Max Dax interviews Bernard Sumner
“ There was a fascination for everything related to the war because it was all around me”
Bernard Sumner’s simple guitar lines and plaintive vocals are essential elements in New Order’s dark, romantic synth-pop—a sound that helped define Manchester’s musical identity and set Factory Records on the path to immortality. But it was New York City’s electronic mash-up culture in the early eighties that convinced the band that performing live with synthesizers made sense. Machines freed them from the weight of their Joy Division past and allowed them to forge a vision of the future—one they’re still shaping today. Left: Bernard Sumner in Edinburgh. All photographs by Andrea Stappert.
EB 2/2012
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