Peter Hook makes shock revelation about the origins of New Order's 'Blue Monday'

The legendary Peter Hook has told Absolute Radio that New Order nearly threw away their seminal anthem ‘Blue Monday’ when they recorded it 40 years ago.

Shortly before Peter Hook & The Light performed on the Big Top at Isle of Wight Festival on Friday night (16th June), Peter Hook joined Sarah Champion for a chat backstage.

During the interview, Sarah asked Hooky if the story was true that New Order initially recorded ‘Blue Monday’ as an encore song so they could ‘go backstage and have a beer'?

Nodding his head in agreement, Hooky replied: “We were getting in trouble when we were touring for not doing encores because (the Sex Pistols’) Johnny Rotten had shown us that we didn't believe in them, and it wasn't right to do them, and we were holding that standard very high.

“So we came up with the idea of (‘Blue Monday’) to stop the promoter moaning because we were having all these riots. Because of the riots, we were having a lot of fights and getting into a lot of trouble.

“We thought - I mean, it's so naive, it's like AI - that we could get the machines to do the work for us and then the audience wouldn't be upset.

“It just shows you how little we thought of ourselves that we thought that the audience would be okay with us just pressing go on the button and going off!

“So yeah, it was absolutely true.”

Hooky went onto explain that it was only when their manager heard the song that it evolved into the electronic masterpiece we know and love today.

“What happened was we were in the studio recording it, and as it got better and better, Rob Gretton, our manager, started insisting that we put the bass on it that we put guitar on it, that we then put vocals on it. And we were going ‘no, we don't want to why, why would we do that?!’ And oh, my god, lo and behold!”

He added: “The biggest compliment that I'd heard for years was that Mixmag did a poll of 1000 DJs. And they asked 1000 DJs, ‘which would be the track that they put on to rescue a night?’ And almost unanimously it was ‘Blue Monday’, which was such a great compliment. I produced it with Mike Johnson, our engineer, and, yeah, it's amazing. We were gonna throw it away! It's absolutely incredible. Bonkers.”

Elsewhere during the chat, Hooky said he’s in a much happier place now he’s touring with the eponymous Peter Hook & The Light. The founding bassist split with New Order in highly acrimonious circumstances in 2007.

“I'm very, very happy with what I'm doing,” Hooky enthused. “And I'm very, very grateful. And I realise how difficult the world is and how important is that we all let loose, enjoy being together and enjoy wonderful music.

“I always used to get accused of wearing my heart on my sleeve, and I do quite happily. I'm immensely proud of what we achieved as Joy Division. I'm immensely proud of the music we wrote in New Order. I'm certainly not immensely proud of anything to do with New Order. So, to share that music and see people react is absolutely fantastic.

“The lads, you know, I wish they'd written (music) to be honest with you because they really do put a lot of heart and soul (into it) and they've been wonderful with me. The Light have absolutely been wonderful.

“I actually worked out the other day that I've actually been with Pottsy, Dave Potts, my guitarist, longer than it was with t---face… I'm very happy to be here.”

You can watch Peter Hook’s full interview below where he also discusses losing money on ‘Blue Monday’, meeting his musical heroes, and how he failed badly when he tried to burn his guitar like Jimi Hendrix at Isle of Wight Festival.

Listen to highlights of Peter Hook & The Light at Isle of Wight Festival:

Isle of Wight Festival 2023 in photos:

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• new order
• Isle of Wight Festival