Peter Hook (affectionately nicknamed ‘Hooky’) began his musical career as the bassist for the iconic band Joy Division: a northern 20-year-old punk rocker who didn’t know the difference between speakers and amps or bass from guitar. With his distinctive playing style and raw energy, he left an indelible mark on music history. After the death of the late Ian Curtis (lead singer for Joy Division), Hook succeeded in founding New Order and spearheaded a more upbeat and danceable era of British music. We (virtually) sat down to discuss his career, the invention of AI music and nepo babies.
After a brief interlude in which I (very embarrassingly) show him the Joy Division poster on my wall, we head into questions, where we discuss the emergence of nepo babies in the creative industries. While his own son, Jack Bates, has played bass for the Smashing Pumpkins since 2015 – which he is immensely proud of – we talk about Jake Bongiovi’s career and Bono’s son Elijah Hewson, who is the frontman of rock band Inhaler. Hook mulled over this and reflected that ‘there’s more to prove’ when you’re a nepo baby, since you can be overshadowed by their famous parent, like Bob Marley’s children, multiple of whom have followed him into music.
Hook, who was born in Salford in 1956, co-founded Joy Division in 1976 alongside longtime friends Ian Curtis and Bernard Sumner. The interest in music was strengthened by their own music tastes, which started with Black Sabbath, leading onto Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, but the real contributor was punk band The Sex Pistols, which Hook credits with changing his life. Admitting he had a ‘very intense relationship with punk’, he reflected that this interest in music was intertwined with subconscious ideas from this period, and even that the first Joy Division record they did sounded like The Doors. Casting his mind back to his teenage years, Hook reflected on the impact his obsession with the Sex Pistols had. Admitting he became a bit of a rebel, he had a ‘f*ck off’ attitude and was obnoxious to everyone over the age of 21 and had an adolescent revelation: the bands they (he and school friend Sumner) were no longer cool – although they’d paved the way – and ‘wanted everyone over the age of 21 to die – thank God that didn’t happen!’ Hook tells me the famous anecdote: he went to go and buy his first ever bass guitar and was confused and didn’t know how to use it, saying ‘that’s only got four strings, my mate’s got six,’ to which the shopkeeper called him a ‘knobhead’. Reminiscing on this, he added an anecdote from those days: Ian Curtis handed the two of them a Doors LP, which he took home and listened to it and realised that Curtis was right, in a real ‘goddamnit’ moment. To this extent, Joy Division ended up in having a very anti-establishment and punky attitude.
Moving onto the beauty of songwriting, he considers it to be an innate skill and a real art. He confides in me that it’s impossible to teach someone how to write a song, and with the work he’s doing with The Light it’s amazing to be a musician again, especially at his age. Telling me that someone came up to him once and said that his songs saved their life, he emphasises that songwriting is a beautiful part of musicians’ lives, and tells me something that Curtis once said to him: ‘You have to finish every song you write,’ because of this phenomenon. I ask him how he feels on AI music, to which he retorts that it’s ‘terrible,’ to which I sympathise with him and add that it feels like there’s no soul in it. Hook felt that AI can create beats, maybe even words, but it can’t write a song, and that the day that it can, AI creators would never shut up about it.
I ask how playing with The Light is, to which he tells me about his ambition to play every song that both Joy Division and New Order ever wrote and recorded. Peter Hook and The Light is now on the next to last LP: he’s touring ‘Get Ready to Go’ and then ‘Waiting for the Sirens’ Call’. Adding that it’s incredibly fulfilling to be able to do this, Hook gripes that New Order was very conservative in both what and how they played, that there was a ‘lack of breadth’ in their discography, in which he realised why – they were hard to play – but as he doesn’t have a choice due to his new aspiration, he has to now. In addition, it’s great for him to play the last LP from Joy Division, as they wrote it but weren’t able to perform it due to the death of Curtis and lost the record with him on it, which I sympathised with.
My conversation with Peter Hook was an unexpected lesson in navigating the end of my teenage years: from not letting adolescent obsessions with bands shape my attitude to being paramountly aware that my life doesn’t end after 30, that I don’t have to decide where my life is going to go at 19. In a meaningful way, his words are proof that rest and rehabilitation are the priority in the approach to wellbeing and mental health.
Peter Hook and The Light are playing three dates in April 2025, where they’ll be playing the entirety of 2001 New Order album ‘Get Ready to Go’, alongside a prime selection of the most seminal tracks from Joy Division and New Order’s back catalogues, from the 17th to 19th of April from Bristol, to London, and his home city Manchester.
