“Synthesizers can be explored and explored, and the music that can be made with electronic instruments is infinite in its breadth. KRAFTWERK may have said ‘we are the robots’, but anyone need only listen to Trans-Europe Express and compare it to most of the turgid, boring guitar-based rock that has been produced over the last 30 years to realise that electronic music can be deeply emotional. And anyone who says electronic music is not real music is just too simple-minded for our patience I’m afraid!”: MIRRORS
2010 saw the return of the male synthpop act, smart boys with their toys and their nods towards the classic era of Synth Britannia. Leading the way were VILLA NAH and MIRRORS who both fused quality songs with vintage sounds and crisp contemporary percussive frameworks. The two units were obviously pressing the right buttons as both opened as special guests to OMD. As a continued sign of their undoubted potential, both were also were invited to support THE HUMAN LEAGUE; an opportunity which unfortunately neither act was able to fulfil due to prior scheduling commitments.
Coming from Finland, VILLA NAH released one of the best long players of the year in ‘Origin’, while closer to home, Brighton-based MIRRORS’ forthcoming album ‘Lights And Offerings’ is likely to be one of the musical highlights of 2011. Meanwhile HURTS, the enigmatic Mancunian duo who many predicted for major success in 2010, rattled the cages of the style over substance brigade.
Whilst the cinematic grandeur displayed in their best songs like ‘Wonderful Life’, ‘Stay’ and ‘Sunday’ was simply outstanding, they did occasionally walk a fine line with their milder paced material, sounding occasionally like TAKE THAT backed by ULTRAVOX. Despite confusing some listeners, their album ‘Happiness’ was an enormous grower and their live shows won over many new fans, especially on the continent where artful intelligence is a highly regarded attribute.
Interestingly, TAKE THAT themselves released their album ‘Progress’ with Stuart Price aka LES RYTHMES DIGITALES at the producer’s helm. Featuring a strong electronic flavour, there was also a song called ‘Eight Letters’ based on ‘Vienna’ which resulted in the rather unusual credit ‘written by Barlow / Donald / Orange / Owen / Williams / Ure / Cross / Cann / Currie’!
Attracting cult followings in 2010 were DELPHIC and CHEW LIPS. DELPHIC captured the Factory Records aesthetic of the mutant disco pioneered by NEW ORDER and A CERTAIN RATIO, but were unable to attract mainstream recognition probably due to their reliance on grooves and jams rather than actual songs… they can only get better with time.
CHEW LIPS are YEAH YEAH YEAHS with synths and while they had several brilliant numbers in their cannon, not all were included on their rather short debut album ‘Unicorn’. This didn’t allow them to play to their strengths on record although this was fully exploited in their live show. Again, they will learn.
And not wishing to get wholly involved in the main skirmish, THE SOUND OF ARROWS maintained a low profile while recording their debut album in London but delivered some impressive concert showcases of their lush Nordic musicality. Their optimistic and aspirational ‘Disney meets Brokeback Mountain’ tone may be the fresh approach to electropop in 2011.
Kookiness was the order of the day with the raven haired beauties MARINA & THE DIAMONDS and EMILIE SIMON. Marina Lambrini Diamandis kept the spirit of SPARKS alive with some fe-Mael intuition on her superb debut ‘The Family Jewels’ while EMILIE SIMON crossed the channel for some ‘one girl and her synth’ shows to fill the gap left by the absence of LITTLE BOOTS in 2010.
As could have been expected after the promotional lash of last year, Victoria Hesketh took a break before starting work on her new album. Hertfordshire’s SUNDAY GIRL could be the next lady-in-waiting providing she can expand on the very promising material like All The Songs and Stop Hey! that was premiered in the latter part of the year.
Meanwhile LA ROUX toured the world and recorded a ‘Stones cover ‘Under Your Thumb’ for the ‘Sidetracked’ influences DJ mix compilation before giving old mate SKREAM the iTunes bonus track Saviour for a dubstep rework as Finally and guesting with CHROMEO. However, Elly Jackson appears to have forgotten that No.1 rule of not biting the hand that feeds you by exclaiming “… I don’t want to make synth music for the rest of my f*cking life!” and declaring the electropop genre “over”!
In the battle of Synth Britannia, OMD released their first collection of new material for 14 years while THE HUMAN LEAGUE delayed their full album return until 2011. THE HUMAN LEAGUE have the backing of electronic music guru Mark Jones’ Wall Of Sound label and thus far have played a ‘less is more’ approach. Despite not having an official website until this year, some clever viral marketing sent interest in their single ‘Night People’ sky high and provided good business for their now almost traditional Christmas UK tour.
While OMD’s ‘History of Modern’ album had several outstanding tracks worthy of comparison with past glories, it was confusingly launched with an Aretha Franklin mash-up that wasn’t on the final tracklisting and a nauseating Britpop pastiche as lead single. Ironically one of the statements made in its sleeve notes was “Modern is not… Oasis”!
It was as if audiences who had traditionally been sceptical of the whole synthesizer axis were now being targeted.
However, electronic pop’s spiritual homeland of Germany welcomed OMD back like one of their own and respectable business for ‘History of Modern’ was generated.
A-HA though are proof that consistently high quality new material is still a possiblity 25 years after your commercial heyday with the focus of their final album ‘Foot Of The Mountain’ very much on their synthesizer roots. In late 2010, they bid farewell with a final tour and a superb double CD compilation called ’25’ which featured not only their hits but the best of their much under valued album tracks.
Photo by Tracey Welch
Among the acts celebrating their legacies, HEAVEN 17 enhanced their reputation no-end by participating in a brilliant BBC6 Music collaboration with “the falsetto from the ghetto” LA ROUX. And if that wasn’t enough, they had not one but two BBC TV programmes featuring their highly regarded album ‘Penthouse & Pavement’ including their triumphant Sheffield Magna gig.
HOWARD JONES didn’t look a day older, proving that a vegetarian diet and a clean living spirituality was the key to eternal youth! He played ‘Human’s Lib’ and ‘Dream Into Action’ in full for the first time at Indigo2.
Former sparring partners ULTRAVOX and JOHN FOXX played very different types of live shows in 2010. ULTRAVOX almost went back to basics with the retrospective ‘Return To Eden 2’ tour while JOHN FOXX curated an audio/visual extravaganza at the Short Circuit Festival featuring a deluge of analogue synths and some new material to a mixed reception.
DEPECHE MODE completed their ‘Tour Of The Universe’ and capped it all with a special show at the Royal Albert Hall for The Teenage Cancer Trust where Alan Wilder was reunited with the band for the first time in 16 years during the encore of ‘Somebody’. It was an emotional night for many including the band. Does this lay out the foundations for, if not a reunion, at least some future work together?
GOLDFRAPP returned with ‘Head First’, a mid-Atlantic AOR styled electronic romp that had echoes of Laura Branigan and Olivia Newton-John. Some found it uninspiring but what could not be denied was the catchiness of the tunes. Given time, it will become a future guilty pleasure.
Meanwhile LADYTRON prepared a career spanning compilation Ladytron ’00-10′ to reinforce their reputation as one of the key electronic based acts of the last decade but they began the year contributing a pair of excellent bonus tracks to Christina Aguilera’s album ‘Bionic’ in ‘Birds Of Prey’ and ‘Little Dreamer’.
Swedish songstress Robyn continued her feisty independent spirit by releasing her ‘Body Talk’ trilogy and the excellent single ‘Dancing On My Own’, while both Lady Gaga and Kylie kept electronically produced pop in the mainstream consciousness.
Across the water, New York’s THE GOLDEN FILTER added a crisp vibe to the electronic dancefloor via some dreamy Scandinavian influences and frantic tribal percussion while their neighbours THE HUNDRED IN THE HANDS brought a mechanised twist to new wave on their self-titled debut. And for the perfect after party soundtrack in the Big Apple, ARP provided some gorgeous modern day ambience with the album ‘The Soft Wave’. Meanwhile, another North American based duo LOLA DUTRONIC relaunched their brand of dreamy Gallic flavoured electro-lounge pop with the ‘Musique’ EP.
Elsewhere internationally, the vivacious SHH became the latest in a line of Argentine musicians basing themselves in London for an assault on the UK and European market while Texans HYPERBUBBLE brought their own ‘bionic bubblepunk’ with the impressive ‘Candy Apple Daydreams’. MARSHEAUX had a quiet year, only releasing a cover of BILLY IDOL’s Eyes Without a Face for an Amnesty International compilation.
Promising newcomers VILE ELECTRODES steadily gained fans on the London club circuit with their mix of fetish porn and analogue synths while following some line-up changes, THE VANITY CLAUSE finally released their first album ‘Fractured’. And the quirky Sheffield based duo THE CHANTEUSE & THE CLAW unleashed a superb debut single in ‘Are You One?’.
Overall in 2010, the spark generated by the new generation of synthesizer acts and the willingness of others to incorporate more electronic sounds into their work accounted for yet another productive year with the heritage acts also getting the cultural recognition they fully deserved. Ever supportive, The Guardian even featured a piece on the older incarnation entitled Forgive Us Our Synths which interestingly was almost two years after their prophetic Slaves To Synth article hit the public consciousness.
There were more quality albums and live shows of interest to the electro fan than in many years past with acts such as MIRRORS, VILLA NAH and HURTS fulfilling the role of worthy successors to the classic Synth Britanniageneration. Hopefully, other acts will be following in their footsteps. In fact, despite being ignored by the BBC Sound Of 2011 and New To Q listings which appear to have been locked into some evil parallel universe where good taste does not seem to reside, “… fey, gay, pseudo-intellectualsynth b*llocks” still rules!
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK Contributor Listings Of 2010
STEVE GRAY
Best Album: TENEK On The Wire
Best Song: HURTS Unspoken
Best Gig: DEPECHE MODE at London Royal Albert Hall
Best Video: MIRRORS Ways To An End
Most Promising New Act: MIRRORS
CHI MING LAI
Best Album: VILLA NAH Origin
Best Song: MIRRORS Ways To An End
Best Gig: HEAVEN 17 at Sheffield Magna
Best Video: HURTS Wonderful Life
Most Promising New Act: THE SOUND OF ARROWS
RICHARD PRICE
Best Album: HURTS Happiness
Best Song: OMD History Of Modern (Part I)
Best Gig: THE HUMAN LEAGUE + HEAVEN 17 at Galway Festival
Best Video: HURTS Stay
Most Promising New Act: MIRRORS
JOHAN WEJEDAL
Best Album: PAGE Nu
Best Song: POLAROID MILITIA Astana My Hero
Best Gig: PAGE at Gothenburg Synthklubben
Best Video: VILE ELECTRODES Deep Red
Most Promising New Act: THE GIRL & THE ROBOT
OMD drummer Mal Holmes has been musically associated with founder members Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys since THE ID.
The Wirral post-punk band showcased songs such as ‘Electricity’, ‘Red Frame/White Light’, ‘Julia’s Song’, ‘The Misunderstanding’ and ‘Radio Waves’ that were to later become part of synthpop folklore. When THE ID split in 1978, Holmes continued to drum for local bands and worked as burger chef during the day. Meanwhile McCluskey and Humphreys formed OMD, releasing ‘Electricity’ on Factory Records in 1979…the rest is as they say, is history. But it was while supporting Gary Numan as a duo accompanied by Winston the TEAC tape recorder that the limitations of employing such a rigid backing track in live performance became apparent.
So expanding to a quartet for a club tour in early 1980, DALEK I LOVE YOU’s keyboardist Dave Hughes and Mal Holmes were recruited. Almost instantaneously, there was a looser, more frantic feel to OMD’s live sound with Holmes’ crunchy electronic percussion and sparing live drums providing a particularly unique aural framework. Holmes had already guested on the recorded version of ‘Julia’s Song’ from the OMITD album but eventually became a studio regular, contributing to OMD’s first hit ‘Messages’ before playing on the Organisation album featuring ‘Enola Gay’.
Around this time, Dave Hughes left OMD to form GODOT so another guest musician from the debut album, saxophonist Martin Cooper joined to play synthesizers to complete the now classic OMD line-up which later went on to enormous success with the album ‘Architecture & Morality’ in 1981.
Holmes’ sharp, complimentary drumming style which mixed acoustic and electronic percussion over tight pre-programmed rhythms helped the unlikely commercial proposition of Maid Of Orleans become the biggest selling single of 1982 in Germany.
Rewarded with equity for his loyal service to OMD from 1983’s ‘Dazzle Ships’, ironically he played on only three of its tracks while the album itself was a commercial flop, only gaining artistic recognition in later years.
Although OMD started to adapt a more conventional sound from 1984 with Holmes having a greater role in the albums ‘Junk Culture’, ‘Crush’ and ‘The Pacific Age’ that followed, strained relations following their American success led to the classic line-up splitting with Holmes joining Humphreys and Cooper in THE LISTENING POOL who released their only album ‘Still Life’ in 1994 and McCluskey continuing solo as OMD.
The classic OMD line-up reunited for a successful tour in 2007 which has led to the release of a new album History Of Modern, supported by an Autumn tour which sees OMD’s position as synthesizer pioneers reinforced by their choice of new OMD influenced acts VILLA NAH and MIRRORS as support.
Always a favourite of the fans, a banner at a gig once proclaimed “MAL IS GOD!” – just before the soundcheck for the opening show in Brighton, Mal Holmes spoke to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK to give an interesting insight into being a drummer in an electronic pop band and the artistic conundrums that it throws up…
On the earlier OMD tours, you played what always looked like a drum kit that had bits of it nicked on the way to the gig. How into the electronic ethos were you, especially as Paul and Andy wanted their percussive framework to be as anti-rock as possible?
I was playing before with them in THE ID as your regular rock drummer. I was really a drummer’s drummer at that time; I loved Billy Cobham, Phil Collins in GENESIS, Richie Hayward out of LITTLE FEAT. So when I first joined OMD, I’d been coming from THE ID so we were playing Electricity and some of those early songs on a regular kit which my bother bought me when I was 16, this Tama kit. THE ID spilt up, OMD get together and it must have been about 6-10 months before I came back in.
It was clear they were into that KRAFTWERK electronic vibe. Paul Collister, the manager was an electronics boffin with Paul Humphreys being at Riversdale College in Liverpool doing it as well. The idea was we wouldn’t have a regular drum kit, we would have an electronic drum kit but you couldn’t go to the shop and buy one, there was nothing around. So I was really excited I was going to have a new kit that nobody would have seen built by Paul Collister and Paul Humphreys. I remember I was a roadie for the band before I joined and I was hanging out with them with the view of going on the road with this new electronic drum kit.
This drum kit never took shape basically, I remember pushing Paul Collister saying “you’re building this thing, so what is it?” and he’d go “oh, I’ve got to get the circuit boards, I’ve got to the get transistors, I’ve got to get the pads…” – so eventually, a couple of days before we go on the road, Paul Collister comes up with this electronic drum kit that he’s made which is a couple of practice pads with crystal microphones inside and leads to circuit boards for snare and hi-hat etc.
There was a kick drum that was hacked together which was like an ‘on-off’ switch and a foot pedal!! So we rehearsed and we took it out for the first show and it was clear that it wasn’t going to work… everything was moving round the stage!! I’d press the kick drum and before I knew it, it was two yards in front of me! I’d hit the snare drum and it wasn’t triggering!! I hit the crystal microphone inside the pad and smashed it to bits, it just wasn’t going to work! *laughs*
So what happened next?
What had to be done was I needed to bring in from my old kit, the kick drum, the snare drum and the hi-hat. That then became the basis of my kit to this day actually! The other stuff like the ‘white noise’ pads stayed with us because they weren’t being used so much through the set and they couldn’t stick constant hitting like the real hi-hat could do. I just complimented what was going on with the ’white noise’.
I did embrace the electronic kit, I loved the idea of playing that but the functionality of it and playing it, the original one we had in OMD just couldn’t handle what was going to happen when we were taking it on the road. So two or three days into the tour, that’s when it became a hybrid. But I wasn’t allowed cymbals, they were a complete no-no! We didn’t use any cymbals until ‘Crush’! So many people like the road crew said “I don’t know what’s wrong with your drum kit but it looks really different! NO CYMBALS, THAT’S IT!”
How did you respond to the challenge of playing along to pre-programmed backing tracks as opposed to going first and leading a song the way a traditional drummer does?
It didn’t bother me, I embraced it more than anything else because around that time just after THE ID, DALEK I LOVE YOU were coming up on the scene and I did a few sessions with them. It was clear that the beatbox started being a major part of what was going on musically with drummers in the North where I was anyway. I didn’t batter an eyelid, I thought it was natural progression as to where we were going to be going.
I just fell into that path really and it set me off in a different direction. If I hadn’t taken that path, with the electronics and the drum machines, and being a real drummer’s drummer lover, I would have gone in a completely different direction with the way I play. Now, I’m pretty happy with what I do, I’ve got my own style. The electronic side has laid down the foundations of what I actually became as a drummer.
In the early days, it was Andy and Paul who did the rhythm programming. When did you first actually get to do drum machine programming on an OMD recording?
I didn’t do a lot of programming of drum machines really. First time anything was written in the drum department was in THE ID so the first time ‘Electricity’ was ever played to my knowledge, it was me playing it on a kit when we came in as a seven piece. And the same for some of the songs that went onto the first album.
For ‘Organisation’ on ‘Enola Gay’, it was me playing on top of Andy’s beatbox and then we moved onto ‘Architecture and Morality’, the guys had The Gramophone Suite studio. I was listening to BRIAN ENO so the likes of ‘Maid Of Orleans’ came about because of a track that Phil Collins played on in this little skippy 6/8 beat, it’s really light!
Yes, Back In Judy’s Jungle from ‘Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)’? The song’s got also that almost pentatonic instrumental line that has a similar feel to ‘Maid Of Orleans’… it’s from a Korean folk song!
There you go! That’s where my original idea for it came from. With ‘She’s Leaving’, we got hold of some Pearl syndrums and we were all messing around in the control room with little white noises and stuff like that. The majority of the drum programming would always be done by Andy or Paul. My part would be to lay down on that. I did some Linn Drum programming on ‘Junk Culture’ but it was mostly playing on top of the Fairlight and the Linn Drum.
You’re credited with ‘bass synthesizer’ on ‘Architecture & Morality’, can you remember what you did?
Really? I think I did and I think it was… God, there you go! *laughs*
I think it was something incredibly simple, a bass drone or something like that! It was on a Roland SH2 and I wouldn’t have a clue what track it was! I know it’s a really small part and I said something like “C’mon, I want to play keyboards on this”, and Andy or Paul would’ve said “PRESS THAT!” and so I did! It wouldn’t have been a bass part, it would have been the simplest thing!
I heard a story about you learning to play bass, did you ever get into any other instruments?
No, not really. It’s taken me until the explosion in MIDI and computer technology for me to get involved with programming. If anything now, I know my way around a keyboard and pretty hot on Pro-Tools and Logic and all that. But I just stuck with doing what I did with OMD in the drum department.
Did you ever have any dilemmas in the studio as to when the drums should be live or programmed? Were there any intense discussions that you can remember?
No, not at all. It would be what Andy, Paul or the producer wanted but I would throw ideas into the pot. At the time, the drum machines could only do what drum machines were doing, they were squared off and put into a corner, you knew what you’re going to get out of it, a TR-909 or a CR-78 or whatever. It was putting the other colours on top of that if we needed a particular beat or whatever. I had a whole array of different bass and snare drums, and different toms and percussion stuff so we had a host of different colours to choose from in the studio. So I always saw the kit and what I was putting on top as more colouring than being a traditional drummer.
Whenever we did drum sessions, generally everything would be put down individually. So the kick drum would be put down by itself, the snare drum would be put down by itself etc. Sonically, it was going to sound better because you’ve not got any spill going on. And easy really… it was a lot easier for me to do at the time because it took us hours to get hooked up in the studio anyway with SMPTE time code and CV clocks to have everything running. I don’t even remember playing to a click-track because they didn’t really exist in those days. I was playing along to the actual beatbox. It was technically easier to actually put down everything individually on top.
It gave OMD a really unique, clean sound…
It is unique because when you put drums down individually, it stops you playing what a drummer would play…you can’t naturally play a part, come off, do a snare drum fill, the hi-hat stops, the kick drum plays something natural and then you do a fill onto a cymbal. That doesn’t happen because you are just concentrating on one foot or one hand. And you play something completely different. Plus the fact the OMD stuff was so rigid, there’s no give away, there’s no groove tempo where things are a little bit behind the beat or a bit in front of the beat to give a feel…that didn’t exist. It was completely ‘on-the-beat’! You can’t do a fill that is ’off-the-beat’ because you will really notice it’s out of time. That inherently changes the sound and changed the nature of how a drummer would play on top of it.
What did you think of first commercially available electronic drum kits like the Simmons SDSV which was co-designed by Richard James Burgess? Did you use that on the ‘Dazzle Ships’ tour?
Yes I did. But again, I stuck to a real kick, snare and hat, and used Simmons toms. I thought it was a great, fantastic piece of kit when it came out because we’d failed to make our own.
This was just a whole new world to me, so I really embraced that. I thought it was a bit limiting, I was expecting a little bit more out of it, but it was great and really the start of the electronic drum kit thing. I loved the SDSV and the SDSVII which had an EPROM blower which could blew my own sounds onto the chips.
Any physical side effects from hitting that riot shield material on the Simmons?
It was difficult to play because you’d really feel a shock in your arm when you were hitting it and you’d feel that after the show.
What’s your live set-up now? What would you say are the advantages of an electronic kit live as opposed to an acoustic one?
I’m now using a Roland TD-20 for the electronic toms and the cymbals. As I said, I still have the same set-up because with a real bass drum and real snare drum, the physics of what happens when you hit a drum is you are physically moving air into a microphone diaphragm down wires into a PA speaker. That for me is the only way I’d want to play because I can throw all my weight into it. The same with the snare drum and the hi-hat, I can physically really hit them as hard as I can. The drums I use are really big drums. The bigger and longer the drum, the more air it’s going to move.
But the rest of the stuff: the toms, the cymbals and the white noise things; again, clarity of sound from my point of view is really important. I wouldn’t want to use acoustic toms because you need microphones and then I’ve got more spill, I’ve got the spill of the snare drums going down the tom microphones on stage. If I’m using real cymbals, I’ve got overhead mics and we have more spill. So the definition of the kit just starts to deteriorate all the time. But if I have a real kick, snare and hat and everything else is electronic, you can really turn the kick and snare drum really loud and you’ve not got the spill of everything else coming through there. With regard to the toms, I’m not a big tom player so they just have to capture what song I’m playing.
‘Crush’ and ‘The Pacific Age’ were probably the two albums where you had the greatest physical part in. What was your favourite period of OMD musically?
My favourite period of OMD musically was ‘Architecture & Morality’ because of my involvement and how creative I was being at the time, using the kit differently. I love to play regular pub drummer type of stuff but I’d rather try different things, sounds and colours and see what sound I can get on a kit. I think you can really notice on an album… if I try tuning a snare drum, putting it in a different room, put different mics in, then no-one has heard that sound before. And in a very subtle way on an album, that works rather than going to a generic CD and getting another 808 snare on it.
What are your favourite songs to play live, past or present?
We’re doing ‘Bunker Soldiers’ and I love it! It’s just so great to play, it’s so simple and I enjoy playing that. So on this tour, my favourite to play is ‘Bunker Soldiers’, me and Martin have got a great groove going on, it’s really sweet! ‘Maid Of Orleans’ is good to play but even now, when I hear that click track, I concentrate so hard for that song because it’s so bloody simple and it’s so easy just to go and make a mess of it!
What was the motivation to play a song like ‘Bunker Soldiers’ from the first album on this tour? How did the idea come about?
When we first went to rehearsals in 2007, we didn’t really know what we were going to be playing although we knew we were going to be doing the hits thing and all the rest of it.
But Martin and I were saying “the reason why we’re here is because the first three albums were f***ing great, so why don’t we revisit some of the old stuff?” I remember saying in the rehearsal room to Andy “listen, what about ‘Bunker Soldiers’?” and him saying to me “No, we don’t want to do that!” – so three years on, Andy comes up to us and goes “Paul and I are thinking of doing ‘Bunker Soldiers’” *laughs*
The motivation was just to have fun, it wasn’t really “let’s go and hit up the back catalogue”. It wasn’t a particularly heavy song to programme. Because bearing in mind when we go into these rehearsals, the keyboard programming’s got to be done, the old tapes have got to be revisited for Pro-Tools and it’s a big technical thing to get everything right for it, it takes a long time.
Whereas ‘Bunker Soldiers’, it’s basically Andy – bass guitar; Martin – bass synth, Paul – melody, me – kick, snare and white noise; so it’s a very easy thing for us to do. In rehearsals, we literally just went through it in one go and Martin knew what the bass was, his old settings and stuff like that; Paul redid the high end sequence part that we put onto Pro-Tools and that was it. It was a very simple song to put together but I really love it.
You once remarked how you loathed ‘Sailing On The Seven Seas’… so how do you psych yourself up to get through a song that you’re not that into?
I did, yeah! It’s strange because there’s a lot of songs I could say that about. I’m not too big on playing the second part of OMD, the 90s songs. But they’re good songs, ‘Sailing On The Seven Seas’ is a great thing to play as a drummer.
When I started to play it, it became something else to me. I really enjoyed playing it so I don’t really see the song as how I did in those days because now, I’m so involved in performing it. I look at the song slightly differently. Particularly live to the record, they’re always different in the drum world with OMD.
How do you approach some of the new material from ‘History Of Modern’ that you’re playing live on this tour?
It was the same with ‘Sister Marie Says’. I listened to it on the album and thought it was pretty standard stuff and the same with ‘New Babies:New Toys’. But you take the album drums away and you put me there to do it… although Andy will always keep on at me with “WHY DON’T YOU PLAY THE KICK DRUM LIKE THE ALBUM, WHY DON’T YOU etc etc?”… he’s on at me all the time! And he quietens down and I’ll go back to the way I play it *laughs*
I changed the parts on some of them so ‘Sister Marie Says’ now, it chugs and trashes along but it’s just different for me now that because I’m playing it… not so much that I’m part of it but I think I make it work more musically. I think that’s probably something I became with OMD is a musical drummer, a very simple drummer but a very musical drummer. I listen to what the melody is, I won’t say a statement on the kit until it needs to say something before the chorus that’s coming. I won’t over play, I’ll under play. I compliment it.
This album, I didn’t have too much to do with the drums or programming on it. But now we’ve moved into taking it out on the road live, I play what is completely natural for me which is musical. And after Andy stops giving me ear ache about it, he just sits back and goes “that sounds really good doesn’t it?” and I’m thinking “yes, it sounds really good… but I’m playing something really different!” *laughs*
Did it take you long to learn ‘If You Want It’?
No, it didn’t take me long to learn any of them to tell you the truth! *laughs*
I did pfaff around with the bass drum of ‘If You Want It’ actually, it’s a slightly different part that I’m playing. It’s quite a nice thing to play. I would have like to have been more involved in the album, I think I could have made things a little bit more musical in the drum department.
Was there any reason why you weren’t really involved in the album?
Things have moved so quickly since we got back together in 2007, we all wanted to do it and loved it. Commercially it’s completely different to how it was when we were on Virgin. And deadlines and the way the album was put together, it’s just been a natural progression. I don’t think there’s any bad reason why I wasn’t involved. A lot of the songs were written before we got back together in 2007 so those parts were already down, the drum parts were already programmed on Pro-Tools and stuff like that. And you know for me, a drum part isn’t just like somebody going “there’s a snare drum on a ‘2’ and a ‘4’, there’s a kick drum on a ‘1’ and a ‘3’, 16 notes with a hi-hat etc etc”. I don’t go with that sort of idea. But the momentum just moved on so quickly.
What about what you’re doing next? Will there be more releases on your label Finmusic?
Finmusic has become more of a digital aggregator in the sense that I’m putting stuff on-line for whoever really. Running it as a label was difficult because it was unfair to artists as I didn’t have the marketing budget. If you’re going to be a record label, you’re going to need marketing budgets. But I’m a label in the sense that I’m registered, I’ve got ISRC, bar codes and accounts with all the digital dealers etc.
It’s also a bit of a headache dealing with artists… I’m an artist myself so I know what it’s like to be in that seat but just to keep them happy and spend enough money and try to take them to where they are! Anyone that’s ever come to me, I’ve always tried to help and put them in the right direction.
And I’ve done that with many people who you wouldn’t really know but they’ve had successful careers writing music for Simon Cowell programmes or they’ve been on the road here and there. So Finmusic exists so that if someone wants to get their music on iTunes, they can come to me. It’s not going to cost them any money and I’ll sort it out but we’ll take a commission for doing it. So I have a few hundred tracks out there now.
After I was ill with my heart attack and got back together with the band, ever since advances in technology with programmes on the Mac and stuff like that, I’ve wanted to do some music myself. So the last 18 months, I’ve been coming up with some crazy ambient things and I’ve got half a dozen pieces that I’d really like to get out on my own merit, but not on the back of OMD or the Mal Holmes name either.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to MAL HOMES
UK – special guests VILLA NAH
Nottingham Royal Centre (Nov 1), Glasgow Concert Hall (Nov 2), Liverpool Arena (Nov 4), Ipswich Regent (Nov 5), London Hammersmith Apollo (Nov 7), Birmingham Symphony Hall (Nov 8)
Europe – special guests MIRRORS
Cologne E-Werk (Nov 11), Hannover Capitol (Nov. 12), Leipzig Haus Auensee (Nov 13), Stuttgart Theaterhaus (Nov 15), Munich Tonhalle (Nov 16), Berlin Tempodrom (Nov 18), Hamburg Docks (Nov 19), Luxembourg Den Atelier (Nov 21), Brussels Ancienne Belgique (Nov 22), Amsterdam Paradiso (Nov 23), Le Casino De Paris (Nov 25)
OMD launched their new album ‘History Of Modern’ at a lavish party hosted by Panasonic in London with a playback and special live performance by its founding duo Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys. In a packed Club24, OMD delivered a short sharp set of the singles ‘Electricity’, ‘Souvenir’, ‘Maid Of Orleans’ and ‘Enola Gay’ in addition to some new songs including the wonderfully sublime Green and ‘History of Modern (Part I)’ which is set to become a live favourite of the future.
As with many of OMD’s best songs, the fascination with technology’s effect on life and death has long been a creative catalyst. Inspired by The Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, Part I of the title track is all about the ‘Big Bang Theory’ and the inevitable end of the Universe. Its scaling detuned vibrato riff is the magnificently prominent element that provides a full spacey effect.
With echoes of their formative Eric’s days, the pair were extremely confident on the tiny stage and highly appreciative of the crowd, even taking time out to thank particularly all the personnel from the various websites that have kept the OMD flame of hope burning over decades. Following this memorable live presentation, the gathered were then treated to a wonderful history lesson in danceable electronic pop, courtesy of DJ Mark Jones from Back To The Phuture.
‘History of Modern’ itself is the first collection of songs to be released under the OMD banner for 14 years. Andy McCluskey says of the album: “It basically sounds like OMD! If OMD can’t sound like OMD, then who can? There’s lots of analogue synth sounds! There’s lots of drum machines sounds! There’s lots of Mellotron sounds! There’s even a few cheesy organ sounds in there as well!”
Following his exclusive interview earlier in the year, Paul Humphreys Paul Humphreys was kind enough to talk to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK again about several of the album’s key tracks and the choice of support acts for the forthcoming tour.
Congratulations on the beautiful ‘New Holy Ground’…
I’m really pleased with that one. I think Andy and I realised towards the end of making this album that we should have actually stayed in a room together and worked because I went up and spent a few weeks to kind of change things on the album and to write some new tracks. We just decided we needed some extra tracks for B-sides so we thought we’d do a track in the spirit of ‘The Avenue’ because it’s one of our favourite B-sides.
Andy became a member of this online sound effects website so you can download anything from it, it’s made for film I think; it’s an enormous library. So we went looking for something rhythmical and Andy had browsed before I got there and found a few things; we really liked the steps, there’s this woman walking on a very hard floor but it was a bit random so we put it into the computer and got it in synch to make a beat. What’s great about it is she keeps coming towards you and going away again which is a bit disturbing! But we thought let’s make that the drum track, just the girl walking.
So I got out a whole load of appropriate sounds on my synths; a virtual choir, a Prophet 5… basically all the instruments that I used to use in those days! The string part is a really out of tune Prophet which was one of my favourite sounds and a Roland bass. And off we went really! We wrote the song in three hours and I threw a whole load of ideas music wise onto the Protools whilst Andy just wrote a load of lyrics. Three hours later, we had a song. And we loved it so much we thought “Right, that’s got to go on the album!”
Is it your favourite from the selection?
Yeah, that and ‘Green’ I think.
So how did ‘Green’ come about because Stuart Kershaw had a part in that?
Yeah, it was a song Andy did many, many years ago with Stuart and I think it was done in the 90s. He played it to me and it sounded a bit like a rock ballad. I said “I think the vocal tune’s great, but everything else has to go”*laughs*
I said “Give me the vocal stem and I’ll do a whole new track for it” so I came to my studio and completely reworked it.
What was your inspiration for the way the bass comes in and how the rhythmic backbone almost stutters?
A little bit of ‘Almost’ actually because that was my reference point. There’s this sort of white noise-like cymbal that goes in all the way. And I thought I’d do it in a very modern way with just a bass sequencer, electronic drums and some OMD-ish strings and choirs.
The lovely coda of ‘Green’ reminds me a lot of ROXY MUSIC’s ‘If There Is Something’, is there any influence there possibly?
Yeah, maybe! No, it’s just coincidence! *laughs*
What was the background to ‘History of Modern (Part II)’?
That was a track that I actually wrote for ONETWO and one of those tracks we couldn’t sort out, we couldn’t finish it off. So I sent it to Andy and he came up with a new vocal for it. I worked on lots of bits of the album, replaying things and changing things.
What do you think of the two support acts that have been lined up for the ‘History Of Modern’ tour, VILLA NAH and MIRRORS?
VILLA NAH are brilliant, I love them. I think it’s just great electronic pop with a dark touch to it. I’m looking forward to sharing a stage with them.
In Europe, we have MIRRORS. I went to see them in Camden at Proud. They’re lovely blokes and I was absolutely blown away by them. It was like looking back in time, they were wearing shirts and ties and jackets – I’m going to bring a picture of me and Andy from the early 80s to show them that we looked exactly like them!
MIRRORS’ singer James New in a strange way, is you and Andy’s love child! Is there something you haven’t told us?
I think that’s a funny comment! We’ll keep that to ourselves *laughs*
Their songs are brilliant and their whole stage presentation… James has got a little of Ian Curtis in him as well, this awkward persona on stage which I think is really appealing, I think he’s great. I’m so happy, I can’t wait to go on tour with them.
I think the Germans are going to love MIRRORS!
Yes, I think they are!
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Paul Humphreys
UK – special guests VILLA NAH
Brighton Dome (Oct 29), Bristol Colston Hall (Oct 31), Nottingham Royal Centre (Nov 1), Glasgow Concert Hall (Nov 2), Liverpool Arena (Nov 4), Ipswich Regent (Nov 5), London Hammersmith Apollo (Nov 7), Birmingham Symphony Hall (Nov 8)
Europe – special guests MIRRORS
Cologne E-Werk (Nov 11), Hannover Capitol (Nov. 12), Leipzig Haus Auensee (Nov 13), Stuttgart Theaterhaus (Nov 15), Munich Tonhalle (Nov 16), Berlin Tempodrom (Nov 18), Hamburg Docks (Nov 19), Luxembourg Den Atelier (Nov 21), Brussels Ancienne Belgique (Nov 22), Amsterdam Paradiso (Nov 23), Le Casino De Paris (Nov 25)
Madame Jojo’s in London’s Soho was the location for a headline show by the highly rated MIRRORS, courtesy of indie club night White Heat.
The Brighton quartet have been busy finishing their debut album which is to be released on Skint Records later this year and doing superb Un Autre Monde remixes of WHITE LIES’ ‘A Place To Hide’ and AU REVOIR SIMONE’s ‘Tell Me’.
Following their well-received support slot with DELPHIC earlier this year, they’ve also been honing their stage presentation to compliment their pop noir sound. One dictionary definition of mirror is: “A pattern for imitation; exemplar: a man who was the mirror of fashion. Something worthy of imitation”. So when MIRRORS take to the stage tonight, they look like ‘Organisation’- era ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK beamed into the 21st Century.
Reflecting a sense of intelligent European modernism, the quartet arrive in stylish suits and thin ties to a industrialised stage set of alloy spaceframe structures housing all the incumbent technology. Some beautifully arty film projections enhance the image. MIRRORS “are attentive to minutiae”.
Consisting of James (lead vocals, synths), Ally (synths and backing vocals), Tate (synths) and Josef (electronic percussion), they open with ‘Fear Of Drowning’, its pulsing sequences and dense sweeping chords benefit from the loudness to take full hypnotic effect. It sounds magnificent. MIRRORS “are minimally over the top”.
New single ‘Ways To An End’ has a synthetic TALKING HEADS tribal flavour with a touch of THE HORRORS. James possesses a vibrant stage presence that matches his enthusiasm. He’s like a cross between the dancing Geography teacher of Andy McCluskey and the science student at the Vicarage tea party of Paul Humphreys. Could he actually be their love child? Maybe things went further in that plush sports car after the end of the Souvenir video? MIRRORS “are a vehicle for refraction”.
The mournful ‘Organ Song’ follows before the band launch into the brilliant ‘Into The Heart’. The audience reaction is certainly something to see; a young discerning music crowd, male and female, dancing away passionately just like in the early days of ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK… none of this arms folded sitting still at the front nonsense that has blighted some of the more recent shows of Wirral’s finest!
James laps it all up along with co-front man Ally. Tate though pensively keeps control at the back while Josef stands almost motionless as a sticksman in the KRAFTWERK stand-up tradition. He looks like he could be the younger electro version of BLONDIE’s drummer Clem Burke. MIRRORS “follow the straightest of lines”.
And in a sharply impressive but short set, they finish with the pure Vince Clarke-era DEPECHE MODE of ‘Searching In The Wilderness’ and the wonderfully melancholic grandeur of ‘Hide & Seek’. It climaxes with the foursome leaving the stage to a repeated drum machine pattern just like ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK used to do with ‘Enola Gay’.
Breathing new life into the classic ‘Synth Britannia’ blueprint, MIRRORS are synthly the best band to have come out of the UK for many years.
MIRRORS “are parallel to everything and equal to nothing.”
Special thanks to Debbie Ball at Create Spark
MIRRORS play: London Proud Galleries (July 31), Glasgow King Tuts Wah Wah Hut (August 2), Leeds Oporto (August 3), Sheffield Forum (August 4), Leicester Musician (August 5), Little London Fields (August 7), Birmingham Sound Bar (August 13), London Lexington (August 18), Bristol Start The Bus (August 20), York Basement (August 21), Brighton Audio (August 28)
Paul Humphreys is one half of the legendary synthesizer duo ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK whose 1979 debut single ‘Electricity’ has inspired the name of this website.
Together with Andy McCluskey, they set a high standard of romantic retro-futurism with lyrical gists ranging from technology and war, to deceased religious figures and long distance relationships.
Not only did his KRAFTWERK, ENO and LA DÜSSELDORF inspired keyboard textures give OMD a distinctive melodic interface within an exciting era of electronic pop as featured on classic songs like ‘Messages’, ‘Joan Of Arc’ and ‘Maid Of Orleans’, Paul Humphreys was also the voice on two of the band’s biggest hits ‘Souvenir’ and ‘(Forever) Live And Die’.
Following his departure from OMD in 1989, Paul Humphreys continued making music. First there was THE LISTENING POOL with fellow OMD refugees Malcolm Holmes and Martin Cooper who released an album ‘Still Life’ in 1994 before working with PROPAGANDA’s Claudia Brücken, initially as producer on their aborted reunion album and then in 2004 together as ONETWO. The duo received critical acclaim for their excellent debut album ‘Instead’ and played prestigious support slots with ERASURE and THE HUMAN LEAGUE in 2007.
Simultaneously rejoining Andy McCluskey, Malcolm Holmes and Martin Cooper for the live relaunch of OMD, Paul Humphreys has been a very busy man over the last three years. Not only is there now a new OMD album ‘History Of Modern’ on the horizon but he has also added DJ-ing to his repertoire of talents. In a special interview, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK was invited down to Paul Humphreys’ brand new studio in London to talk about the past, the present and the future:
You had a very busy time the last couple of years touring with both OMD and ONETWO. With ONETWO, you toured with ERASURE and THE HUMAN LEAGUE and with OMD as support to SIMPLE MINDS? How did you find being a support act and how do you think you went down with the fans of those artists?
I’ve never minded being support, we did a lot of support tours in the 80s as well. We supported DEPECHE MODE, THOMPSON TWINS, THE POWER STATION, all kinds of people in America. It gives you a chance to expand your audience. And we chose to tour with SIMPLE MINDS because we did Night Of The Proms with them a couple of years ago and it was sort of a drunken night at the bar really, their guitarist Charlie Burchill went “Hey, why don’t ya come on tour with us?” so we said “oh alright, we’ll think about it”. And we got the call and we thought, it’ll be an arena tour playing bigger venues than OMD would normally play in.
But also, it gave us a chance to expand our audience because I think there’s still a whole lot of people of our age who think “OMD, it’s going to be boring electronic stuff and they’re probably not very good live” and all of these kind of prejudices. So it gave us an opportunity to play to people who may think twice about coming to see us to kind of win them over really so that next time we go round, their word will hopefully spread. And we went down really well on that tour.
Did you and Phil Oakey have a few laughs in the bar afterwards about the old ‘OMD versus HUMAN LEAGUE’ rivalry on their 2007 Daretour?
We had some nights actually! We had some great chats, Phil is just a lovely man, I really like Phil a lot. It was fantastic to be on the ‘Dare’ tour as well. Claudia and I would just go out and watch them every night because I love that album and they’re fantastic live.
We spent a few nights in the bar till late, just talking about the early days when we started out and what it was like. He was just as surprised to discover OMD’s existence as we were with THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s. We all thought we’d discovered this new sound ourselves and we were the only ones doing it! It turned out there was quite a few bands who latched onto the electronic synthesizer route in the late 70s.
What about that time when OMD and THE HUMAN LEAGUE made their first appearances on the same edition of Top Of The Pops in May 1980? Was there any tension there?
No more tension than with the other bands. There was terrific rivalry in the 80s between the bands and I think that was a healthy thing in a way because every band was trying to outdo the other, out-write them songwise! It upped the ante with the songwriting. Everyone was trying to write the best possible songs that they could. And I think the quality of songwriting in that period was fantastic.
Photo by Achim Peter
The 30th Anniversary OMD tour in 2008 had an interesting set list featuring songs from ‘Organisation’ and ‘Dazzle Ships’ while the 2007 tour featured ‘Architecture and Morality’ in its entirety. What has it been like personally for you to revisit these classic albums?
The tour where we played ‘Architecture and Morality’ in full was particularly great for us. We just loved playing those songs and we played a few songs that we’d never played live before so it was really fantastic.It was a real challenge on that tour because we really wanted to do that album justice but we didn’t have any of the synths or anything we used to make those records. But we wanted to be true to the album.
So we had to buy synths off eBay to get those sounds back, and we then just re-sampled them. We even went back to the multi-track tapes. Anything that was a monophonic sound, I could slice up into notes, loop them and put them on each key so I could play the sound exactly how it was. It was great, great fun. I loved doing that and it was a really lovely moment.
I think ‘Architecture and Morality’ was a complete album, it was just so whole. The sound of it was unique, every song… it wasn’t a bitty album. A few of our albums are bitty but that was where we finally found a sound that was OMD. I think the first two albums were leading to ‘Architecture and Morality’. We were refining our sound and then we found it.
Was the selection of songs from ‘Organisation’ and ‘Dazzle Ships’ for the 2008 tour quite natural?
We just played our favourites really! Because when you’re playing these songs every night, you have to enjoy it. You have to want to play these songs so you pick the songs you want to play.
But you must be keen to get stuck into some new material now. How is it all coming along for the new OMD album The History Of Modern?
It’s coming along really well actually. I spent a few weeks up at Andy’s studio in Liverpool and I’ve been bringing stuff down here and working on it. We’re sending files using YouSendIt to each other. I have a play on it, he has a play on it! We just go back and forth but the album will be slightly more weighted with some of Andy’s songs because he did a lot of writing while I did the ONETWO album.
And last year for various reasons, I couldn’t do much writing. My mum died and I had a few things going on that kept me from writing. So Andy’s a bit further ahead with the songwriting but he’s done some really good things. And I’ve been taking some of his things that he’s already written and styling them.
How would you describe the sound of the album, if you can?
Electronic! Very electronic!
Photo by Hege Saebjornsen
How have you been dividing your time between working with OMD and Claudia Brücken as ONETWO? Are there any other new projects on the horizon?
I’ve been working with the best selling author Douglas Coupland who wrote ‘Generation X’. We’ve written a couple of things together for use in film, television and advertising stuff. One piece we’ve written together is entitled ‘Math is Hard’, and wouldn’t sound at all out of place on ‘Dazzle Ships’!
I’ve been working with Claudia but she’s been rather busy working with several other artists/producers. She’s been working with Stephen Hague on a project, two songs from which will be featured on a forthcoming Claudia Brücken ‘Best of’ album scheduled for release in September. I’ve been doing some remixes for it as well. Claudia has done so many projects over the years and worked with such a variety of artists/producers that it’ll be great to have her best works all on one record. And, we’ve made a start on the new ONETWO album also. So yes, very busy!
Philip Larsen from production duo THE MANHATTAN CLIQUE is a member of the ONETWO live band. You once mentioned how important he was in helping to shape the ONETWO sound. How did he influence this?
Philip gives this edge and energy that we’d like to capture with the new stuff. We wished we’d re-recorded the album with Phil and James Watson, our live guitarist because they brought an energy to our live thing that wasn’t quite on the record. They’re really going to be involved in the next record.
I do really like MANHATTAN CLIQUE remixes, especially ‘Home (Tonight)’ and MOBY’s ‘Slipping Away/Crier La Vie’. They get the beat right and make it danceable but they don’t lose the song which is often the problem with a lot of modern dance remixes.
Philip loves songs so he tries to get as much of the song in there as he can. I really love the remix that he did for ‘Home (Tonight)’ because he took the song to a different place.
Are there any other musicians/producers you’d like to work with?
I’m always interested in collaborating with other writers, not necessarily producers anymore. After 30 years, I kind of know what I’m doing!
How surprised have you been by the number of young ladies who have embraced the synthesizer recently like LA ROUX, LITTLE BOOTS, LADYHAWKE and LADY GAGA and the whole electronic pop ‘revival’? Are there any of the new acts that you like, or don’t like?
It’s not that I don’t like them. I think some are more genuine than others.
Andy told me he doesn’t get LA ROUX!
LA ROUX do have some songs that I like, but I’m a bit suspicious that it’s just more marketing than substance, but I do hope I’m proved wrong. I’m concerned that a portion of the electronic music made these days is more electronic music by numbers. Theoretical, rather than from the heart. It’s great that she’s quite flamboyant and it’s good to have flamboyant pop stars out there because there’s very few these days, everyone is so safe, so I do like that aspect of her.
Any opinions on the others?
They’re not on my iPod any of them! *laughs*
What did you think of GOLDFRAPP’s new single ‘Rocket’?
I’ve always liked quite a number of GOLDFRAPP’s songs, but I don’t get the new album to be honest. It’s like an exercise in how to make an 80s song. What’s exactly is the point? It’s obvious that it was a conscious decision to make an 80’s album, and smacks of jumping onto the 80’s revival bandwagon a little too enthusiastically. The thing I find about GOLDFRAPP is, she/they are musical genre chameleons. I mean what/who is the real GOLDFRAPP? it’s hard to tell if you jump around stylistically so much.
BBC6 Music arranged for LITTLE BOOTS to do a live session with GARY NUMAN and LA ROUX with HEAVEN 17. Which new act you would like to collaborate with, either as ONETWO or OMD?
There are a few new acts I’d love to do things with. I’m a huge fan of ARCADE FIRE, I think they’re fantastic. And I like THE POSTAL SERVICE, they’re a great band. I also recently discovered HANNAH PEEL. I heard a COCTEAU TWINS cover ‘Sugar Hiccup’ on the radio on my way home in the car from my studio recently and loved it, I got home and bought it straight away from iTunes only to discover the second song on the EP was none other than a cover version of ‘Electricity’!!
You recently contributed to BBC4’s Synth Britannia documentary. How did you think the programme turned out and what do you think has been OMD’s long lasting contribution to modern electronic music?
I thought Synth Britannia was great and I’ve had so much positive feedback on it. It was a really well put together documentary. And I think it really captured the essence of what IT was all about and there’s been very few documentaries that have done that. So it’s great that it’s actually out there now someone’s actually done it. And it was flattering to be involved in it.
As regards contribution to popular music? I don’t know if it’s for us to say. I think we’ve definitely made a contribution, there’s no doubt about it. I think we were involved in a movement that changed pop music.
Well, ‘Enola Gay’ gets played at French wedding receptions!
YES! RESULT! *laughs*
A lot of kids seem to know ‘If You Leave’ because of ‘Pretty In Pink’ being on TV and DVD but don’t know it’s OMD.
The song’s been covered to death by American bands and ended up in all kinds of TV series. We get requests for it all the time to be redone for TV shows…
… it keeps the bailiffs away!
Exactly!! *laughs*
Quite a number of the acts in the Synth Britannia documentary are playing live again like ULTRAVOX or have been revisiting their classic albums as OMD did like GARY NUMAN, THE HUMAN LEAGUE and HEAVEN 17. How do you think everyone shapes up with their live shows?
I think the bands that have gone out have been worthy. I think there are a few that shouldn’t be going out… I don’t think I should name them but there’s some who really shouldn’t be doing it!
Bands of our generation like HEAVEN 17 and THE HUMAN LEAGUE are playing to big audiences. THE HUMAN LEAGUE are fantastic! ERASURE are still doing it and doing good. So the criteria is, can you still deliver? A lot of these artists; they haven’t forgotten how to sing, they haven’t lost their voices. In fact, some sing better now than they ever did. But after 30 years, you learn how to play as well. When we started out, we weren’t such great musicians but we’ve all become better musicians. And I think OMD play better now than we ever used to, there’s less mistakes in our set because we’re far more confident in what we’re doing!
But one thing I notice HEAVEN 17’s Glenn Gregory still does after all this time though is he still misses his cues!!
Oh he does, yeah! That gig in Sheffield, he missed a couple!! But he was moaning to me because ‘Penthouse and Pavement’ is so wordy. That’s the one thing that we all suffer from, Andy suffers from it too and so many singers do… you just forget your words!! It’s an age thing! It can become a head thing as well!
We’ve all got our cheat sheets to remind us on stage now. Claudia’s developed this technique where she’s got a book on the floor with all the lyrics printed bold in plastic and she flips the page with her foot and she looks like she’s dancing! *laughs*
But so many people have autocues, it’s just what happens. Trying to remember the lyrics for a one hour 45 minute show is a lot of lyrics to remember.
You had concerns about how music was being distributed over the internet in 2000. How do you see the future for musicians now in being able to make a living from their music? Is the physical format really on its last legs and therefore the future is in live performance, or soundtracks in computer games and films?
Yes, I think sadly the latter because the music industry has totally imploded! Some of it was its own fault in the corporate industry because it’s like a slow moving dinosaur. They should have latched onto the internet a lot earlier to sell music before this culture started of music for free. If they’d had done that and had reduced the prices, they would have created the culture of people just switching from buying music in shops to buying online.
But there was this whole limbo period that bred a generation of people downloading for free because some of the stuff just wasn’t even available. And kids grow up with that. They grow up thinking their entertainment should largely be free, particularly music. It’s been hugely frustrating because the internet is a fantastic place but it’s contributed to taking billions out of the industry which has brought it to its knees.
Your daughter must be of that generation?
Well, she’s been educated by me! So she’s knows and spreads the word with all her friends and frowns upon those who are downloading like mad!
Do you think with the internet that the word-of-mouth thing might work more now and we can by-pass the middle men in the record companies?
Yeah, that’s happening now. It’s not all negative at all but the whole culture of music’s completely changed. In the 80s you would tour, ticket prices were low and you would probably lose money but you would be promoting your record because that’s where the money was. But now bands put out a record, knowing they’re not going to make much money, as an excuse to go out on the road and they’ve put the ticket prices through the roof and make the money that way.
For bands like us that have made a name, the internet is an easy place because you’re a searchable commodity for a better phrase. There are people searching for OMD and there will be links to see what we’re doing individually. We’re all over the net because we were known. But for interesting artists starting out who need a kick start to make people search for what they’re doing, it’s a really difficult thing now. It takes money to do that.
So the worry is, artists in the future will be just stifled. You take the funding away from the arts, quality drops because people can’t do it full-time. Musicians have mortgages too and they’ve got kids that need new shoes and you’ve got to find that money from somewhere. If you can’t make it from music, then music is a hobby and you need that funding from somewhere to do it full-time.
But it’s really frustrating that people don’t see free download as stealing. I’d love to walk into Waitrose and help myself to some of the stuff on the shelves and walk out but I’d get arrested! But for some reason, music is not viewed that way. At some point, people are going to turn round and say “where’s all the good music?” but they’ve contributed to it. Fortunately, there are still good bands around and there’s still some great songs to be found but it’s getting really hard to find them.
There’s no money in the labels because there’s no money in selling records; so there’s no investment in new artists. There are some artists now that are really successful who wouldn’t have existed in this climate because they needed investment to develop them like being put together with interesting producers who helped develop their sound. We learnt so much from the early producers we worked with like Mike Howlett.
Photo by Eric Watson
So who’s your favourite producer that’s worked with OMD?
Mike Howlett, he really taught us how to refine our sound cos it was quite raw. The edginess was good but we needed tweaking to make us palatable to the masses.
Stephen Hague taught us how to arrange songs, we learnt so much about arrangement from him.
Tom Lord-Alge; we learnt so much from him.
Stephen Hague is one of my favourite producers but I often thought OMD worked with him too early. What I mean by that is he was only just starting out as a producer in his own right when he worked on ‘Crush’. It was almost like he was learning his craft working with OMD and then he had it sorted out when he worked with PET SHOP BOYS, ERASURE, JIMMY SOMMERVILLE and NEW ORDER. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt that?
We heard that Malcolm McLaren track ‘Madam Butterfly’ which he worked on and we just adored that. I don’t want to knock him because we did some really good things with him. But he fundamentally changed our sound at perhaps the wrong time. I think you’re right. It happened at a time when… it helped us in a way to break America cos that’s what we’d tried to do for years and Steve was instrumental in that. He refined our sound and in some ways made us less electronic.
Although the irony of course is he’s now best known for being an electropop producer…
Yeah, that’s right, it is the irony! He did make us less electronic which made us more palatable to America.
And then PET SHOP BOYS go and have an American No1 with ‘West End Girls’ produced by him and it’s quite electronic!!
I KNOW!! It’s weird!
You recently performed your first DJ set at HEAVEN 17’s aftershow party in Sheffield. How did it come about?
I think it might be my first and last!! *laughs*
It went really well actually, it was really good fun. It was Glenn Gregory’s idea. I know Glenn really well and see him socially from time to time. Claudia and Glenn have been best mates for years so Glenn said “how d’ya fancy DJ-ing?” cos I told him I was to going to come up to see the Penthouse and Pavement show anyway as Claudia was singing with them. And he said “whilst you’re up here, why don’t you DJ in the VIP room” and I was like “I’ve never DJ-ed in my life so forget it”! BUT, he announces it on the HEAVEN 17 website and I’m thinking “YOU ****!”*laughs*!!
So I’m doing it now! And I couldn’t get out of it. So do you want to know what I played?
Yes please…
ANDAIN Beautiful Things
KRAFTWERK Aero Dynamik [Hot Chip remix]
DEPECHE MODE vs BOOKA SHADE Enjoy The Silence In White Rooms
OMD vs LORRAINE I Feel Messages
SAM TAYLOR-WOOD & PET SHOP BOYS German Film Star [Gui Boratto remix]
GOLDFRAPP Strict Machine [Ewan Pearson remix]
ONETWO Home (Tonight) [MHC remix]
Was DJ-ing as difficult as you thought? Or was it quite easy, literally switching songs on and off?
I found a great piece of software so I cheated in a way cos this software is brilliant. You can play a song, bring in the next one and if you hit sync, it just locks it up! I just kept dropping things in and it’s got great effects on it as well to make fills etc. It’s kinda fun to do, I did enjoy it.
Which is your favourite synth, the one that you have the fondest memories of?
Synths have been my love so pretty much every synth I’ve owned has got something good about it. I have fond memories of the Korg Micro-Preset because that was our first synth we ever got and we got two really great albums out of that one synth. What’s great about it is that it’s really limited, so your options are really narrow. And sometimes that’s really good in songwriting because you can have synths with a billion sounds and you spend your day going “I wonder if there’s a better sound”.
You lose sight of what you’re doing. Whereas the limited synths are great because they may only have a few sounds so you end up concentrating on the part rather than the sound. With this synth we just bathed it in reverb because it sounds sh*t on its own.
I just re-bought the Roland Jupiter8 as a virtual synth. The original was a staple synth for OMD that got us through ‘Junk Culture’ and ‘Crush’. It was a brilliant synth and even though it’s quite complicated, I learnt how to programme it completely. So it’s one of those synths where if I think of a sound, I can programme it. There’s very few synths I can do that.
The Prophet5 is the other one where I can imagine a sound and build it myself. I can programme it inside out. Those two synths are still my favourites.
Photo by Brian Griffin
Is there a synth you actually never owned but wish you did?
I’ve never owned a Minimoog which is funny isn’t it? I got this Minimoog module here, it’s the guts of one but it’s not quite the same. It is a Moog, all the electronics are the same but it’s not the Moog with the keyboard. There was something really sexy about the Moog with the keyboard and the back tilted up.
What about a synth you bought and didn’t use because it sounded rubbish!
A Wasp! It looks fabulous but I could never get it to work in a song. It had this touch keyboard which was a bit annoying, not very pleasant to play really. I just never really liked it!
How do you feel about the concept of deluxe edition albums with extra packaging and tracks? Is it the best way to go to market to fans?
There’s pluses and minuses to this. I think you have to use some of these tricks to get people to buy CDs because I still believe in the CD format. It sounds a hell of a lot better than MP3 and people are buying the whole album. It’s good to do tricks with iTunes to make people buy the whole album. People are doing certain tracks now that you can only get if you buy the whole album. The one thing that iTunes is doing is killing the album. People are cherry picking based on a 30 second snippet.
Call me a traditionalist, I used to love buying an album and I’d put it on. I’ve always found when you listen to an album all the way through, the band selected these songs to take you on a journey. And you are belittling their vision by just cherry picking songs. I always found, even with people like David Bowie that sometimes I’d put an album on and you’d go “that song’s s***, I hate that song” but you just leave it on anyway. And by the third listen, it becomes your favourite song! It’s the obscure track on the album you wouldn’t cherry pick. And I think people are missing out on that experience.
So what are your favourite albums of all time?
Bugger me, that’s a tough one! I can definitely tell you some of my favourite albums:
KRAFTWERK ‘Radio-Activity’
DAVID BOWIE ‘Heroes’
BRIAN ENO ‘Before and After Science’
DAVID BOWIE ‘Low’
LA DÜSSELDORF ‘La Düsseldorf’
NEU! 75
ROXY MUSIC ‘Roxy Music’
JOY DIVISION ‘Closer’
TALK TALK ‘It’s My Life’
ARCADE FIRE ‘Funeral’
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to Paul Humphreys
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is due for release in 2010
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