Meet: Peter Hook on Get Ready, touring and reclaiming the music

For Peter Hook, every album carries memories—some good, some bad. As he works through his incredible back catalogue, playing the albums in full with his band Peter Hook & The Light, he reaches Get Ready, the 2001 album that marked New Order’s return after an eight-year hiatus. With news of a handful of dates where Get Ready will be played in full Hook is finding himself reconnecting with a period that was both exhilarating and frustrating.

“When we did Get Ready, I really didn’t think we’d ever get back together,” he admits. “I didn’t think we’d make another record. So I was very pleasantly surprised.” But the album, he says, was very much built by himself and Bernard Sumner, with Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert not as involved as they had been in the past. “It was me and Barney, more or less alone. Stephen and Gillianhad other things on their plate, and whilst they did come down occasionally, it was very much the two of us. So it was like a honeymoon—without the sex!.”

Despite the challenges, Hook remembers that initial creative process fondly. “It was absolutely wonderful for a while,” he says. But as soon as the album was finished and the band had to discuss touring, things quickly “reverted back to how it was before, which was a great shame.”

Now, though, playing the album live offers a new perspective. Hook has found that revisiting these albums—ones that are tied up in so many emotions—has a strange way of shifting his relationship with them. “The LPs bring back good memories, they bring back bad memories, and they put you emotionally back in that place, which sometimes can be quite depressing,” he says. “But weirdly, what I’ve found is that by playing the bloody things… it raises it. I wasn’t looking forward to playing Technique because I loved it so much, and I wasn’t looking forward to Republic because I loved it so little. But lo and behold, I got to finish it – obviously to my taste. The others play to their taste, which is a little strange for me. It doesn’t sound like New Order. But the weird thing was that playing it live, I was able to make it more like New Order, and it was a great success.”

He’s hoping for the same thing with Get Ready. “We’ve been practicing it, and I must admit, we were all a little wary of this one,” he says. “Pottsy (Guitarist David Potts) worked really hard on it along with my son, and it’s sounding really good.” Some of the songs, he says, feel different in a live setting—some take on new life, while others feel completely foreign. “When you play them live, they do get a life that can be good outside the record and can be bad. Listening to it now, I’ve been very happy with it. And I think I’m going to get this LP back to a positive side, just like I did with the others. And then I’ve only got two left, which is a bit weird. I don’t know what I’m going to do after that—whether the Grim Reaper will get me, or whether I’ll have to start again!”

The original Get Ready sessions also saw New Order bring in some high-profile collaborators—Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan and Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie among them. “It was quite ironic with Billy bloody Corgan,” Hook says. “We brought Billy in because we’d met him a few times, and he told us what a crap band we were. We were a little wary about coming back, and you use the guests, I suppose, in a way to soften the blow.”

He’s not so keen on that approach anymore. “It’s become quite an industry standard, which I must admit, I don’t like,” he says. “I think if your fans want to hear your band, why the hell are you bringing a load of guests in to change it?” But despite that, he ended up forming an unexpected connection with Corgan years later. “When we were touring as The Light, my son said, ‘Hey, Dad, we’re playing in Chicago. You know Billy Corgan—why don’t you ask him to play with us?’ So we asked him, and he came and did a couple of songs with us, which was fantastic. He seemed to really enjoy it. And then he bloody stole my son, the bastard! Now my son is the bass player in Smashing Pumpkins. I had to get somebody else. Be careful with these things—they can come back to bite you.”

Still, he’s open to the idea of inviting Corgan and Gillespie to join him onstage again. “If it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t,” he says. “But it was Bobby, funnily enough, who gave me the idea for this whole thing. I was reading an interview where he said that a lot of the songs they didn’t play from Screamadelica are now his favorites. And I know what that’s like. A lot of the ones we never got to play are my favorites.”

That’s why performing Get Ready in full feels like such an important project for him. “It’s a great way for bands to express themselves,” he says. “It’s interesting because it not only captures a big part of the emotions and the feelings of your life as the artist, but it does the same for the people listening.” He remembers one particular moment of realization when looking up how to play the song Run Wild on YouTube: “I was cribbing it, because I’d forgotten how to play it, and I was reading the comments. And there were people going, ‘Oh yeah, I got married to this track.’ I was like, shit—you never think of it like that. And then, of course, you scroll down, and the next comment says, ‘Yeah, I got married to Age of Consent… and I got divorced.’ You think, alright, steady up!”

So as he prepares to bring Get Ready back to life on stage, are there any songs he’s particularly excited—or nervous—about playing? “Run Wild, Rock the Shack, Turn My Way, Primitive Notion—what a fantastic bassline Primitive Notion is,” he says. “I’m really, really chuffed to have written that. And I suppose, in a funny way, I’ve got license to make it sound more like New Order—whereas New Order seem to go out of their way to make everything less like New Order. Which—fucking hell—I just don’t get.”

It’s a strange position to be in, playing these songs while another version of New Order is out there doing the same. “People aren’t paying to compare them,” he says. “But I’m not scared of them being compared either.” Instead, for Hook, it’s about reclaiming the music—on his own terms.

“Everything we used to get offered in New Order was always ‘no, not doing that.’ It used to really piss me off,” he says. “So now, I just do everything.” Festivals, in particular, are a highlight for him. “Those gigs where you can just play the greatest hits and enjoy yourself, get into the spirit of it, they’re absolutely wonderful.”

Hook has played a wide range of festivals over the years—some more memorable than others. “Apart from the one where I got punched in Scotland, I don’t think I’ve had a bad one,” he laughs.

He enjoys the contrast between big and small gigs, something he didn’t always get with New Order. “When you’re playing to 10,000 people, it can feel detached, and we were a pretty detached band even when there were only ten people there,” he admits. “Now, I get to do both—the intimate, sweaty gigs where you’re right up close, and the big ones where you still get that buzz.”

What’s Next for Hooky?

“I’ve been thinking about retiring for years,” he says with a grin. “My manager, Pete, told me we’ve got a massive Australian tour coming up next year, probably the biggest one we’ve ever done. And then he goes, ‘But you’ll be 70.’ Oh, God.”

The idea of aging in music amuses him. “When we were punks, we didn’t want to be old farts, and here we are. Even Johnny Rotten’s turned into one. But I’m still here, still playing.”

Beyond his own material, Hook still gets offers to collaborate. “I did two tracks with Marco Pirroni this year, two with Wolfgang Flür. It’s nice to be asked, but you’re not in control of it, which in a sense is why I miss being in a band so much, ”That process of making an LP keeps you going. But New Order haven’t made an album in 11 years, so I guess it doesn’t matter much.”

So, will he ever really stop? “Every time I say I’m going to give it up, my wife just rolls her eyes. ‘I’ll remind you of that when you’re on your next tour,’ she says.”

For Hooky, the road never really ends—it just keeps leading to the next gig.

FULL UK AND IRISH DATES:

MARCH

Sat 29 SKEGNESS Shiine On Festival

APRIL

Thu 17 BRISTOL Marble Factory (Get Ready album in full)

Fri 18 LONDON Troxy (Get Ready album in full)

Sat 19 MANCHESTER O2 Victoria Warehouse (Get Ready album in full)

MAY

Sat 10 SCARBOROUGH Interzone Festival

JULY

Sat 05 TRING Chilfest