Ian Curtis, Blue Monday & Sock Water: New Order Interviewedby James Brown
17 May 2012 10 Comments
Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris select key moments in the history of Joy Division and New Order. James Brown ordered the pints of sock water.
Change: A Queue
Stephen: The first time I realised something had changed was when we played the Nashville, we went out and there were a queue of people like I’d never seen before, round the block to get into Nashville Rooms. I said, “Look at that, that’s our first queue”
Change: Haircuts
Bernard: Mine was the haircuts Rob Gretton gave us. There’s a famous photograph taken by Anton Corbijn, I think it was the first time we met Anton, it was his first photo session in the U.K. and it was at Lancaster Gate tube station. And on it we’ve all got this really short hair, Steve’s got this really big sprout stuck up on the back of his head, which is a bit unfortunate for such a classic photo, we can probably re touch it.
We were supporting the Buzzcocks on possibly the first tour we’d ever been on. We were sitting round bored in a boarding house in Leeds somewhere like that. I’d just got a cut but I had a little bit of hair stuck up at the back and it was annoying me so I got a pair of scissors and I said to Rob “Can you cut that little bit of hair, it’s annoying me” So he cut it but he cut a big lump out the back of my hair
Stephen: The problem with Robs barbering techniques were the scissors he used, they were massive. Instead of using nice normal you know barbering scissors he used to use massive ones, they were tailor scissors big, clunking, great, rusty brown things. I think he was using the wrong things, but it did result in that rather odd angular style.
Bernard: With me he cut this little bit off, cut a big chunk out of my hair so I said “that’s no good, you’ve made a right balls of it” so he ended up a cutting all me hair short and then they were like ‘That looks daft because he’s got dead short hair, you’re gonna have to cut everyone else’s’ [laughter] So it started with Rob cutting that little bit of stuck up hair off then he worked his way through the whole group and that’s why we’ve all got that haircut on that photograph.
Stephen: And quicker than you can say “Rob those aren’t the right kind of scissors” we were all short.
Bernard: We were sheep sheared…
Stephen: That haircut lasted a while, we had to tour Europe when it was freezing we’d all got those haircuts when we went to Eindoven they thought we were refugees from England and it was bloody cold and er, Rob never cut our hair again.
And quicker than you can say “Rob those aren’t the right kind of scissors” we were all short.
