Public Servant Lifestyle

The band that were Warsaw, then Joy Divison – before bringing a New Order to the jaded world of pop – release their long-awaited new album.

Waiting for the Sirens' Call by New Order

Rejecting the obvious has always been New Order’s technique: in their 28 year career, they’ve changed the face of pop music on more than one occasion. As Joy Division, they ripped up rock’s rule book by making music that was heavy and subtle, glacial, yet full of lament: Love Will Tear Us Apart has just been chosen as one of The Brits 25 best songs ever written.

Then, as New Order, they were light years ahead of the dance scene with the world’s best-ever-selling 12” single Blue Monday, before bringing ‘Madchester’ to the masses with the platinum-selling album Technique. As an aside, they made the only cool football anthem ever made, World In Motion – it went to Number One in the UK – as well as having hits with various side projects such as Electronic, Monaco and The Other Two.

Legacy

The New Order legacy is undeniable, yet the band keeps coming up with more. New album: Waiting For The Sirens’ Call is so packed with pop tunes, it sounds like it could be a Greatest Hits compilation. Bernard’s lyrics cover computers, hangovers, the folly of man’s lust - and even Dracula’s Castle (a reference to St Catherine’s, the Jane Seymour-owned studio where part of ‘Sirens was recorded). His voice has never sounded better, Hooky’s mournful, gorgeous bass twists throughout, Phil’s guitars add warmth and depth, and Steven’s drumming and looping show the imitators how it’s done.

First single, Krafty, is bass-driven, machine-like, ridiculously catchy. The title track is wistful and sublime, considered by the band to be one of the best tracks they’ve ever made. Then there’s the perfect pop of Jetstream – with Bernard’s vocals augmented by Scissor Sister Ana Matronic - the wry, hilarious regret of Morning Night And Day; I Told You So’s reckless ragga lope; the Iggy stomper Working Overtime; the anthemic, tuneful Road To Ruin. Waiting For The Sirens’ Call is the diverse, devastating, delicious sound of a great band at its peak.

Waiting for the Sirens' Call – track by track:

Who’s Joe?

Steve: “It’s a nice up-tempo number, along the lines of Guilty Partner and Dream Attack. It came quite easily, it was deposited on earth fully formed, a lovely baby. And it’s got a funny clangy noise in it. My speciality.”
Bernard: “It reminds me of Joy Division, it’s got that heaviness. Who’s Joe? Absolutely no idea. To me, it’s the story of a tramp.”

Hey Now What You Doing

Bernard: “It’s fresh. It doesn’t remind me of anything we’ve done before. I was thinking of a lad from Moss Side when I was writing the lyrics.”
Phil: “It’s got power and it’s instant. It came from my guitar riff idea, so I like it, and it’s quite easy to play.”
Steve: “It’s daring of Bernard to try rhyming future and computer. I admire that.”

Waiting For The Sirens’ Call

Hooky: “Barney’s done really well with the vocals and the lyrics are really good. They’re about travelling, I think. It’s his yachting influence.”
Bernard: “It’s my favourite track. The backing track’s brilliant, Hooky’s bass is fantastic on it. It made me crap it a bit, because I thought, If I don’t get the vocals right, I’m going to destroy a classic song. I don’t know quite what’s it about. Could it be about death? Or infidelity. It’s not about me in particular.”

Hooky: “I was working with Hybrid, and wrote this middle bit of a track, and thought, That’s too good to leave there, I’m having that, so I asked them and they said, That’s fine. And it turned into Krafty. And it’s just great.”
Steve: “It started as a jam, a bit like Lonnie Donegan. But then we put electronic noises in there.”

I Told You So

Bernard: “I was on holiday on my boat in the Caribbean, tuning in a shortwave radio into all these mad stations. The beats were fantastic, really interesting. So I recorded some stuff off the radio, and used it as the inspiration for a song. I like it because it starts off with these dancehall beats and then turns into Velvet Underground somewhere in the middle, and I like both of those things.”
Phil: “It’s bonkers, isn’t it?”

Morning Night And Day

Phil: “It reminds me of Primal Scream, the sentiment and the rocky Stones-y vibe. But it’s actually quite programmed.”
Bernard: “That one is autobiographical. It is definitely about my life. My life as it used to be. Actually, it’s about Phil’s life.”
Hooky: “Oh god. When you get to our age, the hangovers are so massive, they last for about a week.”

Dracula’s Castle

Hooky: “That started as a jam with me, Phil and Steve.”
Bernard: “St Catherine’s, where this was partly recorded, was built by Henry VIII for one of his illegitimate daughters. It was a courthouse for a bit and I wrote lyrics in this room where people were judged and tried. It had an old fireplace, and was all lit by candles. It was a creative room but very spooky. That’s why Dracula’s castle is in there.”

Jetstream

Bernard: “I must admit I was a bit dubious when Ana Matronic was suggested as a singer, but she did a fantastic job, really lifted the song. We knew it was a good track, but it needed something that we couldn’t give it.”
Phil: “We were aware we had mainly rock tracks, so we consciously wrote something to dance to.”

Guilt Is A Useless Emotion

Bernard: “A very difficult song to write, with a tortuous route to get to where it is now! I can’t categorise it, but loosely, it is a dance record. Get Ready had no dance tunes, which we were very aware of, especially after we toured that record in 2001. It’s important to keep the balance.
Hooky: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”.

Turn

Hooky: “We wrote this when it was miserable and rainy, and we wanted to cheer ourselves up!”
Phil: “It’s very upbeat and summery”.

Working Overtime

Hooky: “I think this should be a single. It’s dead rocky. I play it when I DJ and people go mad.”
Steve: “I love this one because it’s based around my drum riff. It sounds a bit Stoogey, but it’s not meant to be. But most of music is thievery isn’t it? Sometimes I hear a song on the radio and think, This is good, is it one of ours? Then the red mist descends...”
Bernard: “I was worried that things were getting a bit flowery and melodic and chordy, so it’s great to have a track like this, with a dumb one finger riff. You should never forget that the best music is simple and you don’t have to be a great musician to make it.”

Get Ready

This energetic, upbeat album was carefully recorded over seven months, using a ‘Who’s Who’ of producers, including Stephen Street, John Leckie, Stuart Price and New Order themselves. A sustained burst of song-writing by the band resulted in 18 completed songs, a first for New Order – Bernard: “We usually do just enough for an album, ten songs and it’s done”; the seven tracks left off 'Sirens are so strong that they are likely to form the basis of a future LP. Phil Cunningham, recruited as guitarist when New Order took Get Ready on the road, had the privilege of being invited by Bernard, Hooky and Steve to join the song-writing process for this new record. “I found it strange at first,” he says, “because New Order use a lot of technology. And sometimes they reject stuff because it sounds ‘too New Ordery’”. “It’s the heart and the soul of New Order that’s important,” explains Bernard. “If something sounds like a pastiche, that’s not good enough.”

There is no other band that unites both “spotty students and football hooligans” (Bernard), as well as housewives and rock stars, the art set and the mainstream, indie-lovers and dance nutters. No other band that can wring such emotion from machines, or make guitars sound so fresh. No one else is so spiky, so startling, innovative and inspirational; no one else makes pop music for clever people that hits the heart as well as the head. Here in 2005, when every other up-and-coming band cites Joy Division and New Order as inspirations, it’s fantastic to have the real deal back – and on such blistering, glorious form.

Aside from countless bootleg/live recordings and numerous singles (most – in particular for the albums up to 1989’s Technique featuring tracks not appearing on any contemporary albums) the following is a list of the main New Order albums.

A selected New Order album discography:

Movement (1981)
Power, Corruption and Lies (1983)
Low-Life (1985)
The Very Best of New Order (1985)
Brotherhood (1986)
BBC In Concert (1987)
New Order Substance 1987 (1987)
Technique (1989)
John Peel Sessions (1990)
The Greatest Hits of New Order (1990)
BBC Radio 1 Live In Concert (1992)
Republic (1993)
On the Edge Radio Show (1993)
BBC In Concert (1993)
In Concert New Rock (1994)
? - (The Best of) New Order (1994)
? - (The Rest of) New Order (1995)
Get Ready (2001)
Retro (2002)
Waiting For The Sirens’ Call (2005)

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