It’s Sunday night in Glasgow’s Barrowland. The place is mobbed, but not mobbed with the usual Barrowland crowd. This lot are a bit older, a bit thinner on top, a bit weightier round the waists. But they’re more excited than the usual crowd of students and teens ever get — they’re here to see a band who they’ve grown up with, a band who were written off as finished eight years ago. As good as seminal New York DJ Arthur Baker is, the crowd are getting restless, then Arthur cuts the Beach Boys into a pounding techno track and an MC appears to announce the main act. The crowd go wild, and then there they are. New Order are back — and as they plough into the opening chords of ‘Crystal’ everyone in the Barrowland wonders how they managed without them… New Order have been around in some shape or form for the best part of 24 years, starting life back in 1977 when school friends Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Bernard Sumner formed the band Warsaw. But it wasn’t until a couple of years later when the band name had been changed to Joy Division that they really started to attract some attention. Tracks like ‘She’s Lost Control’ and ‘Transmission’ and their debut album ‘Unknown Pleasures’ earned them fans worldwide — but it couldn’t last. Just as they were about to break America, singer/songwriter Ian Curtis died. He was found hanged in his Manchester home in May 1980, the day before they were due to leave for their first tour of the States. While other bands might have given up there and then, this lot didn’t. Hook, Morris and Sumner made the decision to carry on, recruiting drummer Morris’s girlfriend Gillian Gilbert to the band to play keyboards. The problem was deciding who would take over from Ian Curtis — no one was keen, but guitarist Sumner reluctantly took the job. Ian had left the band a handful of unfinished songs, so using demo recordings as templates, New Order released their first single ‘Ceremony’ — penned by Ian Curtis — in March 1981. At this time, New Order still sounded pretty much like Joy Division — the tracks were moody and brooding, still led by Peter Hook’s upfront basslines. When they changed direction with the more disco-fuelled ‘Temptation’, the whole New Order story changed too. They started to collaborate with some of the most influential figures in the music industry; they built the legendary Manchester nightclub the Haçienda, and then watched it collapse into debt; they saw their label Factory grow on the strength of their releases only for it to struggle with financial problems and follow the same path as the Haçienda; and they eventually saw their own friendships collapse as the outside pressures got too much for them. By the time they recorded the 1993 album ‘Republic’, they were barely speaking. A split seemed inevitable. Money Troubles And Bad Chicken "What basically got us back together again was that our manager Rob Gretton was so sick of fielding questions about what we were doing," says Peter Hook. It’s the day after their Glasgow gig and the band in are good spirits, enjoying a lunchtime drink. Last night was a real success, every track sounding fresh — even the Joy Division songs — and every lyric shouted back to them by the thousand or so dancing fans. And New Order seemed to enjoy every second of their return to the Barrowland, even going so far as to play an encore — something that would never have happened in the old days. There’s no sign of tension between any of them, so it’s hard to imagine how it all went so wrong and why New Order regrouping had seemed so unbelievable. "I thought we were finished," says Bernard. "I didn’t see any way back. Luckily I was wrong. The fact that we never thought we’d get back together again showed us what we had and cleared the animosity between us." "Rob sort of demanded that we get together," continues Hooky over his Bloody Mary. "He lived and breathed New Order and never wanted anything apart from it — he always said to us, ‘If you put as much bloody effort into New Order as you do your solo projects, you’d be fucking bigger than U2.’ And I suppose in some ways he was right. He was very frustrated by it all, so he got us together in a meeting. "So he got us all together again and lo and behold, it was like going home at Christmas. You’re terrified before you go, but when you get there it’s fine. Because all the business stuff and the Haçienda had been sorted out, we found that a lot of the anger we had inside ourselves about each other seemed a bit misguided. By being away for so long, you realise that it wasn’t the people that were to blame for our unhappiness — it was more to do with Factory and the Haçienda. "The music side of it — the New Order side — was the simplest part. We used to make music when we wanted to, we’d gig when we wanted to and we used to enjoy and feel like we were getting something from it. With Factory and the Haçienda, we just didn’t feel that we were getting anywhere. We were losing all our money on all those shit bands at Factory and losing money at the Haçienda through bad management. They weren’t cut out to be bar owners." "They should have stuck to TV," says Stephen. "It was like being one of those hamsters on a treadmill — you should have been getting somewhere, but you weren’t." "It all came to a head with ‘Republic’," says Hooky. "We were so pissed off with each other because we’d been together so long and there’d been problem after problem. On top of that, we were having crisis meetings about the Haçienda twice a week while we were trying to record an album. That’s not exactly a great environment to write in — and because we weren’t getting on anyway, we weren’t writing very quickly. We were out drowning our sorrows in all types of ways which meant a lot of the time, we weren’t able to work because we were completely twatted — not that we were particularly willing to work anyway. What happened was that if there was nobody in the studio you’d go in for a bit and as soon as someone else turned up, you’d run off. It was awful. And Factory were trying to rush us to do the LP because they needed money." "I thought there was definitely something wrong when the quality of the chicken at the studio started dropping off," adds Stephen. "We were gradually getting less and less chicken when we were in recording — I think it was their way of telling us. I find it really hard to listen to ‘Republic’ now because it brings back all the bad memories of recording it." Rocking The Shed When the band did finally get back together in 1998, few would have believed they’d return to the studio to record another album. But ‘Get Ready’ is up there with the best of their back catalogue, filled with catchy vocals and tunes you can’t get out of your head.

"I think the album as a whole was recorded much more confidently," says Hooky. "By going off, working on your own and breaking the New Order mould, it’s made us — or at least me — a little bit more confident. You know you’re going to get somewhere now, whereas on ‘Republic’…

"We didn’t want to rush ‘Get Ready’, so we spent a lot of time before recording just jamming. That was the thing about being apart for so long — it made us appreciate that the strength of New Order was in the playing together. Once we started playing together again, we found that the chemistry was still there and it felt like we were moving on." "And the response to it has all been really good," adds Stephen. "Not a bad word." "There was one, though, which was talking about ‘Rock The Shack’," says Hooky. "It said, ‘Rock the shack? This lot couldn’t even rock a shed.’ When you get such glowing reviews at the start, it’s actually quite nice to get one where somebody takes the piss." ‘Rock The Shack’ is just one of the collaborations on ‘Get Ready’, recorded with Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream. The other is ‘Vicious Streak’ recorded with Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins. "There was no real thinking behind the collaborations," says Hooky. "With Billy, it was just the fact that Bernard had been listening to Smashing Pumpkins and really liked his voice. I’ve known Billy for years, so when Barney mentioned it, I said, ‘Well I’ll give him a ring if you want.’ So I phoned him and he said he’d be delighted to do it. He’s a huge New Order fan anyway. I met him when he was 15 — he came to meet us when we were doing a Joy Division gig in Chicago. He told me he was thinking of forming a band and that was Smashing Pumpkins. "It’s the same with Bobby — we’ve known him for years, and he asked Bernard to play on their last album ‘Xtrmntr’, so it seemed quite natural for him to play on ‘Get Ready’. I think it’s quite nice because it’s like they’re admitting that we’ve been a big influence on them and that they’ve taken things off us. Even Mani [Primal Scream’s guitarist] was shouting off stage at me at their gig at the Apollo. ‘Spot this one, Hooky! Here’s another one, Hooky!’ It’s obviously quite tongue in cheek, but it is quite nice to take something back off them. If we get Robert Smith we’ll be rocking." With the album in the shops, New Order went on to shock their fans again. They announced a tour. The band notoriously hate touring, refusing to play encores and keeping their sets down to an hour. This time round, they’ve been playing for up to two hours, playing encores and including Joy Division songs. What’s changed? "When Ian died we dropped all our old music and basically started again," says Bernard. "It was a brave thing to do — or maybe it was stupid. But now we figure we put all that work into writing those songs, why not play them?" "I’m sick of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, but because the audience were so up for it last night, you look at them all chanting and singing and it’s not so bad," says Hooky. "We’ve so many songs to chose from now, but we didn’t argue about what to play. "There’s just so many of them with the new album, the old stuff and then all the Joy Division tracks," adds Stephen. "The difficult thing’s trying to see how best to put them all together — we could have just gone ahead and done a slow set." "It’s the amount of practising though, isn’t it?" adds Hooky. "These are the longest sets we’ve ever played — when we played in Manchester we played 19 tracks. When we did the ‘Republic’ dates, me and Steve only practised with Gillian about five times and I think Bernard only turned up twice. So we went on this huge tour and hadn’t even practised which makes you really nervous. With this one, we’ve practised our fucking balls off so you know that you can play all the songs — which is quite calming and it makes you quite confident. And it’s an album we’re really happy with so we’re all on a bit of a high. "I don’t like touring that much," adds Bernard. "I prefer being in the studio. It’s more creative." "It’s not the playing we don’t like though," says Stephen. "It’s all the crap that comes with it. It’d be alright if you could nip home." Life On Film With the tour finished, New Order are now back in the studio working on another collaboration, this time with the Chemical Brothers for their new album. Before then, though, there’s the small matter of finding themselves on celluloid when 24 Hour Party People hits our cinemas next year. The story of the rise and fall of Factory Records, the film focuses on the careers of Joy Division/New Order and label boss Tony Wilson, the man so often vilified for his part in the label’s demise. The cast includes Steve Coogan as Wilson, John Simm as Bernard Sumner and Ralf Little as Peter Hook — how do the band feel about becoming movie characters?

"It’s never going to be 100 per cent accurate," says Stephen. "In a way, it’s got to be slightly warped to work as a film. It just depends how they do it. I’m quite looking forward to it, though. I haven’t seen a film for a bit… not since Rocky and Bullwinkle."

"We did help them out and we advised them on the script," says Hooky. "And we’ve lent them a load of props from the Haçienda, so we have been involved with it. And my best friend’s firm has done the catering for it — he keeps bringing them round to my house. The most interesting thing to me will be to see what they get wrong. I was there, so I don’t want to see a documentary on it, I’d rather see someone else’s take on it." The strangest thing, though, was the night the Haçienda was rebuilt for filming. The film company threw a party in the replica nightclub and the band were a bit taken aback by the whole night. "Steve didn’t go because he thought they wouldn’t let him in again like they used to at the original," says Hooky. "‘I’m the drummer out of New Order.’ ‘Yeah, you and thousands of others. Piss off!’ It was really weird though because about three weeks before that, I’d started the bulldozers to knock down the original. Then I’m in a completely rebuilt Haçienda that cost more to build than the original one." "I’d just like to say it didn’t cost more than the original in the end," adds Stephen. "At the start it did, but when you count in inflation and everything…" "It was a perfect replica apart from certain edges were bigger," says Hooky. "The little bits they got wrong made it seem like you were in a dream. I walked about for an hour just looking round. It was mind-boggling. And all the people in Manchester who used to go to the Haçienda — all our friends — knew about it and made sure they got in, so when you were walking round it was like New Year’s Eve because you knew everyone there. It was the most bizarre moment of my life. "The strangest thing of all was when I went up to Barney after a few sherbets and said, ‘This is unbelievable. The only thing that’s missing is Rob Gretton.’ And he tapped me on the arm and went ‘Look!’, and there was Rob with his glasses on, or at least the actor playing him. Then Ian Curtis walked past — he looked at me and ran off… three times. He had the same mac on, the same badge and the same shirt and he really fucking looked like him. Tony said that when he does Ian he’s fucking unbelievable. He watched him recording and said it was the scariest thing in his life." If you were ever in any doubt that New Order were the stuff of legends, 24 Hour Party People should help to convince you. The band have always known they were on to something good with New Order — that’s why they’re back, and hopefully they’ll stay around for a bit longer. As Bernard himself says: "Right from the start there was something special about this band, something — and I sound like a right wanker here — spiritual. I think we’d be stupid to throw that away."

‘Get Ready’ is out now on London. 24 Hour Party People is currently due to go on general release in February.

© Copyright 2001 Schuh Limited. All rights reserved.