Inside New Order’s First Album Without Founding Bassist Peter Hook
When New Order went on tour this past summer — three years after reporting that they were done for good — the band played a single new track amid a set heavy on classic hits. The band had worked on the song, titled “Plastic,” between the gigs that were supposed to be their last; and now it will appear on their 10th studio LP. “The shows were being well-received and we were enjoying it,” singer-guitarist Bernard Sumner, 59, tells Rolling Stone. “It seemed like the logical thing to do.”
Drummer Stephen Morris says that new material “has been small steps coming since 2011,” but this past December he and his bandmates started moving faster, recording for the first time since bassist Peter Hook left the band in 2007. The current lineup welcomes back Gillian Gilbert, the keyboardist who last played on 2001’s Get Ready, and adds Bad Lieutenant members Phil Cunningham and Tom Chapman. Sumner says that the new configuration has made the band more flexible, allowing different members to move across guitars, keys and backing vocals. “The lines have gotten a bit blurrier than they used to be,” he says. “We’ve become songwriters instead of instrumentalists.”
Still, recording has become less glamorous since the days when the band hung out at Manchester’s Haçienda nightclub and producer Arthur Baker rushed their “Confusion” reel-to-reel straight to the DJ booth at New York’s Funhouse. “We used to just play for hours jamming in the studio and then find a bit — a second — that wasn’t bad,” says Morris. “And then find another second that could go on top of that. Now we’ve become a bit more professional in recording, for better or for worse. We’re streamlined.”
He and Gilbert — the couple married in 1994 — have spent the last decade raising their family on a farm outside of Manchester, and the band that brought the couple together has once again occupied their home. “Me and Gillian have long conversations about music all the time when we should be doing other stuff,” says Morris, whose daughter Tilly plays keys in a group called Hot Vestry. “It’s like, blimey, we did it again! Once we watched a box set of Breaking Bad, and we shut up while doing that. We’re just waiting for another one to divert us from going on and on about New Order.”
Over in London, Sumner’s creative process is a little more insular. “It’s rainy and cold and wet outside,” he says. “It’s dark. It’s a good time to write.”