A few days after Mani's Twitter outburst and subsequent apology, Cerysmatic Factory caught up with Peter Hook in the heart of that London's Soho to get the latest.

On Mani

He's paying for it now and he was very upset about it. He apologised immediately and like I said to him, it's forgotten, it's over. As far as I'm concerned, me and him are fine. Unfortunately with the power of the internet it fucking lasts forever! Anyway, I am happy and he's happy. And we're back to normal and that's it.

On The Light and Freebass

You know what happened, which was really weird, was that The Light and Freebass both came to fruition at the same time. The Joy Division thing started because Macclesfield were gonna do that celebration thing in May. We were gonna do a gig at Macclesfield Town Football Club and they wanted me to help organise it with Steve (Morris) and to get people to sing Joy Division songs with a backing band to celebrate Ian's life. And I thought it really was well overdue because Macclesfield had studiously ignored Ian.

We went for a few meetings, not together, but we went for a few meetings and it was coming along quite well. And then they didn't get the money they wanted, and I thought it was an exorbitant amount of money, and it fell off. I thought the saddest thing in the world was that as New Order we never celebrated anything to do with New Order, 30 years, 25, 20, 10, 1, 6 months, nothing, we never celebrated it and I thought it was well overdue.

On playing Unknown Pleasures

Because I've got The Factory and because I did the opening night and then I read an article by Bobby Gillespie talking about Screamadelica, and I thought "Ding!" I'll do Unknown Pleasures and I'll get the vocalist who stood in for Ian at Bury to sing it. I'll play bass, purely selfishly and we'll have a great time. Alan Hempsall didn't wanna do it. I think he was a bit wary of the internet criticism and Simon Topping was too nervous. He was really nervous. He said "I'll do Transmission but I'm not doing any more". I never thought Simon would be nervous.

So anyway, then I thought, fuck it, "I'll sing it". Don't ask me why I decided that. I needed a bass player then cos I had a great guitarist in Nat, Kehoe's a great drummer, Andy's a great keyboard player (he worked with all of Monaco and Freebass) and then I thought "Jack". Getting your son to play bass and he's exactly the same age as I was when I started Joy Division. So I thought how could you miss an opportunity like that. I looked round and I saw meself thirty years ago. Which is fucking freaky!

Anyway, it was like trying on your wedding suit and it fitted and not only did it fit but it looked fucking great and everybody said "You look fucking great!". And that was what it was like playing the Joy Division stuff. All of a sudden going back to that overshadowed Freebass. Starting a new band is really fucking difficult and even though Bernard and I both seem addicted to it every time New Order got somewhere we always fucking nixed it and started again. It's hard starting a new band and I was just enjoying the Joy Division stuff too much.

And I think that Mani reacted against that. Which is understandable but you can't help it can you!? It's just the way it is. I mean he's going off to do Screamadelica so I said why don't we just leave Freebass, get the record out, you go and do Screamadelica and I'll do Joy Division and we'll see how we feel when get back. It was as simple as that. I think it must've took the hump. But it doesn't matter now, we're fine. I must admit that whilst I was shocked when I saw it, it didn't sound like him to me. I mean, I'm fine now, it's over. It's cool.

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The full interview with Hooky will be published on Cerysmatic Factory at a later date.

Labels: Freebass

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