New Order’s Bernard Sumner explains the health dangers of live touring
Thankfully, New Order frontman Bernard Sumner now has a healthy relationship with touring, but it hasn’t always been this way. In the early years of the band, Sumner found himself drinking to oblivion and suffering the consequences of his actions, which is an all too familiar cycle for artists.
Sumner has spent almost the entirety of his adult life on tour since forming Joy Division in 1976. Following their disbandment after the death of singer Ian Curtis, Sumner quickly threw himself back into music with New Order. Although they arrived as a stark contrast to the singer’s former outfit, New Order asserted themself as one of defining acts of their era and beyond.
From their debut album, Movement, in 1981, and Republic, 12 years later, New Order operated at a prolific pace. If they were not in the studio cooking up their next album, the band were on the road touring and always made sure it was a decadent affair.
Recently, we’ve seen artists speak candidly about how their mental health has been affected by spending prolonged periods on the road, and the issue is nothing new. Following the end of restrictions, Sam Fender intensely threw himself into his touring schedule and had to cancel shows for his own sanity. In a statement, Fender told fans: “I’ve neglected myself for over a year now and haven’t dealt with things that have deeply affected me. It’s impossible to do this work on myself while on the road, and it’s exhausting feigning happiness and wellness for the sake of business.”
The lifestyle attached to touring is unnatural, and waking up in a different city every morning can lead to disastrous effects. For Sumner, the comedown from the adrenaline-filled show led him to drink every night and caused a vicious cycle of hurt.
Sumner explained to the Irish Times in 2019: “The old New Order shows used to follow the pattern of doing a great show and going out and celebrating. We’d celebrate way too much with a party in the dressing room after the show, go to a pub, bring a load of people back to the hotel, get trashed – but not trash the hotel because I don’t believe in that sort of carry-on. I always tidy my room before I check out because I don’t want to give the cleaners a more difficult job, and my grandmother was a cleaner. So I’d tidy my room, but I’d be throwing up because I’d drank way too much.”
Sumner continued: “I used to drink Pernod and orange juice, which is like drinking alcoholic toothpaste, but I drink wine now. All that only went on for about 15… no, 20 years. But eventually, we learnt our lesson. Now, it is like being hit by a big stick. As you get older, the stick gets bigger until it is like being hit by a six-by-seven breezeblock on your head, and something has to change.”
Now, as a seasoned veteran of the touring circuit, Sumner has picked up the secrets of the trade and learned to love life on the road. However, it’s been a tumultuous ride to get to the place of contentment where he currently inhabits.
