Mojo - The Music Magazine

ANDY MCLUSKEY'S ORCHESTRAL Manoeuvres In The Dark were prominent amidst the first wave of British pop bands to adopt Kraftwerk's blueprint for the future of music. Their first single, Electricity, was written within days of McLuskey and partner Paul Humphries hearing Kraftwerk's Radioactivity (it was finally released in 1979), and their greatest albums - 1981's Architecture & Morality and 1983's Dazzle Ships - were sophisticated and conflicted meditations on man's relationship with technology. A song from the latter - Dazzle Ships (Parts II, III & VII) - graces this month's MOJO covermount CD, and McLuskey took time out from prepping the latest OMD tour to recount to Danny Eccleston his journey with Kraftwerk. How does he love them? Let him count the ways...

When did you first hear Kraftwerk?

I first heard Kraftwerk in 1975, I would have been just 16. I remember it so clearly; I was in the bathroom of our house. Like most teenagers I was in the process of inventing myself, or discovering myself. This was suddenly my personal revelation. It was so different, yet with a strong melody, attractive, great to listen to, and yet the absolute antithesis of clichéd Anglo-American rock'n'roll stereotypes that I'd already realised were not for me.

Then I went to see them at the Liverpool Empire and I remember that I sat in seat Q36, and I remember that because it was the first day of the rest of my life. It was the heyday of long-haired rockers with lead guitar solos and flared denims and these four guys came out with short hair, suits and ties; two of them playing what looked like tea trays with knitting needles. They had fluorescent boxes with their names on and they had projections behind them. It was so far removed from a rock'n'roll gig. So beautiful and so wonderful.

The theatre was a quarter full but I was completely entranced. From that moment on I knew that I wanted to do that... I started collecting German records from the import bin at Probe Records in Liverpool, and developed a symbiotic relationship with [future OMD spar] Paul Humphries, because I had the records and he had the stereo - I only had a crappy Dansette at my house. So I would go round to Paul's house, and we developed an obsession for this music.

Did this enthusiasm make you outsiders of sorts?

Oh yes. Our friends were into Genesis and The Enid. They were hippies and I suppose we were initially. Our friends thought the music that we were listening to, and what we later started playing, was an abomination. But to us, the '70s rock bands' use of synthesisers was just an additional colour on their palette. With Kraftwerk it was a whole new art form.

They didn't just bring new music, they also brought a new set of things to write about...

Oh yes. I'm sure it was Kraftwerk's influence behind OMD's penchant for writing love songs to inanimate objects: whether they were aeroplanes, telephone boxes, oil refineries... I remember many years later being invited to Wolfgang Flür's apartment and I happened to notice Wolfgang's gold record for Radioactivity, which had actually been a hit single in France. I said, "Oh Radioactivity, my favourite, favourite Kraftwerk song! You do know that OMD's Electricity was our version of Radioactivity, sped up? And Wolfgang and Karl Bartos said, "Oh yes, we knew that."

Kraftwerk conjured up a kind of retro-nostalgic utopia...

There was this melancholy romance, a kind of regret in there. Although I do think that being German they had a different take on it than us. However devastated Germany was after the war, I think their reconstruction was more successful than ours. The utopian vision of the future that evolved in the '50s and '60s must have rung more true in Germany than it did in Britain, certainly by the mid-'70s when this country appeared so run down. I think that in the early days, Kraftwerk's apparent utopianism was more sincere than they're given credit for.

But what's interesting is how Ralf has revised his stance on technology, even changing some of the words to the songs. The version of Radioactivity on The Mix (1991) goes, "Chernobyl, Harrisburgh, Sellafield, Hiroshima," to acknowledge the other edge of the sword. But I wish he'd go back to doing Radioactivity how it was. The irony is that in these days of global warming and carbon footprints, nuclear energy is being re-embraced as a necessary evil. We're back to where Ralf was in 1975.

After Trans-Europe Express Kraftwerk start to enter the pop mainstream, with a new wave of British bands going down the electronic route. What was that like to witness?

It was quite strange. We were surprised, as were a lot of bands, to discover that we were not alone. We'd all been developing on these separate islands, us in Liverpool, Human League in Sheffield, Daniel Miller doing Warm Leatherette. Some journalists got it - I remember a Sounds piece headlined One Day All Music Will Be Like This - but most of them shook their heads, saying "It's just not rock'n'roll." Well no, it wasn't rock'n'roll! That was the point! But for a lot of us it became a real burden, an albatross we were dragging around. Every interview became a justification of our chosen instrument.

What were the factors, do you think, in the rise of synth pop?

It appealed to, and was made by, people who were uninterested in rock'n'roll cliché. This was our art! We were going to change the world. We were terribly serious and precious. We were determined to use an electronic drum kit. We didn't want to use a real drum kit. But when out electronic drum kit broke down twice on the first proper tour, our drummer insisted he have his real drums or he was going to leave the band. But we wouldn't give him cymbals. We didn't use a crash cymbal until our third album. I didn't use the word "love" until our third album. All of this was an attempt to avoid the clichés. We dressed in white shirts and thin black ties not out of homage to Kraftwerk, but an attempt to be fashion-*less. We were quite miffed when our fans started turning up looking the same. It wasn't meant to be a fashion statement!

What's the best Kraftwerk album?

Autobahn was a wonderful soundscape and so cleverly done, but Kraftwerk at their best combine a very good idea, well executed with - and I don't think they get enough credit for this - their humanity. It's the juxtaposition of the humanity and the technology that creates the melancholy tension. Trans Europe Express is the apex, where the beauty and the machinery rings together - the perfect combination.

Kraftwerk are thought of as precise, but if you listen closely to Europe Endless you can hear that the drums are played by hand. They flam! And Ralf's singing has a fragility which imbues the music with this delicate humanity. It was also their first really witty record. Kraftwerk were called showroom dummies by a journalist, who was criticising their immobility on stage. But they took it on as a badge of honour. It was also in a funny way, quite prophetic. I like the idea that some of the New Romantic bands were showroom dummies: clothes horses aping their electronic heroes. The mention of David Bowie and Iggy Pop in the title track I've never been quite sure about. Did Ralf think they were cool, or did he not?

After TEE comes the gradual distillation of the theory; but the more Ralf distils the theory the more he loses the humanity which is the foil that created the beautiful, melancholy tension. A lot of the creativity now goes into the live show, which is this audio-visual extravaganza, especially now the second half of the show has gone 3D. But I forgive him for not putting out great new records for 25 years. He's like a scientist who has distilled the formula so far that he's left with nothing. Or maybe he's the scientist who's frightened to re-do the experiment just in case he finds out the answer he got 30 years ago was wrong.

What about Kraftwerk, '09 vintage?

I went to the Manchester Velodrome show feeling a bit frustrated with them - the Tour De France Soundtracks album was like someone with a sequencer pretending to be Kraftwerk. I'd heard something, too, that made me think that my heroes had feet of clay. Did you know that the melody of Tour De France was nicked? It's from a flute and piano piece by Hindemith.

But I loved the show. Absolutely loved it. [Legendary Joy Division/OMD/New Order sleeve designer] Peter Saville and I had exactly the same experience at the Velodrome - we both cried. I cried in Radioacvtivity, then I found myself playing air synth! I've been driving around to Europe Endless ever since.

Interview by Danny Eccleston