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Rob fought this so hard. He hired a musicologist in England to analyse the song. It turns out that musicologists use a scale of twelve notes and if eight of those notes are present in both songs, then the accused, us, is deemed guilty. Which we were. Rob wouldn’t have it, so he then got an American musicologist to analyse it. He said the same. We lost again. John Denver got his per cent cut and a writer’s credit. Warners wanted to take it off the album on any subsequent pressings, but we said no. I still don’t hear it now. Denver died in 1997, shortly after it was eventually settled. God, imagine if we did that with all the tunes that sound like us? We’d make a fortune. Humh . . . there’s a thought.
Peter Hook New Order -
Joy Division finished the 1970s on a high. Our debut album, 'Unknown Pleasures,' was doing well; we'd just finished a hugely enjoyable and successful tour. The band's profile was higher than it had ever been, and it seemed to be growing by the day.
Bernard Sumner New Order
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We've had a problem finding a vocalist. We have not been lucky yet to find the one. I think the problem is that the three of us have such a pedigree of vocalist, that if we come out with someone that's not good we'll obviously be slated!
Peter Hook New Order -
There's a tendency when you write a book to portray yourself as the hero.
Gillian Gilbert New Order -
We were like, ‘Hey, what are you doing!?’ but soon twigged they were trying to give us a proper Japanese welcome by carrying our bags for us. Great. This was the life. Then we looked round and saw Gillian still struggling with hers. Turns out that in this culture they don’t help a woman. We got her a trolley.
Peter Hook New Order -
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.
Peter Hook New Order -
When Joy Division started, I was scared to death of having to get a normal day job.
Bernard Sumner New Order -
Nobody sells records any more, and the only way you can actually do anything is to go out and play live.
Stephen Morris New Order
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We had wanted to use a final sample to finish the twelve-inch track off, “That’s All Folks!” from the Warner Brothers cartoons. But we were quoted $30,000 for one use. And we were on their label. Just shows you . . . no favouritism.
Peter Hook New Order -
I first read about hypnotism at school, and I used to do tricks like getting a really skinny guy to arm wrestle the local bully.
Bernard Sumner New Order -
You reply to a fan, you get a fan for life, Rob would say. I should put that in my rules for a group, really.
Peter Hook New Order -
I never met Morrissey.
Bernard Sumner New Order -
Los Angeles produced the Beach Boys. Dusseldorf produced Kraftwerk. New York produced Chic. Manchester produced Joy Division.
Bernard Sumner New Order -
Movement came out while we were away. The reviews were OK, and though I grew to like it more and more as the years went by, we weren’t especially happy with it at the time. When we listened to the finished product what we heard was the sound of a band whose producer had lost faith. You could hear it. The album had ended up sounding like a Joy Division album with New Order vocals.
Peter Hook New Order
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We really need to understand what's happened and what steps have been taken to rectify problems. In one of those incidents where an outage has occurred, there really needs to be a formal communications strategy put in place. We really need to be kept informed.
Stephen Morris New Order -
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.
Peter Hook New Order -
Before you go thinking I’m some kind of King Canute – it was my stance against programmed music that made our sound the way it was (even if I do say so myself), keeping it a hybrid of rock and dance: the sound of the future. Instead I decided to bury myself in the recording process, becoming the band’s recording engineer.
Peter Hook New Order -
If you choose to take a path in life, don't blame other people for the path you've chosen to take.
Bernard Sumner New Order -
By the time I was leaving school, there were no factories. There was no industry.
Bernard Sumner New Order -
I’ve read his book. I know he says the problem’s me and professes to be bemused by my antipathy towards him, and it’s true that I came out of rehab without that safety valve of drink and drugs, no ‘off’ button. I was more assertive than before. But he was behaving like the life of a rock star was the worst kind of life there was, and in my opinion he was taking it out on the group, the management, the technicians, and now the audience, and there was one person – one, me – who wasn’t prepared to let him get away with it.
Peter Hook New Order
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Nobody is the same. If we were all the same it would be bloody boring.
Peter Hook New Order -
I think people expect mud at festivals, I think you'd be asking for your money back if you didn't get it.
Peter Hook New Order -
I remember that Martin Hannett once had an idea of making a record and burying it in his garden so that one day someone would dig it up, like a time capsule.
Stephen Morris New Order -
It is true that the record company are always thinking of new ways to flog New Order to people.
Stephen Morris New Order