wished to disband New Order permanently.
Although age-old friction between Sumner and Hook had clearly returned, the worst was still yet to come. In 2011, Sumner reformed New Order with Gilbert and Morris, hiring Tom Chapman as a replacement on bass. Naturally, Hook felt betrayed; as he continued to perform with Peter Hook and the Light, royalties and ownership disputes erupted, further dividing him from his former bandmates as court cases piled up.
Speaking to Far Out, the bassist reflected on his career, revealing how the ongoing feud tarnishes his memory of New Order. “To me, Joy Division is very pure because it didn’t break into squabbling, an absolutely childish stupid mess like New Order has,” he said. “What we’ve done to New Order as core individuals is, frankly, very, very disappointing, and it shows no signs of abating at the moment.”
“Now, I have no connection to the others,” Hook added. “You know, we’ve had a terrible time – we’re still having a terrible time, even at the moment. I can say that quite truthfully.”
Fans live in hope that New Order will one day bury the hatchet with Hook, but it seems increasingly unlikely with each passing year. As Hook would say, at least we can appreciate the unparalleled oeuvre of Joy Division and New Order.
