PETER HOOK

'Peter "Hooky" Hook' (born February 13, 1956 in Salford, Lancashire) is an English bass player. He was a co-founder of the post-punk band Joy Division along with Bernard Sumner in the mid-1970s. Following the death of Joy Division's Ian Curtis, the band reformed as New Order, and Hook played the bass with them throughout their career until his departure in 2007. Hook lives with his wife, Julie, and their family in Alderley Edge, Cheshire. He has also recorded two albums each with the bands Revenge and Monaco (both as bassist, keyboardist and lead vocalist).

Contents

Playing style

Equipment

Basses

Amplification and effects

Other work

Trivia

External links

Playing style

As bassist for Joy Division, Hook was described as "a bass player who thought he was playing lead guitar" (similar statements have been made about The Who's John Entwistle and Yes's Chris Squire). He has developed a unique melodic style, achieved by leaving the bass and treble up on his bass guitars, but not the mid-range. This unusual approach was largely influenced, Hook reports, by the inexpensive, second-hand, low-quality equipment he played early in his career; with such shoddy gear he was only able to hear his amplifier clearly when he played higher pitched notes. With New Order's ever increasing use of sequenced synthesized bass, especially throughout most of 1989's ''Technique'' and 1993's ''Republic'', Hook's bass playing became ever more melodic and rhythmic, often exploiting the baritone guitar range of his basses.
Hook's playing position is also unusual. He tends to wear his bass hanging down around knee-level, with an extra-long strap, and then staggers around the stage while playing. Hook has admitted to adopting the style after seeing all of his favourite players, such as Paul Simonon from The Clash, wear their bass guitars low. Hook's low-slung style was also adopted by Nicky Wire of The Manic Street Preachers and Simon Gallup from The Cure, with whom Joy Division performed as support band at the legendary Marquee Club in 1979.
Hook has also contributed backing vocals on numerous Joy Division songs, sings co-lead with Ian Curtis on Joy Division's ''Interzone'' from the 1979 LP Unknown Pleasures, and sings lead on two New Order songs (''Dreams Never End'' and ''Doubts Even Here'' from the 1981 LP ''Movement'').

Equipment

Basses

★ Gibson EB-0 copy - Hook's first bass, bought at Mazel's Music Shop in Manchester in 1976 and used live with Warsaw 1977 (there are photos of him playing it at a 1977 gig at Rafters, Manchester) and on the 18/7/77 Warsaw demos.

★ Hondo Rickenbacker 4001 bass copy - Used on Joy Division's 1978-1980 recordings and used live with Joy Division 1978-1980. Possibly damaged during a gig at The Factory, Manchester 28/9/79 but there are photos of Hook playing it on the January 1980 European Tour.

★ Yamaha BB1200 - Basically a neck-through Precision bass. Used on Joy Division's Closer LP and every New Order album.

★ Shergold Marathon six-string bass - Has a 30" scale putting it between normal bass (34") and guitar (around 25").

★ Eccleshall bass - Based on a Gibson ES-335, main live bass. He wanted a hollowbody with Yamaha electronics, so Chris Eccleshall took the active electronics from a BB1200 and built a full-scale neck-through bass with 24 frets.

Amplification and effects

Hook first plugs into an Alembic F2-B valve [tube] preamp, which goes to an Electro-Harmonix Clone Theory chorus pedal, a Line 6 Echo Park delay pedal, then to a Crown DC-300A valve power amp. At one point he had six Crowns, but they kept going down all the time. He used to use a Roland SIP-301 preamp as well. He uses two 15" Gauss 5460 speakers, which add distortion.
With Revenge and Monaco, he updated his setup to an Ampeg SVT, turned all the way up to maximum volume live.
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Other work

In the late 1980s, Hook also worked as a producer for bands such as Inspiral Carpets and The Stone Roses. In 2003 he contributed his distinctive bass to a number of tracks on Hybrid's album ''Morning Sci-Fi'', including the single "True to Form".
New Order have broken up more than once, and Hook has been involved with other projects. He has recorded two albums each with the bands Revenge and Monaco (both as bassist, keyboardist and lead vocalist) with David Potts, the latter of which scored a club and alternative-radio hit ''What Do You Want From Me?'' in 1997. On 4 May 2007, Hook announced on Xfm that he and New Order singer/guitarist Bernard Sumner were no longer working together, effectively spelling the end for the band; the band later denied disbanding^[1]. He is currently working on a new band project called Freebass with bass players Mani (ex-The Stone Roses) and Andy Rourke (ex-The Smiths).
Since 2002, Peter Hook has begun doing DJ sets. Inspired by Clint Boon of Inspiral Carpets, he started with the ''Return To New York'' nights in London, which he enjoyed so much that he is travelling the world to perform as a DJ. He plays a lot of New Order, Joy Division and Monaco songs in his sets, which have garnered scorn for consisting merely of Hook putting on a pre-mixed CD and playing with the mixer's equalizer.

Trivia

★ He is usually referred to by his nickname (taken from his surname) by the rest of the band and fans.

★ He is well known for writing messages on his amps during tours.

★ He was married briefly to actress and comedian Caroline Aherne and led the backing band for the first series of the Mrs Merton Show as Hooky and the Boys.

★ In the 2007 film, Hook will be played by actor Joe Anderson.

★ In Michael Winterbottom's 2002 film "24 Hour Party People", the part of Peter Hook was played by The Royle Family actor Ralf Little. Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder stated it was an odd choice because "Hooky is about 40 stone, and Ralf's about 4 stone !!"

★ He bought one of The Who's John Entwistle's bass guitars when Entwistle's son Christopher sold them.

★ He selected 4 songs for the tribute album in 2006.

External links

★ Joy Division Fans Club

★ Peter Hook biography

★ New Order & Joy division site

★ Joy Division's most detailed discography

★ Short bio at JoyDiv.org

★ Joy Division site

★ Hook's recently launched MySpace page