New Order On Music Complete: “We Took Nothing For Granted”
Get our latest issue as MOJO’s Band Of The Year speak about returning with a new album, certain bass players and much more.
TO SAY NEW Order have a bumpy history is putting it mildly. With a past that includes emerging from Joy Division’s shadows, life on dance music’s cutting edge, not to mention recent line-up issues, there were no guarantees when they returned this year with a new record.
That Music Complete sits highly in MOJO Top 50 Albums Of 2015 – have a sprint through the full list now – is no mean achievement, then, as the band themselves admit in our new issue (January 2016 / #266), on sale in the UK now.
“The last time it was this exciting to put a record out was probably mid- to late-’80s, probably about Low-Life,” Stephen Morris tells MOJO’s Ian Harrison. “It’s weird, this record really did come out of gigging, and seeing the reaction to the synthy, dancey numbers.”
“I don’t think we took anything for granted with this one,” adds Gillian Gilbert. “It was like, Oh my God, when we played live again [in 2011], we didn’t want to put too much into it because it could all have fallen flat on its face. And when it didn’t, we just moved on to the next step, and wrote a couple of songs.
“We had a lot of good luck as well with [collaborators] Elly Jackson [aka La Roux] and [The Chemical Brothers’] Tom Rowlands. It created a bit of enthusiasm that I suppose we’d lost. It’s like being on tour and seeing younger people come, it gives you a boost.”
Get the latest issue of MOJO now not only for the full New Order interview – including their thoughts on a certain bass player – plus the full reasoning behind 2015’s Albums Of The Year list and our free Best Of 2015 CD that features tracks from the albums in question, including New Order themselves, plus songs by Julia Holter, Sufjan Stevens, Father John Misty, Matthew E White and more.
PHOTO: Nick Wilson