In our early days, no matter how much we insisted to promoters that we were New Order, they’d bill us as Joy Division, ex-Joy Division or ‘used to be Joy Division’. Looking back, you had to feel sorry for our audience: those poor people who had supported Joy Division and then turned up to find that ‘New Order’ were using them as guinea pigs to test our new songs. ‘Challenging them’, we called it at the time.
What followed were our Spinal Tap ‘Jazz Odyssey’ days, with punters looking at each other nonplussed, thinking, What is this? or shouting out for Joy Division songs, or showing their displeasure by launching glasses at our heads.
You couldn’t blame them. They didn’t know the songs because we hadn’t recorded them yet. Plus we were a bit of a liability live in those days. We felt exposed without Ian there, that figurehead to hide behind. The thing was, Joy Division had a perfect balance, the four of us were each fantastic at what we did, but New Order had weak links: Gillian, because she couldn’t play very well; and Barney, who was, shall we say, having trouble adjusting to the frontman role, and whether it was nerves or the first flowerings of a full-on prima-donna personality I couldn’t say, but it made him difficult to be around, smashing stuff up, medicated off his face on Pernod most of the time. It was a big change to his whole persona in Joy Division: cool, quiet and aloof. It was a shock. So we felt a bit wobbly, and while some of the gigs were good, a lot were bloody awful. Our reputation as being a bit hit-or-miss was becoming too well deserved.
On plenty of occasions, fights and mini-riots broke out, especially when it became evident that we were only playing a very short set, twenty to twenty-three minutes. Ironic, eh? They didn’t like the material but wanted more of it. Tossers!
It was a nightmare at first. But we soldiered on, as we always did. One thing you’d have to say about us is that right through our career we were very bloody-minded and stubborn. We believed totally in the music. That it would always prevail. Nothing else mattered. So initially we would carry on as we did in Joy Division. We wouldn’t put singles on the albums, wouldn’t appear on the covers, wouldn’t make videos, wouldn’t do merchandise. We would be evasive, unpredictable and difficult with the media . . . We would stick to our guns, because we were still young and idealistic, and wanted to prove ourselves as a new group. The only problem was, we hadn’t recorded any New Order songs.
Yet amazingly Rob decided to reward us. He phoned me up and said, ‘What you need is a new car.’
‘What?’ said I.
‘A new car, knobhead. I’m going to buy you a new car.’
And he did. Our budget was £5,000 each, which me and Barney broke straight away, both spending £5,012. It was incredible. The world was our oyster. We convened immediately, debating which vehicle to buy. It was so exciting, forgetting about our money problems at home. Me and Barney were rattling off the sports car names, ever practical. Eventually we asked Steve, ‘What car are you going to get, Steve?’
‘A Volvo,’ he said. ‘It’s boring and dependable, like me.’
I opted for an Alfa Romeo Sprint Veloce in black. A beauty. The only problem was the insurance. For some strange reason musicians are treated like lepers when it comes to insurance and still are. It’s never changed. We’re 300 per cent loaded. It always used to amuse me when you went into Salford Van Hire to hire a van and there in huge letters above the desk was warning number one: ‘NO HAWKERS. NO GYPSIES. NO MUSICIANS.’ We moved a lot of furniture for friends, I can tell you.
The first quote, from Cloverleaf Insurance, which specialised in high risks and young drivers, was £5,000 fully comprehensive, a whole £12 less than the car cost to buy.
I remember picking up the car at Bauer Millett on Deansgate. I was beside myself. The salesman took me out to the road. ‘There she is,’ he said, ‘what a beauty!’
But there were two of them. Same model, even the same interior. I was puzzled. Then who should come waltzing round the corner but Barney.
‘Hello,’ he says, smiling away. ‘I’ve bought the same car as you.’ And he had. My registration was NBU 140W and his was NBU 141W. I had a stalker.