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Interview: Peter Hook - How Not To Run A Club

The legendary Joy Division and New Order bassist, Peter Hook, is set to reissue his book The Hacienda - How Not To Run A Club. Released in standard formats late last year it is a candid account of how millions were squandered through mismanagement. Despite making large sums of money through the record sales of New Order, Hook and his bandmates were unable to reap the rewards as all the cash went back into funding the Hacienda's unprofitable enterprise.

Heritage and a romanticised nostalgia seems to have enveloped what could well have simply been a gruesome story mirroring the fate of many other clubs at the time (though few could claim the pedigree or musical legacy of the Hacienda). Interest in the club seems to be just as strong thirty years on and this deluxe reissue is intended as a definitive artifact with which to celebrate the rich legacy of the club and everything that occurred within it's four walls. In fact, so definitive is the reissue that each purchase comes with a literal piece of history included, in the form of a segment of the original dance floor (and in the deluxe edition a bit of the bar aswell).

As gloriously designed as they are, with these reissues being sold for between £400 and £500 Hook was worried he may be seen as shamelessly cashing in on his past glories, but after seeing the final product he feels he has been able to put these fears aside. Just days ago however, former Freebass band-mate Mani accused Hook of having a wallet "stuffed with Ian Curtis' blood money," before retracting this statement and issuing an apology.

It is likely then that this Hacienda reissue will have its critics, and when one of Hook's best friends of the last thirty years temporarily cast aspersions on his motives they will no doubt have a field day. So, what was it all about? Q met up with Hooky on Tuesday to chat with him about the Hacienda, the book and deluxe re-issues to get his side of the story...

Q: What is the motivation behind the reissue of this book? You have said yourself you were worried it might be perceived in a negative way. What changed your mind?
Peter Hook When they offered to do this I thought fucking hell this is shameless cashing in. I really thought it was bad and I thought people would think it was bad. I said do what you want and then when I saw it I thought fuck me it's beautiful and to get a chance to use the dancefloor and bar top was great too. Let's face it I spent most of my time on here (points to a piece of the dancefloor) and the rest of my time on there (looks over to a segment of the bar top).

Q:What have you learned about the experience by writing this book?
PH: I really learned that what happened with The Hacienda was nobody's fault. I used to think Ben Kelly was to blame. Until I did the book I blamed him but then I realised that we were all to blame If you let it happen then you are just as responsible.

Q: Are you not disappointed that others exploited your naivety?
PH: They only really did so with their own naivety. If Tony Wilson had gone off with all our money to Brazil and spent it on coke and hookers then I could've been angry but he gave it all back to the Manchester so I can't be. I don't think any other group in history has ever ploughed their money back into a city, or were stupid enough to and the fact that we did makes the story quite wholesome. There was no expense spared at The Hacienda, it was never designed to make money. Ben Kelly was given a blank cheque and agreed to be as over the top as he wanted to be.

You are very critical of Kelly in the book. You say that he laid the foundations for the fall of Factory. How did he react to it?
PH: He was really annoyed with me but I was careful to word it in a way that would let him know I didn't blame him anymore. I used to go up to him all the time when I was pissed and shout at him for it but through writing the book I realised that it was more Tony and Rob's idealism that was the reason for it. They said we owed something to the city. I didn't realise he meant everything but we didn't check the bank balance.

Q: Where did the floor pieces you are including in the reissues come from?
PH: We have all this spare floor because Kelly used Maple which isn't suitable for a dancefloor because it's too soft. Some of what we are giving away with the reissue is that old floor and it wouldn't be here if Wilson hadn't have had to rip up the Maple. The rest of it just ended up in a skip, we should have kept it. It was the assistant manager of The Hacienda who had most of the old floor and I had to buy it back believe it or not.

One of my friends came in with two big pieces and he said it looked like a guitar, doing little air guitar solos and that's how we came up with the idea for the guitar we have now. I like the idea behind it because the dancefloor was the receptacle for all this sweat that hit the floor and the drugs that we dropped, the atmosphere, it was all soaked into this mess and you can still see the stiletto marks in the floor which wasn't smoothed off or anything. All the shit and music that went into this dancefloor comes out again when you play it.

Q:There's lots of moments in the book in which you talk about how you wish you'd have cashed in on The Hacienda while it was at its height. Do you regret not having done so then and how did you feel when Mani accuses you of living off the past now?
PH: Yes he did say a few things but he's apologised now.

What caused such a strong reaction though?
PH: The reaction was because Freebass didn't work. The group dynamics just didn't work. While it was all quite romantic to have these people together who've been musicians for 30 years and form a group, the truth was we were both too set in our ways that it didn't work. When you look at a couple you think I could live with her but when you get together you think oh fuck I hate her. It was like that even though we're still great friends.

His comments were pretty strong though. He did say you were living off the death of Ian Curtis at one point
PH: (laughs) I've heard worse. I really don't know what prompted that. We were just two big personalities going for one leadership role and he got pissed off by that. He made a huge mistake and I didn't want to rise to it. I did that too much with New Order and people don't like it, neither did I in the end. What Mani will come to realise is that he is going to have to live with what he did forever and he doesn't need me rubbing his face in it. I'm his friend and we've gone through too much together. We're both book ends, he's on one side of Manchester and I'm on the other and in between us is all that's happened to the city and if he wants to let off a bit of steam then so what.

Why when you were working as a roadie in your own club for extra cash did you not question how it was run?
PH: I felt really divorced from it. I didn't know where the money was coming from even though it was all our money, earned by Joy Division and New Order. We all used to sit there laughing at the mistakes we were making. The tax man found a lot of irregularities to say the least and the staff were taking advantage because they thought we were idiots pumping a load of money into the club, they thought we were loaded. When I went to the first birthday party and saw free booze and I thinking that's great but I never thought for a moment that I was the one actually paying for it.

Q: What are your feelings about the upcoming Freebass release now?
PH: Even though you can look at it and think that's gone absolutely tits up I do still have a new record out and that's the main thing. You're only as good as your last record. I'm still doing Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures too so I've got both the past and the future. No-one can say you're living off the past you fucker. I've been lucky enough because the heritage is so rich that it allows me to have a future.

The Hacienda: How Not To Run A Club by Peter Hook, standard, deluxe and ultimate editions are published by Foruli and available to order now from their website. The ultimate edition (of which there are only 2) includes a bass guitar partly constructed with the floor of the Hacienda (pictured bottom below).

Photography: Andy Vella/Foruli 2010.

6:59 AM | 21/09/2010