The story of New Order is about to be retold with the upcoming release of Peter Hook’s autobiography, Substance: Inside New Order, which will take us from the end of Joy Division right the way through to the modern day. With more than thirty five years of action and one of the most troubled formations in the history of music, there’s a lot of story to tell and while a lot of it has been written about many times before, this is the first time it’s coming straight from Hook himself.
It comes at a troubled time for the band with legal wrangling over royalties making their way in front of a judge for initial proceedings, so it’ll be interesting to see how much of this makes it into the book. It’s billed as no-holds-barred, so if it’s not in there then we’re going to say there’s at least one bar that has been held, but the rest of the bars are are pretty joyful. Peter Hook left New Order in 2007, so there’s definitely going to be an element of things going dark, but hopefully, there will be a little on how things look from the outside looking in for the bass player.
Release date
The book will be arriving on hardback and ebook on the 6th October 2016, nine years after Hook left the band and more than three decades after the sad end of transmission for Joy Division. There’s no word as of yet whether or not it will be getting an audiobook release, but if it does we’re hoping Peter Hook narrates it himself.
About Substance: Inside New Order
The book starts out with the end of Joy Division, the post-punk band of legend that Hook founded with Bernard Sumner back in 1976 Salford, although at the time they were called Warsaw. The catalyst to the seismic change was, as everyone must know already, the death of lead singer, Ian Curtis, who took his own life on the eve of the band’s first US tour.With the remaining band mates continuing on, but under a different name and musical direction, New Order was created.
Substance: Inside New Order is Peter Hook’s look back on it all, including the transition to taking in a new wave of electronica to add to their post-punk roots. They went on to be a formative influence on dance music, which took its first burgeoning steps in the early 1980s, but its no secret that behind it all were tense relationships and crashing wills. The book then will be the highs, the lows, the good, the bad and the dysfunctional of a band that helped to define its generation, as well continuing on the legacy of its joyous precursor.
First impressions
It’s impossible to know how much bad feeling there is still between the former band mates, but that’s not really why Substance: Inside New Order will be worth reading. It’s more the look back on an incredible career in music from the heart of it all that we’re looking forward to, including all of the stories, set lists, tour details and tech that Peter Hook has promised in the synopsis.
