Peter Hook

Peter Hook, born in Salford (Lancashire) in 1956, has a maxim in life: “If you remember what happened, you weren’t really there.” He refers of course to his entire biography associated with pop music and club life. He was co-founder of the legendary band Joy Division, on bass alongside Bernard Sumner and Ian Curtis. After Curtis’s suicide, a traumatic event for all of popular culture, they reinvented themselves as New Order. While the former is one of history’s great cult bands, the latter reached the charts. Despite touring worldwide with New Order, with radio hits such as Blue Monday, for a long time they went around with 20 pounds in their pockets. The reason? You’ll find it in his new book, The Haçienda. How Not to Run a Club (2010), the story of the most mythical—and ruinous—club of the second half of the 20^th century: the Mancunian cathedral of music, opened in 1982, was a pioneer of electronic music, motor of the Manchester sound, and a laboratory for many highly respected bands. The story goes that Hook and the other owners didn’t earn a penny in the 15 years it was open. But that’s legend for you; he’ll be telling all in the first person.