Peter Hook by Mark McNulty
It turns out that one of rock’s best and best-known bass players was a little confused at first about his chosen instrument. Peter Hook, of Joy Division and then New Order fame, says that after he and friends saw the Sex Pistols in concert — June 4, 1976 in the English city of Manchester — he knew just what he wanted next. Or so he thought.
“Went to the guitar shop after the gig, because we were so hyped up, and I asked for a bass, and the guy gave it to me,” Hook tells PureHoney ahead of his current band, Peter Hook & The Light, playing Miami Beach Bandshell on June 14. “I said, ‘No, no, me mate’s bass has got six strings.’ He said, ‘Nah, your mate’s got a guitar!’ So it came as a complete revelation to me because I never knew.”
“When I got it,” Hook adds, “I thought, ‘Oh, four strings. Maybe it’ll be easier to learn it?’“
Peter Hook by Jason Mooney
An auspicious start for an artist who co-wrote some of the most recognizable songs of the late Twentieth Century, including Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and New Order’s omnipresent “Blue Monday.” The latter song launched an era, introducing the world to the New Order-bankrolled nightclub, The Hacienda and the “Madchester” scene that followed. The Hacienda would in turn help to spawn Happy Mondays, Oasis, Stone Roses, and Chemical Brothers, and export acid house music and rave culture globally.
The four-string bassist extraordinaire and deployer of killer hooks also has a creator’s credit in a sound and attitude imprinted on every variation since of dark-hearted, nightclub-suited, electronica-laced rock. Hook’s overdriven, guitar-like approach to bass manifests in the work of The Killers, Interpol and Fontaines DC. Echoes of Joy Division and New Order pulse through the sonic nervous systems of Los Angeles’ She Wants Revenge, Minsk’s Molchat Doma and other acts too numerous to list.
For all that, Hook in conversation is disarmingly down to earth and discursive considering his role in a cultural Big Bang. Asked if he knew in the ‘70s and ‘80s that he was creating a legacy, Hooky, as he’s known, says, “I think the thing is, when you’re that young … you don’t think you’re going to make it to Friday. … Time passes in a different way when you’re young. … You have to grab everything, and everything’s in the moment. So, you know, I mean the answer is no.
“It was always Ian Curtis, funnily enough, who used to say, whenever we got down … about lack of gigs or lack of success in any way, ‘Don’t you worry. People will be listening to us for years and years and years,’” Hook says of Curtis, the hauntingly voiced Joy Division singer who took his own life in 1980, a tragic turn of events that gave way to the formation of New Order.
Peter Hook by Timothy Norris
“We were always like, ‘He’s got his head in the clouds, this lad,’” Hook says. “But we loved him and God, you know, sadly, he managed to prove himself absolutely right.”
Peter Hook & The Light are in town to perform the 2001 New Order album Get Ready in its entirety along with key New Order and Joy Division tracks, part of a years-long tour project that has Hook working his way live through both bands’ complete discographies. True to Curtis’ word, the crowds Hooky sees on the road are populated by aging hipsters and cool kids alike.
“And to see youngsters there and then to have youngsters come up to you and ask, ‘What was Ian Curtis like?’ And I’m thinking, ‘He was just like you!’” Hook says. “‘With stars in his eyes; it’s just that he didn’t make it. You know, I hope you do, in the same way I’ve made it.’ And he didn’t. You know, the world can be very cruel, can’t it?”
Hook fell in and out with New Order over the years, and quit for good in 2007. His projects during and after New Order form a storyline of their own. There was Freebass with members of Stone Roses, Primal Scream and The Smiths. And there was Monaco, which Hook formed with David Potts, his bandmate in an earlier side project, Revenge. Monaco scored a hit single with “What Do You Want from Me?” from 1997’s Music For Pleasure. For Record Store Day this past April they reissued the title track from 2000’s I’ve Got a Feeling as a standalone single.
Which begs the question: Is there more Monaco on the horizon? Hook isn’t sure schedules will allow it but he sounds open to the idea. “Funny things, isn’t it?” he says. “Celebrating the music of Joy Division and New Order and then [if] you started celebrating the music of Monaco, it would be like, Oh my God, even I can’t remember that much! … But it’s very flattering … that people are still so interested in Monaco, I must admit. You know, it was a lovely period in my life, and I wish that I hadn’t gone back to New Order. I wish I had stayed with Monaco. You know, it’s like hindsight, isn’t it?”
Teaching the past to future generations has become vital work for Hook. He’s also the author of Unknown Pleasures, a 2013 memoir named after a Joy Division album, and a force behind a music management and promotion master’s degree program established in 2012 at the University of Central Lancashire. The project grew out of Hook’s belief that music education was too academic and removed from the actual labor of getting music to be heard. So students work at Fac51, the successor to The Hacienda — named for New Order’s original Factory Records label.
“They also get involved with Peter Hook & The Light, doing all the dirty jobs and some of the clean,” Hook says. “So, the thing is that we’re actually using our experience to give them a hands-on moment. … Reading and writing about music is not the best way to experience it. … With the adrenaline, you have to be much more in the present, and these things happen in real time, don’t they? So the kids have to act [quickly]. … Some of them love it. Some are quite frightened!”
Peter Hook & The Light perform 8pm Saturday, June 14 at Miami Beach Bandshell. peterhookandthelight.live ~ Tim Moffatt
