In the first part of our interview with Peter Hook, we talk Joy Division, New Order, Ian Curtis, The Hacienda and much more.

SLAMXHYPE / 2013 seems to have gotten off to a great start for you Hooky. What have you been up to?

PETER HOOK / Well you’re right in a way, 2012 doesn’t seem to have stopped at all. Last year was really busy with the Hacienda 30th Anniversary celebrations, lots of touring with The Light, the publication of the Joy Division book, and DJing all over the place. Then at the start of this year we went straight into rehearsing and performing Movement and Power, Corruption & Lies for debut gigs in London and Manchester in mid-January, then a week in France for the book publication over there, followed by a two week book tour of the States. I also had the NME Awards in February, where the book was nominated for an award. I like to keep busy, but it has been very hectic. I will be touring Europe in March and April before heading over to Japan to play the Hacienda Festival at the end of April, which I’m looking forward to very much.

SLAMXHYPE / We heard great reports from your gigs at KOKO and Manchester Cathedral. How were the gigs for you, and how did it feel playing Power, Corruption & Lies and Movement for the first time in so many years?

PETER HOOK / We played our New Order set for the first time in January and I must say it was fantastic. The lads in the band did a great job and put so much hard work into doing all of the songs justice, like they did with the Joy Division material. It does feel like having the songs back, and it was a great feeling to play those two albums again as there are a lot of songs on them which were ignored in the later years of New Order, like ICB, We All Stand or Leave Me Alone – and there are also a lot of forgotten B-sides which are great too, like Hurt, Cries and Whispers. I was so nervous before the gigs but the reactions were fantastic, both from fans and reviewers alike. We sounded great so it’s given me a lot of confidence for the future gigs, bring em’ on.

SLAMXHYPE / You’ve always said that you wanted to play Joy Division’s back catalogue, live, in full. That’s something that you have now achieved with your band The Light. Why was that so important to you, and does it bring some kind of closure now that it’s done?

PETER HOOK / I wanted to do it because I did not like the fact that the music had been locked away and ignored for so long, put on the shelf if you like. The songs are too special to just be left behind, so it has been great to rediscover them. The songs also reach out to a new generation of younger fans all the time who never got the chance to hear them live, so I hope that I can help with that situation a little bit. Okay it is not Joy Division and I have never said it was, unlike New Order calling themselves New Order, but it is nice when fans say “thank you” to us for helping them hear the songs in the live format. The band I put together have been truly fantastic and always put the effort in, they are very, very respectful to the influence of the songs and the attachment people all over the world have to them.

SLAMXHYPE / You must be reminded constantly of the influence Joy Division, and later New Order, has had on music, as well as so many peoples’ lives, but how does that feel and is it something you’ll ever get used to?

PETER HOOK / It is a nice compliment really to all of us in Joy Division and New Order that people say we are an influence, and it is nice to hear other bands saying nice things about us and being inspired by our work. To me, that is what it is all about, inspiring people just like I was inspired by punk and then the people I worked with in the bands, Factory and by Manchester as a whole.

SLAMXHYPE /  You recently released your second book, Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division. It must have stirred up a lot emotions, good and bad, happy and sad, re-calling all those memories…

PETER HOOK / Well writing is a hard process, and dragging it all out it was, as they say, emotional, but I am sort of used to that now. It wasn’t particularly just Ian Curtis either, it was more the tough time that I’m having with the other members of New Order at the moment, which was unsettling and confusing. I’m more used to the stuff about Ian than I was with the others.

SLAMXHYPE /  Do you have a stand-out memory of Ian, who ultimately was a best mate of yours?

PETER HOOK / There’s far too many and I did try to do him justice in the book. I suppose it’s unavoidable that everyone has concentrated on Ian’s depiction in the book but really it is a story about all of us, but I suppose that the cult and mystique that surrounds Ian overpowers the truth sometimes because of the impact of his short life and untimely end.

I always felt that we went through some very, very funny happenings and Ian was always a part of it. He was never separate; he was never locked in his own dressing room with an “I do not want to be disturbed” sign on the door. There was that aspect to his character, but he was always part of the… jollity, I suppose you have to put it. He wasn’t separate. I think one side of him has been much characterized and the other side hasn’t – and that’s the bit I lived with him and wanted to portray.

SLAMXHYPE / The Hacienda… the club which was famously ‘paid for by New Order’… do you have any regrets at all about being involved in The Hacienda and losing so much money?!

PETER HOOK / None whatsoever, I wouldn’t change anything although I think certain people might not agree. I had some fantastic times there and had some of the scariest nights of my life there as well. I was out with all the bouncers the other week and they were are laughing about it with me and I think that shows how far we’ve come with it all. Doing the Hacienda book really helped me, it reminded me that there were great times within the disaster and it did change the world. It provided me, and I hope other people who read it, with some perspective- that the Hacienda was never a failure, in many ways it was a huge success, keeping it open for fifteen years certainly was.

For me, there’s nowhere nowadays that seems to have that blend of idealism and creativity with no boundaries, lacking any sense of financial considerations or consequences that The Hacienda had and that is a huge part of the legacy and the respect for The Hacienda. The fact that we did it and lost a fortune gives it a certain edge in music history, and I’m very proud of that.

SLAMXHYPE / Is there any particular gig, party or event that you can personally define as the ‘beginning’ of Madchester?

PETER HOOK / Not really, it’s very hard to pinpoint a particular event as it was growing throughout the eighties and especially from 1986 onwards. In many ways it came out of all the musicians enjoying the acid house nights, so that collective of wanting to draw those influences into your own music and what was around you. That’s what happened with a lot of bands; us, Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses. There were so many memorable and special nights that stand out, especially the Northern House Revue in 1987, which was the first time Graeme Park came to The Hacienda, and the Chicago party, where artists like Adonis played for the first time outside the US. Also Hot, where Mike Pickering and Jon DaSilva properly introduced acid house to the club.

There were many, many nights, and the one that always gets talked about is when New Order headlined G-Mex in Manchester with Happy Mondays and A Certain Ratio in December 1988. Bummed had just come out, the Mondays’ second album, and it was a sensational gig – we had an afterparty called Disorder beneath The Hacienda which has passed into legend. I didn’t even get to go to that in the end because Iris, my first partner, dragged me away. You know we earned ten thousand and seven pounds at GMEX and Disorder cost ten thousand pound… so we made seven quid on GMEX! Fucking Rob Gretton man, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry!

That was one of ours, but in truth the great nights and gigs came in quick succession from 86 onwards, it just got bigger and bigger. After that concert, The Roses played The Hacienda in February 89 before they released the album, and then The Mondays went onto headline G-Mex on their own. It really had momentum though following on from 88.

Peter Hook will be playing at The Hacienda Oiso Festival 2013 on April 28, while  you can check out the second part of our interview with Peter Hook in the coming days.

New Zealand Landscapes Timelapse Volume Two from Bevan Percival on Vimeo.

This timelapse features the work of Bevan Percival as it represents hours and hours of dedication to the art. Driven by chasing fleeting moments of damatic light on beautiful landscapes and also capturing the night sky and milky way in all it’s glory is a real buzz. Doing this sort of thing has bought Percival closer and closer to the wilderness, enticing him to keep coming back for more. Shot at 25 frames per second, the video perfectly catches the contrast of changing weather patterns interacting with timeless landscapes in Tongariro National Park.

On Wednesday, the Tribeca Film Festival will open with “Mistaken for Strangers,” a documentary surround the touring life of The National through the eyes of frontman Matt’s brother, Tom Berninger. In what Tom calls a “self-mockumentary,” the film is surprisingly lighthearted for such a ‘serious’ band like The National, and is just about Tom’s journey as it is a behind-the-scenes look of a heavily touring band. The National’s new album, Trouble Will Find Me, will be out May 21st.

In the second part of our interview with Peter Hook, we get up to speed and talk FAC 251, new music, Japan’s Hacienda Festival and Hooky’s top 3 Hacienda tracks!

MIKE BURNS / Looking to the future, do you plan to perform more New Order album gigs with The Light?

PETER HOOK / Yes definitely, we’re just planning it out for the year. We had some shows in Europe playing the Joy Division albums in March, and we’re continuing them though April. From Summer onwards we are looking to tour the New Order set and we are hoping to take it all over the world like we did with Unknown Pleasures and Closer. Reactions have been great so far and I’m really looking forward to it.

MIKE BURNS / You opened your own club in 2010, Factory 251, in the building in Manchester that homed the Factory Records offices. How’s that all going, and what are you hoping to achieve with it?

PETER HOOK / Well the clubs going very well really, it has a young crowd, a very varied music policy and some good nights. The thing was the building was going to be demolished and replaced by a hotel, so my partner Aaron Mellor stepped in and saved it. We have a lot of young bands playing there and some great staff, so really it’s about keeping the culture going for new audiences and people. I’m very happy about that and hope that it gives some of the bands and DJs a bit of a leg up.

MIKE BURNS / Through owning the club and regularly DJing there you must get to see a lot of new acts coming up. Who or what can we expect to be big in terms of new music? Is there still a lot of good stuff coming out of Manchester?

PETER HOOK / Manchester continues to pour out great music and always will do. I don’t always get out to see many new acts sadly, largely because of touring commitments, but I do keep an eye on what’s coming through. There are so many great bands in Manchester, from the current big names like Elbow, Delphic and the revived bands like The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, as well as a crop of new names like Everything Everything, Slow Readers Club, Shines and Modern Blonde. Also the bands that are on our Hacienda Records label, like Humanizer, Detachments and the wonderful Super White Assassin.

MIKE BURNS / You must have been to Japan so many times throughout your career, and you currently have a have a big hand in The Hacienda club events in Tokyo, and of course the brilliant Oiso Hacienda Festival. What connects you so tightly to Japan?

PETER HOOK / Japan has always been very good to us as a band and the Japanese have always been very enthusiastic supporters of The Hacienda and what it stands for. The Hacienda team in Japan have always been great to work with, and they really have a lot of respect and care for the brand and how it is represented. Japan was one of the first countries to translate The Hacienda book, and last year’s Hacienda 30 compilation did very well in Japan on import, which made me very happy.

As New Order, we have always had a fantastic time in Japan and we’ve always been treated wonderfully. By the time we got to Japan on tour we always seemed bigger than we were anywhere else – at our age, to be chased by screaming young girls running down the street was quite a treat in truth.

MIKE BURNS / How was the Hacienda Festival for you last year?

PETER HOOK / It was great, I really enjoyed it. We played both Joy Division albums across the weekend and the audiences were brilliant. The site is a wonderful place to hold a festival, and the team did a great job in putting it all together for everyone to enjoy. I really liked seeing The Charlatans play last year as well, and the whole atmosphere of the festival was lovely. I am sure it will be even better this year. I am not bringing the band this year but I am going to be DJing. I’m still excited to see the Happy Mondays play in the live arena along with 808 State and the DJ line-up, with the likes of John Digweed and James Zabiela, is great! I’m sure it will even surpass last year.

MIKE BURNS / So it’s safe to say you’re looking forward to it?

PETER HOOK / I always look forward to DJing as I do really enjoy it. It is quite a pressure, but I’ve always relished that whether playing live, doing talks or whatever. I’ve got more used to it and more experienced at DJing. I have been doing it over a decade now, I find I can read a crowd better and act more intuitively, and I always look to combine a great mix of material in my sets, whether remixes, new tunes or classics, I often get compliments on the variety of music I play in my sets which is very pleasing.

MIKE BURNS / As you can see from the line-up, it’s a fantastic tribute to the original Hacienda with the likes of Happy Mondays, John Digweed and 808 State all appearing, as well as the more recent crop of huge dance acts like Digitalism and Afrojack. You must be over the moon about such a line-up…

PETER HOOK / Yes, it’s great to see a renewal of The Hacienda with old and new talent. Obviously I’m old mates with The Mondays and 808 State, so it’s great to have them over. I’m also very fond of John Digweed who played some early gigs at The Hacienda back at the start of the nineties. I have always really liked Digitalism and have name checked them a lot of times in interviews. Usually at festivals, you’re in and out for your set, but here I’ll be around for both days so I’ll be able to get to see a few acts so I’m really looking forward to it.

MIKE BURNS / Have you played alongside or seen Happy Mondays since their full reincarnation? I’m guessing we’re in for a real treat…?

PETER HOOK / Yes, they’ve been doing very well since they came back out with the original line up and have been all over the world again. As I was touring last year when they were out playing live it took me a while to see them, but I was in Mallorca when they did Mallorca Rocks last September and had a great night. It’s definitely the best The Mondays have been sounding to me for twenty years and they still have great presence on stage, especially with Rowetta who brings a lot to it as well. They have so many great, defining records so I’m sure that it will be sensational.

MIKE BURNS / How do you think the likes of Tony Wilson and Rob Gretton would feel about the Hacienda Festival in Japan? It must make you very proud to see something that you started in Manchester 30 years ago now influencing so many people of all generations in Japan!

PETER HOOK / I am very proud actually. I was thinking the other day that if the others in New Order had their way we would have stopped the whole thing, and it’s hard to decide whether that’s a good thing. Letting it just die off in history, or to do the things we have done with it- to keep the history and legacy going and keep it in the forefront of people’s minds, which was the best way. Overall the reactions we’ve had and the success of the clubs and media reaffirms my faith in what we’ve done.

I don’t know what Tony and Rob would think, I wish I would, I would like to think that Rob would be delighted as The Hacienda was his life and he was so distraught when it went down, that anything that would have revived it would have been welcome to him. He died so soon after in 1999, two years after the club closed, I never really got to know what he would have thought about it after he’d had some time to reflect, he was too in the middle of it to find any perspective after the club closed.

MIKE BURNS / What is your personal soundtrack to The Hacienda… 3 songs that define it all for you?

PETER HOOK / There are so, so many but I’ve always loved anthems, so three songs that define The Hacienda for me are…

1- The Source ft. Candi Staton – You Got The Love. It never fails to put the hairs on the back of my neck on end when I hear it.

2- Joe Smooth – Promised Land. Another one that puts the hairs on the back of my neck on end, a real classic on which the production is fantastic.

3- Humanoid – Stakker Humanoid As for a more techno or rave track, this has always impressed me for its use of texture and a much harder sound.

MIKE BURNS / Finally, any message to your fans in Japan?

PETER HOOK / I’m really looking forward to seeing them all and it will be a really enjoyable trip. I remember jogging barefoot down the beach last year which was amazing, with the waves lapping at my feet, and meeting so many good natured people saying “hello”… it was great! I’m sure this year will be even better!

For readers in Japan, make sure you make it to The Hacienda Oiso Festival 2013 on April 28 to see Peter Hook live.