Creativity Quote by Peter Hook

Peter Hook is arguing for heat over headcount: the kind of fandom that shows up early, knows the deep cuts, and treats the music less like content and more like a lifeline. Coming from a musician forged in the post-punk ecosystem (Joy Division, New Order) - scenes built on small rooms, obsessive listeners, and a sense of tribe - the line reads as a defense of intensity as the only real metric that matters.

The intent is practical as much as romantic. Ten “mad for it” people buy tickets, bring friends, argue about bass lines, and keep a band alive between album cycles. Ten thousand lukewarm followers are just ambient noise - the flattering numbers you can’t pay rent with. Hook is also taking a swipe at the modern attention economy, where popularity is often a screenshot: inflated follower counts, passive streams, algorithmic visibility. He’s saying the culture has confused reach with attachment.

The subtext is almost punk in its refusal to beg for mass approval. Hook’s career has always carried a tension between art-as-communion and art-as-industry, and this quote plants a flag on the communion side. It’s a musician’s version of choosing the sweaty, intimate gig over the corporate festival slot: fewer bodies, more electricity.

There’s a quiet provocation here too. If you’re not “mad for it,” you’re not being insulted - you’re being dismissed as irrelevant to the real exchange. In Hook’s world, music isn’t a product you casually consume; it’s a relationship you either enter fully or not at all.