Season two of Joy Division and New Order podcast launches
Following a successful first season of Transmissions: The Definitive Story of Joy Division & New Order, the much-anticipated second season is set to launch.
The series features new and exclusive interviews with band members Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris, Gillian Gilbert and Peter Hook.
Special guest contributors include Johnny Marr, Billy Corgan, Christine And The Queens, Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa, Keith Allen, Peter Saville, Andrew O’Hagan, Arthur Baker, Kevin Cummins, DJ Paulette, Megan Louise, The Chemical Brothers’ Tom Rowlands, Paul Morley, Jo Whiley, Kevin Saunderson, Tarquin Gotch, Will Sergeant, Virgil Abloh, Hot Chip’s; Alexis Taylor, Mike Pickering, Neil Tennant, Daniel Avery, Charlie Gunn and Bez.
Narrated by BBC Radio’s Elizabeth Alker, season two finds the band adjusting as the surprise global success of Blue Monday transforms New Order into stars.
Quincy Jones is offering a US record deal, John Hughes wants them to do soundtrack work, New York’s hippest producers are lining up to get into the studio with them as huge US success beckons.
As New Order’s profile grows, so too do the demands and excesses and the band begin to realise just how far they’ve come, and to question how far the road might take them.
This series documents arena tours, Ibizan insanity, a behind-the-scenes look at the chaotic peak of the Hacienda, the creation of three more classic albums Brotherhood, Technique and Republic, plus the timeless soccer World Cup anthem… World In Motion.
Speaking about New Order’s career to date, singer Bernard Sumner says: “If you do it the way everyone else does it, you might have more success. But it’ll be a short burn, whereas with the way New Order did it, it made us more interesting. But it wasn’t intentional though, we just did what we wanted to do and didn’t really listen to anyone.”
On New Order’s 80s success in the US, drummer Stephen Morris says: “America had never heard of Joy Division. In England and Europe at the time there was still this thing where you get people coming to see you, expecting you to play ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’.
“Whereas in America, they would approach you with an open mind, and the fact that the audiences did get bigger justified our bloody mindedness with not being Joy Division.”
Keyboardist Gillian Gilbert on experiencing the US music industry says: “I don’t know what they thought of us. Rob [Gretton, manager] was always, ‘You shouldn’t single out one person as the main focus, even Ian. You’re all the same.’ We were all on the same level.
“So I don’t know what they made of us. They used to turn up in suits. That was the main thing you’d see. All really smart record guys in suits.”
Peter Hook on how their club The Hacienda anticipated the coming rave music scene: “Watching the Hacienda and watching Rob and Mike Pickering’s belief in Detroit and Chicago House in 1983, 84, all the way through nights that they put on with exactly the same DJs in 91, in 83! They believed in the music a long time before Ecstasy swept it along in its tidal wave.”
New episodes of Transmissions: The Definitive Story of Joy Division & New Order will be released weekly from today, 4 September on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Amazon Music, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Also today, New Order have announced a new remastered set of formats for their album Brotherhood, to be released by Warner Music on 22 November.
It will be available in 2CD, 2DVD and 1LP. Also being made available are reissues of the respective 12” singles Bizarre Love Triangle, State Of The Nation and Touched By The Hand Of God with corresponding B-sides.
Brotherhood is the fourth in the series of limited-edition Definitive boxsets which includes Movement (2019), Power, Corruption and Lies (2020) and Low-Life (2023).
Written, recorded and produced by New Order, Brotherhood was originally released by Factory Records in September 1986 and peaked at #9 in the UK Albums Charts.
This new collection for Brotherhood includes the album remastered on vinyl and CD and 2CD which features nine unreleased tracks and demos from a recording session in Japan in 1985 and a 2DVD with live performances from Brixton Academy (1987), G-Mex Manchester (1986), Glastonbury and TV shows from UK and Europe, all previously unavailable on DVD.