Closer

About

Joy Division bassist Peter Hook was at a wedding when producer Martin Hannett began mixing the band’s second album, <i>Closer</i>, in March 1980. By the time Hook returned to London, where they were making the record at Pink Floyd’s Britannia Row Studio, a couple of tracks were ready. “Barney [bandmate Bernard Sumner] took great delight in taking me in to play [them],” Hook tells Apple Music, “because he knew that I’d be as pissed off as he wa. It was like, ‘Ohhhh...Martin.’ And Martin would just be, ‘Shut up, you pair of moron.’” This wasn’t a complete shock. A year earlier, Hook and Sumner had been similarly peeved when they first heard Hannett’s austere, haunted treatment for their debut album, 1979’s <i>Unknown Pleasures</i>. And Hannett was equally unmoved by their protest. Despite that record restating the sonic ambitions and emotional richness of British rock in the wake of punk, Hook still yearned to sound like the Pistols and The Clash on <i>Closer</i>. “I wanted to rip people’s heads off with my guitar,” he say. “And I was absolutely wrong. Thankfully, Martin Hannett recognized the maturity of our songwriting and the strength in our songs that he felt needed playing down, making more seductive.” The Manchester band arrived at Britannia Row with firm ideas for <i>Closer</i>’s nine song, the product of jamming sessions fueled by what Hook calls a “wonderful chemistry” between himself, Sumner, singer Ian Curti, and drummer Stephen Morri. Any enduring tension with Hannett—“He just thought Barney and I were a pair of idiot, but he felt very, very in tune with Ian”—was counterbalanced by what the studio offered in terms of sound, equipment, and catering. “I think we had £1.50 a day to spend, so, literally, you could either have a pint or a sandwich, and that was the whole day,” says Hook. “If Britannia Row hadn’t put sandwiches out at teatime for free, I think we probably would’ve starved to death, to be honest.” Hannett helped the band detach themselves from punk’s compressed rage by plugging in a growing arsenal of synth. With techniques cribbed from Motown’s recording processe, the producer explored the space within the music. Thrumming with reverb and ghostly tone, <i>Closer</i> is colder and more brutal than <i>Unknown Pleasures</i>, yet also more melodic. From the grotesque industrial clatter of “Atrocity Exhibition” to the doom-disco urgency of “Isolation,” it set new standards in bleak-hearted music—ones that legions of bands chase through the gloaming to this day. “To be cited as an inspiration for bands as varied as The 1975 to <i>anybody</i> is absolutely amazing,” says Hook. “And we didn't even know what we were doing. We had no idea. We were just a bunch of fucking idiot, all of u. It just shows you the magic of rock ’n’ roll.” Like Hook and Sumner, Curtis was seemingly unimpressed with what he heard when <i>Closer</i> was done. In a letter to the band’s manager Rob Gretton, he called it “a disaster” and took aim at Hook and Sumner as “a sneaky, japing load of tosser.” “We were still being very, very boisterous as a group, young boy,” says Hook. “We drove Ian and Annik [Honoré, Belgian journalist and friend of Curtis] mad, because they were in the flat opposite us [where the band were staying near Marylebone], so there was still a lot of boy japes going on, a lot of playfulne, which was sometimes misinterpreted, particularly by Annik. She just didn't get our northern sense of humor at all. But it was a wonderful experience recording <i>Closer</i>, apart from Ian's illne. And it came to such an awful end.” Curtis took his own life shortly after the album was completed, and these songs of disillusionment and despair have inevitably been seen as windows into his anguish. “You would say, taken in isolation, ‘Oh my god, this guy’s <i>crying</i> for help,’” says Hook. “It's a very melancholy end [to the album]. Looking back now, you could say, ‘Look at “The Eternal.” Look at “Decade.” This is a great band, a great man, disappearing.’ But these lyrics are hidden in such beautiful music for the most part—<i>positive</i>, <i>angry</i>, <i>strong</i> music—that you just listen to this LP and go, ‘Oh my god, this is a great record. Fantastic.’ He hid it well–which pretty much sums up his attitude to everything.” While making <i>Closer</i>, Curtis’ marriage was becoming increasingly strained, and his epilepsy was so severe he was afraid to hold his baby daughter. As a consequence, he was being prescribed a debilitating regime of medication. “The most telling thing was when they did the documentary <i>Joy Division</i> [2007], they took Ian's prescription to a modern-day epilepsy expert and asked him what he thought,” says Hook. “The guy said it was guaranteed to kill him.” <i>Closer</i> deserves to be regarded as more than a final statement, though. It’s a towering testament to the artistry of Curtis and Joy Division. Watching Curtis contend with his illness left the band with “an awful, awful feeling, the helplessne,” says Hook, but the singer’s drive often masked the depths of his suffering. Hook recalls finding him bloodied in the studio toilet one night after suffering a seizure and hitting his head. As Hook helped him clean up, Curtis insisted on getting straight back to recording. “He fought it tooth and nail, every moment,” says the bassist. “Ian was so ambitiou, and he was so positive about Joy Division. Every gig that he had a fit and was carried off, in the dressing room afterward, he wouldn’t want to go to hospital or go to bed. He wanted to go out and party. We were like, ‘Oh well, so do we.’ In an odd way, as a youngster, as a group member that looked like they were on their heady way to stardom, him turning round and letting you off the hook was what you wanted most.” .

via Apple Music

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