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  1. Culture
18 May 2010

Ian Curtis remembered

An interview with the Joy Division singer on the anniversary of his death.

By Mike Sweeney

Today is the 30th anniversary of the suicide of the Joy Division singer Ian Curtis. To mark the occasion, we have unearthed this 1980 recording from a Radio 1 interview with Curtis and a fellow band member, Stephen Morris.

 

In it, the presenter Richard Skinner asks the young Curtis what the band gained from emerging in isolation from the majority of London-based new wave acts, and who — if anyone — they were influenced by.

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To the second question, Curtis responds: “I don’t agree with occupying anything, or shoving things into little boxes. What we do is what we do. It’s four people playing the sort of music they want to play.”

And, for especially keen readers, here is the band’s first appearance on television, introduced by the man who discovered them, the TV man and head of Factory Records, Tony Wilson.

 

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