{"id":631339,"date":"2026-10-15T11:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T11:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/631339\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T11:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T11:46:10","slug":"peter-hook-on-the-highs-and-lows-of-recording-new-orders-brotherhood-40-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/631339\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Hook on the highs and lows of recording New Order\u2019s ‘Brotherhood,’ 40 years later"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A year before New Order released its megawatt compilation \u201cSubstance,\u201d it was already riding a three-year streak, breaking out with \u201cBlue Monday\u201d in 1983, and the success of albums \u201cPower, Corruption & Lies\u201d (1983) and \u201cLow-Life\u201d (1985). <\/p>\n

By the time \u201cBrotherhood \u201c was released on Sept. 29, 1986, the band had already made its mark in the U.S. and on the soundtrack of John Hughes\u2019 \u201cPretty in Pink\u201d with \u201cShellshock\u201d (the band\u2019s instrumentals \u201cElegia\u201d and \u201cThieves Like Us\u201d were also featured in the film).<\/p>\n

\u201cBrotherhood\u201d also marked an evident divide within the band, one that ended up splitting the album in two: The first side was more guitar-driven, derivative of the band\u2019s Joy Division roots, and the second, sequencer-led electronic side, was something the band had begun dipping into by 1982.<\/p>\n

Produced by New Order\u2019s vocalist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook, drummer Stephen Morris and keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, alongside engineer Michael Johnson, the first part of \u201cBrotherhood\u201d was recorded at Windmill Lane in Dublin, and the second was completed at Jam Studios in London. Once released, \u201cBrotherhood\u201d also delivered another hit that saturated American dance floors, \u201cBizarre Love Triangle.\u201d<\/p>\n

In between touring with his band Peter Hook & the Light, the bassist reflected on New Order and Joy Division\u2019s upcoming induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the making of \u201cBrotherhood,\u201d and the experience of revisiting its two halves, live, again.<\/p>\n

While celebrating the 25th anniversary of New Order\u2019s \u201cGet Ready\u201d on tour (with Hook and the Light), the band\u2019s \u201cBrotherhood\u201d also turned 40. As the years pass, does it feel like there\u2019s a different anniversary at every turn?<\/p>\n

Hook: When you start looking at how many bloody anniversaries there are, that\u2019s where the algorithm on the internet has the ability to make you feel very old. I was 8 when that [\u201cBrotherhood\u201d] came out, by the way. [Laughs.] The interesting thing about \u201cBrotherhood\u201d is that I got to play it again in its entirety. I must admit, the whole LP was a delight to play. There were a lot of songs on \u201cBrotherhood\u201d that we never played live, so fans got to experience it.<\/p>\n

\"Bass <\/p>\n

Forty years after New Order\u2019s \u201cBrotherhood,\u201d Hook recalls an album split between guitar-driven songs and electronic tracks as tensions within the band deepened.<\/p>\n

(Mark McNulty)<\/p>\n

Side A was the more guitar-driven tracks, and B had the synthier stuff. Sonically, how did \u201cBrotherhood\u201d end up splitting in two?<\/p>\n

We weren\u2019t getting on. Does that surprise you? [Laughs.] There was an acoustic side and electronic side. The A side was written with the three of us jamming, and then turning it into songs. We sort of got in a rut. Barney (Bernard Sumner) was getting very disenchanted with jamming for some reason, and most of our songs were written by me, Barney, and Steve jamming.<\/p>\n

The B side was done primarily by Barney on his own with the sequencers. And the trouble with doing anything on your own is that when some gnarly bearded bugger turns up holding a bass guitar, you\u2019re like, \u201cHang on a minute, it sounded great before. Do you have to play on it?\u201d I\u2019m in the … group. Of course, I have to play on it. So it became a bit of an us-and-them, if you like.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the reason why there were two sides. There was the acoustic side to make me happy and maybe make Steve (Stephen Morris) happy. God knows what Steve was thinking \u2014 never told you. Barney was happy because all the synth songs were together on the other side.<\/p>\n

Since the Joy Division days, graphic designer Peter Saville has always worked on the band\u2019s album covers. What inspired the sheet of metal on \u201cBrotherhood\u201d?<\/p>\n

The sleeve on \u201cBrotherhood,\u201d that was the weird one, wasn\u2019t it, the piece of aluminum? Because we weren\u2019t getting on, we couldn\u2019t be bothered talking to Pete Saville, and he actually spotted a piece of metal in a builder\u2019s yard. (Saville used a piece of titanium\u2013zinc alloy for the cover, and early vinyl releases also featured a metallic sleeve.) He just decided to use it as the sleeve, and we were like, \u201cYeah, whatever, mate.\u201d<\/p>\n

New Order album titles often came from a collaboration of found phrases among the band \u2014 \u201cPower, Corruption & Lies\u201d (1983) was pulled from the back cover blurb of George Orwell\u2019s \u201cAnimal Farm.\u201d With all the divisiveness within the band at the time, how did you land on \u201cBrotherhood\u201d?<\/p>\n

It belies the title. \u201cBrotherhood\u201d came from a book I was reading at the time. I used to do a lot of reading in the studio. Funnily enough, \u201cLow-Life\u201d (1985), we got off a television interview with a very famous journalist who drank himself to death. (During the 1970s and 1980s, British journalist Jeffrey Bernard wrote a weekly column called \u201cLow Life\u201d for the Spectator\u201d magazine.) We heard the quote, \u201cI\u2019m one of the few people who live what\u2019s called the low-life,\u201d and thought, \u201cHang on a minute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Take me back to making the first half of \u201cBrotherhood\u201d at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin. <\/p>\n

Dublin was great. It was great to be at Windmill Lane, and we were there for quite a while. Dublin was rocking at that time. We had a lot of after-hours bars and clubs, but their only criteria was that they couldn\u2019t serve beer; you could get wine and pre-mixed cocktails. I do remember one wonderful club which was called the Pink Elephant.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d finish recording, and then used our notoriety, shall we say, to get into the Pink Elephant. It was quite handy that these clubs were open till 4 a.m. because we wouldn\u2019t be starting work till 12. When you\u2019ve not stopped fighting for 15 years after you split, it\u2019s hard to remember what the hell you were arguing about at that point, but I do remember the house we were staying in was in a very famous place called the Devil\u2019s something (a farmhouse located near the Hellfire Club atop Montpelier Hill in the Dublin Mountains before the band relocated to Blake\u2019s Hotel in the city).<\/p>\n

It was amazing that we got [the album] done at all. I suppose that was the start of a big division in the band. It\u2019s weird. It brings back bad memories in a way, but Dublin was fantastic. We had some wonderful nights there.<\/p>\n

\"Bassist <\/p>\n

\u201cMy battle with the other members of New Order has been ongoing,\u201d Hook said. \u201cBut whenever we play an album, it really is like bringing your soldiers home.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Timothy Norris)<\/p>\n

Over the years, you\u2019ve said that you grew to love the second side of \u201cBrotherhood\u201d more. Did it come alive for you more during the live shows with the Light?<\/p>\n

When I think of the cloud that hangs over each album, when I play it [live] again, a lot of the time, I\u2019m like, \u201cOh, I like \u2018Brotherhood\u2019 as an album. I like \u2018Low-Life,\u2019 \u2018Power, Corruption & Lies.\u2019 I like \u2018Movement\u2019 for all its problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

My battle with the other members of New Order has been ongoing, at full tilt for almost 15 years, and shows no signs of abating. The thing is, I do feel very alone sometimes in it, but whenever we play an album, it really is like bringing your soldiers home. When I listened to it again, the first side had a lot of life in it. Even though New Order never felt like an army going in the right direction, we had a knack, with [engineer] Mike Johnson, for being able to pull things together and get the record finished. And we got [\u201cBrotherhood\u201d] done. It was a great record. It really was. <\/p>\n

Are there any specific \u201cBrotherhood\u201d tracks you\u2019ve reconnected with now?<\/p>\n

I loved the bass on \u201cAll Day Long,\u201d and \u201cEvery Little Counts\u201d is another one of my favorites. You know when he [Sumner] laughs after \u201cI think you are a pig \/ You should be in a zoo,\u201d I do remember that debate in the studio about whether we left it in or not. It was interesting. Some people like it and some people hate it. The thing I felt that most people remembered about the song was the laugh. I didn\u2019t know whether it spoiled the atmosphere of the song or whether it made it less dreamy. When we play it, we actually do it without the laugh. Translating the songs is such a pleasure, and we have to redo all the synthesizers, but to re-create them from the bottom up is actually quite exciting.<\/p>\n

All rifts aside, congratulations on the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction.<\/p>\n

I did ask for a boxing ring, so we\u2019ll see. [Laughs.] I am really looking forward to it, and I must thank our fans for their tenacity in making sure [we got in]. God bless them, and I will be dedicating everything to them on the night, because one thing I do know for a fact is that without them, we\u2019d all be nothing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A year before New Order released its megawatt compilation \u201cSubstance,\u201d it was already riding a three-year streak, breaking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[695,23930,144744,236296,3562,29872,156,309420,4462,157,202330,111,139,69,202331,9615,10112,8628,2044,379],"class_list":["post-631339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-album","tag-band","tag-barney","tag-brotherhood","tag-corruption","tag-dublin","tag-entertainment","tag-interesting-thing","tag-lot","tag-music","tag-new-order","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-peter-hook","tag-piece","tag-power","tag-song","tag-time","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}