New Order Star On Manchester

Former New Order star Bernard Sumner has revealed why he thinks Manchester is such a creative place - the weather.

From the punk explosions onwards, Manchester has led the way in independent music. From Buzzcocks pioneering the indie label to The Hacienda's role in Acid House, the city has produced more than its fair share of music.

Now former New Order frontman Bernard Sumner has revealed what he feels is the reason behind the city's ceaseless creativity.

"I get asked a lot by people why so many bands come from Manchester and I think the weather plays a part too" the singer told NME. "It isn’t as a bad any more but it used to be shit. You’d be like, ‘There’s six months of winter coming up – what should I do? Oh, I’ll go to the pub. Then I’ll go to a club’."

"After a month of that, you get bored and have to think of something else to do. In those days, there wasn’t a lot of external stimulus. It forced your imagination to go to other places."

The one time New Order singer also revealed that when he was young being creative wasn't encouraged. "When I was young, if you were a creative teenager, it wasn’t something that was encouraged because it was seen as a bit of waste of time. It couldn’t get you a job. For creative people in Manchester, that outlet wasn’t there, so if you couldn’t get a job painting or drawing, what could you do? I thought I’d try music."

Now leading Bad Lieutenant, Bernard Sumner recalls meeting the band's other singer Jake Evans. "We met when I went out to a birthday dinner at a restaurant and I didn’t even know he was a musician."

"There was a guy playing guitar in the restaurant who wasn’t very good and so, after he went home, Jake eventually got up and did ‘Heart Of Gold’ by Neil Young, which I thought took a lot of balls."

Bad Lieutenant's debut album is out now.