Joy Division and New Order bass player Peter Hook has spoken out about the recent emergence of a supposed 'lost' Joy Division track, branding the tune firstly fake, and secondly, "Bloody awful".
The track - entitled Aerial, appeared online fairly recently and purported to be 'lost cut' from the 1979 Unknown Pleasures album sessions and was gleefully taken up by the rather more gullible sections of the blogosphere and celebrated as something of a treasure, even though, well .... it's bloody awful.
Hook commented:
"I've heard it. It's a hoax and it's bloody awful. They're quite clever, these guys, they sound like college kids to me, they've captured the atmosphere quite well, but it's a hoax. If Ian Curtis ever sang lyrics like that, I'd have kicked him up the arse."
"Everytime you hear about tapes being discovered, you think there maybe more songs, but I think I can safely say that there isn’t anything more to do with Joy Division to come out. There's not much left over, when you're young, you don't think for tomorrow."
On the other hand, Hook did also mention that there is in existence archived Joy Division material that has never seen the full light of day: an alternate version of the band's second album Closer.
"I've got a tape that's recently come into my possession, which is outtakes from Closer. It's interesting because the songs are quite different, we changed the songs quite a bit in the studio and the songs are very different. I'm not planning to do anything with it at the moment."