Why there’s no new New Order music coming any time soon
Stephen Morris is now the last surviving member of Joy Division to write a book about his time in the iconic band, and he hopes to clear up a few misconceptions about the late Ian Curtis.
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Stephen Morris is now the last surviving member of Joy Division to write his memoirs.
The drummer’s book Record Play Pause was released this year, capturing Joy Division’s formation, success and untimely end following the shock death of frontman Ian Curtis.
The Manchester band then morphed into New Order. New Order keyboardist (and Morris’ wife) Gillian Gilbert is now the only New Order member to have not written their autobiography, following tomes by singer Bernard Sumner and former bassist Peter Hook.
“Gillian’s not doing a book, she’s working on New Order: The Sitcom,” Morris jokes.
Record Play Pause also covers Morris’ life leading up to joining Joy Division, now seen as one of the most influential British bands of all time.
As with Sumner and Hook’s books, Morris, 61, was keen to humanise Curtis, who has become mythologised as the poster boy for depression after his suicide in 1980, a month before the band’s classic Love Will Tear Us Apart was released.
“You don’t see many pictures of Ian smiling, but he’d laugh most of the time. Over time he’s become a very, very serious individual. None of us were. Ian definitely wasn’t.
“I get frustrated at the way Joy Division is commonly held to be a group that perpetually existed in black and white, living in a library or something. It wasn’t really like that. I wanted to get back to the fact we were just kids, really, having fun.”
The book delves into how mental health was unknown territory in the late ‘70s, with Morris dealing with depression at the time.
“The attitude of being a northern man, the thing you got from parents going back to the war was you didn’t really talk about your feelings. If something was wrong you just bottled it up or pretended. You certainly didn’t discuss it with your mates.
“These days it’s a lot better thank God. There’s no shame in it now. There was a bit of stigma about it back then. Ian in particular never wanted to let anybody down. He didn’t want to say no. That’s a shame. Had he been honest with us things could have been different but that’s just the time we lived in.”
Curtis’ daughter Natalie turned 40 this year — she’s now a photographer — while Morris is still in touch with the late singer’s wife Debbie, whose book Touching From a Distance was the basis of the Ian Curtis biopic Control. Morris admits he read both Hook and Sumner’s books before starting his own.
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“I didn’t want to do the same thing. It’s the same story obviously, but I wanted to do it in a different way.”
He admits having Gilbert on hand served as a human Google as he was writing about shared experiences.
“I’ve got a box full of stuff I’ve collected over the years, I’d dig through that and it’d trigger a load of memories. You remember events perfectly, but the order in which they occurred gets jumped up. So I would ask Gillian, but it was more like ‘You’re not putting that bit in’. She refused to read parts of it until it was finished. Luckily she liked it. I know she got frustrated with me going ‘Do you remember that time …’. It was very helpful though, even though she was a bit reluctant to get involved in reminiscing. We’re still together, so it must have been all right.”
While Morris called writing the book “enjoyable, frustrating and cathartic” he got so deep into the process he wrote over a thousand pages — his publishers split it into two books. A second volume, about his time in New Order, will be released next year.
The first book details meeting Gilbert during Joy Division, the second will detail the “odd” way she ended up in New Order.
Record Play Pause is very complimentary about Peter Hook, who only recently settled a lawsuit with his former bandmates that brewed after Hook began a career playing Joy Division and New Order songs with his own live band.
“There’s no point moaning about people, you’re trying to write the facts, we were friends, he’s a great musician. As a drummer, having a great bass player is a blessing. There’s no point trying to deny that. We were a little gang. I didn’t want to write a book that was angry.”
Morris says his New Order book will detail how the friends fell out with Hook — he’s been replaced in the new New Order line-up who’ll tour Australia next year.
“It touches on it, but not in a malicious or unpleasant way. It’s just growing up. You grow up in different ways, when you start out in a band you’re in a gang and you’re focused on doing the best you can. When you grow up things just get more complicated you just become different people. There’s no way around it. Lawsuits aren’t fun for anyone. Everyone can get on with whatever it is they want to do now.”
Hook has long said his frustration during the end of his time in New Order came from the band refusing to play anything beyond the same set of singles — he’s made a pact to play every Joy Division and New Order song live, including every album played in full.
Morris says New Order do try to find older songs and also update hits they play all the time.
“It is difficult to make a song like Blue Monday not sound like the original record. But we are looking for songs we haven’t played in a long time, even ones we haven’t played for 30 years, for the next tour.
“Some songs work really well, some songs just don’t. We get a lot of valid complaints about not playing stuff from (1989’s) Technique, and we keep trying to get Run up, it’s a great song, but live it never quite works. It always sounds a bit wrong. We might have another go at that. Maybe. Vanishing Point is back in the set. Round and Round is knocking around on the ‘maybe’ list as a candidate for having another go at. Fine Time we tried.
“There’s stuff off (1983’s) Power Corruption and Lies we haven’t done for ages. Thurston from Sonic Youth did a cover of Leave Me Alone I liked and I thought we should try that song again.”
In 2015 New Order released their first new material without Hook, Music: Complete. The acclaimed album reached No. 2 in the UK, however there’s no plans for a follow up as yet.
“We’d have to write it first!,” Morris says. “The trouble with writing albums when you’re past 60 is sitting down and thinking bloody hell I’ve got to write 15 songs, it’s a bit daunting. We have to ease into it, write one song at a time.”
New Order, Hordern Pavilion March 11, Sidney Myer Music Bowl March 14.
