Peter Hook Quotes

We got our start doing covers and I think, and hearing other people covering our songs is super flattering.

I love interpreting other people's music.

The Beatles never sounded intimidated by their idols. They never interpreted old rock; they simply played it as well and as joyfully as they knew how. On 'Rock 'n' Roll,' John Lennon does nothing but interpret old rock.

I hope my pieces have an authenticity to them, but my job is to filter the world and tell a story, not to define and recreate exactly what's going on.

Tribute bands have kind of taken over the market, and I don't want to come across as being that.

If someone can relate my guitar solo to an exercise in a book... that's no fun at all.

The people who were learning from me tended to be more commercial performers who were gonna rip off the salient idea to do it in a way that will sell, but they weren't going for the music.

Although I'm a huge fan of Ben Kweller, I don't think I'd cover one of his songs, simply because there's just so much of my own stuff I wanna do.

Do you believe in Madonna? Because Lady Gaga has got something to say about 'Express Yourself,' and she's turned Madonna's fourth-best single of 1989 into her own instant-classic club anthem, 'Born This Way.'

It bothers me when musicians listen to music from the '60s and try and recreate it. Those people weren't trying to recreate music from the '20s. Why do it?

It's very strange when people get so focused on what a song means, what actual events inspired a song. That gets people really excited for some reason... But that's what's great about music - however people interpret it, whatever they see, is what I want to be there for them.

I may play the same songs night to night, but I never play them the same way.

We don't need another Woody. Even Bob Dylan knew he couldn't be Woody Guthrie... I like Woody Guthrie fine, but I don't need the 50th generation version of it.

I've heard that Bon Iver liked my cover of 'Skinny Love.'

Each time I play a song it seems more real.

When you do a lyric for 'April in Paris,' those who have heard it before can hear it in a different way now. It can add perspective to a great piece of music that does not have a lyric and may be inaccessible to lot of ears because people don't deal with complex music very well.

My 'Slide Some Oil' ain't gon' be Nipsey Russell's 'Slide Some Oil.' Elijah Kelley's 'You Can't Win' ain't gon' be Michael Jackson's 'You Can't Win.'

I feel like, paying homage to an artist, it's better to do something that's inspired by them - a new work that's inspired by them - versus another person saying they redid your song.

'Unknown Pleasures' is a very important record for me. It was the first LP that I recorded.

I get a lot of joy out of covering other people's songs, and, at my best, I think I bring something a little new to a lot of them.

A lot of bands are influenced by other bands, and that informs their songwriting for sure. It definitely informs my songwriting, too. But it's more about not thinking about it, and if it comes out of you, it's better.

After Chuck Berry died, it seemed web sites popped up like mushrooms to show where he'd taken the guitar introduction to 'Johnny B. Goode' from to prove that his music was nothing new, that it was only ignorance, or vanity, that led his listeners to think that not only was the music different - they might be, too.

I feel like a lot of bands have done amazing covers, but whenever we start working on it, whenever we try it in rehearsal, it never feels right for me to do the song.

It's just I do things differently and I want people to appreciate music for what it is, and not because of a story.

That's my favorite part about songwriting, the way you write a song, and someone else might hear it a different way.