Dream Machines // Interviews

Stephen Morris was always much more than the drummer in Joy Division and New Order; he played a key role in the sonic experimentation that made both bands so special.  In this interview, he talks about Joy Division’s tinkering with electronics and how Factory Records producer Martin Hannett’s use of the studio as creative instrument often baffled the band, and how happy accidents with drum machines and synths created some of New Order’s most memorable moments. He also explains the impact that electro producer Arthur Baker and the ecstatic vibrations of Ibiza had on the band’s music. In one of your two autobiographies (‘Record Play Pause’ and ‘Fast Forward’), you write about how you were keen on Hawkwind when you were young. And a lot of people I’ve spoken to while doing this book have been saying that Hawkwind were quite important to them growing up, when they were expanding their musical horizons. Why was Hawkwind’s sound so exciting at that point in time? That's a good question.

D on Letts is the film-maker who documented punk rock as it happened, and was the highly influential DJ at the Roxy club in London in 1977, where he schooled young punks in reggae grooves. He has also played a significant part in UK electronic music history as the samples man for Big Audio Dynamite, the band formed by Mick Jones after he was ousted from The Clash. The inimitable humour of the self-styled ‘rebel dread’ shines through here as he talks about Big Audio Dynamite ’s hybrid multicultural sound,  getting away with sonic larceny and why he had to put stickers all over his keyboards when playing live with the band. Back in the mid-eighties when you started , Big Audio Dynamite looked like a gang of  swashbuckling, stylish,  righteous dudes who knew all the best tunes. Was that the kind of image you were trying to put across? I think ‘Medicine Show’ [from 1985 debut album This is Big Audio Dynamite ] was really like a manifesto of what the band was about. We were just doing o