In the film, '24 Hour Party People', there's that great moment when Martin Hannett puts you out on the fire escape and you're left drumming away during the making of 'Unknown Pleasures'.
Never happened, no! But it's one of those things that encapsulates Martin's relationship with the drummer; it didn't happen but things like that did happen - just daft things - but that one scene didn't happen and everybody remembers it. It does sum it up. In much the same way that in the new film 'Control' the actor who plays Rob answers the payphone in Y-fronts and that probably never happened but that kind of sums up Rob; that one scene says a lot about Rob which was true.
In terms of that kind of relationship with Hannett - you mentioned about the drummer in particular, did Martin go through a phase - even as early as 'Digital' maybe - of thinking, well let's go down the Human League route and get rid of the drummer and put a drum machine in.
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No, no. He never wanted to get rid of me! I think he quite liked me in a way because he asked me to play on John Cooper Clarke records and I made a right mess of that but he still didn't feel bad about it. No, I mean what he wanted was he wanted complete separation; he wanted to do everything so he could treat each bit of the drum kit separately with different effects or whatever. And the only way to do that record each drum separately which is a bit difficult when you're a drummer because there's a bit of interplay between what's going on between your hands and your feet and it's hard to do it. I managed to do it one way by drumming the usual way but instead of hitting a particular drum, to take the drum out I whacked my knee with a drum stick instead. Except I realised my knee was bleeding. He didn't explain that to me at the time. If he'd explained it to me at the time then I would have gone along with it but in my head I just though "Yeah right ok. You're just doing this to psyche me out aren't you?"
I've heard that when the band listened to what Martin had done for 'Unknown Pleasures', there was disappointment
Yeah. I've got to say I wasn't that disappointed with it, but Bernard and Peter were because their sound suffered the most, but I thought that he made the drums sound great. Ian was a bit critical but also it was the shock of hearing yourself recorded because we did the RCA record, which was basically just the songs as we played them live with no production work at all, and we thought with Martin the songs would sound a bit like that only better but they sounded completely different! You see, I'd always had this thing in my head, that when you listen, there's two different things, two different agendas about listening to music. When you listen to a record, you want one thing about it which is cerebral; it's in your head, you want it to talk to you somehow. And when you went to see a band perform live you wanted the opposite of that; you wanted something that didn't talk to your head, it talked to your heart and it was very physical. And I liked the way that what Martin was doing something completely different but, yes, you could say he was watering down the live sound but I thought it was good the way he was twisting it and turning it into something that was futuristic, definitely.
And in terms of the lyrics that Ian was writing, did you talk to him about them?
No, we never talked about what we did at all. It was almost as if, if you analyse what you were doing and started thinking about it, then you'd break the spell and it wouldn't work anymore. No, we never talked about his lyrics apart from saying "That's good" because he'd turn up and he'd have his lyrics in a book and we'd just jam a riff and just keep playing it round and round and round. And he'd find something in his book and start singing over the top of it and we could write a song really quickly. I think the thing about Joy Division, was that Joy Division was something that only happened when we all got in a room and started playing. And the songs were what came out of that.
And in terms of something like 'New Dawn Fades', a song like that; when you listen back to it, when you're outside of that, when you've done the jamming and he's done the lyrics and he's sung and it's been recorded and you listen back, was there kind of a part of you that was thinking some of this is quite extreme?
No. I thought it was fantastic. 'New Dawn Fades' was kind of finished in the studio really and there's a couple of them, like 'Candidate' just written in the studio. I can't remember what we were doing, I think it might have been 'Day of the Lords' or something and we were just sound checking the bass and the drums and me and Hooky just started playing a riff and we just recorded it and we got 'Candidate' out of that. We finished off 'New Dawn Fades' in the studio because Ian kept changing the lyrics to it so we never really knew what it was going to end up like. I think some of the lyrics he had earlier on were better; but nobody's heard them so we'll never know! I really liked the lyrics on 'New Dawn Fades'. They were fantastic.
And during that time, I mean obviously that album's an amazing album. Did you have that sense you were right at the centre of that story? Did you have a sense of once it was made and maybe Hooky and Bernard had got over that initial sense of disappointment, did you have an inkling that all these years later it would be held up as being one of the greatest debut albums?
No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Because it's the old cliche - every band says it and we said it as well - we're writing the songs to please ourselves and if anybody likes them, it's a bonus. So, yeah we'd done an album which we were pleased if not delighted with. It was ok but we had no idea that it'd go on to be what it is regarded today.
In that 'Unknown Pleasures' era, in Debbie's book and in the film, she's obviously feeling she's being shunted out of the story. What was going on at that time?
It was pretty simple really. Bands are a boys club really; it's like joining the army. The big thing - you got a gig in Sheffield and it was like "Don't bring the girlfriends, don't bring the girlfriends" because one of the reasons that you got into a band included some sexual motives, let's say, about it and Ian was the only one of us married and had commitments and the rest of us were young, and if not young, free and single, then we had aspirations to be young, free and single. And to fit in with the rest of us, you'd imagine him saying "No Debbie you can't come - it's the rest of them they don't want you to come". There was a lot of that went on. It was just because for everybody, when the wife turns up it's like everyone's on a bit of a downer now because you can't get rat arsed and cop off with some bird.
And when Annik turned up what was the reaction then?
What, when Annik turned up initially? You see, Annik turned up at a London gig and she was supposed to be some sort of journalist, so it was "Let's cop off with the bird-journalist" and I think everybody had a go, but it was Ian who was most seduced by the romanticism of a Belgian accent! But it was weird because we've not really gone into Ian's personality but he would act the way he thought you wanted him to act, and so with Annik he'd do things to please Annik and we just used to wind him up rotten about it. Annik was a vegetarian, and I always remember playing in Bristol, I think it was, and I said I'll go and get something to eat, out to the kebab shop. And Ian isn't having one; he's a vegetarian. "You're a vegetarian? How's that happened? I'll have your kebab then Ian. You're a vegetarian? That's news to us!"
When it comes to 'Love Will Tear us Apart', it all kind of got very serious didn't it and very specific? How did the lads react to that situation?
You're very selfish when you're young, very, very selfish, and you just thought you'd be alright. I mean, we knew we had epilepsy, obviously, which is a pretty serious condition and we knew we had serious problems with his love triangle with Debbie and Annik, and also having Natalie... You know, it was just getting worse and worse and I remember one time him ringing up and saying "I'm knocking it on the head. I'm just going to go and open a bookshop in Holland with Debbie and that's it." And I was like, fine, you know, if that's what you want to do then good luck to you, that's fine. And if he'd have done that, then Joy Division probably wouldn't be anywhere today but Ian would still be alive I think. That's selfish - you don't really want to do that because the group's great fun, it's fantastic, you're having the time of your life and you don't want it stop. You don't think that it's going to end in tragedy really. You just think that it's going to magically turn out alright; and that's more naivety for you.
When you look back at the lyrics, it's almost like that tragedy is almost written into the lyrics. Even from 'Digital' onwards, and so in a way that tragic act, the suicide, almost kind of validates the whole story.
You see, we always had discussions because I used to drive him home back to Macclesfield and although I said we didn't talk about it, we did talk about life and things like that. Ian was very into sympathy - seeing someone else's point of view - and that sort of thing; so I thought that's really clever, how's he writing these lyrics and they're about somebody else. I never really thought it might be anything else. After he committed suicide we sat down and listened to then lyrics and it's kind of; "How could we miss this?". It sounds awful but that's how it was - listening then, it was just like well, it's a bit of a suicide note this isn't it?
Can you remember the circumstances that you were in when you heard what had happened to Ian?
The circumstances, yeah. I'd been out for the day to West Park which is, strangely enough, between the hospital and the cemetery in Macclesfield, and I think I'd been there all afternoon in the park, and I went home and getting my things packed ready to go to the States, and Hooky rang us up and told me Ian had died, that he'd taken his life. And he was in the mortuary, about 100 yards away from where I'd been all afternoon. You're angry. You just feel a whole load of emotions really. Anger that he couldn't have, you know, carried on.
Anger at what? Yourself, him, the situation?
Yeah, at him, at you, because there must have been something that you could have done. You know because I'd seen him, I can't remember, it was Friday night or Saturday sometime, I'd dropped him off at the Mexican on Oxford Road, and I'd said so "See you on Monday" and he was fine, absolutely fine. You know; "See you at the airport." And then Hooky rings us up and that's it.
He had tried to kill himself before. He'd taken an overdose and he'd gone and he stayed at Tony's house up in Glossop, and then he'd stayed with Bernard, and we thought things were sorting themselves out somehow. But see, Ian would give you that impression; the northern thing about not showing your emotions to your mates and all that.
I think having epilepsy as well was you know, there was a bit of that. The treatment he was on; that'd bring anybody down because they were mind-numbing drugs that he was given, really heavy tranquillizers. Something disappeared; something just went when he was taking that medication. And the fact that the doctors had told him that he'd got to have a quiet life, can't stay up late, regular hours, don't get too excited; they were basically saying don't be yourself. That was a big dilemma because the band was what he wanted. He wanted to do the band and then he found that like really he shouldn't. So you've got a few dilemmas going on there.
And, also a few people have talked about his isolation. I mean, as somebody who went to see Joy Division, even the way that Ian was on stage he came across as a person in a world of their own. Do you know what I mean? That sense of isolation seems to have been part of his personality that people were touching from a distance and that you couldn't get to him. So how can you help somebody like that?
Em, yeah that's true; I mean he was, but everybody knew a different Ian really. Maybe Debbie knew him better than most because was there when we weren't but he was, you're right, he was something else and Ian was underneath that somewhere but you never actually, you never got that close to him.
The decision afterwards to carry on the band under the name New Order; Tony bless him talked about having a vision that the band, it would work and that it would be more legendary but was that part of your thinking?
No! We just liked what we were doing so much, and the thing was going somewhere; the whole thing with Joy Division was it going somewhere and there was this realisation, you pack your job in and, if not make a great living out of it, you could survive by just being in a band and then it just kept getting bigger and bigger and you didn't want that to stop. It was, again, probably selfish; but there was never any question of us not carrying on as a band. We just sat down and carried on and tried to think of a way to do it; just muddled through really. The one thing we knew we weren't going to be when we carried on after Ian's death was we weren't going to be Joy Division mark 2. That's a good place to start with what you're not going to be; that we weren't going get another singer who was going to sound a little bit like Ian and we weren't going play Joy Division songs. We just slammed the door on it and that was kind of part of dealing with Ian's death I think. That, yeah, we're carrying on; and that's just in a box over there, and, you know, we've got to do something else.
When it came to 'Movement' there's a little bit of the Joy Division sound, and I assume after 'Movement' you decided, well we've got to take it on, and made a conscious decision to move into that more classic New Order sound.
What we took from Joy Division was the last two songs that we wrote as Joy Division - 'In a Lonely Place' and 'Ceremony' - and that was it really. When we did Movement, we hadn't even decided who was going to sing. Hooky was singing some, Bernard was singing some. I think I'd managed to sing myself out of the job but Gillian had a go on 'Movement' didn't she, she gets a few words in! We did that when everybody else was on holiday and they came back shocked; "There's a bird singing on our records! Martin?!"
It was a very awkward album to make but listen to it now and it's not too bad at all. That New Young Pony Club obviously listened to it quite a lot as they've pillaged the synth bass lines out of that one! The thing was, Martin was weird on it, and now I can understand Martin's weirdness; he was really, really, deeply affected by Ian's suicide, but, again, this bloody, stupid northern tradition, he wouldn't sit down and have a manly heart to heart, cry in front of us, and so he was just weird. I think his way of dealing with it was to take more drugs; which you know can solve a few problems but not in the long term. And so, we just thought Martin was being arsey more than usual, turning up and going and shutting himself in a cupboard, wouldn't start working til midnight, and we just couldn't understand what it was and we couldn't carry on like that. The last thing that we did was 'Everything's Gone Green' and it was kind of halfway through that Martin did one version and I went to bed and Peter had done another version! And that was it. Rob had words with Martin because he wouldn't even tell Rob what it was, or what the trouble was; and that was bye-bye Martin.
Just finally, you were talking about shutting the door on the Joy Division thing - obviously which is understandable - but then I remember seeing New Order in, I think it was in 1998 in the Apollo just before I think it was the Reading Festival, and as a New Order fan down the front for many years, there did seem to be a bit of a turning point that gig.
Yeah, what happened was New Order hadn't do a great deal in the 90s and people had been asking "Do you ever think you'll do New Order again?" and I said "No. I think that's very, very unlikely." Gillian and myself, decided that's it we might as well start a family and we started a family and then blow me down if a few weeks later Rob rang up "Look. Someone's offered us some gigs. We've got to have a meeting. Have you split up or what?"
So, we had a meeting. I haven't seen them for years - years, quite literally - and we all went round to Rob's office, upstairs at the Hacienda and that was it. You fancy doing a gig? Yeah right, OK; and that was it and we were back on it again. What we decided in 1998 was why the hell didn't we play Joy Division songs? Because if anyone should play Joy Division songs surely it should be us. In a way you know, time heals old wounds and all that, but it was just felt alright and maybe Ian would like us to play the songs; so that was we did when we got back in 1998. We started incorporating a few Joy Division numbers into the repertoire.
It seemed quite an emotional evening for the band. I mean in the audience it was weird because you could see that, like you say, having not being together and the band back together and Bernard particularly seemed almost like he was feeling Ian's presence on stage.
It was really emotional, cathartic gig that first one at the Apollo. Apart from the fact that it was a bit like playing in your mate's large living room; we knew everyone who was there! It was good. It was good and yeah, it was good to do it. It was fine.
There's one story that Bernard was telling me about one time when you were in the Cheetham Hill rehearsal rooms and Bernard admitted it was the first moment where you all thought, hang on a minute, this is getting quite grim and upsetting. Ian arrived at the studio and he'd cut himself. He opened his shirt and he kind of showed that he's cut himself and Bernard remembered that Ian had said "I've been up all night. I've been reading the Bible and I woke up and I don't know what's going on" but Bernard wasn't sure it was the Bible.
Yeah it was...
Where did it happen?
It would have happened in Macclesfield in Barton Street and it was at TJ's place yeah. Ian, he was like "What's that? What happened? I don't know what happened last night and I woke up and I'd slashed myself and stuck a knife in the Bible look at this!" And showed us all the scars on his back and it was weird, obviously. He slashed himself and he slashed the Bible and had no recollection of what happened. Although it wasn't Cheetham Hill that wasn't until New Order; we rehearsed at TJ's, near where the Boardwalk is. Just as a bit of conversation point before we got down to playing some tunes!
Ok, let's leave it there. Thank you for your time Stephen.
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