Taken from a new book about the women of the Factory Records label, the New Order keyboardist remembers her daunting start with the band – and their nights out to fetish clubs
Gillian Gilbert’s story as a musician – along with the numerous unseen women who worked for Factory Records – started well before the label became a sensation in 1983 with New Order’s Blue Monday. Gillian learned guitar and keys, occasionally played on stage with Joy Division, and later became a member of New Order – joining Stephen Morris, Bernard Sumner, and Peter Hook – following the tragic death of Ian Curtis in 1980.
I got to know everybody [in New Order] and the manager, Rob [Gretton]. It was the manager who suggested, when Ian died, to bring another singer in, which they didn’t want to do. Eventually he said: “Why don’t you just bring somebody in that nobody thought would be brought in?”
