The bitter infighting between Peter Hook and his former bandmates in New Order intensified today with Hook accusing the groups new bass player of miming to a bass tape recorded by Hook himself.
“I’ve watched so-called ‘New Order’ playing in Auckland and Tom Chapman is miming along to my bass on tape,” Hook said in a fiery interview with NME. “‘Round & Round’. Have a look at it. He’s got his fingers on the low and you can hear my high bass in the background. So he’s miming. It’s the Milli Vanilli of bass.”
“It’s a fantastic compliment, but I best get on to my intellectual property lawyer and see if it’s something you’re allowed to do. I do think that miming to my bass is pretty much the ultimate insult. Still, check it out, there I am lurking in the background like a ghost.”
“I’m not against them playing,” he continued. “But what I’m rallying against is the business dealings they’ve done to secure the New Order trademark, which is oppression of a minority, which is illegal. They’ve taken the New Order name and the trademark and basically thrown me 50p and said ‘That’s all you’re worth twatface. That’s what you get for playing Joy Division music’. It’s a business thing.”
Hook wasn’t invited to rejoin New Order after months and years of infighting within the band. In November of of 2010 it was revealed that Peter Hook intended on re-recording some of New Order predecessor Joy Division’s songs to release on a new album.
Around the same time Hook was making a bundle of cash touring the world with his new band, The Light, playing Joy Division covers as close to the original as anyone could get. This blatant cash grab however irked his fellow former bandmates, and in an interview with us in 2011 frontman Bernard Sumner said “flogging of Unknown Pleasures is probably at a point of no return“, the best indication yet that Hook was out of the group.
But Bernard Sumner and the rest of New Order aren’t taking Peter Hook’s allegations lying down. Issuing a statement to the press the pioneering electronic group say that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, referring to Hook’s recent fake DJing scandal.
“On the chorus of ‘Round & Round’ there is a low bass part, a high bass part and Tom sings backing vocals,” said the statement. “It’s more than one person can manage so Tom recorded his high bass part and it’s replayed as part of the backing track sequence. We strongly refute the allegation that New Order are using any of Mr Hook’s bass playing in our live performance.”
“When Mr Hook was part of New Order he tracked his parts that couldn’t be played live because they coincided with other parts. We are simply doing the same with our new bass player. People living in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones or their recent fake DJing YouTube hit might need to be recalled. Keep watching.”
New Order are currently touring around the country as part of the Future Music Festival tour. You can read our review of their sideshow in Melbourne here.
