Hook thrives in the Light of a whole New Order

“I think Ian Curtis was right in his opinion,” Peter Hook puts it. “Ian – however a song was shaping up, whether it was weird as f**k or poppy as hell, he’d always insist that we finished it because he used to say that someone will love that song. He’s been proved right so many times.”

For the last 14 years, Hook has been reviving the material he penned alongside Curtis, Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris with Joy Division in the late seventies, as well as the back catalogue that the three built as New Order following Curtis’ tragic passing.

Peter Hook & the Light play Galway's Black Box Theatre next month (it was originally fixed for Leisureland but then moved), on November 16, spotlighting the Substance albums that compiled some of the biggest songs each band released. New Order’s Substance arrived in 1987 and fast became their best-selling record.

“It was only because Tony Wilson bought a jag with a CD player, and wanted our songs to play together, that we did Substance as a CD,” Hook says.

“It’s gone on to be the biggest-selling product that we ever put out, because of the amount of hits that it had in one place. New Order wouldn’t have done that because we always liked the singles to stand alone from the LPs.”

Hook hasn’t spoken to his former bandmates on a friendly basis since 2006. Sumner and Morris continue to perform as New Order, and as Hook puts it, they all still work together every day.

“We live together with the songs and the music and the fans every day,” he says. “And we haven’t got a good word to say to each other, which is really strange. But that’s life.”

There is a mysticism around Joy Division because of how brief the band’s time together was and how deeply their music still resonates with new listeners. The four-piece ushered in a disquieting era of eighties post-punk that remains profoundly influential among young bands today.

Features of that music undoubtedly draw on tenets of Joy Division – from Hook’s basslines high up the neck of his instrument to Curtis and Morris’ fascination with Krautrock and experimental blends of sounds both ambient and jarring. Their work has been analysed in excruciating detail, but much of it came together quite naturally.

Pictured: Peter Hook.... Leisureland date next month.