In a rare literary alignment, estranged icons Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook have both provided extensive interviews for a definitive new career-spanning biography, Joy Division and New Order: Album by Album. The book arrives at a time of continued fascination with the Manchester legends, offering a track-by-track autopsy of one of music’s most influential—and fractured—legacies.
Two Sides of a Divided History
Since Hook’s departure in 2007, the relationship between the founding members has been famously frosty. However, both have opened up for this project to discuss the evolution from the stark post-punk of Joy Division to the electronic pioneers of New Order.
Reflecting on the traumatic transition following Ian Curtis's death, Sumner notes: “Suddenly we’d lost Ian, so it was a struggle... Then the curtains gradually opened through music itself evolving.”
Hook offers a blunter assessment of the band’s internal dynamics, comparing the group to a pressurized vessel: “It was like a spaceship that you couldn’t get out of. Put four people in a room doing anything and inevitably, something’s gonna happen.”
A Collaborative Retrospective
Beyond the core duo, the biography serves as an oral history from the architects of the "Factory" sound and aesthetic. The book features long-form interviews with:
Peter Saville: The legendary graphic designer who reveals that Factory Records was "never managed to function as a company," but was instead a medium for artistic ends.
Stephen Street: The producer who applauds the band for not "caving in" after 1980.
Ana Matronic: The Scissor Sisters frontwoman who discusses New Order’s deep emotional resonance.
Michael Johnson: The recording engineer who witnessed the band go "off the leash" as they embraced drum machines and synths for Power, Corruption & Lies.
The Reunion Question
Perhaps most significantly for the fanbase, the book addresses the elephant in the room: the possibility of a full-band reunion. While New Order has continued successfully since 2011 with bassist Tom Chapman, the "Album by Album" format allows both Sumner and Hook to evaluate if their shared history outweighs the decades of legal and personal disputes.
To find out more and buy copy see the publishers page
here.
