Hello Peter, we had a bit of trouble getting through to you on the phone. Is everything ok?

The dog was laying on the wire. You know with bloody AOL you've got to have one of them suppressers on your phone line and she managed to lie on that, dribbling on it and shorted it out.

Fantastic. We took a quick poll of the office and everyone agreed that 'Technique' was their favourite New Order album. Does that surprise you?

I suppose that was the biggest seller, but ironically it didn't have a big hit on it.
But sound wise, that's my favourite because it sounds so summery, and it reminds me of that wonderful summer that we had when it came out, which was '89, wasn't it? It was the summer of love that was.

It was a very good year.

...when everyone went bananas. It was funny 'cause it was the acid house explosion, when 'Technique' came out, which couldn't be further from it. Apart from that one track that Barney insisted on doing which was 'Fine Time'. He was inspired to do that one night after we'd been to Amnesia in Ibiza. But all the rest of the LP is quite rocky, isn't it? '89 was my big, big year, the Hacienda year, and to be honest with you, my god. I'm amazed I'm still here.

Well quite. When you were remastering the other New Order albums, did they all bring back memories of certain times?

They bring back places more than times. It's quite a funny thing, I was having a conversation with Tim Burgess about this, the fact that we've been doing the same job for so long, it really f**ks up your memory and you don't know where the bleeding hell you were. But each album I can remember where I was, like the first album I did in Stockport, which was really depressing, but you know it was after the death of Ian, and watching Martin Hannett trying to kill himself with drugs was a really, really bad period of time. The next one we did in London, which was great. We'd found our feet and we got on with it and we had a good time. It was before we discovered going out all the time, or hard drugs. On 'Technique', of course, we made the biggest mistake that anyone apart from the Happy Mondays has made in their lives, by going to Ibiza to record.

Easy to get distracted from working in the studio, we imagine?

I don't think I ever went in! I just used to come home from Amnesia and go to bed, then get up and go back to Amnesia. The studio was really depressing. It had purple carpet on the walls.
There's loads of recording studios in Ibiza; when does anyone get anything done, cause they're all trollied?
This makes me laugh, they reckon Ibiza was created by a god names Bes! I couldn't believe it, 'cause we took Bez over with us, when we were in Ibiza. That was part of the reason that it all went completely tits up.

Do you actually enjoy listening to the old stuff? A lot of bands say they don't.

I listen to a lot of Joy Division's old stuff, but, and I don't know what the reason is, I've never particularly listened to New Order stuff. But when I DJ, I've been playing a few New Order tunes, like 'Love Vigilantes', 'Perfect Kiss', 'Age of Consent'... and they always sounded a bit lacking to me because sonically everything's a lot better these days. And when they said they'd like to put all the New Order stuff out, I thought, "oh f**king great, because we can remaster it and it'll sound as good as the other stuff."

You've always seemed like someone who still can't quite believe that you've never had to get a proper job. Is that true?

Again, I was having the same conversation with Tim Burgess and we were both sitting there going, "What would we be f**king doing if we weren't doing this?" And I suppose that's the reason why, when you look at someone like Mick Jagger, why he still does it, cause I bet he sits there and goes, "What the f**k would I do?" It is a f**king pretty good job, and DJing is about the second best job, and yours is probably the third.

It's not bad. We met The Wombats, the other day.

Don't worry, I'm not gunning for your job.
Joking aside, this business has claimed a lot of people, and I see a lot of unhappy musicians. I bump into The Mondays every now and again, the people who aren't with Shaun anymore, and they're very unhappy people, you know, with the way it turned out, they never made any money. Apparently there are only two thousand musicians making a living out of music, in the UK. That's all. And that is quite an exclusive little club, isn't it? I suppose, in a way I am blessed but there's no rhyme and reason for why you're able to pull it off. You look at Joy Division and think, f**king great band writing great songs, New Order: great band writing great songs, thank god. But if you ask me how we do it, I haven't got a f**king clue.

How did you manage to stay in bands with the same people for thirty years?

I haven't got a clue, I honestly can't remember. I think you either have to be incredibly thick-skinned, or a very good compromiser. I think I was a very, very good compromiser. And what happened was, it was like running out of petrol, I just ran out of compromise.

You should write your autobiography.

I am. I'm doing the Hacienda book, then I'm doing a Joy Division one, then I'm gonna get rid of everybody completely by doing a New Order one. That means I'll never see a New Order reunion after that one.

Oh blimey. We'll look forward to reading that. Thank you very much, Peter Hook.