Andy McCluskey of influential group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark on returning to Kent, embracing tech and being labelled an icon…

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Hailed as pioneers of electronic music, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark will make a triumphant return to Kent in July with an outdoor gig at Dreamland Margate’s Scenic Stage.

Formed in 1978 by Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys, the band became key figures in the emergence of synth-pop and arguably kicked down the doors for electronic music to enter the mainstream.

Having sold 25 million singles and 15 million albums worldwide, and appeared on Top of The Pops an incredible 29 times with hits including Enola Gay, Souvenir, Joan of Arc, Locomotion and If You Leave, OMD, as they are known, paved the way for so many of today’s acts. We got in touch with Andy to find out more.

You’re coming back to Kent as part of your summer tour - have you played Dreamland before?

We’ve not played Dreamland before, so I’m looking forward to it. But we played the Winter Gardens many years ago and also played at Canterbury Cricket Ground with A-ha and Tom Bailey (Thompson Twins), actually, who’s with us again in July.

What does being on the road look like for you now?

I try to have more days off. I mean, as a singer, I would like to do one gig and then a day off, and then one gig, but the trouble is, every time you have a day off, you’re losing money because you’re still renting things and everybody’s getting paid. But the voice is still pretty good at my age. I will be 67 by the time we get to Margate! This summer gig list is nuts!

So you’re looking forward to summer and the festival feel!

It’s a totally different vibe playing outside to indoors - it’s even more of a party feel than indoors - and we usually have a lot of fun on stage.

At Dreamland, it’s a great line-up. It is like a festival because, as well as having Andrew Cushin, who’s a great young artist, we’ve got our friends Tom Bailey, who’s got a hatful of hits, and Hooky [Peter Hook & The Light]. I saw them in Athens last year when I was on holiday and I just said ‘Right, I want you to play with us this summer. Come on, mate, we haven’t played together for years’. So, we’re looking forward to it.

Do you have somewhere that you tour to, that is like a second home?

The best gigs on a British tour were always Glasgow and Liverpool, but these days I don’t know, everywhere… maybe we’re just more consistent. It’s better touring these days because everything’s digital and we’ve got in-ear monitors - the sound is so much better now, you know, you can really hear yourself and everything sounds the same every day, so I find touring a lot more enjoyable and reliable now. Back in the analogue days, things broke down a lot more.

With electronic music being so prominent now, do you ever think about the fact you pioneered something that is still booming?

Well, when we started out, we were trying to sound like the future, but with actually a bunch of second-hand junk and a synthesizer bought from my mother’s mail-order catalogue. But very quickly what was our crazy hobby did turn into something that was suddenly the next big thing around the world - British synth pop. Because we were one of the first, we were kind of riding the crest of the wave. To begin with, there were really only ourselves and The Human League, and then Gary Newman kicked the doors wide open with two number ones.

If you’re considered to be influential or important, or even iconic in your genre, and fortunately people say these nice words about us these days, you’re allowed to go on stage and people will come and see you.

Is it weird to be labelled ‘iconic’?

Yes, considering we only invented the band and its crazy name for a one-off gig as a dare, and here we are stuck with the crazy name and each other. Back in the 70s, Paul came to my school when he was seven and when we were 16 we started writing our own music - our mates at the time were all into, like, Genesis and the Eagles, they were just saying ‘What you do is not music, what is that you’re doing?’. And then, of course, when we get a record deal, two of them want to join the band! It was a very strange time, we never expected that this would make a record, let alone still be doing it nearly 50 years later.

Do you still have a fondness for the genre today?

I’m always listening out for new music. But I’m very picky, to be honest. One of the reasons we started writing our own music was because we didn’t like much of the other stuff that was around in the 70s. There are new artists that I really enjoy - we toured a lot a couple of years ago with a fantastic young Scottish band called Walt Disco, they’re quite eclectic and they’re fabulous. Also we’re delighted to have Andrew Cushin with us in Margate because he’s a great young songwriter and I think he’s going places.

Do you still write and record using old methods?

Paul and I both write using Pro Tools, so an ultra-modern sequencing and audio system, and the thing is he lives in the south of France and I’m still up on Merseyside. We have identical systems, so I can send him the whole song and he just puts it up and it comes up with all the edits and all the plugins and everything. The technology now is incredible!

Do you keep an eye on things like Spotify - you’ve got 3.5 million monthly listeners!

Well… there’s a musician joke that inside the right-hand pocket of your jeans, there’s a really tiny pocket, that’s for your Spotify royalties. The only time I ever pay attention to how many songs are getting streamed is when we go to a country we haven’t played for a while. We research which of our tracks people are listening to in this country, because listening habits can be quite different, and you go, oh right, that one should be back in the set for Spain.

OMD play the Scenic Stage at Dreamland Margate, Saturday 25th, July 2026.

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