QTheMusic.com

Legendary Bass player Peter Hook is due to go on tour once more. On this stage he will have, for the most part, no instrument to hide behind, exposing himself and his past to the full scrutiny of those who care to observe.

In, An Evening of Unknown Pleasures, a series of lectures around the UK, Hook is set to relive the hedonistic dream of his Madchester youth, enlightening and frightening those who wish to know just how chaotic the Factory era was. The shows will consist of Hooky playing some instrumental bass numbers, a conversation with Howard Marks (a.k.a. Mr Nice), a Q 'n A from the audience, an exhibition of Hooky's memorabilia and some hitherto unseen Joy Division, New Order and footage from the Hacienda.

Qthemusic.com caught up with him for a chat about it all (tour dates at the bottom):

Q: What is your motivation for the new tour?
Peter Hook: A promoter who is an old friend of mine called Nigel Mcintyre approached us after seeing an interview we did for the film Control in Manchester. It was quite odd really because with 24 Hour Party People as well you just get into this habit of doing Question and Answer sessions. He asked me to do a sixteen date tour and that terrified me, but he said "you've just been doing it for 3 films, the only difference is that you didn't get paid."

Q: I didn't have you down as being a shy person, it seems like you're usually very opinionated?
PH: This is different though isn't it? I'm used to being hidden behind a guitar or whatever else is available onstage, this time I'm standing there talking on my own which is nerve-racking. I still think why would anyone want to come and see us talk? So I thought I'd draft someone in who's obviously good at this, that was Howard Marx, a good friend of mine. It turns out though that he was even more nervous than me about it, which made me even more nervous!

Q: So you have literally nothing to hide behind?
PH: We came up with the idea of taking along a little bit of memorabilia that I have with me here. We were thinking about using it for a Joy Division exhibit this year so I was pulling it out and thought it'd be cool to use for the show.

Nigel McIntyre pointed out to me that a lot of my audience have grown up with me and don't want to go to clubs anymore, they want to sit in comfort and have a nice toilet available and to have a nod off in the interval, I'm like that now and so a talk is the best way to do things.

Q: Do you not feel that your history transcends age barriers?
PH: There are some younger kids interested but whether this would appeal to them I don't know. The Manchester show is sold out which means the interest is there.

It's quite funny though, when we opened Fac 251 [New Factory nightclub in Manchester] and I did a performance as The Light, it was a retrospective set of my career and the audience was really young which actually quite surprised me. The heart-warming thing that does make you proud is the fact that your music is still as current today as it was when you wrote it 30 years ago, and that's a great compliment that I didn't expect.

When I opened this club I was apprehensive. I thought the audience would just be 30 something's who caught the tail end of the band but it isn't it's a great mixture of kids from 18 to bloody kids of 50 like me who are still kidding themselves that they are kids, and I'm a great one for that.

Q: Your music is the soundtrack to Mancunian civic pride so many people will want to find out more about that with your tour...
PH: Interestingly you attract as much flack as you do praise for that which is surprising. There's a lot of keyboard terrorists out there who like to piss on your party, but this is about the past being a platform to celebrate and launch the future.

The club too is for the same reason, it's open 7 nights a week on 3 floors so we've got 21 acts on a week, there's only one which I do on the Saturday which is the Hacienda Presents, but this is the only one which refers to the past.

Q: What modern music will the club be playing? Are you a fan of any of it?
PH: In the club we've got floors devoted to garage, 2-step and dubstep. Dubstep has crossed over into the mainstream. Kids love dubstep man, I mean it's mental music, which makes me feel old whenever I hear it. I think it's ok for about 4 minutes but after a while you need to be on crystal meth or something to get anything out of it and I'm just too old for that shit y'know.

Q: Do you worry that Fac 251 may end up attracting the drug reputation of The Hacienda?
PH: You wouldn't allow it now, the culture is different and so is the way the police work with clubs. They wouldn't help you or have anything to do with you in the past and if you had a problem they just used to laugh at you down the other end of the phone. They used to let gangsters run riot around Manchester.

I'll tell you one thing which has been absolutely fantastic, the greatest single thing for clubs is Polish doormen because they don't know anything about gangs, so when some guy comes to the door demanding respect - The guy's from Poland, he hasn't got a fucking clue! He doesn't know where Moss Side is or Cheetham Hill and he doesn't care who you are. That's one of the best things to come out of the immigration system.

Q: You occasionally wear a T-shirt saying 'We made history, not money,' would you change anything?
PH: I wouldn't change a thing. I'm very happy with the person I am today and that is the thing to judge it by. History is history and I've had such a ball pissing that money up the wall. I had the laugh of my life.

I was in the gym today listening to Rhythm Is A Dancer by Snap. It was really the soundtrack to my 1988-89 summer. We spent the whole summer in the pub off our fucking rockers listening to that track and really money couldn't have bought that experience. It's like the Hacienda book which took 26 years to write and cost £30 million quid, for £8.99 it's a fucking bargain. That's the way you have to look at it, if you don't laugh you'll cry.

Q: You have to be naïve to have the adventure.
PH:Yes you're absolutely right. When you have that much money pouring in on you, you feel invulnerable. The Hacienda was turning over hundreds of thousands of pounds a week and we were all running around throwing it like George Best on a Bentley with a model. All the money that poured through the Hacienda like a river it's just all disappeared and nobody knows where it went, although I can hazard a few guesses, a few sore noses.

Q: You've certainly been through it all. Do you think music scenes will ever be as strong again?
PH: I don't know but it was a hell of an experience. I saw the Sex Pistols and was at the birth of acid house, watched Madchester go off right from the word go and saw it all. A lot of kids talk to you with such reverence because you were there. When you whink about what a lifestyle we went through and judging by the picture of Bez in the paper last week when he collapsed, it seems like some of us are still trying to live it. It's amazing that we survived.

Q: Will this talk shed the truth on a past that is now coated in nostalgia?
PH: Everybody distorts the truth. Me Bernard and Steve all remember things differently, that's why when I wrote my book I didn't include anyone in the book apart from me because it's my memory and I didn't want any contradictions about what I went through. You can bet your bottom dollar that if you sat Steve and Bernard down that they'll say he didn't fucking do that or he didn't say that the bastard.

I read a lot of books by the likes of Dave Haslam or John Robb. I even read a bit of Bernard's book. A lot of things in it are wrong because Bernard didn't write that book, someone wrote it for him but it all adds to the myth. Tony Wilson was a great one for us enjoying the myth that we created, it was his sense of chaos and adventure which meant that we could play it up. I find as I get older I play it up even more.

Q: Howard Mark is a very interesting choice of compere. I bet he's got a few stories he could tell himself.
PH: In many ways he's been through what we've been through without music and we do share a kind of kinship. Most of the time when I think about Howard it was only because we were so off our rockers that we thought everything was normal. We thought having Asian kids running around with Uzi's was normal, we thought that happened to every club in England. We'd go to other clubs in England and they didn't even have doormen. We were going hang on, there's 50 in our club, with 12 Doberman's. We were the odd ones.

You do take things for granted and I think in his life he's had the same thing because of what he was doing and the danger he was in just became quite normal for him, so I think it's quite a nice tie in.

Peter Hook's An Evening of Unknown Pleasures - 2010
With compere Howard Marks.

Sunday April 11 Birmingham, Glee Club
Monday April 12 Bolton Albert Hall
Tuesday April 13 Worcester, Huntingdon Hall
Thursday April 15 Milton Keynes, Stables
Sunday April 18 Middlesbrough, Town Hall
Tuesday April 20 Gateshead, The Sage
Wednesday April 21 Durham, Gala
Thursday April 22 Burnley, Mechanics
Sunday April 25 Cardiff, Glee Club 
Monday April 26 Oxford Academy
Tuesdy April 27 Wakefield Theatre Royal
Wednesday April 28 Gloucester Guild Hall
Thursday April 29 Derby Assembly Rooms
Friday April 30 Norwich UEA

Saturday May 1 Salford, The Lowry
Sunday May 2 Hull Truck Theatre

3:25 PM | 07/04/2010