Fact #194237
When:
Short story:
At Strawberry Studios, Manchester, England, UK, Europe, owned by 10cc, Joy Division begin recording tracks which will form the basis of their album Unknown Pleasures.Full article:
Joy Division : The Recording of Unknown Pleasures
By Johnny Black
Tony Wilson (owner, Factory Records) : Originally, the album that became Unknown Pleasures was going to come out on Radar Records, which was an independent backed by WEA. The idea was that you started out on the independent, then moved on to the major. The band went down to London and started doing demos with Martin Rushent of Genetic as producer.
Martin Rushent : I suppose I was the first to offer them a serious recording deal. I saw them at Liverpool Eric’s and offered Rob Gretton (manager) a deal there and then. I asked them down to London to demo and that went really well. They liked it and we were up to the point of recording the LP properly, although people thought the demos were probably good enough as they were.
Bernard Sumner : We were just doing something because we loved it. It was for very unselfish reasons. There was no thought of being successful or making money - we just did it because we liked music and wanted to produce something that was good. By that time, I had already come to the conclusion that there was nothing else in the world for me.
Martin Rushent : I thought Ian was a nice man and a great singer. They were very quiet and just got on with it. We did fifteen tracks, essentially the first album and some others. My favourite was Ice Age and I still maintain my version was better than the final one.
My production company was contracted to Radar Records, who were funded by WEA. They had a huge row over what the money was being spent on and terminated the deal overnight.
Ian Curtis : There was a point when we were thinking about signing (to Genetic) but we weren’t rushing anything. We went down to London to see what kind of working relationship we would have but, by that time, we’d already agreed to do the first LP with Factory.
Tony Wilson : Joy Division and Rob Gretton’s attitude was ‘Let’s do the first album with Tony … we won’t have to sign nothing to nobody and we don’t have to get on the train and talk to c***s in London, England, UK, Europe.’ Martin Hannett, who was going to produce it, reckoned we could do an album for about £5,000 and I agreed to fund it. It turned out nearer £12,000 in the end. One of the great things about Manchester bands is that they’re very loyal to their home. When 10cc had been successful, they re-invested their money in the local scene by opening up Strawberry Studios on Hillgate in Stockport, so it was natural that we wanted to record there.
It was a very comfortable studio to work in, an excellent modern 24 track place with big plush sofas and a pool table in the basement.
Kevin Cummings (photographer) : The band was very protective, especially in those days of the first album. They kept themselves to themselves. Also, at the point when they actually went into Strawberry Studios to record the album, they were really not very highly thought of in Manchester. The general attitude was that it was going to be a waste of money.
Tony Wilson : Everybody says the album was recorded in five days, but I remember it taking much longer than that. We went in on the first day and Martin spent all of that day and at least half of the next day, just trying to get a drum sound. Then he turned to Stephen Morris, the drummer, and told him he’d have to get his drumkit sorted out to get the sound right. So Stephen had to completely dis-assemble his kit nut by nut and then re-assemble it to Martin's satisfaction. That was part of Martin’s way of trying to un-nerve them, right from the start.
Peter Hook : I honestly can’t remember how the sound actually evolved … Ian used to be the one who’d spot things, like most singers. I remember writing She’s Lost Control and 24 Hours at home, playing the bass parts, and Ian went ‘That sounds good, keep that bit’. With She’s Lost Control, Barney had just said, ‘We don’t want the guitar going all the way through. It’s boring.’ So the sound evolved without us noticing.
Bernard Sumner : She’s Lost Control was about a girl who used to come into the rehabilitation centre where Ian worked, to try and find work. She had epilepsy and lost more and more time through it and then one day she just didn’t come in any more. He assumed that she’d found a job, but found out later she’d had a fit and died.
Tony Wilson : Ian had started having his epileptic attacks not long before they started making the album, but I was never aware of it affecting the recording. The big misconception everybody has is that Joy Division were a miserable bunch. They were the opposite. They were the biggest fun band I ever worked with. Even during the recording of an album like Unknown Pleasures, their primary activity was playing japes and their secondary activity was making music.
Chris Nagle (engineer) : Unknown Pleasures was recorded very live, in five days. Strawberry was tiny, but it was perfect. Like, the lift noise on Insight, Martin just said, “Stick a mic on the shaft and wind the tape back a bit. Hit record.” And he said to Ian, “Get in the lift, go down, come back up and that’ll do it.” And it did. We used to record everything, cos mistakes often turned into these little tricks.
Peter Hook : We thought (Hannett) was really wacky, really weird. The way he treated instruments and recorded drums was really revolutionary. You were really lucky to be there to see it.
Tony Wilson : What he did with the drums was that he fed the sound out of the studio through to a microphone he’d placed out in the bathroom, then he put the resulting sound from that through a digital delay. It was an amazing noise.
Bernard Sumner : Martin didn’t give a fuck about making a pop record. All he wanted to do was experiment. His attitude was that you get a load of drugs, lock the door of the studio and you stay in there all night and you see what you’ve got the next morning. And you keep doing that until it’s done. That’s how all our records were made. We were on speed, Martin was into smack.
Martin Hannett : When I did the arrangements for recording, they were just reinforcing the basic ideas. They were a gift to a producer, because they didn’t have a clue. They didn’t argue.
Bernard Sumner : One of the funny things was that we never talked about the music. We had an understanding which we never felt the need to vocalise. I felt that there was an other-worldliness to the music, that we were plucking it out of the air. We felt that talking about the music would stop the inspiration.
Chris Nagle (engineer) : Martin could be very awkward in the studio. He had various methods to keep the band out of the way, to keep the creative process his own. Sometimes he’d go to sleep under the desk to create a state of panic. Then he’d just impose his will on people and they’d go back into the studio really wound up. He was clean-ish at this point, drug-wise. His ‘plan’ as he used to call it, was a ‘sonic hologram’. It was something he was developing, layering sounds and reverbs.
Bernard Sumner : He used to say to Rob (Gretton) ‘Get these two thick, stupid c***s out of my way’. In the studio, we’d sit on the left, he’d sit on the right and, if we said anything like ‘I think the guitars are a bit quiet Martin’ he’d scream ‘Oh my God! Why don’t you just fuck off, you stupid retards.’ It was all right at first but gradually he started to get weirder and weirder.
Tony Wilson : I remember we’d got to the ninth take of one track and Martin was in the control room. He pressed the button and said into the mic, ‘OK. This is the final take. I want it faster but slower.’
Chris Nagle : Ian had a ritual when it came to the vocals. He’d listen to the whole tune once, in silence, then go back in and do the take. Another odd thing was that Ian had sheets with his lyrics on, but he always recorded with the lights off. The words were well in his head.
Tony Wilson : The thing that still startles me, though, is that the band themselves were never really pleased with the sound of Unknown Pleasures.
Peter Hook : The music, when we played it live, was loud and heavy, and we felt that Martin had toned it down, especially with the guitars. The production inflicted this doomy mood over the album. We’d drawn this picture in black and white, and Martin had coloured it in for us. We resented it, but Rob loved it, Wilson loved it, and the press loved it. We were just the poor, stupid musicians who wrote it. We swallowed our pride and went with it.
Tony Wilson : People always remember the cover for that album. I think it went on to become one of the best-selling t-shirt designs ever. It was done by Peter Saville, based on a photograph Bernard found in a book - it was an image of radio waves from the pulsar NC-1919, picked up by a radio telescope.
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By Johnny Black
Tony Wilson (owner, Factory Records) : Originally, the album that became Unknown Pleasures was going to come out on Radar Records, which was an independent backed by WEA. The idea was that you started out on the independent, then moved on to the major. The band went down to London and started doing demos with Martin Rushent of Genetic as producer.
Martin Rushent : I suppose I was the first to offer them a serious recording deal. I saw them at Liverpool Eric’s and offered Rob Gretton (manager) a deal there and then. I asked them down to London to demo and that went really well. They liked it and we were up to the point of recording the LP properly, although people thought the demos were probably good enough as they were.
Bernard Sumner : We were just doing something because we loved it. It was for very unselfish reasons. There was no thought of being successful or making money - we just did it because we liked music and wanted to produce something that was good. By that time, I had already come to the conclusion that there was nothing else in the world for me.
Martin Rushent : I thought Ian was a nice man and a great singer. They were very quiet and just got on with it. We did fifteen tracks, essentially the first album and some others. My favourite was Ice Age and I still maintain my version was better than the final one.
My production company was contracted to Radar Records, who were funded by WEA. They had a huge row over what the money was being spent on and terminated the deal overnight.
Ian Curtis : There was a point when we were thinking about signing (to Genetic) but we weren’t rushing anything. We went down to London to see what kind of working relationship we would have but, by that time, we’d already agreed to do the first LP with Factory.
Tony Wilson : Joy Division and Rob Gretton’s attitude was ‘Let’s do the first album with Tony … we won’t have to sign nothing to nobody and we don’t have to get on the train and talk to c***s in London, England, UK, Europe.’ Martin Hannett, who was going to produce it, reckoned we could do an album for about £5,000 and I agreed to fund it. It turned out nearer £12,000 in the end. One of the great things about Manchester bands is that they’re very loyal to their home. When 10cc had been successful, they re-invested their money in the local scene by opening up Strawberry Studios on Hillgate in Stockport, so it was natural that we wanted to record there.
It was a very comfortable studio to work in, an excellent modern 24 track place with big plush sofas and a pool table in the basement.
Kevin Cummings (photographer) : The band was very protective, especially in those days of the first album. They kept themselves to themselves. Also, at the point when they actually went into Strawberry Studios to record the album, they were really not very highly thought of in Manchester. The general attitude was that it was going to be a waste of money.
Tony Wilson : Everybody says the album was recorded in five days, but I remember it taking much longer than that. We went in on the first day and Martin spent all of that day and at least half of the next day, just trying to get a drum sound. Then he turned to Stephen Morris, the drummer, and told him he’d have to get his drumkit sorted out to get the sound right. So Stephen had to completely dis-assemble his kit nut by nut and then re-assemble it to Martin's satisfaction. That was part of Martin’s way of trying to un-nerve them, right from the start.
Peter Hook : I honestly can’t remember how the sound actually evolved … Ian used to be the one who’d spot things, like most singers. I remember writing She’s Lost Control and 24 Hours at home, playing the bass parts, and Ian went ‘That sounds good, keep that bit’. With She’s Lost Control, Barney had just said, ‘We don’t want the guitar going all the way through. It’s boring.’ So the sound evolved without us noticing.
Bernard Sumner : She’s Lost Control was about a girl who used to come into the rehabilitation centre where Ian worked, to try and find work. She had epilepsy and lost more and more time through it and then one day she just didn’t come in any more. He assumed that she’d found a job, but found out later she’d had a fit and died.
Tony Wilson : Ian had started having his epileptic attacks not long before they started making the album, but I was never aware of it affecting the recording. The big misconception everybody has is that Joy Division were a miserable bunch. They were the opposite. They were the biggest fun band I ever worked with. Even during the recording of an album like Unknown Pleasures, their primary activity was playing japes and their secondary activity was making music.
Chris Nagle (engineer) : Unknown Pleasures was recorded very live, in five days. Strawberry was tiny, but it was perfect. Like, the lift noise on Insight, Martin just said, “Stick a mic on the shaft and wind the tape back a bit. Hit record.” And he said to Ian, “Get in the lift, go down, come back up and that’ll do it.” And it did. We used to record everything, cos mistakes often turned into these little tricks.
Peter Hook : We thought (Hannett) was really wacky, really weird. The way he treated instruments and recorded drums was really revolutionary. You were really lucky to be there to see it.
Tony Wilson : What he did with the drums was that he fed the sound out of the studio through to a microphone he’d placed out in the bathroom, then he put the resulting sound from that through a digital delay. It was an amazing noise.
Bernard Sumner : Martin didn’t give a fuck about making a pop record. All he wanted to do was experiment. His attitude was that you get a load of drugs, lock the door of the studio and you stay in there all night and you see what you’ve got the next morning. And you keep doing that until it’s done. That’s how all our records were made. We were on speed, Martin was into smack.
Martin Hannett : When I did the arrangements for recording, they were just reinforcing the basic ideas. They were a gift to a producer, because they didn’t have a clue. They didn’t argue.
Bernard Sumner : One of the funny things was that we never talked about the music. We had an understanding which we never felt the need to vocalise. I felt that there was an other-worldliness to the music, that we were plucking it out of the air. We felt that talking about the music would stop the inspiration.
Chris Nagle (engineer) : Martin could be very awkward in the studio. He had various methods to keep the band out of the way, to keep the creative process his own. Sometimes he’d go to sleep under the desk to create a state of panic. Then he’d just impose his will on people and they’d go back into the studio really wound up. He was clean-ish at this point, drug-wise. His ‘plan’ as he used to call it, was a ‘sonic hologram’. It was something he was developing, layering sounds and reverbs.
Bernard Sumner : He used to say to Rob (Gretton) ‘Get these two thick, stupid c***s out of my way’. In the studio, we’d sit on the left, he’d sit on the right and, if we said anything like ‘I think the guitars are a bit quiet Martin’ he’d scream ‘Oh my God! Why don’t you just fuck off, you stupid retards.’ It was all right at first but gradually he started to get weirder and weirder.
Tony Wilson : I remember we’d got to the ninth take of one track and Martin was in the control room. He pressed the button and said into the mic, ‘OK. This is the final take. I want it faster but slower.’
Chris Nagle : Ian had a ritual when it came to the vocals. He’d listen to the whole tune once, in silence, then go back in and do the take. Another odd thing was that Ian had sheets with his lyrics on, but he always recorded with the lights off. The words were well in his head.
Tony Wilson : The thing that still startles me, though, is that the band themselves were never really pleased with the sound of Unknown Pleasures.
Peter Hook : The music, when we played it live, was loud and heavy, and we felt that Martin had toned it down, especially with the guitars. The production inflicted this doomy mood over the album. We’d drawn this picture in black and white, and Martin had coloured it in for us. We resented it, but Rob loved it, Wilson loved it, and the press loved it. We were just the poor, stupid musicians who wrote it. We swallowed our pride and went with it.
Tony Wilson : People always remember the cover for that album. I think it went on to become one of the best-selling t-shirt designs ever. It was done by Peter Saville, based on a photograph Bernard found in a book - it was an image of radio waves from the pulsar NC-1919, picked up by a radio telescope.