Above: The duo found
themselves at the top of
the UK vinyl singles chart
this October with their
re-release of Electricity
“WE’D BECOME THE
TYPE OF BAND WE
NEVER WANTED TO
BE, GRINDING OUT
RECORDS BECAUSE
WE HAD TO”
ANDY MCCLUSKEY© Barry Plummer Photography© Mark McNultymoved to LA, too. “Our lawyers fell out, not us,” laughs
Paul. “It got bitter between Andy and I briefl y, but that
was down to what our lawyers were saying about us.”
It meant the offer to reform, initially for a German TV
show in 2005, was able to happen with the minimum
of fuss. A nine-show comeback tour turned into 49
dates then three albums and counting.
The 40th anniversary singles compilation Souvenir
shows an incredibly diverse range, which really is
equal parts art and pop. Even the ideas OMD
abandoned, on an accompanying boxset, would be
enough to fuel most bands’ careers. New single Don’t
Go – written while making B-sides for The Punishment
Of Luxury but correctly deemed too good to throw
away – is a further reminder OMD are as good in
2019 as 1979. Andy excitedly considers a new album
which might be “more ambient and Mellotron-y”.
Entering their sixties, OMD really are living the
dream of keeping their health in a job that they love.
Well, mostly. “I have arthritis issues,” reveals Paul. “It
happens to all keyboard players. It’s a joke in the band
that there’s still an enormous amount of drugs on our
tourbus. But now they’re just prescription drugs keeping
us alive, instead of being recreational.”O The Souvenir boxset and edited
compilations are out now. OMD tour until
20 November and headline Let’s Rock
festivals from May to July next year.tour for nine months and get back home to our
manager saying, ‘You’ve got no money, you need to
write an album now.’ It became so the fi rst 10 ideas we
had were the next album.” Andy adds: “We’d become
the type of band we never wanted to be, grinding out
records because we had to.”
The fi nal straw came when OMD returned home
after playing stadiums on the Depeche tour to be told
by their accountant that the royalties had run out and
they owed Virgin £1 million.ESCAPE TO LA
While Paul moved to LA so his then-wife could be near
her family, Andy kept the OMD name. 1991’s Sugar
Tax was a successful return to the straight-up pop of
Locomotion. “I’m really pleased with Sugar Tax,” says
Andy. “Walking On The Milky Way is one of the best
songs I’ve ever written. It made the Top 20 despite
Radio 1 refusing to play it and Woolworths not
stocking it, which was amazing. I was terrifi ed without
Paul, though. You won’t see my name anywhere on
Sugar Tax as I was hiding
behind the OMD name.
But I forgot the lessons I’d
learned, because I made
the Liberator album far
too quickly immediately
af ter wards.”
Andy’s fi nal album
before retiring the OMD
name, 1996’s Universal,
included one track
co-written with Karl
Bartos. “The daft thing
was, we were both trying
not to sound electronic,”
he admits. “We didn’t
realise that, if we’d stuck
to our guns, you can
be iconic in your own
sphere, rather than be led
astray by Britpop making
everything guitar-y again.”
Despite their split, Paul
co-wrote a handful of
songs on Liberator and
Universal after Andy