Joy Division Page #7

didn't have the mood swings.

The other thing is, he obviously

had problems with his relationship

with his...

his girlfriend Annik and his wife.

They had to make a life decision there.

It was very, very, very difficult for him.

He had a child.

I don't know what was going on in his mind.

I really dread to think

what was going on in his mind.

I think he could see limits to the way

he was possibly going with the band.

I think the band were about to change

because they were becoming much bigger.

That, and they were on the verge

of becoming absolutely huge.

And creatively and psychologically,

that must have been a real challenge for him.

He felt that he was holding us back.

And he...

That was just probably one of the reasons

why he drove himself so hard,

was because he didn't want...

because he knew we all wanted it so badly,

and we were all enjoying it so much.

I think that his problem was

that he didn't want to let anybody down.

People started writing about them

in February 1980,

as if they were the second coming.

The weight of expectation upon them to come out

with the most amazing gig ever,

every time they played, was enormous.

I remember standing in the audience

at London University

and thinking,

"Oh, f***, now they've got...

Now they've got a single."

You would first hear

Love Will Tear Us Apart live,

and you... you... you know,

you'd go "Oh, my God."

Because you did have enough about you to think,

"That is a f***ing great pop song."

You know, That could be number 1!

That kind of moment, because it was catchy.

Then love

Love will tear us apart again

Love

Love will tear us apart again

Why is the bedroom so cold

Turned away on your side?

Is my timing that flawed

Our respect run so dry?

Possibly one of the greatest songs

written in the 20... 20th Century by anybody,

because the way it kind of,

in a Shakespearean sense.

Take a Calexico, or, you know, a Susanna,

or a f***ing Paul Young,

or, you know, it can take

into multiple interpretations

and constantly, constantly releases meaning.

It was an extraordinary piece of writing,

just the words, let alone that somehow,

these young northerners managed to find a way

to sonically piece together

music that matched the quality of the words.

None of them realize how strong and powerful

the music was.

You know, it's just like a love story.

Each individual is nothing on their own,

and when they click together,

when they are together, it's enormous.

And that was Joy Division.

They just had the light, the spirit.

When Ian says that he had spirit,

that's exactly it.

You know, he was something...

some light burning inside him.

He was gifted in a way that he would know

that this wasn't going to last forever.

He rang up once, and said,

"Yeah, I want to leave the band.

I'm going to move to Holland

and open a book shop."

Great.

Then the next minute, he was like,

"Oh, we're playing the Buffet on Saturday."

"I thought Ian was..."

"No, no, no, he's changed his mind."

"Oh, right, okay."

We would talk about ideas and writers and...

but most of all, he talked about his emotions,

and about himself and how he was feeling.

How every week he was becoming more and more...

shut off from what people perceived him to be.

That there were these two people

that were Ian Curtis,

the one that was the media figure

and the singer in the band,

and the actual Ian Curtis

who was hurt, angry, lost...

very lonely,

and didn't feel that people

would treat him with respect

if he explained who he really was.

There's no doubt that there is something

of the end point in Closer.

Unknown Pleasures is the...

"Isn't it...

wouldn't it be great to be an artist?

Wouldn't it be great to be like Burroughs

and Bowie and Ballard and Iggy and Luke...

Wouldn't it be great to be like that?

I might have a chance to be like...

Oh, my God, you know."

And then Closer was the artist.

That was where he joined those ranks,

and therefore pulled Unknown Pleasures with him,

because that was the first step

towards becoming that kind of artist.

This is the way, step inside

If you were, at this time,

of an inquisitive nature,

Joy Division is like an Advent calendar:

You'd open up a window,

and you'd see a gateway to another place.

There'd be all of these roots out of the world

into other worlds, paranormal worlds.

An obvious example is Atrocity Exhibition.

I mean, you want to know,

"What Atrocity Exhibition?"

And then you find out,

"Oh, it's a book by J.G. Ballard."

And it opens up a whole other universe.

You take some of the references...

for example, Colony,

which is Franz Kafka.

And you take tracks like The Kill,

and see that the reference

is to Dostoyevsky or something.

It was like an education in itself.

This is the way, step inside

This is the way, step inside

This is the way, step inside

This is the way, step inside

I thought Closer got closer to the sound

that I particularly wanted.

And I also enjoyed the experience

because we were away in London.

We were living in two flats.

Ian again was this kind of hoi polloi...

sort of the party flat at one end,

and the intellectual flat on the other end.

I was staying with them in that apartment, I remember.

And, um, I think I was the only girl around.

She was just sort of sophistication

to someone from Macclesfield...

you know, someone who used to ride pigs

for entertainment to be confronted with...

someone who works in an embassy.

We're just taking the piss

out of them all the time,

putting cornflakes in their bed and...

just japes, daft, stupid things.

Yeah, but she used to get so wound up, you know.

There was one night, I remember,

they had a glass pane in the door.

And we'd been taking the piss out of them,

throwing beer at them

while they were in bed or something,

you know, something daft.

Annik come f***ing chased us out,

and we ran in our flat, hold the door shut,

and she was f***ing kicking the door with her...

with her dressing gown on.

Yeah, like a f***ing bloke would do, you know.

It was horrible.

I thought that was a horrible time.

Ian had Debbie on his case because...

and Hook had Iris on his case

because Ian had Annik there,

and Iris thought that was all wrong.

We got treated well at the studio.

Britannia Row, I remember them

bringing sandwiches in and tea and stuff.

We're like,

"Way posh", you know.

We used to drive Martin mad,

Bernard and I.

Bernard in one corner, me on the other.

"Hey, Martin.",

and he'd go,

"Your go."

I go,

"Your go. I asked about the..."

He'd go,

"What are you f***ing whispering about?"

"Nothing, Martin, nothing."

Whilst they were there at Britannia Row,

Rob had the foresight to think,

"Well, we'd better go

and see Peter about a cover.

Who knows? It could take him weeks.

It could take him months.

So let's go and get him on that now."

I was very nervous.

I didn't want to sort of take something from a book

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