Peter Hook says New Order was a “miserable existence”
Joy Division founding member Peter Hook has reflected on his time in New Order and said it was a “miserable existence”.
Hook helped start New Order in 1980 after the tragic death of Ian Curtis led Joy Division to split up. The bassist remained with the band for many decades before deciding to depart in 2007. Since then, he’s toured internationally as both a DJ and with his new group Peter Hook & The Light. In a new interview, Hook has revealed he’s happier than ever.
“I was miserable playing the music with New Order and didn’t get the chance with Joy Division. So it’s now about finally being able to enjoy myself and play it with the right amount of passion and integrity,” he told Bang Showbiz.
He added: “The weirdest thing was that when New Order split up, I DJ’d for about three years and went all over the world and it was absolutely fantastic – being paid to play other people’s music is really fantastic. But the thing was I really missed music, and people never stopped asking me, ‘When are you going to get back with New Order?’ and ‘Are New Order going to get back together again?’”
“And I just thought, ‘We never celebrated anything to do with Joy Division as New Order, and we never celebrated anything with New Order when we were New Order,’” Hook said.
Looking back upon his time with New Order, Hook admitted: “It was a bit of a miserable existence and playing very few songs and ignoring hundreds of songs we had written. And I agreed with our fans that we should be playing these tracks, but we couldn’t play them because Bernard didn’t want to play them.”
This summer, Peter Hook & The Light will be performing at a series of festivals across Europe as well as a headline show at the Eventim Apollo in London.
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