The New Order Main Man & The Author Behind The Best Music Book Of The Year – ‘The Hacienda – How Not To Run A Club’
Hooky a pleasure. I am from from Oldham you’re from just down the road I hear – both Manchester born and bred – where did you hail from…?
“The real part of Manchester Dan, Salford.”
You think so…?
“Well you have your patch and we have ours. I actually went over to Oldham recently, and you know it was really buzzy actually, it reminded me of the early days of Leeds before it got big to be honest. It’s a shame your old home town has been associated with binge drinking though.”
An amazing career with Joy Division and New Order – and now this brilliant, behind-the-scenes book you have written – ‘The Hacienda – How Not To Run A Club’ – my favourite club ever and now one of my favourite books. I was there every Friday through the Park & Pickering ‘Nude’ night era and also the Paul Cons’ ‘Flesh’ gay nights’ – any promoter that could pay Take That £50 for a gig is alright in my books’ – but don’t tell my girlfriend I was there.
So let’s get going…how were you brought on board to write the history of one of the best ever club biographies in the world ever?
“Well I was with the band one day and one day a mate who worked at Warner Brothers at the time came into my house with all of these CD club compilations – shit brands like Cream and Gatecrasher and I said, these are all fucking crap – I can do better. My mate said “well if you are so fucking clever do it yourself, you used to own The Hacienda for fuck’s sake.” So I thought okay, and put The Hacienda album together – we sold over 120,000 copies which in this day and age is incredible. So then came the book. A friend of mine in America interviewed me who was a music journalist over there, a big writer. He interviewed me and sent it all back and it was all in an American writing style. I thought shit. I shudder to think what you journalists go through, I thought making an album was hard – I had to start all over again and put it back in a Manc style. The weirdest thing Dan was, I went through so much hell and pain helping run that club and it took me ten years to recover. All of a sudden it all started to hurt again having to write this book. The memories and stories don’t go away. However you have to be professional about your working life and move on. The Hacienda was very upsetting and that was part of the whole score. I learnt a lot about myself, I blamed myself for a lot too but in a strange way I enjoyed it. I could have just stood up and said fuck off to everybody, but I didn’t. It’s all about strength. And that’s what I learnt from the whole experience.”
What over the years were your favourite bands you ever put on?
“So many international bands came in and sold the place out. When The Jesus And Mary Chain played it was like being in the middle of a riot. I loved when the likes of John Cale and Jonathan Richards played.
Is it true that New Order played at The Hacienda to keep the club afloat?
“Yes. We never got paid a penny.”
Favourite club night at The Hac?
“There was this night we used to do which attracted primarily black guys and white girls where the music was great. Pete Saville got mugged there one night and another night some black guy got hold of me and said “what you doing here honky.” It was violent in the early days there.”
The alcoves on the ground floor used to scare the shit out of me – gangs from Cheetham Hill, Doddington and Gooch from Moss Side and Salford, a predominately white gang and one of the oldest – who were the fiercest?
“Well I could walk into any alcove and not have any problems because we all knew each other, well sort of. You did get the stupid Saturday hairdresser dickheads who thought they were all above everyone who would just go on and sit in those alcoves not knowing they were no-go areas. They’d just get a slap. I used to sit in the older Salford gang alcove. Who were the worst? The young Salford gangs. They took over the really happy, funky Happy Mondays corner around 1988. A shame really.”
Two of my favourite Hac dudes, Skully, who you can buy a dodgy sport or concert ticket for anywhere and Sparrow, do you know these dudes?
“Everyone knows both of these guys. New Order played with Primal Scream a while ago and Skully was riding around on a children’s bike back stage – and I said to him, Skully, what the fuck are you doing? He just laughed. And as for Sparrow, don’t go there.”
A question from DJ Dave Seaman…
“Hooky, how are you finding the touring around the world as a DJ opposed to touring with the band? You were a bit of a late starter in the DJ world, is this something you always wanted to do?
“Hiya Dave. I resisted it for years. Barney used to appreciate it loads, DJing at places like Apple Jacks. He said to me after a while, “what the fuck are you thinking, you can get £500 DJing, all the drugs you can eat and a free bar. Mani from Primal Scream said to me, all you have to do is stand there and get pissed behind the decks. I was with him one time and he started scratching the wrong record and the other one stopped. So there was no music. He said “fuck ’em” and threw the record into the audience. “No one cares, I’m just some old cunt in a group.” Then after about six months I started to pick my own records and to be honest, DJing got me back into music again. I really enjoy it. What I love about DJing is the unity, you don’t get that in the band world there’s too much rivalry. Bands always turn up late, DJs are always on time. One thing though – it’s a lonely existence, on the road all the time with just a driver, nobody to share it with when it goes off. When I was in New Order we had this band of security protecting you, no one could get through. As a DJ I’ve had some hairy situations with people able to come up and grab you and want to talk to you, it’s very unpredictable, but brilliant none the less.”
I love the story in the book regarding the lighting guy Glen who was nicking all of your lights at the club and getting a kicking when you discovered who it was stealing from you, he then tried to get into the club on a night out, only for your reception desk girl Fiona who quickly asked your head doorman Damian to throw him into the canal, which he duly did – without asking why. Did Damian ever find out why he was asked to dunk an ex-employee into The Manchester Canal?
“Yes. He wasn’t bothered at all. He was a lunatic. So loyal. He would do anything for us.”
Everybody can remember where they were when amazing people die – Kennedy, Princess Diana, Elvis Presley – where were you when you found out that your lead singer in Joy Division, Ian Curtis, had hung himself?
“I was eating Sunday lunch at home waiting to go to the airport for a gig. I was one of the few people back then who had a mobile phone and a police Sergeant got hold of me – I just went into shock mode.”
How do you think Ian would feel about the Manchester United fans singing ‘Giggs will tear you apart’ to the tune of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ – as a Man City fan?
“He would have definitely have hated it. He would be turning in his grave. That’s a funny one though, Rob was a Man City fan too but they just didn’t get on at all, it is really unusual to have two football fans supporting the same team who don’t get on. “
A great obituary from yourselves regarding Rob Gretton…
“We were shocked and saddened to learn of the death of Robert Leo Gretton. We are sure that all who have dealt with him as a colleague share with us our feelings that we have lost a unique and genuine friend. His loyalty, generosity and the strength of his principles combined with his love of life will remain an inspiration to us all. Our thoughts are with his partner Lesley and children. He was a part of us, without him we would be like a piece of banoffee pie with a slice missing.”
Who is your biggest musician pal you still have a drink with?
“Robbie Williams, I was meant to go over and stay at his house in Los Angeles, but didn’t.”
Why not?
“Well he had his nervous breakdown. He asked me to appear on his LP, not heard from him in a while…”
Well it’s good he’s getting back with Take That for himself though?
“It’s funny, me and Keith Allen were with Robbie all the time in the early 90s when he left Take That and we used to spend so many fucking nights’ with him completely fucked at places like The Groucho Club and we actually got to know him quite well in that time. He’s a nice guy. It must be so fucking hard being that big Dan. I remember being withJohnny Rotten one night and we were watching The Orb and I said ” Johnny ,this is so fucking boring, can we go and get a pint?”. And he said “Hooky I can’t, I won’t get through the crowds”. I said “fuck ’em, you’re with me, I’m your mate we’ll be fine, let’s just get to the bar and have a drink. But fuck me, we went to the bar and he was right. We couldn’t fucking move. People just jumped on him and that’s how it must be for Robbie Williams. That is one thing thank god that New Order never suffered, none of that obsessional stuff.”
Why was that?
“Maybe nobody liked us ‘cos we were shit.”
Yeah, but you weren’t were you Hooky?
“I know, I’m joking, I suppose when you are a ‘band of the people’ and don’t push it publicly, it’s different, you don’t get recognised so much.”
Whatever happened to The Hacienda cat?
“Ha ha. I had it fucking stuffed, it’s on my mantlepiece and when I get pissed off I shoot it. No, that was The NME playing a spoof taking the piss, there was never a cat wandering around the club. But what makes me laugh now, is if it had a Facebook page now, it would have fucking thousands of members.”
Graeme Park or Mike Pickering?
“Graeme Park”
Saw an old interview you did in Serbia at the ‘Exit’ festival, do you still clear up the dog shit in your garden? I have two Labradors and spend half my life clearing up their crap in the garden…
“Yes I do, I just lost one though. Mia an English Cavalier Spaniel, she was fourteen and got ill and spent a week in the vet hospital and we had to put her down. The vet said “do you want me to cremate her and have the ashes” and I said no, I’m taking her home to bury her. And I really like having her there. We’ve still got a Bishon Frise running around. She’s dead funny, but fuck me does she still miss the other one.”
Are you getting another one?
“Funnily enough we’re getting a Labrador. Everyone has told me not to get a brown one as they are potty though.”
Well I’ve got two lying by my feet as we talk. Great.
What four people dead or alive, would you invite to a dinner party?
“Pete Burns ‘cos he’s Dead Or Alive, Ian Curtis – because I would love to know why he did it. And who else, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop – that would be a fucking rocking night wouldn’t it?”
I once went and queued up for 4 hours to get a book signed at Waterstones by Priscilla Presley for one of my dad’s Christmas presents – how is your book tour going? What’s the nicest thing any fan has said to you so far?
“People are being really sweet, I didn’t know what to expect. I felt like Father Christmas sitting there on my first one – without the presents and a donkey to sit on. I got 175 in and the manager said to me afterwards, that Jordan only got 200 which was encouraging . A lot of people who came said that the reason they started to play Bass Guitar was because of me which was nice. When I was in New Order we never did many signings because we never believed in them, so it is nice to get so much feedback. I had to agree to do these signings contractually before I did the bloody book. You always get scared at that ‘Spinal Tap moment’ when you think nobody will come, but it was all good.”
Are you still pissed off with Factory Records for wasting so much of your own money in The Hacienda?
“No, no, I’m not pissed off any more. I feel at last that it’s water under under the bridge. In the end, writing the book was my release from it all, it took a long time though. As for Bernard, Gillian and Steven, fuck knows whether they’ll have had their own releases.”
You drew up a list of people of potential investors in the club to help out – Pete Waterman, was in there, so was Quincy Jones, Richard Branson and Peter Gabriel. Who out of that quartet would you have been happy with?
“Ha ha. Well Richard Branson did actually come along to try and buy the club. He looked at the accounts and thought there was a typo regarding the security costs. He saw the figure of £350,000 and assumed it was £35,000, but it wasn’t. So he walked. But to be honest, Although Richard Branson would have been great, it would have felt like it was like seeing your girlfriend out with somebody else if someone had come in. I’m happy that’s it just luxury flats now, it’s the biggest gravestone in the world though.”
Have any clubbers ever come up to you and told you that they live there?
“Yeah, two girls came to the book signing last week funnily enough. I said to them, do you hear things in the night, can I come round and have a listen – and they said “fuck off you dirty old man.”
Did Madonna’s handbag really get cleaned out whilst she was on stage at her first UK performance at your club? Did she kick off?
“Well it is only Madonna that remembers that story. But I love mythical stories, who knows? Once Tony Wilson said to me that “Hooky, fiction is better than fact” – and that was the only time I ever fell out with him, I said, Tony, fact is so much more fucking interesting than fiction.”
Well Madonna’s handbag mustn’t have had that much in it though…?
“Not at that point Dan.”
A question from DJ Allister Whitehead…
“Hi Hooky. What did you think of Joe Anderson’s portrayal of yourself in the film ‘Control’ and did you enjoy it?
“Hi Allister. I did actually. I far enjoyed ‘Control’ than ’24 Hour Party People’. Anton Corbijn knew us quite well and I recognised certain traits in people. I could see the traits in Bernard how he used to be and I could see the traits in me how I used to be.”
‘Blue Monday’ – the biggest selling 12″ record of all time, a shame Factory weren’t signed to the BPI so you couldn’t pick up your Gold album, however – is it true this classic song was made in the first place in response to crowd disappointment that you never played encores?
“Nah that’s another myth really. Rob Gretton actually suggested that at the end of the gig we just turned the sequencers off and not play the song. We didn’t do encores because we thought it was corny and shit and we didn’t want to ruin a great gig by playing a shit encore and we didn’t want to ruin a shit gig by playing a great encore, it was like that. Then that myth turned into Bernard saying that we wrote ‘Blue Monday’ primarily for that purpose which I don’t remember that. I only remember that we wrote ‘Blue Monday’ as a song and that we were going to finish with that, the funny thing is, we all remember it all differently. That’s why I wrote the book on my own – no one else involved because everybody you talk to remembers things differently.”
Is that because of drugs?
“I don’t know mate, I’d like to think it wasn’t down to drugs, but the older I get I can’t fucking remember anything to be honest.”
What is the best record ever made?
“You won’t believe this, but mine is Candi Stanton ‘The Source’. A fucking classic, it always tears the roof off. I’m not a ‘DJ’s DJ’ – I didn’t come from the DJ background, I do things that no one else will do which pisses some people off. Whenever I play in Manchester, Graeme Park always says “fucking hell Hooky, the thing I love about you is that whenever you get the chance to put this record on, you always stick it on.”
What did you get in The Hacienda Auction before it got demolished?
“Not a piece of the dancefloor which I regret. I got two of the yellow and black and red and black beams but they got stolen – I never even saw them. I really wanted the famous Fac 51 name plate, everybody did – but Rob Gretton’s widow got it. That was the only thing he took, he didn’t even take a fucking paper clip. Fuck knows where the sign is now.”
I said to my girlfriend this morning I’m going to get that re-made and put on the front of the house…
“Fuck off Dan. I’ve trademarked that and I’ll bloody sue you.”
Did you really piss into a Hellman’s Mayonnaise bucket in the Hacienda kitchen?
“Yes. Did you ever try queuing for the bogs?”
What has been your greatest Rock n’ Roll moment?
“Owning The Hacienda for 15 years. I revelled in it from ’88 onwards. Waltzing through the doors, the crowd parting so I could get to the bar, having a cab waiting outside for me to take me home at the end of the night, seeing bands I loved. It was an expensive Rock n’ Roll moment but having your own private army looking after you at your own club, great.”
Have you still got the master tape of the Joy Division debut album ‘Unknown Pleasures’ you discovered back stage on your last visit to The Hacienda grabbing what you could that was supporting barrels of beer – an amazing quote from you, ‘so it was Joy Division after all that kept the whole fucking club thing up!?
“I have. It’s crushed, completely buckled, it must be 20 – 30 years old now but I do have it.”
Have you thought of e-Bay?
“Fucking right, e-Bay is the old musicians pension.”
Thank you Hooky, great interview.
“No problem Dan, and I’ll take your recommendations on board regarding the Labradors. And your questions were great.”
Catch the legend Peter Hook on his book tour at Fopp, 1 Earlham Street in London on Friday October 9th at 6pm and then a DJ set at Wax Jambu, 144 Upper Street in London from 8.30pm. Then it’s off to Bristol on Saturday October 10th at Borders on Queen’s Road at 6pm before a big trek up north to Off The Shelf in Sheffield on Thursday October 15th with a Q/A and DJ set at 7.30pm. The book comes with a free half hour documentary ‘Inside The Hacienda’ presented by Miranda Sawyer and interviews with Peter Hook, Ben Kelly, Mike Pickering, Jon Da Silva and Fiona Allen.
“Inside The Hacienda Trailer” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wopm2TJND6M
HMV Order Link – http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=280;0;-1;-1;-1&sku=836643
Micro Site – http://tinyurl.com/TheHaciendaAcidHouseClassics
For further information on FAC 51 The Hacienda and The Hacienda Tour, check www.Fac51TheHacienda.com
