Formed in 1980 by the remaining members of Joy Division after singer Ian Curtis committed suicide, Manchester's New Order have been a chart presence ever since. Blue Monday, from 1983, is the biggest-selling 12" single of all time. Their electronics, guitars, heart and soul have also made them one of the most influential bands of all time. From Kylie to Bloc Party to the Others, most of this year's pop carries New Order's musical DNA.
London-based Bloc Party have been tipped as "this year's Franz Ferdinand", having already graced the cover of NME. Their past two singles - Little Thoughts and Helicopter - have gone Top 40. New release So Here They Are should finally transform them from hip contenders to household names.
The scene is a ludicrously expensive suite at Salford's Lowry Hotel, the kind of place record companies only book bands into after they've sold squillions of records, like New Order. Bloc Party - a polite, friendly trio of Kele Okoreke (singer/guitar) Gordon Moakes (bass) and Russell Lissack (guitar) (drummer Matt Tong being otherwise engaged) - may go on to sell squillions themselves, but for the moment are overawed.
"Wow. Look at this!" Moakes says of a gigantic silver television screen. "Are we allowed to touch anything?" wonders Okoreke. The surroundings probably don't help Bloc Party's self-confessed "nerves" at meeting one of rock's larger-than-life characters, someone who's "been through everything we're going through now".
"I'll let you into a secret," says Okoreke. "Seeing New Order at Reading festival in 1997 was the reason we started in music."
"Hooky is my all-time hero," says Moakes. "I learned to play bass because I wanted to play along with his records."
New Order bassist Peter Hook strides in. Not known for praising other bands, Hooky likes Bloc Party enough to wish to tell them his story, in graphic detail, and occasionally even allows them to get a word in. The message is implicit: you whippersnappers are honoured. And indeed they are. But although the two camps appear disparate, there's much in common. There's a distinct and rather charming "before and after" feeling. The gregarious, uproarious but insightful Hook could be a Bloc Party member, a few squillion sales and a legend down the line.
Gordon Moakes: My older brother played me a lot of records when I was a teenager, which is how I picked up on New Order. Also I was into Blur and the Stone Roses, and it's not hard to trace those things back.
Peter Hook: I like your album. The first track, though, the drums are so loud. Has the drummer's dad mixed it or something?
GM: We wanted a sound that would blow your head off.
PH: At the moment a lot of new bands I like are being compared to us. I can't always see it, but maybe I'm too close. When we started, everyone compared us to the Doors. Me and Bernard [Sumner] would say to Ian [Curtis], "Who the fuck are the Doors?!" So he'd bring the records round. We even did a cover of Riders on the Storm as a joke and of course nobody got it.
Kele Okoreke: We're forever compared to Gang of Four. We'd never heard them until people started mentioning it.
GM: I'm a bit cynical about these bands reforming. The other day my mate said the two most exciting bands he's seen this year were us and Gang of Four.
PH: It's difficult these days because it's not only you lot playing, but every band since the dawn of time. We were lucky enough to miss out on that as New Order. When we went off to do our own thing for six years we never got accused of reforming. The funny thing about being in a group is you start out as friends, become bitter enemies ... then money rears its ugly head, you waste it and then you become friends again.
GM: How did New Order get back together? I read that you hated each other.
PH: That's true. I've known Bernard since I was 11, longer now than my parents who are both dead - and knowing someone that long, they drive you bonkers. The only escape you've got is that you're taking on the world together. We began like that. We never had any money until we were 30 and we'd been in a band since we saw the Sex Pistols when we were 21. We had the Hacienda [club] and everything but we never had a bean.
Because New Order were constantly being successful, and Factory [Records] made a series of bad decisions, they were funding everything from New Order. Factory never accounted to us for all the records we'd sold, so we had no idea how much money we were losing. The Hacienda was a great kids' playground. But we were paying for it all, and we didn't know.
KO: Nobody thought about it?
PH: We didn't. There's stupidity for you. When the problems became worse, Happy Mondays had blown it with their homophobia. Tony [Wilson, Factory boss] spent a fortune making an album with Cath Carroll. They bought the Factory building, spent another fortune doing it up and the property market crashed. It'll make a great book.
So then they said, "We've got no money, we need you to make a record." So all the idealistic reasons we started the band for, had gone out of the window. We turned all that hate inward. We stopped talking to each other and eventually did separate projects.
GM: What brought you back together?
PH: Well I said I'd never do New Order again, not even if they paid me. But our manager, Rob Gretton, was sick of answering questions about whether we'd split up. So he got us all together in a room and once all that shit had gone and you were sat with the people you started with, it was the same again.
KO: Right at the beginning of New Order when you'd lost Ian Curtis, from what I can tell, you weren't sure whether to get another singer or who would sing?
PH: Yeah. We did Ceremony and In a Lonely Place and [producer] Martin Hannett had tracks of all of us singing. As we were about to go, Barney [Bernard Sumner] said, "Can I just have one more go?" And that was it.
GM: Do you have the same mindset you had when you were 21?
PH: I do, but everyone takes the piss out of me for it. Even my daughter says, "Dad, you're never going to grow up." But to me, playing live is the best thing I've ever experienced, whether it's playing to 125,000 in Japan or to one person at Huddersfield Mood Club.
KO: We played to a dozen once. It's heartbreaking but it helps you grow stronger.
PH: We once went on before the doors had even opened. In Oldham Tower Club as Joy Division a guy was sweeping up while we were on. Nobody there except these two girls who came right up to the front. As we finished the song, this girl goes, "Are you the Frantic Elevators? Fucking 'ell, we've come to the wrong place!" That was Mick Hucknall's band.
GM: Were they a joke band?
PH: They were a punk band. He used to scream so much the blood vessels in his throat burst and the PA guys would beat him up for covering the microphones with blood. They were wild, but since then he's become the biggest cunt on earth ... Anyway, my big problem has always been what to do when the band isn't working. The first singer dies and the next singer won't play live. At the moment I'm doing a thing with Mani [Primal Scream/Stone Roses] and Andy Rourke, whom Morrissey fired from the Smiths with a Post-It on his windscreen. We're calling ourselves Freebass 'cos they're songs with three basses. Mani's got the same problem as me in that Primal Scream don't play live enough, so he got me into DJing. We did this one in Barcelona. He was trolleyed and scratching the records. I was going, "Mani, the record's not on!" The punters were complaining and he was throwing records at them. It's a poor substitute for gigging and I can't imagine why someone would go to a club and have someone aged 49 playing records but it keeps me young and it's a good laugh.
GM: What do you play?
PH: All sorts of shite that I nick and put on the computer plus unreleased New Order mixes. I've done a couple with Barney. He tells me, "Don't play New Order, it's dead embarrassing." Then when I put it on he goes, "This sounds good."
GM: We're the same behind the decks. We're DJing on this tour. It's like a night out. We get on pretty well. There is the odd little rumble.
PH: [smiling] It'll come.
KO: I've known Russell [Lissack] for five years and we've been in bands for five years. We started Bloc Party in 2003 and by 2004 we were a signed band. We toured for the whole of last year. It's only recently that things fell into place.
PH: Where did you get your name?
GM: Just brainstorming. I was into that Joy Division thing of a name that had something to it but was ambiguous. I knew that the joy division was the prostitutes' wing in concentration camps. I found the Bloc word particularly evocative. It had a political implication - H-blocks - and a geographical implication but it doesn't mean either of them ...
PH: [interrupting] You're in good company doing this tour with the Killers. Your stuff fits well with them. But you have to watch it, with other bands. When we toured with the Buzzcocks, we were on £1.50 a day, so it was either a pint or you ate. The Buzzcocks were spoilt fuckers. I remember Pete Shelley coming along, "Hooky, how are you? We had lobster thermidor today, it was delicious!" I thought, "You fat bastard." That night we blew 'em off the stage. It was the most fantastic feeling. And that was the start of us in the press. But after that it went quiet for a long time. You can't take anything for granted. Also, because Ian was so charismatic, the press wanted to talk only to him, the singer. But he hated it and resisted it valiantly because - rightly so - he saw Joy Division as the four of us. We did one interview together and Barney and I said something and immediately wished we hadn't opened our mouths. Rob [manager] took us outside and said, "Listen, you two thickos! You're going to ruin this if you don't shut up." He said, "Why don't you be the dark and mysterious ones at the back?"
GM: We were described in one article as "media savvy" which upset me.
KO: It's not that we don't have opinions. Of course there are lots of bands we don't like.
PH: It's part of the fun. Green Day were in the hotel corridor earlier and Barney said "Ah, the American Alarm!" That's what other bands are there for, to be slagged off.
KO: We'll wait a while first.
GM: We're trying to be the antithesis of those bands. He [points to Russell] never says anything.
PH: That's all right. I think the most important thing about what we do is the music. You can be as big an arsehole as you want but if you're not making good music, you won't get away with it.
We once got stitched up by Smash Hits, a nasty little story about Barney. The day it appeared we did the shittiest gig ever and Barney was raging. The record company guy brought up this journalist, "He's the top features writer from blah-blah" and this journalist just went, "Sign my records man!" I thought, "Have I got the person to meet you!" I took him into the dressing room and this guy goes, "Sign my records, man!" Barney went crazy, just missed the guy with a Pernod bottle - Barney was trying to kill him. I didn't stop laughing for half an hour afterwards [smiling wickedly] - so even in the face of adversity you can have fun.
KO: Were the press very intrusive when Ian Curtis died?
PH: I had much more intrusion when I was married to Mrs Merton [Caroline Aherne]. Fifty cameras in your face when you open the door in the morning: that's intrusion. In 1980, dealing with a death in a group they did show you some respect. I don't think you'd get that respect now. The hardest thing I found was watching the 24 Hour Party People film, to see him ... hang himself. That actor had done such a great impression of him that it knocked us all for six. Even though it was acting, we'd never had to physically confront it. The thing is, Ian's with us every single day. This year there's two films being made about him. We're up for a Brit for Love Will Tear Us Apart. He's never gone away.
GM: I find the sheer volume of interest enormous. The internet, radio. Every day we're doing something. Was it always like that?
PH: No, nobody wanted to know. The internet ... you can stick a track on there and someone in Alaska will hear it. But what I find hard is we're doing interviews for this new LP and we can't play it to anybody. For us to get bootlegged now would kill Warners, and would stop them giving us the promotional push.
KO: We're constantly thinking about our band, talking about our band. It can get a bit obsessive.
PH: When we did it there wasn't anything else in our lives but the group. But after a load of divorces and children disturbed because you're never there, you have to re-evaluate.
GM: Contrary to what was said before, I find we're being asked so much that we end up giving a lot away. It's like the Native Americans say about losing a part of your soul every time you're photographed.
KO: I disagree.
PH: See, they're arguing already!
KO: I've made it clear I don't talk about myself.
PH: If you want deeper interviews, don't do them together. When we're together, either we fuck about or someone says something and the other goes, "You what? I never knew you felt like that." And before you know it, you've split up. I've never known a band who don't argue. I used to be jealous of Primal Scream 'cos they used to hang out. It was like seeing a mate go out with his dad for a pint. I never did that with my dad and it guts me. Then lo and behold they hate each other too.
KO: We socialise on tour. Although we know each other really well emotionally, we've not been to each other's families' houses. When we're not touring we don't do anything. Sleep, or try to see friends.
PH: Now your friends will be forever asking you for tickets, drink all your beer and be going, "What was Peter Hook really like?" Just say he was a cunt.
· Bloc Party's So Here We Are is out now on Wichita; their debut album Silent Alarm follows on February 14. New Order's next single, Krafty, is released on March 7 on London. Their eighth album, Waiting for the Sirens' Call, follows on March 28.
