THE PUNISHMENT OF LUXURY IS THE THIRTEENTH STUDIO ALBUM FROM ELECTRO-PIONEERS ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK, AND THEIR THIRD SINCE A 2006 REFORMATION…
Written, recorded, produced and mixed by Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys, it sees the two-piece combine the wistful nostalgia and idealised romance of their previous work with the spirit of stepping out of the comfort zone. THE PUNISHMENT OF LUXURY contains the Kraftwerk-influenced ISOTYPE to the blue-eyed soul of ONE MORE TIME alongside the more traditional OMD sound of KISS KISS KISS BANG BANG BANG. In this new interview Paul Humphreys talks about the album…

WHAT COMPELLED YOU TO GET BACK INTO THE STUDIO FOR THE PUNISHMENT OF LUXURY?
We had lots of ideas. We’re actually loving being in OMD again. I think we love being in OMD more now than we ever did. In the beginning we were very young and nervous, everything was so new, we didn’t quite know what we were doing… Now we know how to craft a record, we know exactly how it should be. We’re not multi-millionaires but we don’t have to worry about money any more, so we do it for the love of it really. Andy and I are closer than we ever were, which is quite strange really, as we’ve known each other since we were seven years old…

THE EVOLUTION OF THE ALBUM… HOW DID YOU GET STARTED, AND DID IT GO IN THE DIRECTION YOU ORIGINALLY INTENDED?
When Andy and I got back together in 2006, we were just sort of dipping our toes in the water to see if there was any interest in OMD. We’d essentially stopped for 10 years. So we put about nine shows on sale in the UK to see if there was any interest, and they sold out in minutes so we ended up doing about 69 shows… and all of a sudden we were back doing OMD again. That went on for a couple of years and we did quite a few tours and it was great to play all these old songs again. But then we thought “What are we doing here? Are we going to be a pastiche of our former selves, trading on our former glories, or do we have something new to say?”… So we dared to go back into the studio together. We thought “Well, let’s just get used to writing together again”, and we brought in a lot of ideas we’d had for a number of years and we made the HISTORY OF MODERN album out of that. It was very well received and there were some good songs on it – but we thought we could do better. Then we did ENGLISH ELECTRIC, which was written in a short period of time and was written with a real direction, and a chosen palette of sounds in the same way an artist would choose their colours. We chose a very specific palette and style for that album. With ENGLISH ELECTRIC we almost went all the way back to our roots. I think we’d kind of lost sight of our roots in the Eighties. So, THE PUNISHMENT OF LUXURY was taking it a little bit further, and I think we’ve come full circle. The great thing about being in OMD now is that we’re masters of our own destiny. There are no commercial pressures. Nothing is really expected of us any more.

SO YOU HAVE MORE FREEDOM, NOW. IS IT YOURSELVES OR THE FANS YOU LIKE TO PLEASE, THOUGH?
Initially when we started the band it was about pleasing us, doing something that really interested us and expressing ourselves. ARCHITECTURE AND MORALITY sold millions and millions of copies. Then we did DAZZLE SHIPS, which was a commercial disaster. We loved making it – we had something very specific to say on that album. The bands who cites us as an influence, they always cite that particular album. We got scared. We were twenty four year old guys, we had mortgages, we had staff to pay. But DAZZLE SHIPS was too far removed from ARCHITECTURE AND MORALITY for a lot of our audience. We were terrified of being dropped by the label and as the ’80s progressed from there, we got further and further away from our roots. We’d become songwriting craftsmen. We knew how to craft a good tune with a good beat – and so we did LOCOMOTION and tracks like that. They got us back on track commercially so that we could still exist as a band. There were also financial pressures – because we’d signed a really crap deal we couldn’t get out of. There was pressure to tour – but ticket prices weren’t very much back then. We’d regularly lose money on a tour but make it up with the records. Now, of course, it’s the other way round. By the end of the ’80s, we’d sold millions of records but still owed Virgin a million pounds. In those days that was a LOT of money. We were chasing our tails, and that’s one of the reasons why the band broke up… But, getting back to the music, there was pressure to break America. To do that there was pressure to work with producers who would modify our sound to be palatable out there. We completely lost sight of who we were and what we were trying to do, really. We made some good records in that period – but we definitely lost sight of our roots. There are some lovely songs on PACIFIC AGE, for instance. But if you put that next to the first album we did, it could actually be two different bands.

IN THE EARLY YEARS YOU WERE INSPIRED BY KRAFTWERK…
When we first started out we wanted to be Kraftwerk. All our friends were into The Eagles or Genesis – the rockers and the poppers of the time – and we were looking for something completely different. We heard AUTOBAHN on the radio and we were like “Wow! This is the future of music!” – it was like the first day of the rest of our lives. We’ve always liked very little – which sounds a bit weird or perhaps arrogant. When we started out I could count on the fingers of one hand what we liked, and we thought everything else was shit. We liked Kraftwerk, David Bowie, Brian Eno, Neu, La Dusseldorf… That’s kind of it. You could add Talking Heads, I suppose. I think the fact we liked very little made us want to make our own music and the fact we weren’t lovers of lots of different genres meant it didn’t pollute our music, really…

IN TURN YOU’VE INSPIRED THE XX AND THE KILLERS… BUT WHO INSPIRES YOU NOW? WHO DO YOU LOOK AT AND THINK “WE REALLY LOVE THE MUSIC THEY’RE MAKING”…
I don’t think there’s one specific band. It’s one of the blessings of Spotify in that you can find all kinds of interesting things. I do have friends are always sending me links to interesting bands that they’ll think I will like. An interesting artist we did get into if you want me to name one who has influenced us now I would say Atom™ is a German artist and he did there’s an interesting electronic movement called glitch, and it’s making music out of sounds you’d usually discard, like clicks and pops and buzzes and suchlike. It’s great with modern technology and bring them into a computer and make a rhythm out of it, so it’s this very dysfunctional sound which appeals to us. DAZZLE SHIPS was dysfunctional in its own way, but Atom™ for us led the glitch movement because so much glitch is a really good idea, but do I want to listen to it all day, probably not – but I like the concept! Atom™ was one of the first artists who made it listenable, it was dysfunctional in a good way and we brought those ideas into THE PUNISHMENT OF LUXURY there’s a song called AS WE OPEN SO WE CLOSE, and this is our version of glitch. It’s an incredible dysfunctional start, then this beautiful song emerges and then it goes out in an incredibly dysfunctional way.

TO ME THAT IS CLASSIC OMD. WHEN YOU THINK OF GENETIC ENGINEERING OR TESLA GIRLS, SAY, THEY’RE ODD SONGS… BEAUTIFUL AND MELODIC BUT FRACTURED…
That’s the one thing (no matter what style we’ve chosen to do) it’s always been important to us to do is to have something that draws you back into the song. It’s all very well having radical ideas and experiments but it’s a tune that makes you return to want to listen to it. Unfortunately, Andy and I have a knack of writing good tunes! It’s served us well over the years.

THE ORCHESTRAL CONCERTS YOU DID ADDED A WHOLE NEW DIMENSION TO THE MUSIC. THEY MUST HAVE BEEN VERY SATISFYING TO DO…
When Andy and I decided we were going to do OMD again, and do it properly, one of the mantras that we laid out was to do things that we’d never done before. So anything that we see as a challenge, we have to do. The first thing we did when we got back together was a German TV show. We kept getting offered this show called NIGHT OF THE PROMS, where pop bands do orchestral versions of their hits. We kept being offered it for years and we said “No, it doesn’t sound very good”. Then the guy who runs it flew us in to see a show being put together, and we thought “Wow, this actually works”. So we agreed to do that, and it was just so amazing to walk onstage – there are already 120 amazing musicians on stage – just playing MAID OF ORLEANS. I got to play the lead line and this whole orchestra kicks in behind and I could feel the power of them. That was a total thrill. We did a whole concert with the Liverpool Philharmonic. We did a two-hour show. Totally deconstructed our songs to be played by a full orchestra. One of the most interesting things about that whole project was that we thought of our songs as being sound-specific, but when we took them apart and rebuilt them with an orchestra they still worked – but in a different way. That was a really good experiment for us.

YOU TALKED BRIEFLY ABOUT TECHNOLOGY. WHEN YOU STARTED OMD YOU BUILT MANY OF YOUR OWN MACHINES… HOW IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH TODAY’S DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY? IT’S NOT AS ‘HANDS ON’, SO DOES IT MAKE THE COMPOSING OF THE MUSIC A BIT LAZIER?
It can do, but I think if we’d have had these tools when we were kids we would have embraced them immediately. New digital technologies are really fantastic – it’s down to how you use them. You have endless possibilities and so some people do get very, very lazy. The sounds that are available on the virtual synths now with ProTools and Logic, you can do a great sounding track that’s completely void of any emotion or idea, devoid of any kind of heart and soul, but it still sounds palatable because of all the tricks you can do. So you have to be very careful with it. Andy and I call it the tyranny of choice – all of these synths you have, there are thousands and thousands – you can just get lost in what’s available. We’ll sit down together and do a drum track, and I’ll ask him “How many bass drums have you got?” and he’ll say “I’ve got two thousand in my library” and I’ll have two-and-a-half thousand myself – so we could literally spend three days choosing the kicks… but then you completely lose sight of what you’re trying to do. So, because of this ‘tyranny of choice’, we really narrow our possibilities and create a palette. We define beforehand how we want to sound, in a very rough way. Obviously when you find things you try them out. But, particularly for the last two albums, we had a very defined focus and direction, so we could only have a palette of sounds that worked with that direction. In that way, it was again like going back to the early days. I used to make all the shit we used to play, and some mostly didn’t work, but sometimes they did and they were our noise machines. We had a bass guitar, an organ and a piano and one crappy little synth, on which each preset sounded worse than the one before! We used to process it through all kinds of delays and boxes and reverbs and stuff, to make it sound half-decent. Those were the kind of choices we had We had to make a song out of those few things that we had and we had to try to make them as interesting as we could. Now we have to remember our roots and say we started out with nothing and now we’ve got everything. Let’s limit our possibilities in order to focus on what’s really important… which is the writing of the song.

DO TV TALENT SHOWS HAVE A PLACE IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY? OR DO MUSICIANS, SINGERS, ACTUALLY NEED THE LEARNING CURVE YOU EXPERIENCED?
It depends what you want really. Those talent shows are a route to becoming famous. There’s a drive in people now, with social media, and everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame. But it’s not really about the music… Those kind of talent shows are really only about creating celebrities. It’s more like a karaoke competition, really, let’s face it… I’d be more interested in a talent show for bands or singers and songwriters where they have a week to write a song and then have to perform it on the TV. That would be creative – and I don’t see anything creative in this at all. It’s seems all kind of corporate now, and Simon Cowell will almost decide who has won because he’s already signed them and he’s got writers working on the album. It’s almost like a big con really… As you can tell I’m not a big fan!

TOURING… WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES THAT PRESENTS NOW? LET’S BE HONEST, NONE OF US ARE GETTING ANY YOUNGER…
Travelling does get to you. In the early days there were tours where we’d just leave home and not come back for six months – sometimes longer. When you’re young and in your twenties and full of enthusiasm and don’t have any kids, that’s fine. Martin, Andy and Stuart all have kids who they want to come home to, so they can’t really say “Bye darling! See you in six months”, because we’d come back and the rest of the family will have moved! So we have to kind of work it out so we can return. It’s not like a crazy, crazy, schedule.

THE LATEST TOUR IS SPLIT BETWEEN THE UK AND THE US. ARE THERE DIFFERENCES?
It’s hard to say. One thing we have noticed in America is the fact that in the Eighties we did the lead song for the movie PRETTY IN PINK. It’s become a cult classic and transcended generations that movie. So IF YOU LEAVE, our song from it, still gets hammered to death on the radio. People say “Oh, I love that song… Who did it?”… So we have a lot of younger people come and see us in America. Fans of bands like The Killers and The xx, who’ve cited us as an influence, are coming to check out the people who influenced their favourite band. Maybe that’s how it works?

THERE’S A LOT OF OMD CONCERT FOOTAGE ON YOUTUBE. YOU’VE PLAYED SOME VERY INTIMATE GIGS, AND YOU’VE ALSO PACKED OUT SOME ENORMOUS VENUES… WHICH DO YOU ACTUALLY PREFER?
They both have their value. There’s something really great about walking out on a stage and hearing fifty thousand people roar. That’s a great feeling. But I think, ultimately, our roots are in clubs. We started out in Eric’s in Liverpool and there’s something really nice about just seeing the faces. Also, I’m older and I’m a bit blind so I walk out on the stage at a big gig and it’s a bit of a blur. Because of that they’re generic people – I can definitely hear them but I can’t see them. In a club it’s so intimate – and there’s something really lovely about that. It’s a really close connection. Sometimes the first row in a big show can be so far away they’re like dots, and that leads to a bit of a disconnect with the people. You can’t really interact with them. But, really, there’s something to be said for both types of show.

OMD HAVE NEVER PLAYED GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL… 
I’ve no idea why we’ve never played Glastonbury, to be honest. I keep asking my agent and he says “We’ll get there”… but it’s, like, “When?”… I’m not getting any younger! We’ve played most of the big ones. We played Coachella a couple of years ago, which is like the biggest American festival, out in the desert, and that was fun. We do like them. We’re actually a good festival band. There weren’t as many festivals back in the Eighties – so when we started back up again it took a lot of convincing for promoters to book us because they didn’t think what we’d be like in that festival situation. We’re not a rock band but we can modify our show to be a really upbeat, rocking, kicking, show… So we’ve been building ourselves up on the festival circuit. When we first got back together, we were just on the bill but now we’re headlining. We’re doing something right!

Interview by SH
Order THE PUNISHMENT OF LUXURY here