With Peter Hook having acrimoniously split from New Order, the rest of the legendary synthrock act has enlisted Blur bassist Alex James for a new project dubbed Bad Lieutenant.
The BBC reports the new band — featuring Joy Division/New Order members Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris, along with late-era New Order guitarist Phil Cunningham and singer-guitarist Jake Evans of UK act Rambo and Leroy — already has recorded an album, which is due out in October.
Sumner tells the BBC the group will tour later this year and is eyeing 2010 festival dates.
“I’m very proud of it, it’s a very good album,” Sumner says of the as-yet-untitled disc. “It’s pretty guitary too because we’ve got three guitarists in the band.”
Sumner, backed by Cunningham and Evans, debuted an acoustic version of the Bad Lieutenant track “Sink or Swim” (see video below) during a taping of the Sky Arts performance/interview program “Songbook,” which aired in March. (The trio also performed unplugged takes of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle” and Electronic’s “Getting Away With It.”)
In the BBC interview, Sumner says he and his New Order bandmates formed Bad Lieutenant in the wake of Hook’s decision to leave the long-running Manchester group: “We split into two factions, there’s me Steve and Phil. The other is Peter Hook,” Sumner says. “Basically he left the band, that’s all I want to say about it.”
As or Hooky, in between DJ gigs, he’s reportedly still working on the long-tipped Freebass project, featuring fellow bassists Gary “Mani” Mounfield, of The Stone Roses and Primal Scream, and Andy Rourke, of The Smiths.
Click here for all the interview/performance segments from “Bernard Sumner Songbook.”
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