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The Cure’s Ex-Drummer Calls ‘Bollocks’ on Peter Hook’s Memoir

cure, peter hook, joy division

A war of words has broken out between members of two iconic post-punk bands.

Peter Hook, former bassist for Joy Division and New Order, accuses fellow late-’70s English rockers the Cure of “selling out” in his recent memoir, Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division. He also suggests that the goth-pop gods behind “Why Can’t I Be You?” wished they could be as “cool” as Joy Division.

“I don’t think the Cure liked us,” Hook writes, referencing a 1979 show that Joy Division played with the Cure. “I think they resented us in some way, because we’d managed to stay cool, credible, and independent and they’d, well, sort of sold out a bit… I think they thought, Wish we were Joy Division.”

Now, as Spinner points out, Lol Tolhurst, former drummer/keyboardist for the Cure, has publicly refuted Hook’s claims. “I don’t normally add my two cents to stuff,” Tolhurst wrote on January 29 on the Facebook page for Levinhurst, his current musical project with wife Cindy Levinson. “But I understand Peter Hook has a new book out wherein he speaks about a certain 1979 gig that Joy Division supported the Cure at? Well I remember that particular gig too and my memory is somewhat different from Pete’s. See we arranged a show at the Marquee club in London for every Sunday for a month (called it a month of Sundays I think) and picked every band that opened for us. Because we, LIKED them and wanted to help them out. Not for any reason other than that.”

Tolhurst continued in the comments section, writing that Hook couldn’t be more wrong about that “sell out” charge. “Sell outs? I think [Cure frontman] Robert [Smith] has done a most marvelous job over the years of making sure that the Cure were the LEAST sellout band possible. He’s always operated with the utmost integrity as concerns that side of the music business. And to insinuate otherwise is absolutely false and just plain bollocks too!”

Current Cure keyboardist Roger O’Donnell chimed in, commenting, “Straight from the [horse’s] mouth… Lol has an incredible memory for stuff like this!”

Tolhurst added, “Just wanted to set the record straight here because as time passes [it’s] harder to verify the facts and I just wanted Cure fans to know the truth here from someone who was most certainly involved haha!”

Hook is known for engaging in (very) public feuds. He left New Order in 2007 and since then has gone on record as saying he’s “determined to fuck New Order over in any possible way.” New Order frontman Bernard Sumner recently discussed the split with Spinner, saying, “I don’t want to slag Hooky off, but I just want to right some of the wrongs that he’s been saying about us.”

As a response to Hook’s “sell out” remark, Cure fan blog Chain of Flowers posted a video featuring a commercial New Order did for Sunkist in the 1980s. Yes, that’s a soft drink-focused reworking of “Blue Monday” that you’re hearing: