Mrluvaluva
06-10-2007, 02:22 PM
Curtis bio sparks old memories
IMAGINE having to live with the suicide of your best friend, day in, day out for the past 27 years.
A deeply personal tragedy, which you have gone over again and again in your mind, asking why he did it? Could we have done anything to help? Why did we not foresee it?
This is exactly what it has been like for the former members of Joy Division and later New Order — Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Bernard Sumner — with Control, the powerful, emotive film about the life of singer Ian Curtis who, aged just 23, committed suicide.
Having to watch the reincarnation of their friend — and the build-up to and terrible ending to his life — on the big screen can’t have been easy. The film, a debut by legendary Dutch rock photographer and video director Anton Corbijn, stars unknown Sam Riley as the iconic singer and Samantha Morton as his long-suffering wife Deborah Curtis.
It shows the torment he suffered with his marital problems, epilepsy and depression which led to him tragically hanging himself on May 18, 1980, on the eve of Joy Division’s first American tour.
In an exclusive chat with SFTW, the remaining band members open their heart about their tortured friend.
Bassist Peter Hook says: “Watching the film tears your heart out, even though you know what the ending is and that it’s coming. I live with Ian every day. I have pictures of him all over the place and I listen to his music all the time.
“I read interviews about his music all the time, so although the physical Ian has gone, mentally and spiritually he’s still very much with me. But seeing him so real in the film brought him back. Sam Riley made Ian alive again.”
Drummer Stephen Morris adds: “It’s a brilliant film but really hard for us to watch. I’m not looking forward to seeing it again, not so soon after Tony Wilson’s death.” Wilson, the boss of Joy Division’s record label Factory, died aged 57 last month after a battle with cancer.
Ian Curtis, the brooding, gangly singer from Macclesfield, Cheshire, is one of music’s most distinctive icons. On stage, his frantic flailing-arm dance made his performances hypnotic.
Singer and guitarist Bernard says: “People thought he was on drugs because of the way he performed but he never took drugs. He was just losing himself in the music.” Stephen adds: “Off stage he would just sit there quietly — but on stage he erupted. He turned into this — well, he was like nothing else. No one has ever come along to match him.”
Joy Division formed in 1976 in Manchester, a post-punk quartet whose music reflected their alienation. But Ian’s dream of the band making it was opposed to the home life he shared with his wife Debbie and baby daughter Natalie.
He was having an affair with Belgian fan Annik Honoré and, struggling with guilt, he fell into a deep depression. The lyrics to Joy Division’s most famous song Love Will Tear Us Apart portray his relationship struggles and, after he died, Debbie had the title inscribed on his gravestone.
Ian was diagnosed with epilepsy in 1979 and the medication he was taking added to his turmoil. Stephen says: “Looking back I wish I’d helped him more. I think that all the time. But it’s easy for me to say we should have stopped the band for a while and let him sort his personal problems and get his head together.
“The band plus his problems were never going to work together. But we were having such a good time and you’re very selfish when you’re young. Epilepsy wasn’t understood then. People would just say, ‘He’s a bit of a loony, he has fits.’
“The drugs turned Ian into a zombie. Some of our money is going to an epilepsy association.”
Hooky adds: “I remember a friend of mine hiding in the cupboard from Ian, saying he thought he was possessed by the devil. Everyone had a reaction like that as they weren’t educated about epilepsy. It wasn’t too far from burning him at the stake.”
But although the band’s music was dark and Ian was a troubled soul, it wasn’t all doom and gloom.
Bernard says: “Ian was a very funny man. He would change in a second, though. But we had fun playing jokes. Lots of great times.”
Hooky says: “I’m glad Control shows how important Ian’s role was in the band. He was the driving force who held it together when we were upset or down. He’d always inspire us to keep trying.”
Joy Division’s first album, Unknown Pleasures, was released in 1979. It was ahead of its time through Hooky’s deep bass lines, Bernard’s serrated guitar and Stephen’s metronomic beats. But after finishing second album Closer in 1980, Ian took his own life.
Hooky says: “I was in shock. I think it was a blessing that I was so young and so unworldly and inexperienced in anything like suicide that I’m ashamed to say it went over me. I had driven Ian home on the Friday night and we were bouncing around in the car, laughing hysterically with happiness that we were going to America. Then, on Saturday night, he killed himself.”
Today, the legacies of Ian and Joy Division live on.
Hooky says: “I’m very proud of all these bands which have come along, like The Killers, Editors and Interpol, who have all been obviously influenced by Joy Division.”
By re-forming as New Order after Ian’s death, Hooky says it gave them a chance to move on and try to forget the tragedy of losing Ian. He says: “Joy Division finished before it got started. We quickly got stuck into New Order and virtually ignored Joy Division for ten years. It was a very conscious decision so as not to burden ourselves with the grief of what might have happened.”
So which is the boys’ favourite Joy Division album? Hooky says: “Closer is one of my favourite albums of all time. I play it when I need a shot in the arm.” But Stephen says: “Unknown Pleasures and Closer are completely different. The first was an outpouring of energy. “But when I listen to Closer all I can remember are the bad bits, his marriage falling apart, the epilepsy. It’s painful to play it.”
In hindsight, the dark lyrics on Closer seem to point to Ian’s suicide. But Bernard says: “None of us paid much attention to Ian’s lyrics at the time. We just thought they were great. They’re clever, he was clever, and we thought he was talking about someone else. It never occurred to us that he was talking about himself.”
Stephen adds: “When he died, we had to listen to them and thought, ‘How can we have missed that one?’ ”
And watching the film, seeing the camaraderie back then, did it affect them?
Hooky says: “Yes, definitely. It made me sadder that New Order have split. Since Bernard and I started slagging each other off publicly, we met up to sort it out.
“But we had another huge *******ing row and called each other b***ards. Like Joy Division, New Order is over.”
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s233/BGRAYSHON/2-38.jpg
Original article here (http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2006140003-2007450185,00.html)
IMAGINE having to live with the suicide of your best friend, day in, day out for the past 27 years.
A deeply personal tragedy, which you have gone over again and again in your mind, asking why he did it? Could we have done anything to help? Why did we not foresee it?
This is exactly what it has been like for the former members of Joy Division and later New Order — Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Bernard Sumner — with Control, the powerful, emotive film about the life of singer Ian Curtis who, aged just 23, committed suicide.
Having to watch the reincarnation of their friend — and the build-up to and terrible ending to his life — on the big screen can’t have been easy. The film, a debut by legendary Dutch rock photographer and video director Anton Corbijn, stars unknown Sam Riley as the iconic singer and Samantha Morton as his long-suffering wife Deborah Curtis.
It shows the torment he suffered with his marital problems, epilepsy and depression which led to him tragically hanging himself on May 18, 1980, on the eve of Joy Division’s first American tour.
In an exclusive chat with SFTW, the remaining band members open their heart about their tortured friend.
Bassist Peter Hook says: “Watching the film tears your heart out, even though you know what the ending is and that it’s coming. I live with Ian every day. I have pictures of him all over the place and I listen to his music all the time.
“I read interviews about his music all the time, so although the physical Ian has gone, mentally and spiritually he’s still very much with me. But seeing him so real in the film brought him back. Sam Riley made Ian alive again.”
Drummer Stephen Morris adds: “It’s a brilliant film but really hard for us to watch. I’m not looking forward to seeing it again, not so soon after Tony Wilson’s death.” Wilson, the boss of Joy Division’s record label Factory, died aged 57 last month after a battle with cancer.
Ian Curtis, the brooding, gangly singer from Macclesfield, Cheshire, is one of music’s most distinctive icons. On stage, his frantic flailing-arm dance made his performances hypnotic.
Singer and guitarist Bernard says: “People thought he was on drugs because of the way he performed but he never took drugs. He was just losing himself in the music.” Stephen adds: “Off stage he would just sit there quietly — but on stage he erupted. He turned into this — well, he was like nothing else. No one has ever come along to match him.”
Joy Division formed in 1976 in Manchester, a post-punk quartet whose music reflected their alienation. But Ian’s dream of the band making it was opposed to the home life he shared with his wife Debbie and baby daughter Natalie.
He was having an affair with Belgian fan Annik Honoré and, struggling with guilt, he fell into a deep depression. The lyrics to Joy Division’s most famous song Love Will Tear Us Apart portray his relationship struggles and, after he died, Debbie had the title inscribed on his gravestone.
Ian was diagnosed with epilepsy in 1979 and the medication he was taking added to his turmoil. Stephen says: “Looking back I wish I’d helped him more. I think that all the time. But it’s easy for me to say we should have stopped the band for a while and let him sort his personal problems and get his head together.
“The band plus his problems were never going to work together. But we were having such a good time and you’re very selfish when you’re young. Epilepsy wasn’t understood then. People would just say, ‘He’s a bit of a loony, he has fits.’
“The drugs turned Ian into a zombie. Some of our money is going to an epilepsy association.”
Hooky adds: “I remember a friend of mine hiding in the cupboard from Ian, saying he thought he was possessed by the devil. Everyone had a reaction like that as they weren’t educated about epilepsy. It wasn’t too far from burning him at the stake.”
But although the band’s music was dark and Ian was a troubled soul, it wasn’t all doom and gloom.
Bernard says: “Ian was a very funny man. He would change in a second, though. But we had fun playing jokes. Lots of great times.”
Hooky says: “I’m glad Control shows how important Ian’s role was in the band. He was the driving force who held it together when we were upset or down. He’d always inspire us to keep trying.”
Joy Division’s first album, Unknown Pleasures, was released in 1979. It was ahead of its time through Hooky’s deep bass lines, Bernard’s serrated guitar and Stephen’s metronomic beats. But after finishing second album Closer in 1980, Ian took his own life.
Hooky says: “I was in shock. I think it was a blessing that I was so young and so unworldly and inexperienced in anything like suicide that I’m ashamed to say it went over me. I had driven Ian home on the Friday night and we were bouncing around in the car, laughing hysterically with happiness that we were going to America. Then, on Saturday night, he killed himself.”
Today, the legacies of Ian and Joy Division live on.
Hooky says: “I’m very proud of all these bands which have come along, like The Killers, Editors and Interpol, who have all been obviously influenced by Joy Division.”
By re-forming as New Order after Ian’s death, Hooky says it gave them a chance to move on and try to forget the tragedy of losing Ian. He says: “Joy Division finished before it got started. We quickly got stuck into New Order and virtually ignored Joy Division for ten years. It was a very conscious decision so as not to burden ourselves with the grief of what might have happened.”
So which is the boys’ favourite Joy Division album? Hooky says: “Closer is one of my favourite albums of all time. I play it when I need a shot in the arm.” But Stephen says: “Unknown Pleasures and Closer are completely different. The first was an outpouring of energy. “But when I listen to Closer all I can remember are the bad bits, his marriage falling apart, the epilepsy. It’s painful to play it.”
In hindsight, the dark lyrics on Closer seem to point to Ian’s suicide. But Bernard says: “None of us paid much attention to Ian’s lyrics at the time. We just thought they were great. They’re clever, he was clever, and we thought he was talking about someone else. It never occurred to us that he was talking about himself.”
Stephen adds: “When he died, we had to listen to them and thought, ‘How can we have missed that one?’ ”
And watching the film, seeing the camaraderie back then, did it affect them?
Hooky says: “Yes, definitely. It made me sadder that New Order have split. Since Bernard and I started slagging each other off publicly, we met up to sort it out.
“But we had another huge *******ing row and called each other b***ards. Like Joy Division, New Order is over.”
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s233/BGRAYSHON/2-38.jpg
Original article here (http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2006140003-2007450185,00.html)