Who We Are: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
We're OMD: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, an electronic band from Meols, Merseyside, on the Wirral. Here is the short version of how it started.
Who started OMD?
Andy McCluskey (vocals, bass) and Paul Humphreys (keyboards, vocals) have been friends since primary school in Meols. Before OMD they played together in VCL XI and the Id, and in 1978 they started OMD as a duo.
Where does the name come from?
From a bedroom wall. Andy kept a list of lyrics and ideas on his wall, and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark came from it. We picked it so nobody would take us for a punk band, and because we expected to play one gig, the name didn't seem to matter much.
What happened after that first gig?
Eric's, then Factory. That first gig was at Eric's in Liverpool in October 1978. Our first single, "Electricity", came out in 1979 on Factory Records in Manchester. Then we moved to the DinDisc label for "Messages" in 1980, and our first two albums, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Organisation, both came out that year.
Who is in OMD today?
Four of us. Andy and Paul, with Martin Cooper on keyboards and saxophone and Stuart Kershaw on drums since 2015. Malcolm Holmes was our drummer from 1980 to 1989 and again from 2006 to 2015.
What does OMD sound like?
Electronic, synth-pop, new wave and experimental, with Kraftwerk among our influences. Wikipedia puts our sales at 40 million records worldwide.
Where do the designs come in?
Our merch takes the same ideas: the OMD wordmark, a grid of our album covers, bold primary-colour shapes and colourful folk-art designs, on tees, long sleeves, crewnecks and hoodies.