Between 1976 and 1980, Ian Curtis, Peter Hook, Stephen Morris, and Bernard Sumner were members of the post-punk band
Joy Division, often featuring heavy production input from producer
Martin Hannett. Curtis committed suicide on the eve of their American tour, and prior to release of the band's second album,
Closer, on
18 May 1980. The rest of the band decided soon after Curtis's death that they would carry on. Hook told
Mojo in 1994, "The first meeting we all had, which was the Sunday night [Curtis committed suicide], we agreed that. We didn't sit there crying. We didn't cry at his funeral. It came out as anger at the start. We were absolutely devastated: not only had we lost someone we considered our friend, we'd lost the group. Our life basically."
The members of Joy Division had agreed before Curtis's death not to continue under the Joy Division name should any one member leave the band.
Rob Gretton, the band's manager for over twenty years, is credited for having found the name "New Order" in an article in
The Guardian entitled "The People's New Order of
Kampuchea". The band adopted this name, despite its previous use for ex-
Stooge Ron Asheton's band The New Order. Yet the link with Joy Division made it hard for critics to ignore the fascistic undertones the name carried with it, the term "New Order" being featured in
Hitler's Mein Kampf as "the new order of the Third Reich." The band publicly rejected any claims that the name had anything to do with fascist or Nazi sympathies, with Sumner later saying, "We really, really thought it didn't have any connotations, and we thought that it was a neutral name, it didn't mean much . . ." The band rehearsed with each member taking turns on vocals. Sumner ultimately took the role, as the guitar was an easier instrument to play while singing. Wanting to complete the line-up with someone they knew well whose musical skill and style was compatible with their own, New Order invited Morris' girlfriend, Gillian Gilbert from
Macclesfield, to join the band during the early part of October 1980, as keyboardist and guitarist. Gilbert's membership was suggested by Gretton.
Their initial release as New Order was the single "
Ceremony", backed with "In A Lonely Place". These two songs were written in the weeks before Curtis took his own life. With the release of
Movement in November 1981, New Order initially started on a similar route as their previous incarnation, performing dark, melodic songs, albeit with an increased use of synthesizers. The band viewed the period as a low point, as they were still reeling from Curtis' death. Hook commented that the only positive thing to come out of the
Movement sessions was that producer
Martin Hannett had showed the band how to use a mixing board, which allowed them to produce records by themselves from then on.
A change in musical direction was brought about when New Order visited New York City in 1981. The band immersed themselves in the New York dance scene and were introduced to postdisco, Latin freestyle, and
electro. Additionally, the band had taken to listening to Italian
disco to cheer themselves up, while Morris taught himself drum programming. The singles that followed, "
Everything's Gone Green" and "
Temptation", indicated the change in direction toward dance music.
The Haçienda, Factory Records' own nightclub (largely funded by New Order), opened in May 1982 and was even issued a Factory catalogue number: FAC51. This was the UK's first ever
superclub. Its opening was marked by a near-23 minute instrumental piece of Steve Morris' making, 'Video 586'; released as a single 15 years later. Peter Hook was later to admit to grievance when he thought New Order 'had gone and done a single' without him.
