Manchester born Peter Saville became famous for his iconic sleeve designs for the likes of Joy Division and New Order, when he worked for Factory records with the sadly departed Tony Wilson. With the recent release of Anton Corbijn's film 'Control' about the life of troubled Joy Division singer Ian Curtis and the impressive reissues of the band's classic albums, we asked Peter why the band seem more important today than ever.
Hello Peter, as someone who saw it all first hand, does it surprise you that Joy Division's popularity is constantly growing?
"It seems to be just a momentum which is gathering. We have a film out at the moment, there's another very interesting documentary film coming through that showed at one film festival last month. It's kind of strange but inevitable you know, 25 years later, history is kind of consolidating maybe what's missing and what was important. And it's always difficult to see that when you are in the middle of something; it is very difficult to know how it will all play out. As time goes by what we had with Factory just seems to become more significant, more and more iconic. To me the whole Factory experience is the last true story in pop and I think it's beginning to be increasingly appreciated as that."
Do you think we'd still be talking about Joy Division, if there wasn't the tragedy surrounding Ian?
"Well, we'd still be talking about them in a different way but who knows what Ian would have gone on to do and whether it would have happened quickly or taken longer, it's difficult to say. It's often that way with music. I think that Ian would have continued to be a significant artist whether he carried on with the band or tried to become a writer. Who knows what he might have done over the next 10, 20 years of his life. It's impossible to say. What happened happened and in a way he crystalised it. But who would have predicted New Order would have sold brilliantly and reinvented themselves and defined something unique amongst themselves. That is also quite impressive, I think."
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