OMD released
their debut
single, Electricity,
in 1979
Above: Aside from his
work with OMD, Paul
Humphreys was also,
from 2000, one half of
the band Onetwo with
former Propaganda
singer Claudia Brücken.
They split in 2013.“MOST OF THE
EARLY ELECTRONIC
BANDS DIDN’T KNOW
THAT EACH OTHER
EXISTED IN THE
PRE-INTERNET DAYS”
ANDY MCCLUSKEY© Barry Plummer Photographyobviously Factory had an amazing artistic sensibility.
Peter Saville was pushing the boundaries of what
sleeve art could be, right from the start with his
minimalist cover for Electricity.” However, Tony insisted
OMD could only have a one-single deal with Factory.
“Tony told us: ‘You guys are the future of pop music
and we’re too small to handle you. You go and be a
successful band,’” recalls Paul. “Our response was,
‘Fuck yourself, Tony, we’re not the future of pop! We’re
an art band.’ We were both right, we were a pop
band as well as an art band, but only Tony identifi ed
the pop side at the time.”
OMD instead signed to Dindisc on a spectacularly
ruinous record contract that would later prove a major
part in splitting the band. They broke the Top 20 with
third single Messages, before Enola Gay started a
sensational run of singles that led to the trio of
Souvenir,Joan Of Arc and Maid Of Orleans from the
four-million-selling Architecture & Morality album.
Andy wrote Enola Gay on his own, famously because
Paul was busy working on a YTS scheme refurbishing
an outdoor swimming pool in Hoylake. “The idea of
Paul Humphreys carrying a hod around is hilarious,
but he did,” chuckles McCluskey. The dole offi ce hadn’t
caught up with Andy, so he continued to write at Paul’s
mother’s home – the pair wrote there because, as a
young widow, she was working three jobs and the
house was invariably empty, so OMD were free to
muck about undisturbed.
Andy remembers the fi rst of OMD’s 29 Top Of The
Pops appearances as a “crushing disappointment” as
the stage was so small and the set was held together
with gaffa tape, while “the audience were mown
down by boom cameras”, but the show helped their
unlikely stardom, as well as infi ghting on the nascent
synth-pop scene. “Most of the early electronic bands
didn’t know each other existed in the pre-internet
days,” he explained. “Once we did, there was a lot of
mutual suspicion. You’d glower at each other at Top Of
The Pops, arms folded, going, ‘We were doing this
before you.’” Amazingly, OMD and The Human
League didn’t properly meet until they both played a
Let’s Rock festival in Exeter last year. Andy: “I
went straight up to Phil Oakey and said, ‘Phil!
Apparently, we hate each other!’ We had
a laugh about it all and a picture together,
but back then the only thing that bonded