0:05

Two of the most influential

0:07

bands in music history. If

0:09

you do things differently, you can get

0:11

noticed more than if you do things the same

0:13

as everyone else, you know. The minute you heard

0:15

Nori, you were like, they're one of me or

0:18

I'm one of them. It was instant. One

0:21

incredible tale. We ended up

0:23

having a rave at Peter Gabriel's, and yeah, it

0:25

was fucking chaos money. It was fantastic. I was

0:27

so angry. I just sprung across

0:29

the room and robbed throat. This

0:32

is Transmissions, the

0:35

definitive story of Joy Division and

0:37

New Order. Coming

0:50

up on episode five. Factory

0:52

Records is in financial hot water

0:55

once again. You

0:57

know, the thing is, is that we were very

1:00

good at being a group. We were very good

1:02

at writing songs. And

1:04

you'd have to say that if you

1:06

looked at everybody else round us, maybe

1:10

they weren't as good at their jobs as

1:12

we were as doing the music. And

1:16

so New Order must go to new lengths

1:19

to keep Factory alive. We

1:21

were kind of like selling out by degrees. That's

1:23

the way that starts to work. In

1:25

the process, creating their biggest hits

1:27

to date. Well,

1:33

True Faith was very radio friendly.

1:35

For once we started getting played

1:38

on mainstream radio. And connecting

1:40

to a whole new generation of fans, almost

1:43

by chance. I just listened to

1:45

it over and over and over on repeat.

1:47

And I was, yeah, blown away. And

1:50

I was thinking too much

1:52

of the things that cost

1:54

you too. By

1:57

1987, New Order were well-informed. truly

2:00

back on track. Manager

2:05

Rob Gretton was back where he belonged,

2:07

leading his band from the front. Brotherhood

2:10

had charted in the top 10 and

2:12

given New Order a stateside sleeper hit

2:14

in the form of Bizarre Love Triangle.

2:17

Everywhere they went, the group were

2:19

playing bigger and bigger concerts. They'd

2:22

even got used to performing on top of the pops. Yeah,

2:24

we did. They got used to us as well.

2:26

Then it was like, why don't we just mime?

2:28

It's right. It's really

2:31

bad playing it live. That's

2:34

right. Somehow New Order had stumbled

2:37

their way into mainstream success. Which

2:39

should mean a pretty comfortable lifestyle for

2:42

the band's members, right? I

2:44

think we were all sort of put on

2:46

wages and then we all sort of started

2:48

getting money from gigs ourselves. So

2:50

we felt like we were making a bit

2:53

of money, but also the company was

2:55

putting money from what I

2:58

can understand into the Hacienda,

3:00

which as the years

3:02

went by, some of us didn't like

3:04

and some of us did because some

3:06

people like gambling. The

3:15

Hacienda nightclub, co-owned by New Order

3:17

and Factory Records, had been a

3:19

money pit since the day it

3:22

opened in Manchester in 1982. Half

3:25

a decade later, the situation hadn't

3:27

exactly improved, with much of

3:30

the band's money tied up in the day-to-day

3:32

running of this colossal club. Peter

3:34

Hook, who wrote an entire book called How

3:36

Not to Run a Nightclub, with

3:39

a little accounting primer for you. So what

3:41

Factory was doing was it was putting money

3:43

in the Hacienda. It owed us. So we

3:45

were putting our money in and Factory were

3:47

putting their money in, but that money that

3:49

Factory was putting in was actually ours. So

3:51

if they put 50 grand in, it meant

3:54

that on the balance sheet they owed us

3:56

50 grand. Factory were putting 50% into the

3:58

Hacienda. But they

4:00

were just running up a bigger bill

4:02

with New Order and Joy Division, you

4:04

know, because they couldn't pay them because

4:06

they were putting it in the hacienda.

4:08

For all their transatlantic gallivanting, New Order

4:11

were always loyal to Manchester and

4:13

the dream of the hacienda, money pit

4:15

or not. Remember, we went

4:18

to an accounts meeting in Barnie, it was

4:20

like, it's just like having a credit card,

4:22

you're just running up your credit card all

4:24

the time, you're not actually stopping it and

4:26

saying, it's enough is enough, because it was

4:28

like, well, if you stop it now, so and

4:30

so will lose their job or you'll lose your

4:32

house. And so, you know, we don't want you

4:35

to lose your job or your

4:37

house, so we just carried on. The

4:45

hacienda had been founded on

4:47

idealistic terms. The idea

4:49

of community lay at its very

4:51

core, as resident DJ Mike

4:53

Pickering well knew. What we wanted to do,

4:55

what I wanted to do was reverse

4:58

what happened generally in clubs, which was

5:01

it was quite a bit

5:03

to get better money to get in. The

5:05

people that you want, we wanted in were like,

5:08

a lot of them are unemployed or on

5:10

really low income. So we, you know, we

5:13

said, right, you're on the dole, you can

5:15

get in for a pound if you're at

5:17

NHS pound, all that kind of. But we

5:19

wanted to kind of reverse door policy, really.

5:22

People like us who wore Fred

5:24

Perry t-shirts couldn't get in clubs,

5:26

but they'd let thugs in ties

5:28

in who would just drink

5:31

loads of beer and fight, you

5:33

know, because they wore a shirt and tie. An

5:35

admirable endeavour, but not exactly a

5:38

licence to print money. Look,

5:40

there was always pressure because

5:42

there was some pretty bad

5:44

business decisions made down

5:47

the line. The mortgage was

5:49

a really big thing, but

5:51

now you just want

5:54

to keep it open and have good

5:56

nights there, really, you know. And I

5:58

think that was a factory thing. You

6:00

never heard. the word profit at factory.

6:02

You very rarely heard people talk about

6:04

money. It was art, really.

6:09

Obviously, the people whose money it was

6:11

will think differently, and that's what they

6:13

should. The

6:17

fact is, with the hacienda struggling,

6:19

New Order found themselves sustaining

6:21

an entire ecosystem, one

6:23

that had grown to be cherished by the city they

6:26

called home. It wasn't as

6:28

simple as just removing yourself from a

6:30

failing operation. I had this discussion with

6:32

Barney many times, and what happened with

6:34

New Order and in New Order was

6:36

that Barney and I would go, oh

6:38

shit, man, should we kick off? But

6:40

the band might split up. Oh

6:43

man, what should we do? So there was this weird

6:46

thing that you didn't want

6:48

to jeopardize the group by

6:50

kicking off about the hacienda

6:53

or things that were wrong in New

6:56

Order or anything like that, you know.

6:58

So, yeah, we were chickens. But

7:03

if you were growing up in Manchester at that

7:05

time, New Order were

7:08

hometown heroes, magnanimously pumping life

7:10

into the city streets. DJ

7:13

Paulette. In a way, I think

7:15

that everything that they did was

7:17

fed back into Manchester. Maybe it

7:19

was that reverse thing, whereas

7:22

they felt that they might

7:24

have been ripped off

7:26

by us because we were taking everything.

7:28

They were like being so successful and

7:30

then their money was being ploughed back

7:32

into something that was a big old

7:35

money sponge that they weren't getting any

7:37

comeback from. But we got

7:39

everything and it was fantastic. You

7:45

know, we got the club, we got

7:48

the music, we got the superstars. It

7:50

was like win, win, win on all

7:52

corners. That

7:59

had always been fantastic. Factory Records boss

8:01

Tony Wilson's vision, a

8:03

Manchester to be proud of at

8:05

the epicentre of UK culture. The

8:08

idea was we pay royalties to Manchester. Without

8:11

the alive culture of this

8:13

city, of this town, Joy

8:15

Division would not have been what they were, New

8:17

Order would not have been what they were without

8:19

this town. So while everyone's getting the royalties and

8:21

getting the money, let's pay a few royalties to

8:23

the town, which is the idea of building them

8:26

the best club in Europe. Tony

8:35

Wilson wanted the best club in Europe,

8:38

and Tony Wilson usually got what he wanted,

8:40

one way or the other, which

8:42

brings us to substance. Tony

8:44

Wilson asked me what car

8:47

he should buy. I recommended his

8:49

Jaguar. When he got his Jaguar,

8:51

it had a CD player, and

8:53

he wanted to have all the

8:56

new order singles and B-sides

8:59

on one CD. You couldn't blow

9:02

them yourself in those days. So

9:04

he asked Rob and asked us

9:06

if we would consider

9:08

putting all the singles on one

9:11

record. A

9:20

Gracie Stitts record? That doesn't sound very

9:22

new order, does it? Peter

9:24

Savile. The rationale for substance

9:26

was that Tony wanted to listen to

9:28

Blue Monday on a CD and the

9:30

other singles, and because they never put

9:32

the tracks they released as singles, they

9:34

never put those tracks on albums. I

9:40

mean, it was a ridiculous notion of

9:42

a new order greatest hits. I think

9:44

that's an oxymoron, actually. So it was

9:46

actually new order singles. And

9:49

aside from providing Tony Wilson with an

9:51

adequate driving soundtrack, a compilation

9:53

might solve some other problems nagging away

9:55

in the background. probably

10:00

didn't do quite as well

10:02

as the Americans would

10:04

have hoped. Also, the bills were going up.

10:06

And then there was this other thing that

10:09

was going on in the background, because the

10:11

factory owners a lot of money. And it's

10:13

like, well, you know, how about if we

10:15

put all Blue Monday Perfect, put all the

10:17

singles on an album? That'd be

10:19

great, you know, because it's like, yeah, they can't buy

10:21

it on an album. It'd be great. And it's only,

10:23

it's only selling out a tiny little bit. And

10:26

the Americans went as it was, because

10:29

the major labels are big fans of

10:31

compilation albums. Yeah, it's a

10:33

sure-five money winner. How much is it going to cost?

10:35

Nothing. But it would

10:37

be really, really good if you

10:40

could do a hit single and we could put

10:42

that one on as well. That would be the

10:44

icing on the cake. The

10:49

man voicing that desire would have

10:51

been none other than New Order's

10:53

American manager, Tom Atencio. Tony Wilson

10:55

came to me and said, we

10:57

need to release the greatest hits

10:59

package in America to pay the

11:01

Inland Revenue bills that we have.

11:04

And I said, that's understandable and

11:06

fantastic, Tony, but you haven't had

11:09

a significant hit in America yet.

11:11

Shet Pettibone's remix of Bizarre Love

11:13

Triangle had made New Order's biggest

11:15

stench yet in America. But

11:18

it hadn't entered the promised land of the Billboard Hot

11:20

100. It was more

11:22

of a college radio hit. It

11:31

made American college kids really

11:33

want to dance. It really went

11:35

down well in

11:37

America. Over here,

11:40

it was like tumbleweed. I think

11:42

the reviews usually started with yawn,

11:45

New Order. I can remember

11:47

the NME describing it as a bunch

11:49

of idiot savants and I didn't know

11:51

what one was, so I didn't know

11:53

whether to be flattered or insulted. of

12:00

course entirely beside the point. Paul

12:03

Morley. I was more interested in

12:05

sort of following my own emotional

12:07

response to this group, having

12:10

decided at many stages that for

12:13

me, and it appeared for

12:15

many, many other people, not least because

12:17

of the extraordinary run of Amazing Singles they released,

12:19

that they were the perfect pop group. And

12:23

they understood about what a perfect pop

12:25

single was, and that didn't necessarily mean

12:28

astounding lyrics or traditional

12:31

song structures, but

12:33

again just sort of tapping into their own mystery

12:35

and their own weirdness, and their own way that

12:37

they were put together in such a unique way,

12:39

where each member of the group

12:41

operated in almost their own universe. A

12:44

touching sentiment, but the

12:46

American label couldn't mark it an album

12:48

on weirdness alone. New

12:50

Order needed a home run hit

12:52

record, and so it was suggested that

12:54

they should write one. Bernard

12:56

Somner. Robert, we've got to write a top 40

12:59

hit, not so used to talk. He

13:01

didn't really, but I so remember him

13:04

talking, and he went,

13:06

we've got to write a top 40, right,

13:08

how do we do that? Just go in

13:10

and write a hit single, okay. And

13:17

Tomatencio came up with a suggestion

13:19

that it would be a good

13:21

idea to work with this guy

13:23

called Stephen Haig, who at

13:26

the time had just done Madam

13:28

Butterfly with Malcolm McLaren, which coincidentally

13:30

was a big hit that

13:33

my mind and Gillian's abode

13:36

in Macclesfield. Enter super producer

13:38

Stephen Haig, who'd already had

13:40

chart success with another British

13:42

electronic group, The Pet Shop

13:44

Boys, featuring Neil Tennant.

13:47

New Order would be categorised more as a

13:50

rock band, and The Pet Shop Boys were

13:52

defiantly a pop band, and

13:54

we were more about hit singles than they

13:57

were, I think. We were

13:59

judged on... on the last chart

14:01

position. And I don't think

14:03

New Order probably ever have been. New

14:06

Order are a sort of mythic presence

14:08

coming out of Joy Division. They could

14:10

have been touring with The Cure or

14:12

something like that. Peugeot Boys

14:15

in the 80s, in the second half

14:17

of the 80s in America, you know, had a stream

14:19

of top 10 hits. And so,

14:21

you know, we could be touring

14:24

with Rick Astley, you know?

14:28

So the idea with bringing Stephen Haig into the

14:30

mix was that he might be able to bring

14:32

out a little of New Order's inner Pet Shop

14:35

Boys. We never met him. We

14:37

just went in the studio and we had

14:39

two kind of vague ideas. I

14:41

think they're just like bass lines, really. But the

14:43

fact we had two of them was sort of

14:46

like two more than we had when we did

14:48

Confusion. So we were getting moving on from Semi-Pro.

14:51

And we worked with Stephen

14:53

and Stephen had ideas

14:56

about songwriting. True

15:04

Faith, I had a bass line roll up.

15:06

Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo,

15:08

doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo,

15:10

doo, doo, doo, doo, doo. And

15:16

Stephen Haig went, okay, that's enough,

15:19

right? You go and write the

15:21

lyrics now. And right, well,

15:23

we're not doing anything until you've written the

15:26

lyrics, Bernard. So we

15:28

were in this flat and basically lock

15:30

Bernard in the flat and wouldn't let

15:32

him out until he'd written the words.

15:36

Then we'd come back in the evening and say, I've

15:38

had nothing to eat all day, your boss, you

15:40

left me here, there's no food in the flat.

15:42

And have you written the words? No, I've

15:45

done some. So we had to stop

15:47

up all night with Bernard finishing

15:50

off the words. And then, all

15:53

right, you go to the studio, I'll

15:55

turn up at lunchtime, which

15:57

he did. And it was...

16:00

Once we got the words, sort

16:02

of structure changed and everything, it was kind

16:04

of like crafting the song,

16:07

I suppose, which is not what we'd

16:09

really thought about before. And

16:11

then you'd come up with these

16:13

musical terms like inversions and stuff,

16:16

and Gillian was, oh, yeah, that's

16:18

interesting. I think Gillian, this was

16:20

one of the ones when she

16:22

started writing and she sat with

16:24

Stephen Haig, did

16:26

the strings. I think it was Stephen

16:29

Haig again who we started having a

16:31

producer, which became more... You wrote differently.

16:33

He was more of an orchestrator as

16:35

well. And he sort of made you

16:38

do things that you wouldn't normally do

16:40

if you were together. So

16:42

it was like a different set of ears. It

16:45

felt like, this sounds like a proper record

16:47

in a way. It

16:49

was just weird, but it was really good working with

16:51

him. Those

17:01

cracks that had opened up during the

17:03

production of Brotherhood of a

17:05

band torn between tradition and progress,

17:08

they'd make themselves known again in due course.

17:11

But for some reason, True Faith represented

17:13

a period of grace for New Order.

17:16

Whatever fresh perspective Stephen Haig brought

17:18

to the mix, it worked. The

17:21

track had hit record written all over it.

17:28

And then we did another one. This

17:30

other song called 1963, which again, no,

17:32

I slide... Yeah,

17:35

it came together quite quickly, really. And

17:39

it's like, you've done two... Yes,

17:42

actually, you've done two hit singles here

17:44

today. No, we haven't. We've done an

17:47

A side and a B side. So, not something

17:49

like that much. No, no, it's a B side.

17:52

So, I think it's a B side. I

17:54

haven't had something like that much. No, no, it's

17:56

a B side. So, 1963 was a B side.

18:00

everybody was very happy. It was

18:02

brilliant. It was kind of like

18:04

quirky New Order and the Americans

18:06

thought, I hate single! These

18:08

guys can do it. When

18:17

True Faith was released in July of

18:19

1987, it became New Order's

18:22

biggest hit yet. Peaking at number four

18:24

in the UK charts and number 32

18:26

in the US. Simple

18:29

as that. And the whole thing was

18:31

given a boost by another music video. Produced

18:33

by Michael Schamburg and Tom Atencio.

18:36

So we get to True Faith

18:39

and the video has everything to do

18:41

with that success. Because

18:44

MTV had adopted the band and

18:46

was playing it early. And

18:48

I initially wanted John Paul Goode,

18:51

who was Grace Jones' brilliant art

18:53

director, to direct the video. Michael

18:56

was living between New York comparison at the

18:58

time. He went to John Paul Goode. And

19:01

John Paul Goode said, I'm not available.

19:03

I'm heavily booked. But there's this wonderful

19:05

new choreographer. That

19:10

choreographer was Philippe de Coufflé, a

19:13

French mime artist, theatre director

19:15

and dancer, who created a

19:17

surreal striking visual landscape for

19:19

the new single. Like

19:21

a Dali painting brought to life with

19:24

futuristic clowns slapping each other in time

19:26

to the beat and time

19:28

bounding backwards. There's even shots of the

19:30

band, a few of them anyway. And

19:37

there you have it, a hit record

19:40

and a video played on repeat on

19:42

MTV. After the

19:44

turmoil of brotherhood, this whole Grace's

19:46

Tits idea had been painless. It

19:49

was actually a really cheap

19:51

record that actually turned out

19:53

amazingly. It is an amazing

19:55

record. The A side and the B

19:57

side because it was still done as an LP. All

20:00

the singles together, the New Order

20:02

singles together, make a great record.

20:05

So it actually worked really

20:07

well. Substance

20:13

looks set to become New Order's biggest

20:15

release yet. A certified cash

20:17

cow. And then I remember

20:19

Rob coming to us. Oh,

20:22

God. And saying

20:24

that Factory can't afford to pay us

20:26

the money that they owe us. So

20:29

I'm going to do a different

20:31

deal for substance. Instead of it

20:34

being 50-50 of the profits to

20:36

us and to Factory after costs,

20:38

it's going to be two-thirds to Factory

20:41

and a third to us so

20:43

that Factory can earn the money to pay us

20:45

back for all the other LPs they hadn't paid

20:47

us for. And we,

20:49

like fucking idiots, agreed to it. And

20:52

now I'm sitting there thinking, that was

20:54

the stupidest. Letting somebody have a bigger

20:56

cut of your record so they could pay you back for

20:58

the other records that they hadn't paid you because of the fucking

21:00

Asienda. It was the most ridiculous thing. But

21:08

substance was about more than just

21:10

VAT bills and a floundering nightclub.

21:13

It was a rare opportunity to reflect on the

21:15

journey up until that point. All

21:18

those fantastic singles collected together,

21:21

time capsules from various ups and downs on

21:23

the roller coaster ride of New Order. A

21:26

simple idea, but an effective one. Even

21:31

for Peter Savile, who poured so much

21:34

thought into New Order's artwork, there

21:36

was no point complicating things with substance.

21:38

You know, even if I had sat

21:41

down and listened to that compendium of

21:43

singles, there would be no simple coherence

21:45

between them because they covered a long

21:47

period of time. You can do a

21:50

sleeve for a single, if you wish,

21:52

and you can make an image that in

21:55

some way articulates that title. But even with

21:57

an album, there are eight. There were eight

21:59

tracks, there were 10 tracks, there were 12

22:02

tracks. And even though the album

22:04

has a collective title, it doesn't

22:06

actually summarise the sum of its parts. Peter

22:14

Savile saw no way to adequately

22:16

represent the entire history of this

22:18

artistic project with a single image.

22:21

And so he didn't. The sleeve

22:23

for Substance was New Order's most

22:25

transparent yet. Just the name

22:28

of the band, the title and the year in

22:30

a foreboding black font on a white background.

22:34

It looks a little bit like a tombstone, oddly

22:36

enough for a record that would in some ways

22:39

launch a new life for New Order. Substance

22:44

went on to sell two million of

22:46

a double LP in America

22:48

when it was released. The sales

22:51

of it are gargantuan. So, so

22:53

many records, because it was such

22:55

a great record. You

22:57

know, you couldn't hold that record back.

23:10

So, yeah, it was a great idea of

23:12

Tony's. Maybe he deserved two thirds for

23:14

having the idea to do it. I

23:17

mean, I'm not joking. All he wanted to do

23:19

was play it in his car. It was the

23:21

reason. And we weren't bothered. We didn't have to

23:23

promote it. We didn't have to do anything with

23:25

it. And

23:35

the people buying it, the individuals behind

23:37

those figures, for many of them,

23:39

it was a first introduction to New Order, a compelling

23:42

entry point to their world. American

23:45

DJ Veronica Vasica. I first heard New

23:47

Order when I was 11 years old.

23:50

I had a little Sony Walkman, and

23:52

I had a cassette. And

23:55

actually, it was a substance, and

23:58

I just listened to it over and over.

24:00

and over on repeat and that was, yeah,

24:02

blown away. Techno

24:14

producer Daniel Avery. I

24:17

have a real distinct early

24:19

memory of my dad playing New

24:21

Order massively loudly in

24:23

the house and just being

24:26

drawn to it even back then, just

24:28

for how catchy the

24:30

choruses were and how big

24:33

the sound was. From there,

24:35

I just became obsessed with them as

24:37

a teenager. Alexis Taylor of the band

24:40

Hot Chip was only seven when substance

24:42

came out, but he remembers it

24:44

too. My brother, Will,

24:46

had the compilation substance

24:49

on tape, double tape of that. I

24:52

listened to all

24:54

of those singles collected together

24:56

and the B-sides. And it was

24:58

True Faith's B-side that would prove

25:01

particularly inspirational over the years. The

25:04

song, 1963, was the one that I

25:06

most got drawn back to over the

25:08

years. I remember covering that at home

25:10

as a teenager, just sort of finding

25:13

something interesting in the love story there

25:15

and not really knowing, is this a

25:17

kind of homosexual story or is he

25:20

singing from the perspective of a woman

25:22

whose male partner is turning a gun

25:24

on her? I can really fully understand,

25:27

but I've always loved that song. In

25:29

the early days of Hot Chip, we'd

25:32

try and throw covers of that into

25:34

our own songs. Alexis

25:53

Taylor wasn't the only one pondering the

25:55

meaning of 1963. As Gillian Gilbert discovered,

26:00

at a recent trip to the doctors. And

26:02

he said, what exactly do you do? And I went,

26:04

oh, I'm in a band. Oh, yeah, to what band

26:06

is it? New Order. I was just about

26:08

to say, have you heard of them? And he went, you

26:12

are the soundtrack to my student

26:14

days. And he was like dead,

26:16

taken aback. And

26:18

then the end of the session, he said, can you

26:20

tell me what 1963 is about, please? The

26:31

success of Substance would launch New

26:33

Order to an entirely new level

26:35

in America, one they'd never

26:37

have been able to predict back in the days

26:39

of Joy Division. Despite

26:49

everything that we'd done and

26:52

despite ourselves, we were playing to

26:54

30,000, 35,000 people. And

26:57

I remember when we played with Pil, Johnny Rotten

26:59

used to get really pissed off, because I'd say

27:01

to him, do you want to come

27:03

for a walk out front? And he'd say, I can't fucking

27:06

go out front, OK. And

27:08

I went, no, I can. Because nobody knew what I

27:10

looked like, because we'd not done much press. We

27:13

didn't have particularly our pictures on the

27:16

sleeves. So, yeah, I was

27:18

able to walk around these huge venues,

27:20

full of thousands and thousands of people.

27:23

And nobody recognized me. But

27:25

Johnny Rotten couldn't. And yeah, I

27:28

mean, God bless him he didn't understand New

27:30

Order. He did not understand it. And he

27:33

made no bones telling you. I'd known him

27:35

quite well. And he'd go to great lengths

27:37

to tell me how fucking shit we were.

27:39

What does she do? What does he do?

27:41

He can't sing. He can't play. He can't

27:44

drum. You fucking are off your head. You

27:47

know, he was like, he just didn't

27:49

get it. It was absolutely hilarious, considering

27:51

he was our inspiration. You

27:53

know, you couldn't have been further apart

27:55

at that point. It's

28:03

true that super

28:05

producers and the

28:08

Billboard Hot 100

28:10

aren't exactly punk,

28:13

but the times

28:23

they were are changing and

28:25

New Order had entered their blockbuster era.

28:29

That year they embarked on their biggest

28:31

US tour yet, a co-headline affair with

28:33

Echo and the Bunnymen. Echo

28:35

and the Bunnymen had been born on the same

28:37

post-punk circus as Joy Division and

28:40

Will Sargent from the band always remembers the first

28:42

time he saw them. Nobody was watching

28:44

them. I put this in my book. There's nobody

28:46

was watching them. I said, you're

28:49

going to come and have a look at these, the

28:51

great. You know, when I went out, there was like

28:53

a little sort of area outside of where the sort

28:55

of bands played. It was like this little bar area

28:58

and everybody came in like Mark and

29:00

Julian cope and Paul Simpson,

29:02

all these crew, you know, all our

29:04

mates came in and we're

29:06

all just blown away. It was just like the

29:09

other week, these were called Warsaw. They were shit. What's

29:12

going on? I mean.

29:37

Now the better part of a decade later,

29:40

the two bands found themselves a long way

29:42

from the north of England, swapping

29:44

headline slots night by nights for audiences of

29:46

10,000 or more,

29:49

which must have felt pretty weird. Ladies

29:52

and gentlemen of Southern California.

29:58

To quote an old friend of mine Manchester

30:00

in England, who do you think is

30:02

the greatest pop group in the world?

30:05

I think it's New Order. Yeah

30:08

it's weird, of course it's weird but it

30:10

was like there was a bit where you

30:12

were kind of like you'd get on stage

30:14

you'd enjoy the gigs, you'd enjoy the gigs

30:16

but you'd enjoy what happened after the gigs

30:18

slightly more and that was why you were

30:20

doing a lot of it. And

30:23

what exactly was going on after the gigs Steven?

30:26

If I'm honest, I mean you can sum

30:28

it all up in one word and it's

30:30

cocaine basically and

30:33

it's a road to nowhere really but once

30:35

you're on it you're on it. And

30:46

nobody's going to say stop because

30:48

hey you're the guys that are

30:50

in charge. That

30:53

kind of changes your outlook

30:55

on the world really. You

30:57

become something that you

30:59

never really wanted to be but

31:02

you always looked up to

31:05

it's great those guys you know I don't like the

31:07

music but it would be nice to do that but

31:09

you kind of it's an insidious thing

31:11

that you get sucked into

31:13

or you did at the time that

31:15

whole American major

31:17

label cocaine,

31:20

quailudes, excess was

31:23

rife at the time and it didn't do

31:25

anybody any good. New

31:43

order were

31:47

fully embracing the

31:50

stereotypes of 1980s. 80s

32:00

excess. They rounded off

32:02

a triumphant year with one last single

32:04

which was recorded for the movie Salvation

32:07

by a director called Beth B. We

32:10

had to write Touch By The Hand Of God

32:12

for this film soundtrack because she wanted a song.

32:14

We'd already done some instrumental but she said no

32:16

I really need a song. So we were

32:19

like this was at like 11 o'clock at night.

32:23

With a deadline approaching Peter Hook decided

32:25

to boldly step forward into a new

32:27

world. He put down

32:30

his bass guitar and approached the

32:32

sequencer. I'm

32:35

sure he had one hand in his pocket

32:38

as though any fool can play this. I

32:41

think that was his attitude as well but yeah he did

32:43

come up with a bass line for that so he could

32:46

do it on a bass sequencer.

32:55

When the song finished there was the matter

32:57

of another music video to think about and

33:00

the band had a bright idea and did

33:02

I mention there might have been some cocaine

33:04

knocking about at this time. We

33:06

wanted to do a heavy metal spoof.

33:09

We'd been around America and MTV

33:11

was full of white slake and

33:13

poison and fluffy hair and it's

33:16

like what would be great because that's the last

33:18

thing people would expect of us to do a

33:21

flamboyant whack video.

33:24

And to the picture future Oscar

33:26

winner Katherine Bigelow. I

33:28

mean she'd obviously suspected quite rightly that none

33:31

of us could dance and we

33:33

did have to have choreography lessons

33:35

and we had to have people

33:38

to dress as

33:40

glam metal rockers and

33:42

Okey just looked exactly the same. You

33:45

couldn't tell that he'd been stale in

33:47

any way. And

33:49

I've done it

33:51

all alone with

33:53

every feeling that

33:55

I own you

33:57

can't take that

34:02

Touched by the Hand of God hit number 20

34:04

in the UK charts when it came out. Yet

34:07

another hit for a band that was making a

34:09

habit of them. New Order

34:11

were indeed a long way from that Sex

34:13

Pistols concert where they'd first decided to form

34:15

a band. But just when

34:18

it looked like they might be drifting away

34:20

from the zeitgeist, awaiting their

34:22

inevitable induction to the Rock and Roll

34:24

Hall of Fame, something

34:26

new was bubbling up all around them.

34:35

While we were there in Ibiza we had

34:37

no idea a thing called Acid House was

34:39

happening. It's happening down the road! Next

34:46

time on Transmissions. A

34:48

case of right place, right time.

34:51

And then we discovered the clubs.

34:53

Or maybe wrong place, wrong time, depending on

34:55

how you look at it. Erm,

34:58

what got done? Well

35:00

you don't get a ton like this

35:03

for nothing. The band decamped to Ibiza

35:05

for a little quality bonding time and

35:07

some hard work in the studio.

35:09

As Tony Wilson rightly said, I

35:12

took him to the airport and he went through

35:14

immigration, you know, security to get on the plane.

35:16

And then he came out, he went, oh hooky,

35:18

hooky. And he shouted me

35:21

over to security and I went,

35:23

what's the matter? And he went, this is

35:25

the most expensive holiday you've ever had. Bye!

35:30

Don't sweat the technique.

35:33

Transmissions. The

35:36

definitive story of Joy Division

35:38

and New Order is a

35:40

copper-nuzzle production. It's presented by

35:42

me, Elizabeth Olker. Our

35:44

series producer is Frank Palmer. Y'all

35:50

much to y'all. Y'all

35:53

much to y'all. Too

35:57

fast to ever be. If

36:02

you've enjoyed this episode, please give us a

36:04

rating or review wherever you listen to your

36:06

podcasts.