The synthpop icons that are Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) will be on our shores very soon, playing Cruel World and sharing their Bauhaus Staircase Tour across North America.
After more than 40 years as a band, the English duo of founding members Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys continue to give us groundbreaking music and lyrics – as heard on 2023’s “Bauhaus Staircase” – to pair nicely with the songs that made us love them decades ago – “Enola Gay,” “Electricity,” “Dreaming,” “Tesla Girls,” “So In Love,” “Secret,” ”Locomotion,” and “If You Leave.”
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McCluskey and Humphreys, joined by Martin Cooper and Stuart Kershaw, consistently remind us why they were pioneers in the synth movement and have stood the test of time.
Ahead of their North American return, the voice himself, Mr. Andy McCluskey took time out to chat with us about what is ahead for OMD.
Traci: Andy! How are you?Andy: I’m good, actually. I’m just showing my age, though, this morning. I was invited to a press launch of a charity at the Liverpool Heart Hospital, where I had heart surgery 15 years ago. The joys of age.
Traci: That’s actually a bit funny because when you and I talked back in 2020-21, you said there’s drugs on the tour bus, but it’s heart medicine, blood pressure medicine.
Andy: That’s the one!
Traci: You spent most of last year touring all over the world. What happens when you’re a rock star, and everybody caters to you, and then you go home and it’s like, “Take the rubbish to the curb!”
Andy: I’ve been doing it for so long that you just adjust, you just take that hat off and you put the other one back on. The band reformed when my two youngest were 11 and 8. I’d come off the road and then I’d go back to doing the school run in the morning and helping out at Boy Scouts. I think that it helps you to keep making sure that you’ve got your feet on the ground and you don’t get your head completely up your ass and start believing your own hype. The biggest adjustment for me, more than anything else, is your body clock gets used to expecting an adrenaline rush at 9 p.m. every night. You get to 9 p.m. and you go, “Something’s supposed to be happening,” but it’s not.
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Traci: Way back in COVID times, you said you were forced into boredom and then forced into creativity. Last year, I talked to Paul, and he said during that time, he was in France, having a great time, but then you starting texting “I’m bored. Have you written anything?” From that came “Bauhaus Staircase.” With you guys being in different countries, was it harder to write it that way?
Andy: I was sat in this room because there was nothing else to do. There was nowhere to go. You weren’t even allowed out to go for a walk, to begin with. I am accustomed to getting bits and pieces from Paul and trying to make something out of them. I prefer to be in the same room with him and just throw in ideas backwards and forwards with each other, because it works much more quickly then because there’s just this chemistry, there’s this spark that happens to the point where we don’t even know who wrote what because I’m going, “Yeah, I like that note, but no, go down. Now repeat that first phrase,” and he’s playing and I’m directing. And so we write it organically together. That we didn’t have.
Andy continued: Also, yes, you’re right. He was sitting, drinking wine in his chateau swimming pool in the south of France. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was changing nappies, having a baby. (laughs) So it wasn’t ideal, but there was just so much time and nothing else to do that all of the energy just went into the music.
Traci: “Bauhaus Staircase” is a phenomenal album. You guys blended the past and present together so beautifully. “Don’t Go” is a perfect mix of the ‘80s OMD we love, and the now. “Bauhaus Staircase” the song is so bouncy, has energy, and it puts me in a good mood. Then when you sit and listen to it, the lyrics have depth. You guys have said it is the most political album you’ve done and things have only gotten more “exciting” in that way since you released it.
Andy: I think that because there was a lot of work went in there, and we distilled it and honed it and sharpened the melodies, and Paul did a great job of mixing it. Thank you for saying that it’s got lots of energy, because I think that what that really means is it’s not just stodge. You’re not just wading through bread and potatoes. There’s some real tasty stuff in there because we punched it all down to make sure that it was the very best it could be. And I think we spent a lot of time on that.
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Traci: But you ended the album with “Healing,” which I think is such a hopeful song.
Andy: Well, you know what? You got to keep going forward, haven’t you? You got to keep believing that there’s always light at the end of whichever tunnel you currently find yourself in.
Traci: On that hope and light, hey, how’s the resurgence of “Enola Gay” going?
Andy: I’ll tell you what, actually, it’s interesting. Our early hits didn’t break in America. We were on Epic Records. They didn’t give a damn about us. They bought a lot of bands from Virgin in England, and their idea of releasing a record was to hide it under the carpet and see if anybody found it.
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He continued, it wasn’t until in 1984, we moved on to A&M Records, and they put some effort in. We started to have it. But then, of course, in America, by a country mile, everybody knows “If You Leave” to the point where we’re almost a one-hit wonder, but the rest of the world knew “Enola Gay.”
He went on, Now, slowly but surely, “Enola Gay” has overhauled “If You Leave” on Spotify globally. But if I still looked at the streaming in America, “If You Leave,” would be bigger than “Enola Gay.” But most people now know “Enola Gay” one way or another.
Andy continued: If you want to talk politics, I suspect that there was a memorandum sent out. Somebody set an algorithm trawling through the Pentagon files to find certain words, and they just went, “Right, we got to ban all of that.” Ever since this went public, the defense administration have gone very quiet. Nothing’s been said. “Okay, let’s pretend that didn’t happen,” because the reality is they cannot ban “Enola Gay.” You can’t just say, “That didn’t happen because it’s got a word in.” And it would look unbelievably silly. They’re pretending like it didn’t happen. They’re not even saying, “Oh, sorry. No, that was an algorithm accident.” So I think we will be able to sing the song without having to change the lyric “gay” to “straight.” (laughs)
Traci: You’ll be fine. There will be some new thing they are upset about that week. We will be at your show having fun.
Andy: I’m looking forward to it because unfortunately, we had to postpone the tour from last year. When we come into the States and Canada, we’re going to put some of the “Bauhaus Staircase” songs into the concert, because we haven’t played the album there. We will probably play 22 songs, 15 of them will still be hit singles.
Traci: You’re playing the Greek in Los Angeles, which I know is one of your favorite places to play, but the last time you were there, you said “The only downside of playing in this place is I can see my fucking awful dancing on those screens.” I love your dancing! Don’t look at the screen!
Andy: “Don’t look at the screens when you’re out on the wings, Andrew.” Yeah, I remember that.
Traci: You also introduced Paul as “Superstar Sex Machine,” so when I spoke to Paul, we agreed that should be a tour t-shirt.
Andy: I think we might have to Photoshop all of our photographs! I have to think of something sarcastic to say when Twinkle Toes comes down to the front. As Paul always likes to say, “I have spent 46 years overcompensating for his status performance.” Actually, this Australian and New Zealand tour we’ve just done was me having to test out my new body because two of the reasons, there were three reasons, but two of the reasons that we had to postpone last year was that I had a complete knee replacement, and it was healing much more slowly than it should have done. And also, I tried to drastically heal a problem with my vocal cords, and it didn’t work. So I then had to have throat surgery. I’ve fully recovered now, and I’m able to be my usual, appalling self onstage.
Traci: The clips I’ve seen you look great and sound wonderful, so you’re good! What is “ARTefact,” the “comprehensive celebration of ‘Bauhaus Staircase?’”
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Andy: It’s going to be very nice; it’s got beautiful pictures. It’s a very interesting conversation between myself and Andy Whitehurst, whose company made the videos for the whole of the album project. But the only reason it exists is because I spent five times the video budget that was originally allocated. (laughs) It’s an hour-long conversation between myself and the wonderful Mr. Whitehurst, and it’s got all of the videos for the songs, of which we ended up with way more than we should have, because he just kept going! He was busy in COVID as well, just making things, and he kept showing me them, and I went, “I want that. I want that.” I was like a kid in a candy store! We just ended up going crazy.
Traci: Anybody in particular you are excited to see at the Cruel World festival?
Andy: Well, obviously, we’ve known New Order since they were Joy Division back on Factory Records in 1970. I think, did we play with them at the end of ‘78 or early ‘79? I can never remember. So we go way back with them guys. But if I’m perfectly honest, there’s one band I want to see, and I saw them play their first ever concert in England in Eric’s Club. It was so crowded that it was a fire hazard. We happened to know that right down the back of the club, there was another stage that was about 10 inches higher than the rest of the crowd. We snuck down the back and we could just see the flower pot hats.
Andy paused and then went on: I want to see DEVO again for the first time in 47 years. I saw their first ever gig in England, in Liverpool. Basically, because Eric’s was such a low ceiling, the main stage was only about 15 inches high. So the band, you could only just see the heads of the band. Thank God, they were wearing flower pot hats – I could tell how many there were on stage.
Traci: Hopefully, you won’t have to hide under the stage this time!
Andy: Yeah. I want to see DEVO. Say hello to the New Order, guys. And there’s so many other people as well. I can remember way back in the ‘90s, having dinner with Belinda Carlisle, and she said, “Oh, yeah, the first time you came to LA and played the Whisky, we came to see you. All of The Go-Go’s came to see you.” So I’ll remind her of that story now that we’re twice as old as we were back in the ‘90s. I mean, mature. It’s going to be an incredible day. We still don’t know yet where we are on the bill at Cruel World, so we don’t know how long we want to play for. But we’ve been trying to get on this since they first started it four years ago, so we are delighted that we can finally come and do it and join the party.
Traci: It must be hard to cram in all the hits at a festival!
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Andy: At a festival, we take the path of least resistance. We just smack people between the eyes with all the barrels of our hits. It’s just going to be bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. I think what I’ve really enjoyed on the “Bauhaus Staircase” tour, we will do “Veruschka,” and we all come down the front and the lights come up on us silhouetted and people go, “Ooohh,” because we all move in the darkness and fall over each other.
He continued, and then I know the very second that the Veruschka’s massive face comes up on the LED screen behind, because suddenly the whole audience gets their phones out and go, “Wow!” Which is great because it’s not even a hit single. It’s a moment where all four of us are right down the front, right up against the front row, and this massive, massive, amazing face comes up behind us. That’s a moment that I think we’re going to want to keep doing for many years to come.
Traci: I so much look forward to that, and I’m so grateful you had time to talk to me today. You guys are always a pleasure, you and Paul.
Andy: Thank you very much indeed. Thank you so much for being so positive. We’ll try and make sure on the merchandise stand that we’ve got the sexy superstar photograph of Paul on a t-shirt for you!
Preorder “Bauhaus Staircase: ARTefact” now for its May release and get all the things: Music videos, live mixes and visuals from the UK tour, hi-res audio of the album & B-sides, and more.
Catch OMD at Cruel World on May 17th with New Order, DEVO, The Go-Go’s, Nick Cave, Buzzcocks, Garbage, and more. Then check them out on their North American tour that includes June 17th and 18th in San Diego at Balboa Theatre, and June 20th and 21st in Los Angeles and the Greek Theatre.
