Peter Hook celebrates Ian Curtis' legacy with The Light tour: 'He speaks for generation after generation'

Former Joy Division and New Order bassist Peter Hook is launching a North American tour with his band The Light on May 22 in Montreal. With The Light, Hook feels he can properly honor the memory of late Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis in a way he thinks New Order does not.

"I was sick of not being able to celebrate Ian's life and Ian's legacy and Ian's reach to the world now," Hook says.

With Curtis, Joy Division recorded the influential albums Unknown Pleasures and Closer, released in 1979 and 1980, respectively, as well as the iconic single "Love Will Tear Us Apart." Following Curtis' death on May 18, 1980 — 45 years ago Sunday — Hook and his Joy Division bandmates Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris founded New Order. Hook then left New Order in 2007, and the relationship between the two camps has remained acrimonious since.

"I celebrate how [Curtis] has touched people who were born 20, 40 years after his death," Hook says of his tours with The Light. "I think that that is incredible. He speaks for generation after generation."

For this latest Light tour, Hook will be performing the 2001 New Order album Get Ready in full, along with classics from throughout the Joy Division and New Order discographies.

"We're gonna play the LP in full, and then we're gonna do a Joy Division set, and then we're gonna do a New Order set," Hook says. "So people are getting a lot of bang for your buck."