The first time Control came up was way before Anton Corbijn came on board to direct. Two American journalists, Orian Williams and Todd Eckert, old friends of ours, had already bought the rights to Debbie Curtis’s book and were trying to get backers for a film version. We met them in Prestbury at the restaurant Steve and Gillian had their wedding breakfast in. (‘They were horrible to us,’ said Steve.) It was there I suggested that Joy Division or what was left of them should do the incidental music for the film, and later the others had taken up my idea that we give a quarter of the publishing to Natalie, Ian’s daughter, so that the credits on the new songs for the soundtrack would read ‘Curtis, Hook, Morris, Sumner’ again.
When Anton came on board, which of course we were delighted about, him being an old mucker of ours, it felt that now it was bound to happen and that was very exciting. They were having difficulty finding financial backing for the film, and Anton ended up re-mortgaging his house to fund the film to the tune of a million pounds, he believed in the project that much.
Andy Robinson went to meet him to talk about the soundtrack, which was our first mistake, because we all knew Anton and should have sat down with him ourselves. Having it done through an intermediary – especially when that intermediary was Andy, whose track record for passing accurate messages wasn’t exactly unblemished – ended up making things much more difficult. He came back and announced, ‘Anton doesn’t want any drums on the tracks.’ I went off on one.
‘Hang on a minute,’ I told Andy, ‘you’re supposed to be Joy Division and New Order’s manager. Steve is in Joy Division and New Order, and someone has said to you, they don’t want his drums. Andy, what makes Joy Division unique?’
He said, ‘Er, what do you mean?’
I said, ‘It’s the fucking drums, you knob. Why would you agree to not have the fucking drums on? You should have said, “No, Anton, Steve’s drums define Joy Division,” not go stabbing him in the back. Steve, have you seen what this twat’s done? He’s just fucking dumped you from the fucking soundtrack of the film . . .’
I went ape. I probably went too ape. On a scale of ape from Curious George to King Kong, I was scaling the Empire State Building and swiping at passing biplanes. But the fact was that neither a frame of film, nor a note of music had been created. It was obvious that what Anton wanted was a more textured, ambient sound for the soundtrack, but how we achieved that was up to us, not him. He had no right to issue an edict restricting us from using drums – it was like us telling him he had to direct the film with one eye closed – and when the group in question is Joy Division, and the drummer is Steve Morris, famed for his innovative drum playing, it’s just plain daft. Andy should have said, ‘Tell you what, Anton, let them get on with it and see what you think of the results. If you don’t like it, then we’ll talk . . .’ not meekly agree to send Steve home. Not that anybody – including Steve – gave a shit, to be honest. Apart from me.
I have lived with the death of Ian Curtis for over thirty years and I didn’t need anyone to tell me how the music for that particular scene should sound.
It was obvious this film wasn’t called Control for nothing.
In the end what happened was that we wrote the music with drums, me and Steve started it at the Farm and then the tracks went to Bernard at his house where he added the keyboards, then it was mixed. I think they have a prominent Joy Division sound to them. They are very good. They were mixed low in the film, which usually happens. But had we obediently agreed with Anton’s initial decree then we wouldn’t have achieved the sound we did – the sound that everyone was delighted with.
Getting there was another story. Once again there was a difference of opinion as to how we should write. I wanted to jam songs, just as we had in the old days (when, in my opinion, we’d written our best material); Barney wanted to work on ideas alone at home (just as he had been doing in latter years).
Nevertheless, I wasn’t exactly dogmatic about it – I’d long since given up on my cherished vision of us as an actual band, playing together, enjoying each other’s musicianship or company. That was an ideal I’d had to abandon over a decade ago, when out went the practice of a bunch of musicians trying, often failing but just as often succeeding, to catch lightning in a bottle, and in came watching someone piss about on a computer for hours and hours.
However, Andy had somehow given Barney the impression that I was digging in my heels about the jamming issue, even though it simply wasn’t true. I didn’t care how we did it as long as we did it. Barney made some sarky comments about it after the Wolverhampton gig – the last gig of the English leg of the tour – like I was a dinosaur for even suggesting we do things the old way. I drove home and left him to it.
In his book he says I refused to work on it because I was DJing, simply not true . . . kids, prepare yourselves – I swear on your lives that it wasn’t true. Can you imagine Mr Bernard Sumner sitting there and going, ‘Oh, we can’t possibly do anything because Hooky’s not here’? He never fucking noticed half the time when I was there.
Personally I think he was jealous of a leather coat I’d just been given by Gary Aspden at Adidas. I was wearing it that night for the first time and he couldn’t stop looking at it, echoes of the All Saints split. The end result was I felt even more isolated, and the rift widened.
I had a huge phone argument with Andy about all this after the tour. He interrupted the argument to say, ‘I have to go. I’ve got an important meeting about future Joy Division releases.’
‘More important than talking to one of Joy Division?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘You’re sacked,’ said I.
Rebecca said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll manage you on my own.’ By now we had six gigs left to see us out to the end of the tour, but I’d decided I’d had enough. I was sick of having my heart broken. I was sick of trying to play music and being told to turn it down, or having it ruined by whistles and whoops and whinges at the soundman; I was sick of having the touring experience spoiled by someone who by his own frequent admission didn’t want to be there; and I was sick of being dictated to in the studio sessions.
I was just fucking sick of Bernard Sumner. I told Prime I didn’t want to go to Brazil – I’d had enough. As far as I was concerned this group was over. I could see the pain in Rebecca’s eyes. ‘But we’re getting £600,000,’ she said. ‘You can’t not do it.’
Then she announced, ‘Oh, Bernard’s having a year off after these six gigs anyway,’ which in one sense infuriated me, because yet again he was dictating the terms, but in another sense I welcomed because it gave me some breathing space. By now he was definitely managing the band. I’d been talking to Rebecca and Andy and Tom Atencio about wanting the group to split for ages and they all said to give it time, let things cool down a bit, and of course I knew that time is a great healer, and I remember how well we’d got on making Get Ready – so I agreed to go on the tour. This year off afterwards seemed like a light at the end of a long dark tunnel.
At the airport, ready to fly out, he grabbed me by the arm and said, ‘Don’t forget I’m only doing this for you, because you need the money.’ Jesus, I nearly chinned him.
Here we go, another moan. The fucker had kept us waiting so long to agree on the gigs that we’d lost our brilliant foldback guy Gerry to Primal Scream, so we’d got a replacement, a guy called Big Tiny, who we were told was very good. Of course, he wasn’t good enough for our frontman. Cue yelling instructions at him mid-song, time and time again.
Meanwhile in Rio he dealt us another blow. We’d been trying hard to get ‘Jetstream’ to work; he just wasn’t happy with it, and Phil, Steve and I had at last worked out some better parts for it, trying to make it swing more, to make up for Ana Matronic not being there and to make it sound more confident. He listened then dismissed it out of hand. ‘We just won’t play it any more,’ he said. The next day we were delayed at the airport for about six hours. He went mad at Andy, as if it was his fault. We decamped to the business lounge but there he was acting like a spoilt child, kicking the furniture, throwing cushions and complaining he didn’t want to be there.
Phil said, ‘Come on, we’ll go for a walk.’
‘Can’t,’ said our petulant lead singer, ‘the Vikings are down there and they keep bugging me.’
Our staunchest fans, travelling with us all round South America, had earned no goodwill either. He was making such a show of himself that me and Phil sacrificed the comfort of this executive palace for the plastic seats of the departure lounge.
I was DJing after nearly every gig, and was looking forward to that more than playing. Brasilia is a fantastic place and I must admit not pacing the favelas looking for drugs has a lot going for it. I got to see the city. It is Romanesque and beautiful. Them lot were moaning because it always used to be me that sourced the drugs. Left to their own devices they were useless.
I remember at one of my first DJ gigs in Rio we had gone for a meal and my guide was carefully leading me round the streets to avoid the favelas. Jokingly I said, ‘Shall we go in?’
‘No, signor,’ he said. ‘There are only two kinds of people that can go in the favela and survive, the Federales and English road crew.’ At least that made me laugh. It was nice to be appreciated for something.
In Argentina for the last gig we stayed in a beautiful hotel, the ‘F’, and Tom Atencio turned up for a visit. My room was gorgeous and I didn’t want to leave. But Barney demanded we soundcheck in the afternoon. We weren’t due one here. As it was a festival we had to agree to pay for the extra time and men needed, and were given a very strict schedule. After a long hot drive to the site, when we arrived there was no sign of twatto.
‘Where is he?’ I enquired of Andy Robinson.
‘Oh, he’s gone shopping with Tom.’
‘What about the soundcheck?’ I asked. ‘The soundcheck that only he wanted.’
‘Don’t know,’ he said.
Barney eventually turned up five minutes before the end of our allotted time. He was just putting his in-ears in as the stage manager said, ‘Finish now,’ and ushered us all off. I was fuming.
Tom took me to one side, muttering, ‘The traffic, man. The traffic.’
‘Fuck off, Tom.’
I stormed off to a car.
The only bright note was later that evening, when they arrived back at the hotel to party on in the bar round the swimming pool, Phil Cunningham picked up a nearby chair and threw it in the drink – can’t imagine what he’s got against chairs – and, thinking no more of it, got absolutely hammered with the others. As they checked out the next day, dreadfully hungover, he was presented with a $2,000 bill for the chair, which turned out was a limited edition Philippe Starck. That’ll teach him.
You’re terribly unforgiving when you get sober. You can be a bit self-righteous, and want everyone to be like you, right on it. I have to say, I was as guilty as anyone for that. But I was ill with it. I was all torn up by a sense that it shouldn’t be this way. That it didn’t need to be this way. In the bus after the gigs on the way to the hotels, I’d been talking to Steve about it as usual, not expecting much, but there seemed to be a shift in opinion. Steve was agreeing it was too much as well, agreeing it was over.
In São Paulo I had sprayed on my cabs the words, ‘Two boys formed a band.’
Then, second date in São Paulo, ‘It all went wrong.’
Then in Rio. ‘They split.’
And for that last gig in Argentina. ‘The end.’
That was it. My message to the world, my departing words, my cry for help.
No fucker even noticed.
And after the last show in Argentina I was to DJ with Andy Rourke in a marquee on the site. I was feeling very miserable when I arrived. There were only a few people there, a couple of hundred, and the festival held about 115,000.
Ah well, I thought, better get used to this now New Order have split, when suddenly a gate opened on my right and about 10,000 people ran in. Hello, I thought, there is life after death.