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Artist Interviews
Q&A: OMD
By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 30 September 2010
Formed in 1978 by Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark released their debut single, ‘Electricity’, through Factory Records in 1978, with their eponymous first album following in 1980, released through DinDisc.
After enjoying success throughout the 80s, the band became fragmented in the 90s, with numerous line-up shifts. But in 2006 the ‘classic’ 80s line-up of McCluskey, Humphreys, Malcolm Holmes and Martin Cooper reformed. They released their first album for fourteen years last week and began a month-long UK tour last night. We caught up with McCluskey to ask the Same Six.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
I started out as a bass player. I got everyone to give me money for my sixteenth birthday and went out and bought a second hand bass. So that’s how I started playing. Then Paul and I discovered we liked the same music. I got into Kraftwerk but had a shit record player, while he had built his own stereo, because he was a bit of an electronics buff. So I went round to his house to listen to my records. And from there we both set off on a musical journey together.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
There was a feeling that we kind of left the stage a bit grudgingly in the mid 90s, at the height of Britpop, and that given we had been afforded the opportunity to tour again, and were getting great audiences and good reviews, and with ‘electro’ back in fashion, and having heard we were apparently a bit cool again, we decided to do the stupid thing and make a record. Which really is a stupid thing. Because everyone likes to hear the old songs. No one wants to hear the new songs. But fuck it. We felt like we were teenagers again. We made a record because we wanted to have a conversation with ourselves in the language of Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
The music always comes first, usually inspired by a noise or drum pattern, or a sample or something. But I do have ideas about songs I want to write, lyrically or thematically. In the early days I was Mr Anorak, I had a ring binder full of proposed song titles and ideas that I tried to marry with the music we made and I’d go, “Oh, that might go on that”. So the music always comes first and the words go on top.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
Records sound very different to how they used to sound, there’s much more presence. There’s more bottom end, they’re a lot drier than they used to be. So we had to try to explore something that was definitely OMD but being aware of the sonic qualities of modern production. We listen to a lot of modern music. The whole electro thing is terribly current, though we only like some of it. But when you listen to what you like and analyse the sonic profile of it, that’s how you’re going to make your own record sound.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
In the old days, I would have tried to get them to throw away their preconceptions. It might be electronic, but it’s not boring, it’s not robot, it’s not inhuman. But I think people know that nowadays. So I just want them to listen to the record and hopefully they’ll find something in there that they didn’t have before they listened to it. Whether it be a lyric, a melody, a feeling, something to dance to, I don’t care as long as they get something out of it that they didn’t have before they listened to it.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album and for the future?
We have very limited expectations for this album. Which is a good thing. know everyone says, “I just made this album for myself”, but we really did. That was the way we made our earlier records as well; we just did what we wanted to do. And then we were surprised when we sold millions. Now, this isn’t going to sell millions, but we are very happy that we were just allowed to do what we wanted to do. The record will sell enough to pay for itself. We will go on tour and will sell enough tickets to be able to tour again. And so, effectively, we’re right back where we started 30 years ago. We’re just having a conversation with ourselves in the language of Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark. And if other people want to join in and listen, then great, and if they don’t, well, we’re having fun. And we made our best music when we had that mentality.
MORE>> www.omd.uk.com
