From Joy Division to New Order to Monaco, Peter Hook has had to watch front men from the bass player’s side street for 30 years. He has had enough.

Not only has he handed in his notice to New Order, but also his long-promised Mancunian supergroup of not one, not two, but three bassists is finally up and running after five years and a few false starts.

Hook, pictured below, has hooked up with fellow Manchester rock alumni Mani, of The Stone Roses and Primal Scream, and Andy Rourke, from The Smiths, to form Freebass, complemented by a singer, Haven’s Gary Briggs, and a drummer, Paul Kehow, for good measure.

Tonight they play The Duchess in York with a six-song debut EP, Two Worlds Collide, and a new album, A Beautiful Life, to push.

The EP’s guest vocalists – Tim Burgess, Pete Wylie and sometime York resident Howard Marks – will not be present, but then singers are hardly flavour of the month with Hook.

“Basically we were sick of our lead singers because they were being very difficult and we decided to do something with the only players in bands who seem to be willing to do things,” he says.

“Bass players always drive the bus, always want to play. Lead singers never do.”

Explaining how Freebass found room for effectively two too many bass players, Hook says: “I play high and Mani can play deep, so I can play over that… and Andy is mainly playing guitar for us, I must admit.”

Freebass’s live dates come on the heels of Hook’s Unknown Pleasures show, his recollections of the Hacienda club and the Manchester bands that revealed the bassist to be a natural raconteur.

“It wasn’t by design. I didn’t prepare,” he says.

“Somebody said, ‘You have so many anecdotes about the Hacienda, you should do a book,’ so I did, and then I became an author and raconteur in quick succession… which has been very interesting!”

Yet the musician in Hook will win out. “It’s much better doing a concert, getting sweaty, when you’ve physically done more – even though talking is quite gruelling, it’s not the same as playing live, though I did enjoy the talking in a macabre way.

“It was an odd situation in that it brought a heavy note to a live show and I’m not used to that.”

Freebass marks a turn for the more serious in Hook’s music.

“When it all comes down to it we are but wandering minstrels who write songs and then perform them, and so, in a strict sense, Freebass doesn’t really differ from before, apart from us being older, which is a factor,” he says.

“It means that the music is treated with the respect it deserves.

“When I started playing, I did it for the love of music; then in the late Eighties, I got to thinking it was all about the parties; now it’s good to come round to appreciating it for the music again.”

Any regrets, Peter? “Not that I would tell you!”

• Freebass play The Duchess, York, tonight.