Content Starts Here
Joy Division biography
JOY DIVISION BIOGRAPHY
With just two albums, 1979's Unknown Pleasures and 1980's Closer, Joy Division made an indelible impression on the post-punk landscape, influencing a whole clutch of bands that would follow, from The Cure to Radiohead. Tortured singer Ian Curtis' suicide in 1980, aged just 23, would give extra gravitas to the band's imposing, solemn atmospherics.
The band were formed in early 1977. Inspired by the punk movement, friends Bernard Sumner (guitars, vocals) and bassist Peter Hook met Ian Curtis on the local gig-going circuit in their hometown of Salford in Manchester. Curtis, the son of a transport police officer, was a complex, troubled character, whose mood swings would become exacerbated by pills and medication to treat his epilepsy. Curtis had recently married his childhood sweetheart, aged just 19 and he had told his new young bride that he had no intention of living past 25. The trio soon formed a band called Warsaw, named after David Bowie's track Warzawa. They tried various drummers until they settled on Stephen Morris, who had gone to the same school in Macclesfield as Curtis, and been expelled for drinking cough medicine! Curtis too had dabbled in stimulants and in 1972 was rushed to hospital to have his stomach pumped after he overdosed on anti-depressants. The name Warsaw clashed with punk band Warsaw Pakt so the band changed their name to Joy Division, a name curtis took from a World War II novel, The House Of Dolls. In the book, the term 'joy division' was used as slang for concentration camps where female inmates were forced to prostitute themselves for the enjoyment of Nazi soldiers. But the band quickly denied any far right, hands-aloft tendencies. "We were just trying to wind up journalists," said Peter Hook.
Initially, the group had little mastery of their musical instruments but gradually they began to find an identity, driven by Curtis' lyrics of emotional despair, Hook's insistently droning bass and Sumner's spiky guitar riffs. Live, their eerie sense of foreboding, coupled with Curtis' disjointed, flailing dancing made them a mesmeric draw on the circuit. Curtis' epilepsy meant that he was prone to breakdowns while on stage.
After an aborted set of demos the band entered the studios to begin recording with producer Martin Hannett on the advice of Factory Records boss Tony Wilson who was so sure of the band's success, he had sunk his £8,000 life savings into the recording session. Together, Hannett and Joy Division created a mini masterpiece. Wilson's faith in the band was rewarded as the resulting album, Unknown Pleasures, shot straight to the top of the indie charts. With the band's bass-heavy skeletal sound and evocation of urban isolation, Curtis immediately became a messiah of existential angst. The track She's Lost Control was written by Curtis about a girl he knew who suffered from epilepsy and subsequently died. A grim foreboding of what was to come.
But the band's live gigs were becoming blighted by Curtis' epilepsy and his worsening mood swings due to the drugs he was taking to treat it. Doctors advised relaxation and a quiet life without drink or drugs, which was completely alien to Curtis. And medical therapy for his condition did nothing to help Curtis. "It was the pills that really killed him," Hook told Q magazine. "They made him so low."
While on tour Curtis had also started a relationship with a Belgian fan, Annick Honore, which only served to increase his guilt over his marriage and the fact that he'd recently had a daughter, Natalie, with his wife Deborah. According to Hook, Curtis was now "falling apart."
By the time the band entered studios in London in March 1980, Curtis was spiralling into despair with one failed suicide attempt already behind him. But somehow, from the depths of his despair, Curtis managed to create a beautifully solemn paean to his isolation with the album Closer. Love Will Tear Us Apart chronicled the break-up of his marriage while on Decades Heart And Soul, Curtis sang "Existence, well what does it matter?"
After the release of Love Will Tear Us Apart as a single the band were scheduled to embark on a tour of the US. But Curtis had other ideas. Depressed by the state of his marriage, on Sunday 18 May Curtis went home to discuss divorce with his wife Deborah. After she left to spend the night with a friend, Curtis walked into the kitchen and hung himself with some rope from an overhead clothes rack.
Related Links
