Home > Author > Peter Hook
1 " There's a very fine line between being artistic and being a dickhead - it's like love and hate. "
― Peter Hook
2 " That was the thing about Joy Division: writing the songs was dead easy because the group was really balanced; we had a great guitarist, a great drummer, a great bass player, a great singer. "
― Peter Hook , Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division
3 " Bernard insisted on having ‘just one more go’, and in doing so used up mine and Steve’s tracks, wiping them, so by the time Martin finally threw up his hands and told us to fuck off, Barney’s was the only vocal left on tape. Which is pretty much how he became our singer. "
― Peter Hook , Substance: Inside New Order
4 " In my rules of a group: never let the singer do his own backing vocals. To me it sounds weird. When Ian was alive he made sure that the other members had a go because that’s what you do in a group. It’s a group. Not just a bunch of musicians backing the singer. "
5 " Adidas produced a limited-edition pair of Haçienda trainers, designed by Yohji Yamamoto (Saville has worked with Yohji since the late 1980s, creating his catalogues and advertisements).They retailed for £345 but people queued up from midnight just to be first through the doors to buy a pair. The shoes disappeared in twenty minutes - all soled out. "
― Peter Hook , The Haçienda: How Not to Run a Club
6 " Now I don't know why, but Morrissey had always hated Joy Division. Maybe Rob got it right when after a lively debate as the cameras were turned off he turned to Morrissey and said, 'The trouble with you, Morrissey, is that you've never had the guts to kill yourself like Ian. You're fucking jealous.' You should have seen his face as he stormed off. I laughed me bollocks off. "
7 " Ten things you should always do when you form a group1. Work with your friends2. Find like-minded people3. Have ultimate self-belief4. Write great songs5. Get a great manager6. Live in Manchester7. Support each other through thick and thin8. Realise no one person is bigger than the group (thanks to Gene Simmons for that one)9. Watch where the money goes10. Always get separate legal advice for everything before you sign; failing that, ask your mam and dad "
8 " The barrels were on a platform and to keep the platform level someone had shoved a quarter-inch tape box underneath it.I pulled it out. Covered in old beer and sweat and condensation, it was one of the master tapes of Joy Division's debut album, Unknown Pleasures.It made me smile. It was an absolutely perfect metaphor for the Haçienda.Joy Division had held the whole fucking thing up. "
9 " I suppose in the end it's almost too easy to look back and say what you should have done, how you might have changed things. What's harder - what's much, much harder - is to accept what you actually did do. "
10 " Atmosphere" is a massive song. A lot of people say it's their favorite Joy Division song, but it's not mine; it reminds me too much of Ian, like it's his death march or something, and it figures that it's one of the most popular songs to play at funerals: Robbie Williams has got "Angels" for weddings and we've got "Atmosphere" for funerals. "
11 " [...] if you're going to waste an opportunity, there are a few important things to remember. Do it in style. Do it in public. And, above all, do it in Manchester. "
12 " I remember feeling as though I’d been sitting in a darkened room all of my life—comfortable and warm and safe and quiet—then all of a sudden someone had kicked the door in, and it had burst open to let in an intense bright light and this even more intense noise, showing me another world, another life, a way out. I was immediately no longer comfortable and safe, but that didn’t matter because it felt great. I felt alive. "
13 " Nobody was better at moving between different groups of people than he was. But I also think this was an aspect of his personality that ended up being very damaging to him. He had three personas he was trying to juggle: he had his married-man persona, at home with the wife; the laddish side; and the cerebral, literary side. "
14 " I don’t think the Cure liked us. I think they resented us in some way, because we’d managed to stay cool, credible, and independent and they’d, well, sort of sold out a bit. The problem was on their side; it wasn’t on our side. But I think they thought, Wish we were Joy Division. "
15 " What I loved about Anton was that he did the pictures really quickly, with no fuss, no fucking about: bang, bang, bang, and it was over. At the time, I thought, Now, that’s how a photo shoot should be. Those shots he took of us in the tube station: absolutely brilliant. "
16 " I watched John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers play it acoustically at their gig at the MEN Arena. I think I can safely say that, of the 19,000 people there, 18,950 didn’t know what it was—but I did, and it brought a tear to my eye, definitely. Monster bass line. A bass line that every bass player dreams of and I got it, so thank you. "
17 " Barney turned up the next day feeling better, and of course the tour went ahead, but if you ask me that was a revelatory moment for him. He must have thought, They need me. They can’t do it without me. "
18 " Like the time I threw out Pete Murphy of Bauhaus for saying those six immortal words to Slim when he'd forgotten his backstage pass: 'Don't you know who I am?''Ha, ha, yeah, I do,' I said, 'You're out, arsehole'. "
19 " Everything up to and including Unknown Pleasures really existed only when the four of us were in a room together playing it. Not written down, not recorded, just from memory. "
20 " It was only after we recorded Unknown Pleasures that I could hear and begin to take notice of the words, and it was quite startling then to see how they changed between that album, where they were still quite detached and aggressive, to Closer, which is even darker and not detached at all but really introspective and quite frightening—especially of course when you listen to it in light of what later happened. "
