“Too straight”: the one Joy Division song Ian Curtis didn’t sing lead on
Vocalists have never been in particularly short supply, particularly within the DIY realm of punk rock, where vocal range and ability often take a backseat to attitude and appearance. Even still, there has never been another vocalist quite like Ian Curtis, whose endlessly emotive tones formed an irreplaceable part of the Joy Division sound back in the late 1970s.
It was an advert placed in Manchester’s Virgin Records shop by Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook that saw Curtis join the ranks of the band – then named Stiff Kittens – in 1976, under the guise of contributing to Manchester’s blossoming punk scene.
Pretty quickly, though, it became apparent that Curtis’ songwriting talents and his powerful vocal abilities far overshadowed the various guttural, glue-sniffing frontmen who populated the rest of that scene. It wasn’t until Unknown Pleasures hit the airwaves, though, that Joy Division themselves realised they weren’t really a punk band.
After all, that album is an indisputable masterpiece of vulnerability, self-reflection, and the countless complex emotions that were seemingly swimming around in Curtis’ mind, brought to the forefront with the aid of Martin Hannett’s production. Although the group shared songwriting credits on the album’s tracklisting, it was Curtis who was responsible for the vast majority of its beloved lyrics.
It wasn’t Curtis, however, who was solely responsible for the album’s vocal duties. Despite boasting one of the most identifiable voices of the post-punk realm, the Macclesfield-born frontman handed over the responsibility to Peter Hook for the album’s penultimate track, ‘Interzone’.
One of the more punk-slanted tracks from the album, closer to the kind of thing they were producing on An Ideal for Living, the song is a definite fan-favourite from the record, in no small part thanks to Hooky’s vocals. “That’s me singing lead,” the bassist revealed on Twitter in 2020. “Ian was very generous and always encouraged us to sing too. He thought ‘Interzone’ was too straight and wanted to add something different.”
Having Hook sing lead vocals on the song did indeed add something different to the track, with his performing punctuated by Curtis’ ominous backing vocals. “We did an almost call and response vocal,” Hooky shared. “His different lyrics weaving around the main vocal.”
Not only did those guest vocals give ‘Interzone’ a deeper level of intrigue than if Curtis had just sung it on his lonesome or layered his own vocals on top of one another, but it also makes the song something of a rarity within Joy Division’s discography, being the only track in which Ian Curtis doesn’t sing lead vocals.
Perhaps, had fate been different and Joy Division had been allowed to carry on past 1980, when Curtis tragically took his own life, then they would have produced more songs with Hooky or even Sumner on vocals – after all, the guitarist certainly proved his vocal ability with New Order in the years that followed. As it stands, though, ‘Interzone’ remains Pete Hook’s starring moment in terms of providing not just an incredible bassline, but a commendable vocal performance, too.
