Andy McCluskey, lead singer and bass guitarist with English electronic band, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, chats with Kevin Cooper about Kraftwerk, cassette tapes, their latest album The Punishment Of Luxury and their forthcoming tour of the UK.

Andy McCluskey is the lead singer and bass guitarist with English electronic band, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark. Formed in 1978, the band was founded by McCluskey and Paul Humphreys and now have long serving additional members Martin Cooper and Stuart Kershaw at the helm

OMD released their influential debut single Electricity in 1979, and they gained popularity throughout Europe with their 1980 anti-war song, Enola Gay. The band achieved broader recognition via their seminal album, Architecture & Morality, and its three singles, all of which were international hits.

With the band earning acclaim for their adventurous recordings, which combined their sonic experimentation with digital samplers, they released Dazzle Ships in 1983 and Junk Culture in 1984. A year after the release of The Best of OMD in 1988, creative differences rendered McCluskey the only remaining member of the band as Humphreys formed spin off band, The Listening Pool. OMD returned with a new line up and explored the dance-pop genre. Album Sugar Tax was released in 1991 and its initial singles were sizable hits in Europe.

By the mid 90s however, electronic music had been supplanted by alternative rock and both OMD and The Listening Pool disbanded in 1996. McCluskey went on to write multiple hits for girl group Atomic Kitten, while Humphreys performed as half of the duo Onetwo.

In 2006, the outfit reformed with Humphreys back in the fold and re-established themselves as a chart act in Europe. They went on to release three more albums, the last one this year, The Punishment Of Luxury.

Whilst getting ready to tour the UK, McCluskey took some time out to have a chat with Kevin Cooper and this is what he had to say.

Hi Andy how are you?

I’m very well thank you Kevin how are you today?

I have to say that all is good thank you and before we move on let me thank you for taking the time to speak to me today.

It’s my pleasure and as always you are more than welcome.

I have been looking and it wasn’t that long since we last spoke, in fact it was the 25^th May.

I know there is no escape is there (laughter).

Just how is life treating you at this moment in time on this cold, damp winter’s morning?

Well I hate to tell you this but it is quite pleasant up here on Merseyside (laughter). Life at the moment is good; it’s a bit hectic because you forget just how busy you are around the time both leading up to and also shortly after the release of a new album together with the forthcoming tour, but at the moment it is all going in the right direction.

The last time that we spoke you mentioned that you were going to try to get to see Kraftwerk here in the UK. Did you manage to do that?

Yes I did, I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to see them but I managed to catch them at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.

I know that you are a massive Kraftwerk fan but, being totally honest, what did you think?

Do you know what, I finally miss the humanity on stage. The films are good, the music is good but the mix is bad, and I just felt that you might as well be going to the movies to watch a film. There is absolutely no human contact on the stage. I appreciate that is what Ralf (Hütter) is trying to achieve but for me it is all just missing something slightly. However, I think that the people who have never seen Kraftwerk before were probably blown away by the 3D and the fact that it is all so different to any other gig that you will ever go to. Don’t get me wrong, it is always great to hear some of the tunes that changed my life, but I hate to say it, I was slightly disappointed.

I have to be honest with you and say that the whole experience left me feeling cold. I personally feel that if you take the 3D aspect out of the equation then I would have been bored after twenty minutes.

I totally agree.

Is that me being a little too harsh?

No not at all, I think that they are trying to be something different and they are certainly achieving that but I think that I am now beginning to miss the point. Somebody asked me if I could wish for one band to reform who would it be and I said that it would have to be the four guys in Kraftwerk up there back on stage once again with Ralf, Florian (Schneider), Karl (Bartos) and Wolfgang (Flür).

Well I have to tell you that the whole thing was awful to try and photograph (laughter).

(Laughter) I bet it was (laughter). What was amazing though was that I had everybody and their dog saying to me “oh by the way, can you get me tickets for Kraftwerk” and I was like ‘you are never a Kraftwerk fan’ and they said “no but I feel that I need to see them” (laughter). In that respect Ralf has actually managed to do something right. In the last ten years he has raised the bands profile to the point where people feel that they need to see the gig because it is now some sort of cultural experience.

People ask me what it was like and the best way that I can sum it all up is by saying that it was an event rather than a concert.

Yes it was, but I do have to say that they are still more interesting than most other bands and you cannot take it away from they; they are the most influential band in modern pop music.

I would have to totally agree with you on that. Anyway moving on, we should speak about OMD. You recently played the Flashpoint Festival at Rockingham, but the plug was pulled on the Flashback Festival here in Nottinghamshire. How was Flashpoint?

To be honest with you Flashpoint was a great day together with a great crowd, although I have to say that it was noticeable that it wasn’t massively attended. And then two days after we played Flashpoint we heard that the Flashback Festival had been pulled and it was a real shame because we were very much looking forward to it. Do you have any idea as to why?

The organisers moved location last year and did not allow festival goers to take any food or drink into the site with them. That really did hit ticket sales last year and after they adopted the same approach this year, people simply voted with their feet and didn’t buy tickets.

Really, is that the reason? That all begins to make perfect sense now. Being totally honest with you Paul (Humphreys) and myself love playing at these open air festivals but let’s face it, if you go with a couple of friends or a family and you are not allowed to take any food or drink into the site with you, then if you are being forced into buying food and drink all day long from the outlets at the venue then it pretty soon becomes very expensive.

I have to ask you, did you manage to get to see Steve Harley?

(Laughter) no I bloody well didn’t. The reason being having driven down to the site the night before and having had to get up at six thirty in the morning in order to do a sound check before people started coming in to the site, nobody would then come back to the venue with me to see Steve (laughter). I couldn’t persuade the rest of the band to go with me (laughter). All that I will say is that democracy stinks sometimes (laughter).

Now I suppose that we should finally speak about the new album The Punishment Of Luxury shouldn’t we (laughter).

Yes I think we should (laughter).

Well what can I say, I have been playing it for a couple of weeks now and I love it.

Thank you for that; we worked very hard on this album and it has taken us a long time to finally get it out there. We wanted to make sure that it was good from top to bottom.

Sitting here listening to the album at home, it surrounds you, it engulfs you; the production on the album is perfect.

Thank you very much, that is truly great to hear. That is really cool. I suppose that we are old school; we want to take people on a journey with an album that has got a variety of sounds, ideas and feelings so by the time that you get to the end of it you feel like replete and it is not just an album that has got three hit singles and the rest of the songs simply were not good enough to be singles (laughter).

So what is the punishment of luxury?

Surely you have been punished by luxury in the past (laughter). Or are you just denying all knowledge of the video being in existence (laughter).

As a nod of respect to our friends over the pond I exercise my right to stand on the Fifth Amendment (laughter).

Okay, well listen, we have actually appropriated the title from a painting that is in the Walker Art Gallery called The Punishment Of Luxury. It was originally called The Punishment Of Lust but the rather squeamish Victorians thought that was a little too much. However, we are not using the original meaning because actually the painting is ‘bad mothers’ in purgatory for wanting more than just life in the kitchen, nursery or the bedroom. It is a misogynous painting and we are not, so our meaning is that essentially most people in the western world are materially better off than ever before and yet they are unhappy because we have replaced the imagined order of religion and royal decree with the brainwashing of consumerism to the point where we don’t have to spend all day worrying if there is food on the table for the kids, do they have a roof over their heads, will there be war and pestilence tomorrow. We have got time now to sit there and worry about ‘is my TV big enough’ or ‘have I got the latest 4K TV’ or ‘what does my car say about me’ or ‘how many likes do I have on Facebook’ and even to the point of thinking ‘should my wife be slimmer’ (laughter). We simply sit and think about all of this fucking utter nonsense (laughter).

They say that statically crimes involving burglaries are up. I wonder why; well you only have to look on Facebook and see people broadcasting to the masses ‘well that’s my last post for two weeks, we are going to Spain and the house will be unoccupied for the duration. Please do come along and help yourselves to my possessions’ (laughter).

(Hysterical laughter) that’s absolutely true, and then they wonder why it has happened to them.

I know the answer from the tone of your voice but I will ask you the question, are you personally happy with the album?

Yes I am and the great thing these days is that we do this by ourselves, for ourselves, we take our time and it is ready when it is ready. There is no management, record company or touring agent saying “hurry up, hurry up”, when it is ready then it is ready. That means that we have the time to edit, to adjust, to delete things that we don’t think are good enough, to rewrite stuff, so yes, we are both very happy with it. And so far your response echoes some of the other feedback that we have been receiving which is that it is a strong album. So yes we are happy with it.

Can you say “that’s it” and walk away from it or are you a meddler and can’t stop fiddling with the album?

That’s interesting because Paul and I are both fiddlers but in different ways. Paul noodles round and round in circles worrying about the tiny details whilst I worry about the big picture. That is the difference between us. I’m called the butcher and he is called surgeon (laughter). I paint the big picture with bold sweeping strokes but the details are a bit rough and ready whereas Paul likes to fine tune the details and stitching it all back together seamlessly. So between the two of us I create the big picture and then Paul tightens everything down to make it sound right, feel right and gets everything tuned so that there are no crackles, pops or bangs in there due to bad editing by me (laughter).

Are you now chomping at the bit to be in a position where you are able to play the new songs to the fans live?

Yes we are, we really can’t wait. Let me just say that the people who have already heard the tracks that we have teased them with I think are going to be in for a very happy journey. The wonderful thing is that I think that the last two albums, History Of Modern which we released in 2010 and English Electric from 2013 people are now saying that they are right up there with the first four albums that we released which was when we were full of ideas, trying to do different things, still being musical and walking that tightrope. Of course the sad thing is that it means that all of the stuff that we have done in the intervening thirty odd years was apparently shit (laughter).

I love the title track and personally feel that it draws you into the rest of the album. It takes you on a journey of discovery where you are constantly thinking ‘what’s next’.

Thank you, I am so pleased to hear that you think that. The sequencing of the tracks is always very important to get right and I think that Punishment Of Luxury starts quite aggressively but then the melody comes in and you automatically think ‘ah it’s OMD everything is okay’.

On the subject of melody, when you are writing is it lyrics or melody first?

For me it is music first, it is usually the backing track first as it usually comes from a rather strange idea that I have had (laughter). For me to get interested and inspired I have to come up with an interesting idea; ‘what happens if we sound like this’ or ‘what happens if we use this sound’ or ‘what if we use this sample’. At the same time I collect a book of ideas of things that I would like to write about and then at some point you hope that you have got a piece of music that you think ‘I wonder if I could sing about this on here’ and so you try it out. And let me tell you that if it works that really is a eureka moment.

So for me it is always music first, sort of backing track first, then melody and lyrics on the top which of course is funny because the things that most people remember is the lyrics and the melody but they are the last things which go on.

Do you personally have a favourite track on the album?

(Laughter) actually no because each track is so different and each one I think is pretty much perfectly formed in the way that it was supposed to be. Therefore I cannot pick a favourite track as I feel that they are all really strong in their own right.

You released the Kraftwerkian Isotype from the album and the fans went wild about it. Were you happy with their reaction?

Yes I was, I was very happy with the response. Again it resonated with people who like what we do because it had gorgeous melodies; it had an interesting lyrical idea and it had a good lyrical tune as well. That is what happens when we get the balance right. We manage to be interesting not only on an intellectual level together but also on a musical level too. I have to tell you that Isotype was an interesting journey. It was originally intended by me to be one of the short, two minute esoteric songs which just had weird noise and spoken text but then Paul heard it and said “oh my god, this is great, can I write a melody on it” and I said “yes sure”. Paul then wrote a melody on it and I thought ‘oh bugger that melody is so good, I am now going to have to turn that into a full-blown song. What the hell I am going to sing about, Isotype’ (laughter). So that then became a challenge. So it went from two minutes long to six minutes and ten seconds.

The last time that we spoke you told me that with every album you try to challenge yourselves. Was that true with The Punishment Of Luxury?

Yes it was and yes it is; we are always trying to challenge ourselves. We like to try, if we can, not to repeat ourselves. That is why the album is full of songs again that are about things that perhaps most other bands wouldn’t write about. When they are things that are universal human experiences like love, which is the most powerful feeling in the world, we try not to write in a way that is clichéd or you have heard a million times before.

You have released The Punishment Of Luxury on cassette so I will now ask you a one word question, why? (laughter).

(Laughter) I know exactly what you mean but I have to say in our defence, there is demand would you believe (laughter). To be honest I think that the demand has come from the elitist collectors who want the ‘black vinyl, red vinyl, yellow vinyl, the extended CD, the box set, and just what else can you give me’ how about a cassette ‘yes sure’ (laughter).

I am amazed at just how many bands are releasing their material on cassette because I honestly didn’t realise just how many people still had a cassette player at home.

As you know vinyl has been growing which has been commented on over the last few years but being totally honest the increase in demand for cassettes really did take me by surprise I have to say.

You will be once again playing here in Nottingham at the Royal Concert Hall on Monday 6^th November, are you looking forward to that?

We are really excited about getting back out on tour and in particular playing down there in Nottingham again. We really do love playing at the Royal Concert Hall and I love the city. I think that it is a great place to spend some time. So we are really looking forward to it. The good thing is that the gig has already sold two thirds of the tickets and that is despite us not really having advertised it that much, so that really is a good feeling. That is two thirds sold at this moment in simply time through social media so the ticket sales are currently looking pretty good.

And just how many of the new songs will make it onto the set list for the tour?

I’m not quite sure as yet just how many but a few will because we believe that they are strong enough and good enough to include. At this moment in time there will probably be five. The dilemma is always picking the ones that you play. There will be a few hard-core fans saying to us “we want to hear the whole new album, why do we have to listen to Enola Gay and Tesla Girls again” (laughter). What I say to them is that “it is because other ninety percent of the audience want to hear those” (laughter). You have seen us and you know that we will always try to strike a balance. The reassuring thing is that the last time that we played we played a third new material and two thirds old stuff and when we played the new stuff people just didn’t all just go to the bar or the loo. So we are obviously doing something right it would appear.

Before I sign off if I may I will ask you one last question and it is on the cassette theme. I have to ask you, will they come with a free pencil.

(Hysterical laughter) yes and if you are lucky it might just be a Crackerjack Punishment Of Luxury pencil (laughter).

Andy on that note thanks for taking the time to speak to me today, it’s been a pleasure and I will see you here in Nottingham. Bye for now.

Brilliant, it’s been nice to speak to you again Kevin. You take care and I will see you in Nottingham.

Andy McCluskey, (seen here on the right), lead vocalist and bass guitarist with Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark chats with Kevin Cooper about his attempts to get electronic music accepted by the media, where ZZ Top got their dance moves from, OMD’s new album The Punishment Of Luxury and headlining the Flashpoint and Flashback Festivals.

Andy McCluskey, lead vocalist and bass guitarist with Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, an English electronic music band formed in the Wirral, Merseyside in 1978. Formed with keyboard player Paul Humphreys other band members include Martin Cooper and Stuart Kershaw on drums who replaced Malcolm Holmes in 2013 when he was taken ill on stage.

In 1979 they released their influential single Electricity and gained popularity throughout Europe with their 1980 anti war song, Enola Gay. The band achieved broader recognition via their seminal album Architecture & Morality and its three singles, all of which were international hits.

By the mid 90s the electronic music scene had been supplanted by alternative rock and the band disbanded in 1996. McCluskey went on to write multiple hits for girl band Atomic Kitten, while Humphreys performed as half of the duo Onetwo.

In 2006 they reformed with Humphreys back in the fold and began to work on material more akin to their early output. The band re-established themselves as a chart act in Europe, while enjoying a growing international fan base and a legacy as innovators within popular music. After collapsing at a show in Toronto due to heart failure, Malcolm Holmes retired from OMD in 2014, and is now making music on his own. OMD are now touring with former drummer Stuart Kershaw.

Whilst preparing for the summer festival season Andy McCluskey took some time out to have a chat with Kevin Cooper and this is what he has to say.

Hi Andy how are you?

Hey Kevin I’m good thanks how are you?

I’m very well thank you and let me just thank you for taking the time to speak to me today.

You are most welcome.

And just how is life treating you?

Well actually despite the lovely weather that we are currently having, I have been really ill for the past week or so. I have not been able to make the most of the lovely weather as I have had a really horrible cold. It has been very frustrating because I was meant to be getting ready to start gigging so I am not as fit as I want to be, but at least now I am over it. We are about to start rehearsals with the band and at least I should be able to sing. So that has been a little frustrating but otherwise we have got a very exciting year ahead and I am really looking forward to it.

I have been looking at your tour schedule and it looks as though you are going to be really busy this year.

Yes we are, in fact we have more shows scheduled that you probably don’t even know about at this moment in time actually. After we have played the summer festivals we will be releasing our latest album in September which is called The Punishment Of Luxury and touring in November to promote the album including sunny Nottingham (laughter). We love playing the Royal Concert Hall and always try to ensure that it is on our places to play whenever we tour the UK.

I was lucky enough to photograph you the last time that you played here in Nottingham and I have to say that you blew me away.

Thank you that is so kind. We love touring and I think that it is important to deliver a show that is full of energy, passion and try to make sure that we do it properly. We are not simply out there to top up our pensions or bore people to death, so it’s good that you were blown away because that is what we want people to be.

You have mentioned the forthcoming album The Punishment Of Luxury, what can you tell me about it?

Well it has taken four years to write, partly because everything came to a crashing halt four years ago when our drummer had a cardiac arrest on stage in Toronto. Malcolm (Holmes) is now okay but it was terrifying so we stopped everything for a year whilst we gave him the opportunity to get better and see how he was without putting any pressure on him. We were all shaken up by that so for the following year we just stopped; everything came to a complete halt. Unfortunately, Malcolm can’t play with us anymore but we have started touring again along with another drummer Stuart Kershaw, who actually played with me in the 90s in a different version of OMD.

Stuart actually co-wrote some of the songs on the Sugar Tax album with me. So that’s good, we are alive and kicking and the album is quite an interesting mixture of melodies and interesting lyrics. That is our forte, which is what we do, so it has still got all of that. It was ready when it was ready; the management would have liked to have put it out earlier but we said no and told them that it would be ready when it was ready. We weren’t prepared to release the album just so that we would have a new name for a tour, or a new T-shirt to sell. And those who have heard it are actually saying that it is even better than the last album that we did which was apparently the best thing that we had done in thirty years (laughter).

Is it all finished and ready to go?

Yes it’s done, it’s mastered, and it is all ready to go. The official release date is 1^st September and we really can’t wait to get it out there.

You said that this year was going to be a busy one for you; you are actually headlining both the Flashback and the Flashpoint Festivals this summer. Are you looking forward to that?

We are very busy this summer playing several festivals (laughter). It’s interesting because a few years ago when OMD reformed we didn’t want to do things that were ‘nostalgia’, we wanted to establish ourselves once again as a standalone touring act who were still interesting and contemporary which I think we have done. So we felt that we could loosen up a little and have some fun. It is like wearing a slightly different hat doing these summer festivals because the people who are going to be there are not just OMD fans. They are not those who will come to a theatre gig to see us doing our own concerts and our new material.

This is several thousand people in a field who have come to have a good time and to a large degree celebrate the soundtrack to the landmark years of their lives. We have a responsibility therefore not to get up and play all of our favourite B-Sides, album tracks and be self-indulgent. We are fortunate enough to have enough hits to fill up a complete hour and smack people right between the eyes and that is what we will do.

Having said that and with the forthcoming album in mind, will you be testing out any of the new songs?

Possibly not. However, we always play one track which is from the History Of Modern album because it sounds so much like a classic OMD single and it is so bouncy; I insist that the whole audience bounce up and down. And at the end of the song you can see everyone turn to each other saying “we must have been on holiday when that was released because I don’t remember that one but what a great song” (laughter).

I have to choose my words wisely regarding the Flashback and Flashpoint festivals because I recently mentioned the word ‘retro’ to a well known keyboard player from Sheffield who shall remain nameless and he really tore a strip off me. He said that he wasn’t a retro artist and pointed out to me that he still writes and records new albums. He wasn’t a happy bunny.

The thing is that you have to understand that if you have been fortunate enough to have had a long career then it is not baggage that you are carrying. You are carrying with you your badges of honour as your greatest achievements and should always remember that people would like to join with you in celebrating those things. So I personally have no truck for people who go on stage and say “I am bored of playing that one” or the ones who simply play an acoustic medley of their hits. I feel that they should have some respect for their songs and for the audience. When we play our own solo gigs we will play for around ninety minutes; we will still play fourteen hit singles because we feel that we have a responsibility to keep the audiences interested but then we can mix it up.

We will play a couple of classic album tracks for the hard-core fans, and we will play some of the new stuff which fortunately is good enough not to drive people to the bar. That is when you can do your own thing. I understand that people feel that they want to be creative artists and that they want people to come on the journey with them, and maybe their new direction doesn’t sound like the old direction but after a while you should be able to celebrate your own rich tapestry and weave it all together again.

Going back to the Flashback and Flashpoint festivals, is there anyone in particular that you are excited about seeing perform?

Unfortunately I will not be at Flashpoint on the Saturday therefore I won’t see Marc (Almond) or Deacon Blue. However, on the Sunday, apart from the fact that it looks a little like a Liverpool gig with The Lightning Seeds and The Christians, I am quite looking forward to actually seeing Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel. When I was a young teenager I had a scrapbook of Steve Harley. I was really excited and that was for me really important. It was really fantastic. When I was very young I wanted to play something different so when Steve released Judy Teen and Mr Soft, for me that was brilliant.

Looking at the line-up for Flashback Kim Wilde is brilliant, she really does kick ass once she gets out there on stage. Heaven 17 are totally wonderful and on the Sunday you have got The Human League headlining who are my synth heroes from Sheffield. So there is going to be an entire weekend at both events that are basically an opportunity for people to celebrate a whole day full of their favourite songs.

You have mentioned the Liverpool connection. We here in the Midlands are in a mish mash of Nottingham, Derby, Leicester and Stoke. We do not have an identity, you simply drive through the Midlands to get from A to B. Does the comradery and a sense of belonging up in Liverpool give you something extra when it comes to writing songs?

(Hysterical laughter) oh really, I doubt that very much (laughter). I think that the interesting thing is that maybe it is the fact that we here in Liverpool are on a river or are on the sea. We are all condensed into the one area. You can only get into Liverpool from a couple of directions (laughter). So there is a sense that maybe there is something that binds us together. Although I have to be honest with you and tell you that I used to come into Liverpool from the wrong direction because Paul (Humphreys) and I are actually known as Woolly Backs, which means that we are not from Liverpool city centre. We are actually from the other side of the river. We had to sneak through the tunnel under the Mersey (laughter).

So actually we were part of the upstairs at Eric’s gang with bands like The Teardrop Explodes, Echo And The Bunnymen, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Wah!, A Flock of Seagulls, but we were from the other side of the river so we were slightly outsiders. We were all in the same place; we were all in the audience watching everyone playing on stage. Eric’s was one of those places where there were far more musicians in the crowd than there ever were on stage. So yes, I would have to agree with you and say that there is a certain comradery. We were all in the same place at the same time but there was also a fiercely independent attitude amongst all of the other musicians.

Why do you think that the media in general still refuse to accept electronic music as real music and electronic musicians as true artists?

I have to be honest with you and say that from my own personal experiences touring throughout the world that attitude is global. I think that the reality is that an awful lot of people are conservative and they are stuck in a loop of ‘this is rock music; this is the way that it is supposed to be made and this is what it is supposed to sound like. It is supposed to have guitars, it is supposed to have drums, and if it doesn’t then it is not real music’. And as I say I think that attitude towards electronic music is global to be honest. I think that there are still, even decades and decades after electronic music came along, there are still people who think that it’s not real, it’s not sweaty, it’s not manly, whatever it is but they are stuck in this clichéd one dimensional view of the way that music should be made and played.

I can remember watching Top of The Pops back in 1972 and hearing Son Of My Father by Chicory Tip which was, I believe, the first record to feature a synthesizer.

Yes it was, that’s right. What you have to remember is that synthesizers have been around for quite a while and initially you started to hear them as the lead melody line on certain songs, like you said Chicory Tip followed by Nutbush City Limits by Ike & Tina Turner but then gradually making music electronically became the standard way of doing it. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that when you see a band performing live and guys standing there playing keyboards obviously can’t run around waving their six stringed phallic symbols at the audience. There is a certain primitive urge to see somebody actually hitting something in order to make the beat, I get that. But there are lots of different ways of doing it.

How was your recent experience of working with PledgeMuisc, have you enjoyed that?

Yes it has been an interesting new way of allowing people to have access to lots of different and varied things. The music industry is still looking for a functioning business model since the internet came along and pulled the rug out from underneath it. So all in all working with PledgeMusic has actually been a positive step in the right direction for us.

What would you say has been the highlight of your career so far?

The thing that really makes my day is when somebody has the courage to come up to me and say “I am sorry to bother you but I really love your music and I just want you to know that your song, whatever it might be, was played at my daughter’s wedding or my brothers funeral, or listening to this album got me through a really bad time in my life”, and that is when you realise that maybe you didn’t change the entire world but something that you did that lasts a few minutes still has an important place in somebody else’s world. That is really beautiful when people share those moments with you.

They say that you should never believe your own press but when somebody like Vince Clarke cites you and OMD as being the reason why he got into the music business that surely must make you feel a little warm inside?

Yes it does and yes it’s true. Vince has actually spoken to us personally and reiterated that story. It’s quite remarkable that you do get people saying that you have been an influence upon them. That was lovely and I have to say that I think that Vince is a genius so we are honoured to have been part of his musical journey.

Didn’t a certain Mr Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top fame also credit you for their dance?

Yes that right and just how much more a bizarre and obtuse an inspiration can you get than that. I bumped into Billy in an elevator in a hotel in Paris back in the 90s and I reintroduced myself to him as I had originally met him in 1980 and he looked at me and said “Andy you must come and meet Dusty (Hill)”. When we got to their room he said to Dusty “this is the guy from Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark. Can you remember when we did that TV show, The Old Grey Whistle Test with them over in London in 1980”. He then said “I’ve got to tell you Andy do you remember the synth records that we recorded back in the 80s it was your music that inspired us to go electro and the way that you dance with the bass guitar is where we got our moves from for the Eliminator videos” (laughter).

You have quite clearly inspired these people but who has inspired you?

That is the easiest question for me to answer that you have asked me all day, it was Kraftwerk who have been the biggest inspiration in my life. I went along to see them on 11^th September 1975 at The Liverpool Empire and I sat in seat Q36. I remember it clearly because it was literally the first day of the rest of my life. I had just turned sixteen years old and they changed my life. I saw them and immediately thought that I wanted to do something like that.

Will you be able to see them this year when they tour the UK?

I’m not sure that I will be able to catch them this time; in fact I think that I am going to be busy. Strangely enough when they are playing here in Liverpool I will be in Germany doing some advance press for the new album.

What was the first record that you bought?

The first album that I bought was The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars by the late David Bowie, and the first single was actually Without You by Harry Nilsson.

Who did you first see performing live in concert?

Now then, let me think. I think that the first gig that I ever went to see was Camel play The Snow Goose at the Liverpool Stadium.

What was the last song or piece of music that made you cry?

I was recently listening to a song that meant a lot to me and somebody else. It was, for lack of a better description ‘our song’. It was a piece of classical music and I hadn’t heard it for a little while and music has this immense power where you can hang a myriad of different memories upon a piece of music, and they all come flooding back; they are triggered by it when you hear it. So when I heard this Vaughan Williams piece I felt very emotional because it reminded me of somebody that I loved, who I don’t see anymore.

On that note Andy let me once again thank you for taking the time to speak to me today, it’s been great. You take care and I will see you later.

Thank you very much Kevin and I hope that you will come along and see us when we play in the summer together with our solo tour in the autumn. Bye for now and make sure that you come and say hi.