English singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Bernard Sumner

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Intro

English singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Genres

Pop music Alternative rock New wave Rock music Indie rock

Record Labels

Factory Records

Music

Member of, past and present

New Order

Joy Division

Bad Lieutenant

Electronic

Bernard Sumner (born 4 January 1956) is an English singer, musician, songwriter, and record producer. He is a founding member of the bands Joy Division, New Order, and Electronic. Sumner was an early force in several areas, including the post-punk, synthpop, and techno music scenes, as well as their various related genres, and was an early influence on the Manchester music scene that presaged the "Madchester" movement of the late 1980s centered on Factory Records and The Haçienda club in Manchester.

He began his career playing guitar and keyboards for Joy Division, and after the band regrouped following lead singer Ian Curtis's death, they renamed themselves New Order and Sumner took on lead vocal duties. His complex electronic compositions became less guitar-driven and more focused on electronic keyboards, synthesizers, and programming throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He formed Electronic in collaboration with Johnny Marr and Neil Tennant in the early 1990s, and New Order broke up for the first time in the late 1990s, giving Sumner a chance to focus on Electronic. New Order reformed in the early 2000s, but broke up a second time in 2007, at which point he returned to a more traditional rock context with the band Bad Lieutenant. He continues to record and perform with the latest iteration of New Order, which had reformed in 2011.