Gillian Gilbert

Gillian Lesley Gilbert (born 27 January 1961) is an English musician and singer best known as the keyboardist and guitarist of the band New Order.

Gillian Gilbert
Gilbert on stage with New Order in 2019
Background information
Birth name	Gillian Lesley Gilbert
Born	(1961-01-27) 27 January 1961 Whalley Range, Manchester, England
Genres	New wave synthpop post-punk alternative dance alternative rock electronica
Occupation(s)	Musician, singer
Instrument(s)	Keyboards, programming, guitar, vocals
Member of	New Order
Formerly of	The Other Two

Early life

Gilbert's family moved from her birthplace, Manchester, to the nearby market town of Macclesfield when she was young. She disliked living in Cheshire as a teenager and had wanted to live in Manchester. In the late 1970s, seeing Siouxsie and the Banshees play live on UK television was a life changing experience for her. "Me dad always says to us, 'You changed as soon as you saw Siouxsie and the Banshees on television'... And I really liked Gaye Advert out of the Adverts, who played bass, and I thought, 'Oh, there's nobody playin' guitar' - you know, women in bands." Her uncle taught her how to play guitar.

Gilbert was then in a punk band with three girls, the Inadequates, who rehearsed at premises next to Joy Division. In a 1987 interview with Option, Gilbert reflected on the first time she became familiar with Joy Division: "We didn't have a car and us three needed a lift home. So we asked them, and they said, 'Alright, but you have to buy one of our singles.' So we did and got it home and played it on this horrible record player. We'd known Stephen before. We thought, 'My God, this sounds horrible.'" She would later begin dating Stephen Morris.

Career

After Ian Curtis's death in May 1980, the three remaining members of Joy Division started a new band called New Order. Wishing to complete their line-up with someone they knew well and whose musical skill and style was compatible with their own, New Order invited Gilbert to join the band during the early part of October 1980, as keyboardist and guitarist. She had already played with Joy Division a number of times, filling in for both Curtis and Bernard Sumner playing guitar. New Order's manager Rob Gretton suggested she should join. Gilbert's first live performance with them occurred at The Squat in Manchester on 25 October 1980.

Gilbert's voice can be heard on several New Order tracks: the 1981 single "Procession"; the 1983 single "Confusion"; "Avalanche" from the album Republic on which she sang a single word, "faith"; and "Doubts Even Here" from their first album, Movement, on which she provided a spoken-word background vocal.

Fellow band members Sumner and Peter Hook had already produced music outside New Order, when Gilbert and Morris formed their own band, The Other Two. They released their first single "Tasty Fish" in 1991, and recorded two albums: The Other Two & You, released in 1993, and Super Highways in 1999. Gilbert and Morris were engaged in 1993, and married the following year. The couple live in Rainow, outside Macclesfield, and have two daughters. Gilbert stopped touring with New Order in 1998 so that she could care for their children, one of whom suffers from neuromyelitis optica. Her husband had briefly offered to care for the children, but Gilbert reasoned that it would be easier for the band to replace her than her husband. Gilbert participated in the recording of 2001's Get Ready, after which she was replaced by Phil Cunningham in New Order's line-up.

In 2007, Gilbert and Morris remixed two tracks for the Nine Inch Nails remixes album Year Zero Remixed. That year, Gilbert was diagnosed with breast cancer, from which she recovered.

Gilbert re-joined New Order in 2011, after a 10-year absence from their albums. The band had initially reformed, after 4 years, to play two benefit gigs for Michael Schamberg, video-producer and long-time friend. Speaking in a 2021 interview, Gilbert explained; "It was up to me whether I wanted to carry on, really. It seemed quite pleasant at the time, so yeah, just went for it". Gilbert performed alongside Cunningham (who remained a member), expanding the group to a quintet. Gilbert is quoted as saying that she felt glad that she had done other things during her time away from the band. Speaking about recording new material, Gilbert explained; “I figured doing an EP might be OK, but Bernard wanted to do a whole record. That made me think about the bad old days, especially Get Ready, when I’d been glad to get out of it all. But the bad old relationships around Factory had gone, which had caused a lot of problems with a hierarchy becoming established within the band. Phil and Tom are very easy-going. It was a refreshing new start, where I felt that I could do anything – so I did. I came in to Music Complete with a lot of ideas, and it was a record where everyone’s ideas were thrown in together."

Since 2011, New Order have performed across the world. Their album Music Complete was released in September 2015. Gilbert's vocals were featured on a Koishii & Hush remix album titled Lifetime; it was released on 3 February 2016, and featured four tracks remixed by artists such as Saltmarine, Lavigne, FM Attack and Re:Locate. In 2021 Gilbert contributed to a band interview reflecting on the previous 10 years of New Order

Discography

With New Order

Main article: New Order discography

With The Other Two

• The Other Two & You (1993)
• Super Highways (1999)