News of a mouth watering collaboration between members of New Order and Blur has emerged, with new group Bad Lieutenant set to launch later this year.
Formed from the ashes of Joy Division, New Order were one of the most influential British groups to survive the post-punk era. After visiting New York the band became entranced with dance culture, and began incorporating dance elements into their music.
Effectively inventing the dance / rock crossover before the Happy Mondays had even switched on their first amplifier, the group broke up in 1993 before getting back together five years later. However relations in New Order have always been strained, with bassist Peter Hook departing last year.
Amid growing acrimony, Hook fought verbally with the other band members, insisting that he had been pushed out of New Order. Since the, little has been heard of new music from either party with Peter Hook forming Freebass and New Order going on hiatus.
Now the remaining members of New Order have broken cover to announce a new group – with Blur bassist Alex James on board. Lining up with Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris, Phil Cunningham and Alex James, the group are apparently working on new material.
“I’m very proud of it, it’s a very good album,” Sumner told the BBC. “It’s pretty guitary too because we’ve got three guitarists in the band.”
The group could yet add to their collection of guitarists, with the singer revealed that other Manchester musicians could join the band on tour.
Speaking of the split in New Order, Bernard Sumner said “basically (bassist Peter Hook) left the band, that’s all I want to say about it.”
“We split into two factions. There’s me, Steve and Phil. The other is Peter.”
For his part, Peter Hook has been supportive of Bad Lieutenant thus far. After watching Sumner premiere a new song on Sky TV the bassist wrote a now deleted MySpace blog in which he admitted “I actually really liked the track bernard did on that Sky show, credit where its due.”
However Peter Hook may be about to get a few things off his chest in a new book. The musician has written ‘The Hacienda: How Not To Run A Club’ a guide to the seminal Manchester nightspot.
Bad Lieutenant are due to release an album later this year.
