Indie Originals: The New Hormones Story

Richard Boon: “Part of my, and that punk rationale, was: make things happen. Make the place that you happen to be living a place that you want to be living in”

Richard Boon: “We put out a fanzine that says fanzines can be anything you want”

Richard Boon: “It was play. Play is very important because it’s transgressive and transformative”

Eric Random (The Tiller Boys): “I watched people in the audience throw up”

Eric Random: “I was still in the same sort of frame of mind as with Tiller Boys: Still quite an aggressive physical sound, but using a lot of repetition”

Cath Carroll: “It was said that Eric’s personal energy field caused electrical and electronic equipment to malfunction, he had trouble even watching TV”

Ian Runacres: “Andy (Diagram) has the perfect blend of musicality, individuality and freedom”

Cath Carroll: “(Gods Gift) looked like civil servants who’d had their desks stolen”

Liz Naylor (on Gods Gift): “One of the great lost bands”

Richard Boon: “A typical day at 50 Newton Street is beyond description. It was an open house to derelicts”

Liz Naylor: “Alan Wise is one of the most bizarre people you’ll ever, ever encounter”

Ian Runacres: “In those days Morrissey was a bit like Zelig”

Lawrence Fitzgerald (Diagram Brothers): “It was almost a family with New Hormones”

Simon Pitchers (Diagram Brothers): “Things weren’t going brilliantly and you don’t want things to go sour, I think. It’s a bit like doing a set that’s too long – best to leave everybody on a high note rather than a low note”

Cath Carroll: “Richard had a contrariness about him that allowed to him see things like Danger Came Smiling as a valid business move where others would have simply viewed such a release as indulgence. He enjoyed Art and allowed it to resonate. He really seemed to enjoy its meaning, not just its effect or symbolism”

CP Lee: “It was probably just hopeless speed paranoia. At the time it all seemed terribly significant”

Liz Naylor: “Richard’s very generous with his advice, or his enabling of other people to do things. And subsequently has been a lot less successful than anybody else. He really was an important person in Manchester’s music history”

Richard Boon: “I would have loved to do something with Basil from Yargo. He walked into the office one day and said, ‘I want to be produced by Thom Bell’ Fantastic – he had ambition. With the last 90 quid of New Hormones’ money I stuck him in a four-track”

Fraser Reich (Diagram Brothers): “Richard was really a vital glue conceptually for everybody. I think from him came that sense of it’s a creative house and I support you in your creative stuff. Richard was so clearly committed to the idea of the creative part of it that actually money hardly got discussed at all”

Richard Boon: “People helped each other. And if someone had a hit: ‘good for them’.”

Liz Naylor: “People were very respectful of Richard and the Buzzcocks, but as a label it never quite captured people’s imagination”

Dids Dowdall (Ludus): “New Hormones actually had better bands than Factory”

Nathan McGough: “New Hormones was important because it was the first independent in Manchester if not the UK. But it hasn’t left the same footprint on Manchester [as Factory]”

Graham Massey: “There was no great vision with Factory, which is odd because Factory has this reputation of being a visionary label”

Malcolm Garrett: “The personae of the bands at Factory were certainly subservient to the overarching persona of the label itself, with the caveat that Joy Division and New Order really were the persona of the label embodied in vinyl, so their visualisation was indistinguishable from Factory itself”

Ian Runacres: “If some of the New Hormones bands had been on Factory and vice versa the world would have been a different place. In some ways better”

CP Lee: “One tends to think of all the Factory bands being quite the same… (New Hormones) was definitely a whole mess of individuals, which possibly led to its eventual demise”

Ian Runacres: “I’m really proud to have been signed to New Hormones, but I sometimes wish I’d have signed with Factory when I had the bloody chance”

Graham Massey: “New Hormones was more of a family thing than Factory”

Stuart James: “Maybe New Hormones as a label was a little bit too diverse. The bands were diverse. Even though a lot of the bands shared the same producer, there was no signature sound necessarily. The artwork didn’t have a unified style. Even though they were more of a family, it wasn’t perceived as that”

Richard Boon: “If there was an ethos it was just that this music should be heard. And these players should be paid attention, because they have hopefully something to say, or they are making an interesting racket. I like interesting rackets. There wasn’t an overarching ideology. I didn’t want to be Ahmet Ertegün or anything like that”

Ian Runacres: “New Hormones was a better label than Factory: of that I have no doubt. Not just because of Richard Boon’s extraordinary vision – he isn’t just a music ‘fan’ in the way that Tony Wilson was, nowt wrong with being a fan, of course, but because Richard’s vision ‘became’ the music – such was his influence. He was the Malcom McLaren of the North. A truly brilliant man – broke, but brilliant. Richard wasn’t the sort of individual who would be taken in by the drug-fuelled drivel of Salford scallies. He loved the artform and he loved individuals. My conclusion: Eric Random – more important than Fat Boy Slim. Diagram Brothers – more important than Madness. Ludus – more important than, well Morrisey, I suppose. As for Dislocation Dance, well I think we could have been more important than New Order”

Richard Boon: “I’m not bitter – about anything actually. It was a great adventure: set out with that map and see where you land”