Peter Hook: Haçienda almost tore me apart

Oct 4 2009 by Michael Kelly, Sunday Sun

DURING its 15 year existence the Haçienda in Manchester was named the best club in the world . . . and was also one of the most notorious. From ground-breaking music to gangsters, drug dealing and death, it experienced it all. Co-owner Peter “Hooky” Hook, of Joy Division and New Order fame, has written a book about its tempestuous history and has spoken to Mike Kelly about it.

While the money continued to roll in from New Order and Joy Division sales, it continued to roll out again and end up in the cash furnace that was the Haçienda. Like the rest of the band Hooky was skint, so he took to working behind the bar.

He said: “We were all out of our depth as businessmen. When we talked about the business side of it we found it deathly boring. The thing is, we had a charmed life.”

Much of the blame for the overspend could be laid at the feet of the extravagant design, as well as Tony Wilson but, as Hooky quickly admits, it was down to naivety and idealism, not corruption.

He said: “I used to say to Tony: ‘If you’d ripped us off and spent money on cocaine and hookers it would have been easier to understand’.”

Despite the financial troubles, the club began to make its mark. While another Wilson inspired idea to have the club open seven days a week was losing it on average £10,000 a month, mostly on wages, gigs by top bands of the time including Culture Club, Simple Minds, Echo & the Bunnymen, Bow Wow Wow, The Smiths and New Order, who played for nothing, generated excitement.

In 1984 Madonna, then little known, performed two songs there for The Tube music show. As the years rolled on it became the epicentre of the Acid House music scene and Madchester.

Without the club there would have been no Cream in Liverpool, and perhaps no Ministry of Sound. Visits to it inspired DJs like Sasha and the Chemical Brothers.

But escalating drug use meant the club became a major market for drugs, and violence ensued as gangs battled for control of the door.

In July 1989 Claire Leighton took an Ecstasy tablet given to her by her boyfriend before going to the club and collapsed inside, dying 36 hours later. She was the first recorded Ecstasy drug death in the UK. The Haçienda’s notoriety grew.

The club temporarily closed down in 1991 before re-opening with increased security, but the violence continued. In 1992 Factory Records went bust, but the club struggled on until it closed for good in 1997. It was bulldozed and is now the home of an upmarket development, The Haçienda Apartments.

Hooky said: “It’s like a great big tombstone, underneath which are buried all those great memories. If they lifted the lid and looked inside it would be like Dante’s Inferno.”

Band manager Rob Gretton died of a heart attack in 1999 while Tony Wilson died of kidney cancer in 2007. “I miss him,” said Hooky.

“Tony always said Factory was more about art than money. I wonder whether we’d still have gone in with him if he’d told us that at the start. I’ll never know, but I don’t regret one moment of the whole mad mess.”

* The Haçienda. How Not To Run a Club by Peter Hook is out now priced at £18.99. The author will be at HMV, Newcastle, between 5pm and 6pm tomorrow.