If rumours are to be believed, when bassist Peter Hook left New Order in 2007 there was little love lost between him and the remaining members and he was determined to take the band with him; writing on his Myspace blog he declared “This group has split up. You are no more New Order than I am… see you in court….You may have two thirds, but don’t assume you have the rights to do anything New Ordery ‘cos you don’t.”

Bernard Sumners, whose credentials include being a founding member of Joy Division and New Order, was not about to give up music though. His reply came in the form of Bad Lieutentant. Made up of Bernard, Phil Cunnigham (who joined New Order in 2004) and Jake Evans they released their album in later 2009 and are about to embark on a tour of the UK and US. Steve Morris, again of New Order and Joy Division stock, has now joined to be their full time live drummer.

“This album is very important to me,” says Bernard. “We’ve worked hard on it and I’m proud of it. It’s also important because it gives people the chance to hear a gifted new singer and guitar player who I think is really talented.”

Bernard spotted Jake when he performed an impromptu version of Neil Young’s Heart of Gold at a mutual friends birthday party and the band came together after a session at the house of Alex James, the former Blur member. We caught up with Jake for a chat before the impending tour:

Is it daunting playing with three quarter of New Order, especially Bernard and Steve?

Not really no. Not now. I’d say that initial session with Alex and Bernard was probably quite, well it took me a while to feel at ease if you like, because your constantly thinking that’s Alex out of Blur and that’s Bernard out of New Order. But eventually you just have to, through spending a lot of time in close quarters with people, and also through just having to, feel like you are on a level with someone, you have to do that to make music well and to function properly, you have to be in the right zone to make good music together really. So yeah I’d say initially it was like that, but I call him “Uncle Bernard” now.

Ha, Does he mind?

He doesn’t really like it but that makes me do it all the more – it’s great.

You’re singing on some of the tracks on “Never Cry Another Tear” – how much input are you having to the lyrics?

It was pretty much a 50/50 kind of thing really as far as the lyric writing went. With the exception of a couple of songs we pretty much sing the lyrics we’ve written ourselves. It was a real collaborative effort and I felt really privileged Bernard let me do that. It was a great feeling to be valued enough and respected enough from such an early stage and given that kind of free reign.

The band stands out as what you call a “mix of youth and wisdom”..

Yeahhhh….we didn’t write that, someone else wrote that for us….I’m not sure if the wisdom part is quite true and I’m not that young anymore either.

It’s quite weird in an industry that likes to pigeonhole by age. How does it change the dynamic of the group compared to previous bands you have played with?

Well I think Bernard and Steve have done all that before, they’ve been there and done that in terms of partying and stuff like that so they’re always a good laugh but there’s always a good balance there, they don’t want to get too smashed all the time which, to be honest isn’t too conducive to doing good gigs or good shows or writing good song. I think that’s the dynamic they’ve brought to the band by being a bit older. Also they take it in their stride -it’s very refreshing to be around people who are so comfortable in their own skin, its infectious in a way, you can’t help but let it rub off on you. It’s just a really good vibe.

And also I suppose they like living vicariously through me so if they see me drinking loads or doing things that they know that they’ve done in the past and they know I’ll regret – I think they all like seeing me doing those things, I think it’s like reliving their youth in some ways.

But it’s been a good laugh and I think with probably all the tensions there were in New Order I think having a band where we can, you know, rehearse in the same room and have a laugh together and socialise together outside the work environment all goes towards making it have a good vibe really.

A lot of New Order fans would have been expecting to hear lots of synthesizers, but these have really be eschewed for guitars – is this your influence on the band?

Possibly – a little bit – I mean we’re three guitar players really. Bernard, me and Phil. It’s just the way it naturally occurred. When we were initially getting ideas together the guitar just seemed to be the most universal instrument that we could just pass around so I think it was always destined to be quite guitary as an album. Whether that’s all down to my influence I’m not sure. I think Bernard really enjoyed playing the guitar again -its probably something he’s taken more of a backseat with in the past.

But yeah it’s strange I think people were like “Well it doesn’t sound like New Order”. Well that’s because it’s not New Order and I think If we had have sounded like New Order people would has said “Tsk, God it sounds just like New Order”. I think we just wanted to do what we wanted to do and the song was the major rule with everything really – the song always just had to win.

There are synths on it but they serve as more of a backdrop really. Who knows maybe the next stuff we do will be a lot more synth based, we’re all interested in that side of things. It just naturally happened that it was quite guitary this first album.

All tour dates for the band can be found here and we’ll be doing a review of their Camden gig next week.