Peter Hook Interview

Wow! I got to talk to the guy who did the bassline in 'She's Lost Control. Cool. For Viceland.com Blog.

Peter Hook/Hacienda/Fac51 25th Anniversary

The Hacienda (www.myspace.com/fac51thehacienda) is one of those places that somehow became the centre of everything that was good almost by accident. Tony Wilson and the New Order guys set the club up in 1982 so that their bands would have somewhere to play and they could have a clubhouse for their gang to hang out and get fucked up in. As with everything Factory related the design of the place was one million years ahead of everyone else and has influenced two decades of club architecture since. After hosting shows by guys like The Smiths, OMD and Cabaret Voltaire the club became the home of acid house and Ecstasy and gave birth to the kicking, stoned baby of baggy. Pretty important place then. Fac 51 had to finally close its doors due to poor financial management and the fact that whatever money did get made tended to be filtered back into the hands of the dealers that pretty much ran the place. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the opening of the club Manchester museum Urbis (http://www.urbis.org.uk/has) set up an exhibition celebrating the clubs legacy and Peter Hook is curating a night that hopes to get people partying like one E could still knock you out for the whole night. Good times. We spoke to Hooky to see what was up. He is a really nice guy who laughs and swears a lot.

Vice: It has been 25 years why a party now?

Peter Hook: It just fitted, Urbis were doing the exhibition and the idea of the place has never really died for a lot of people so I think it works. We managed to convince Sacha and Graham Parke to DJ. The only problem is that it is in the museum which means they’ve given all the tickets away to press wankers. They wanted it to be about the exhibition, I wanted it to be about having a massive fucking rave with everyone getting off their tits.

So you are DJing at the party, no bass solo sets?

Nah I’m really into DJing now. It really re-vitalised me at a point where I was pretty fucking jaded. Mani out of Primal Scream had some cunt let him down so I stepped in. I never really appreciated how technical playing records was, I just though they were loner guys who liked being alone in a DJ booth but there is a real fucking art to it. I play everything from 77 onwards and you have to make it all work playing stuff for the dancefloor and stuff to please yourself. I play anything from punk through to hard dance and LCD Soundsytem. It’s also a great way of getting paid to get pissed.

The Hacienda was recreated for ‘24 Hour Party People’ did seeing a mock up of the place not make you want to re-open it?

The thing is that if we were to try and do it again it would have to be on our terms and you just can’t really do business like that anymore, look what happened the first time around: financial fucking black holes and villains all over the place. The place was my little baby though whatever happened. When they built that set for the film a company put an offer into buy it just before it was due to be knocked down. The demolition balls were literally about to swing and the call came through over the walkie talkie to stop them but the builder on site misheard and gave the wrecking crew the go ahead. I was over the fucking moon. Seeing the club in the hands of someone else would have been like watching someone shag your missus. Nightmare.

So what can people expect on Wednesday night, why no bands, wasn’t that a big part of the Hacienda legacy?

Just a proper fucking party. No two ways about it. You don’t want bands when you’ve got DJ’s mate, it’s like if you were watching Faithless you want them to totally rock out with the beats, if they get the acoustic out it would ruin everything. We’ve enjoyed doing this one so much that we already have one planned for August.