More about: New OrderJoy Division
The book contains over 30 years of interviews with the band and key players
Fans of rock biographies have got something to really look forward to next spring. This Searing Light, The Sun And Everything Else: Joy Division - The Oral History is hitting bookshelves in March 2019.
And we’re particularly looking forward to this one. Made up of over three decades’ worth of interviews from many of the key characters involved in the history if this incredibly influential and genuinely seminal band, the book has been helmed by the brilliant Jon Savage.
You might also like...
The book will cover Joy Division’s entire history from their mythical origins as The Stiff Kittens through to the digital future that was New Order via the suicide of frontman Ian Curtis. The book will feature interviews from the likes of band members Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris as well Factory Records’ designer Peter Saville, Curtis's widow Deborah and many more key players.
This has all the hallmarks of being the definitive work on the band. Savage’s previous books include the utterly essential England’s Dreaming: Sex Pistols And Punk Rock, Teenage: The Creation Of Youth 1875 – 1945 and the thoroughly excellent 1966: The Year The Decade Exploded. Moreover, as someone who was actually there at the time, wrote extensively about the band and was closely associated with Factory Records, Savage is best placed to tell Joy Division’s story.
He also wrote the 2007 Grant Gee-directed documentary Joy Division, which included interviews with Factory Records boss Tony Wilson, Buzzcocks’ Pete Shelley, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle, journalist Paul Morley, photographer and director Anton Corbijn, and Belgian journalist Annik Honoré, with whom Ian Curtis had an affair.
Though Joy Division were only in existence for two years, the impact made by their music continues to resonate to this day and their two studio albums – Unknown Pleasures (1979) and Closer (1980) – are required listening. As their label boss Tony Wilson so astutely pointed out, they made the progress from punk’s statement of “Fuck you!” to “We’re fucked”.
More about: New OrderJoy Division
Photo: Press
