Speaker 1: Andy McCluskey is the lead singer and basis of the
Speaker 1: iconic group OMD and has given us the gifts of
Speaker 1: such tunes as Joan of Arc Electricity and Oligay, and
Speaker 1: of course the dopamine hit we are featuring today. If
Speaker 1: you lead in the magical Pretty in Pink, he's during
Speaker 1: Australia in fair But twenty twenty five and you can
Speaker 1: get you to get from Destroy All Lines dot com
Speaker 1: sounds like a synth to obside. Frankly, I'll see you there,
Speaker 1: Christy casters, please welcome and in mclusky from OMD.
Speaker 2: Hi Andy, Hello, nice to talk to you. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, it's such a thrill that you've agreed to
Speaker 3: be part.
Speaker 1: Of this little mini snacksy series called Dopamine Hits, where
Speaker 1: I talk about the songs that are on my playlist.
Speaker 1: At the minute they start, I get a rush of
Speaker 1: great feelings. And of course if you leave is one
Speaker 1: of then minute that drumbeat kicks I feel alive. Can
Speaker 1: you tell me how this song cameded out?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it was. It was a remarkable piece
Speaker 2: of storyline. Actually, we were specifically asked by John Hughes
Speaker 2: to write a song for Pretty and Pink for the
Speaker 2: prom scene right at the end. He was very angliphile.
Speaker 2: He liked his English music. So we went down to
Speaker 2: Paramount Studios, we saw them filming it. They said exactly
Speaker 2: what they wanted. We went home and we wrote the song,
Speaker 2: and we came back to America with the song ready
Speaker 2: to mix, and he said, bit of a problem. Actually
Speaker 2: we've changed the end of the movie and your lyrics
Speaker 2: don't work. We wrote a song called Goddess of Love,
Speaker 2: actually criticy. He couldn't use it. He said, does your start?
Speaker 2: Does your tour start for another two days? If you've
Speaker 2: got time, can you write me another one today? We've
Speaker 2: just flown into La ready to mix. So we wrote
Speaker 2: if You Leave in one day in the studio, totally
Speaker 2: from scratch, and we got really lucky. We got really
Speaker 2: lucky with that one. But yeah, that was a really
Speaker 2: crazy story. We had to throw away the first song
Speaker 2: we wrote.
Speaker 1: Okay, I've got so many questions with that process. Did
Speaker 1: you view rushes of the film so far to get
Speaker 1: the buy?
Speaker 2: Not at all, No, because they were still filming it
Speaker 2: when we were writing the song. And the only thing
Speaker 2: that John said to us was it just has to
Speaker 2: be one twenty beats per minute because we filmed the
Speaker 2: people dancing at the prom to Don't You Forget About
Speaker 2: Me by Simple Minds, which was in the song the
Speaker 2: year before the Breakfast Club, So that is just same tempo.
Speaker 2: That's it. So of course when we did finally see
Speaker 2: the edit, we were invited to the premiere at the
Speaker 2: Man's Chinese the or on Hollywood Boulevard, red carpet treatment, everything.
Speaker 2: It was amazing and we waited him. We waited it up.
Speaker 2: It comes on the screen and we're like, okay, we
Speaker 2: did one twenty beats a minute. Who edited this movie?
Speaker 2: Because nobody's dancing on the fricking beat? So the only
Speaker 2: paravity we were given, didn't I love?
Speaker 3: I think this is interesting because I did read a
Speaker 3: little bit about Pretty in Pink and they had to
Speaker 3: change the ending.
Speaker 1: Initially, Molly Ringwolve's character, who I believe is called Andy
Speaker 1: as well, but with an Ie, ends up with Ducky,
Speaker 1: who's the kind of you know, nerdy, good guy, and
Speaker 1: the audiences didn't like that, so they changed it that
Speaker 1: she ended up with you know, the broody, moody, rich
Speaker 1: guy Blaine. Hence the misfit of Goddess of Love.
Speaker 2: I guess you're absolutely right. Yeah, this is it. The
Speaker 2: test audience, the teenage girl said no, no, Ducky's her friend.
Speaker 2: She should end up with the good looking guy. So
Speaker 2: they had to rework the ending. Yeah, exactly, that's exactly
Speaker 2: what happened.
Speaker 1: Wow. So when you're coming to Australia, how long has
Speaker 1: it been since you've been here? I've read ulternating stories
Speaker 1: it says one time, this is the first Australian tour.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure you've been here before.
Speaker 2: No, no, you were just a baby last time we
Speaker 2: were there. It was thirty eight years ago. Scary huh.
Speaker 1: Oh, you're very kind and very kind and wow, so
Speaker 1: this is going to be amazing.
Speaker 3: What is it like to be, you know, living your
Speaker 3: whole amazing.
Speaker 1: Life over on the other side of the world, and
Speaker 1: then you come to a place like Australia which feels
Speaker 1: so remote and far away, and yet we are all
Speaker 1: going to be there leaving in the audience knowing every
Speaker 1: single word to your tracks.
Speaker 2: This is the amazing thing is that obviously, yes, I
Speaker 2: grew up in England. We have toured Australia twice before.
Speaker 2: In the mid eighties. But yeah, we're going to come
Speaker 2: back having not played for thirty eight years. But we
Speaker 2: are blessed that so many of our songs are still
Speaker 2: played on the radio in Australia and as you say,
Speaker 2: the tracks like if you Leave in Inola Gay, everybody
Speaker 2: seems to know them and so it's these are great
Speaker 2: calling cards to have, you know, when you come visiting
Speaker 2: and you go, well, I've got this song and this
Speaker 2: song and this song and you know this one, people
Speaker 2: go come on in. So yeah, I mean we are
Speaker 2: so excited. It's been way too long, so we can't
Speaker 2: wait to come back next year.
Speaker 1: What's it like knowing that the skills that you have
Speaker 1: bring so much joy to millions of people still every day.
Speaker 2: Do you know what again, I'll use the word it's
Speaker 2: a blessing. You've got to remember here. Paul Humphries and
Speaker 2: I were a pair of working class kids from the
Speaker 2: wrong side of the River Mersey in Liverpool and we
Speaker 2: were doing a hobby. We were inspired by German music.
Speaker 2: It was just our hobby. We never thought we were
Speaker 2: ever going to make a living out of it, and
Speaker 2: then we just had a series of lucky things happened
Speaker 2: to us and the next thing, you know, after daring
Speaker 2: to do one gig with a stupid name like Orchestral
Speaker 2: Maneuvers in the dark, it was just a dare for
Speaker 2: one gig. Eighteen months later, we're having our first hit
Speaker 2: single and things just exploded. So it's it's amazing, But
Speaker 2: you know what, it wasn't everything we ever predicted or wanted.
Speaker 2: But when people come up to me and say, I'm
Speaker 2: sorry to bother you, but I just wanted to say
Speaker 2: that this song you wrote means something to me because
Speaker 2: you know it was my first song at my wedding
Speaker 2: or I played it at my father's funeral or something.
Speaker 2: You know, you just realized something I did that the
Speaker 2: last three and a half minutes is indelibly in people's lives.
Speaker 2: It doesn't change the world, but it made a difference,
Speaker 2: and it's an amazing feeling.
Speaker 1: It is truly extraordinary, isn't it. How do you choose
Speaker 1: where those dopamine hits go in the sett list?
Speaker 2: You have to spread them out, But because you don't,
Speaker 2: you don't want, you know, you got to. You gotta
Speaker 2: give drop a few hits in first and then take
Speaker 2: it on a journey. I mean, we are fortunate that
Speaker 2: we have quite a lot of hits, so it's not
Speaker 2: it's not like people are waiting for the hit or
Speaker 2: we're saving it for the encore, you know, So we
Speaker 2: will Yeah, you'll get you'll you'll you'll get some early
Speaker 2: ones and some middle ones, and all I'll say is
Speaker 2: my dancing still hasn't improved for the Maid of Orleans
Speaker 2: Joan of Arc So there will be a slow one
Speaker 2: immediate after that, but it'll still be a hit.
Speaker 3: Listen enough for that negative self talk.
Speaker 1: We live for that, Dad through a tea. Don't you
Speaker 1: worry about that now?
Speaker 3: Speaking of.
Speaker 1: Speaking of your the other member of the of the
Speaker 1: of the group, there is a third member called Winston.
Speaker 1: Who was he and is he coming on tour?
Speaker 2: There was a third member? No, No, Winston is where
Speaker 2: Paul Humphries and I should be behind glass in the
Speaker 2: Museum of Liverpool and for those who don't know, For
Speaker 2: those who don't know, Winston is a tape recorder. When
Speaker 2: we were teenagers and we wanted to play our music,
Speaker 2: our friends thought it was well not music they were
Speaker 2: into like Genesis and the Eagles, and they didn't get
Speaker 2: what we were into. So we had to be a
Speaker 2: band and the rest of the band was the tape
Speaker 2: recorder because nobody else wanted to play with us. We
Speaker 2: used to make a joke actually that if Lennon and
Speaker 2: McCartney had had a tape recorder in the sixties, then
Speaker 2: the other two wouldn't have been in the Beatles. So
Speaker 2: totally true.
Speaker 1: They've become obsolete, much like Winston himself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but but yeah, Winston is actually definitely is in
Speaker 2: a museum. He was great to begin with, but we'd
Speaker 2: rather play with real people now that they want to
Speaker 2: play with us.
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty six was such a massive year. It was,
Speaker 1: you know, that the year I became a teenager, thirteen
Speaker 1: years old. But there were some unbelievable albums released that year.
Speaker 1: Graceland licensed to ill Over in America of Unbasted Boys
Speaker 1: Peter Gabriels So, which is still one of the greatest
Speaker 1: albums of all time. Absolutely, I inhiled this music. Australia
Speaker 1: in the eighties, you know, without the Internet and without
Speaker 1: you know, any sort of global communications platform, we felt
Speaker 1: so far away and I've always said that, you know,
Speaker 1: if I could go back to any time, it would
Speaker 1: be eighties. In the UK. I you know, I spent
Speaker 1: all my pocket money on smash hits, you know, magazines
Speaker 1: and the import ones very expensive. What was it like
Speaker 1: to be amid that amazing cut and thrust of culture
Speaker 1: and music in Britain in the eighties.
Speaker 2: Of course, the crazy thing was that I can only
Speaker 2: look back now and go, oh wow. At the time,
Speaker 2: you were just doing it, you know, and very quickly
Speaker 2: our hobby became our job, and it became our normal.
Speaker 2: You know, I lived in a suitcase. I was traveling
Speaker 2: around the world. I was doing television and photographs of
Speaker 2: radio and concerts, and then back in the studio and boomber.
Speaker 2: It was just your feet never touched the ground. But
Speaker 2: that became your normal, and I didn't. I mean, I
Speaker 2: finally left home and because previously I was being on
Speaker 2: top of the pops and then going home to my
Speaker 2: little box room that was like six foot by seven
Speaker 2: foot the room I grew up in. The bed took
Speaker 2: up half the room. But give me, mother, here, can
Speaker 2: you do me washing? I've got to go to Berlin tomorrow.
Speaker 2: You know, It's just it, but that was my that
Speaker 2: was my normal. It was nuts.
Speaker 1: And what were the photo shoots like for smash Sheets magazine.
Speaker 2: Well, do you know, do you know, I'll tell you
Speaker 2: a funny story. Right, one day in nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 2: we were doing a photo shoot four Smash Shits photographer
Speaker 2: studio called Eric Watson. We were being interviewed by the
Speaker 2: guy who was the deputy editor of Smash Shits, who said,
Speaker 2: this is going to be my last interview because I've
Speaker 2: got a band and we're going to release a record
Speaker 2: next month. And we said, oh, good luck. What's the
Speaker 2: record called West End Girls? Neil Tennant Neil Kenny. Neil
Speaker 2: Tenner was interviewing us for Smash It in his last
Speaker 2: interview before he started the Pet Shop Boys. And then,
Speaker 2: just to make it even more surreal, I walked over
Speaker 2: to a light box that Eric had and I switched
Speaker 2: it on and went, oh, she's cute. Who's that? And
Speaker 2: he went, just some dancer from New York who thinks
Speaker 2: she can sing. Madonna just before she released her first
Speaker 2: single Donna. Yeah, So this was nineteen eighty four that
Speaker 2: this was what it was like. Neil Tenner was interviewing us.
Speaker 2: We were looking at some photographs by this girl who
Speaker 2: was called Madonna, who we never heard of, but it
Speaker 2: was just a blur. Every day was just another day like.
Speaker 1: That, unbelievable. God, I could talk to you forever.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for joining us, Andy McCluskey. If
Speaker 3: you want to go and see OMD, do not miss
Speaker 3: the meturing in February. It is going to be an
Speaker 3: absoluute vibe. Get you tickets from destroy alllines dot com.
Speaker 1: They kickoff in February in Perth and in the how
Speaker 1: do I ever? Thank you so much?
Speaker 2: Come to the gigs and say hello, well we cannot
Speaker 2: wait to play. It's basically we're bringing all the greatest
Speaker 2: sits down to Australia because we owe it to you
Speaker 2: because it's been way too long.
Speaker 1: I love that. And you know, always whenever I go
Speaker 1: to a show and the new stuff comes out, I
Speaker 1: call it the city break because that's where you go
Speaker 1: to get your hot dog and chips and you drink.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: You say, listen, you know the songs have been good
Speaker 2: to us. Don't mess around. Play them exactly how people
Speaker 2: remember them. Give them every song that was a hit,
Speaker 2: because that you know, we the songs have been good
Speaker 2: to us. We need to be good to the songs
Speaker 2: and treat the audience with respect. So come and see
Speaker 2: the gigs and we'll have a great party.
Speaker 1: Amen and the Fussy, thank you so much for joining me,
Speaker 1: and you go off to bed with a couple of
Speaker 1: haul it's in the channel.
Speaker 2: Thank you and I'll see you next year. Bye.