Peter Hook on New Order: Chemistry Tears Us Apart

The band’s voluble co-founder reveals a ‘very human tale of frailty, great success, and ridiculous cliches’

In early 1981, the three surviving members of the British band Joy Division — singer/guitarist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook, and drummer Stephen Morris — finished recording their debut album Movement as the newly-minted New Order. It was a huge leap forward out of tragic circumstances.

Several months prior, Ian Curtis, their compelling lead singer in Joy Division, hung himself just before the group was to embark on its first-ever American tour. With keyboardist Gillian Gilbert brought into the fold, the reconstituted group as New Order worked in the studio with producer Martin Hannett, who helmed Joy Division’s two studio albums, Unknown Pleasures and Closer. But before Hannett would proceed to mix the record, he had one demand from the band: a gram of cocaine.

“We all looked at him in utter disbelief,” Peter Hook later wrote. “We thought he was joking and tried remonstrating, tried reasoning, but after an hour or so it was obvious he meant it. We were aghast. So Rob [Gretton, our manager] started phoning round… with Martin refusing to do so much as twiddle a knob. And then, when he finally got his drugs, he gave them to Chris…