Freebass Get It Together

Live shows and album for 2008

03 Jan 2008 - Reports today suggest that the supergroup formed by New Order's Peter Hook, Freebass, are set for their first live show.

Ex-Smiths bassist Andy Rourke and Mani from Primal Scream make up the rest of the band, but they are pulling in all their musical chums for their first outing at the Manchester V Cancer charity concert next month.

The Sun reports that Liam Gallagher is set to perform joint vocals with former Stone Roses' singer Ian Brown, for the show at the MEN Arena on February 23, this will be the group's first proper concert.

"There was even talk of Robbie Williams" - Andy Rourke

When we caught up with Peter Hook  and quizzed him about the project, he was quite blunt about the sound of the band: "Sounds like a cross between The Smiths, New Order, Joy Division, Primal Scream, Stone Roses, so it's quite obvious really."

On the subject of lead singers Hooky admits they have called in some favours: "With Mani, Rourkey and I being bass players we were obviously lacking the final element which was the singer... we obviously have a lot of friends as in the people you are talking about, like Liam Gallagher."

And when 6 Music's The Music Week got in touch with Andy Rourke, he told us they have been in the studio recently with some big names, but their choices of lead singers seem to go from one extreme to the next:  "Tim Burgess has done a great job on one track... Ian Brown is gonna sing on one, Howard Marks is going to do some narration over one of them apparently... there was even talk of Robbie Williams, he made enquiries about doing one... the trails gone a bit quiet on that one."


Ruth Barnes