![]() ![]() That’s how I play to this day, and I’m still playing the same bass I’ve had since 1979 - a 1974 Fender Jazz. And now that I play a right-handed bass, I have to cut the nut above the head and turn it over so that the strings are upside-down. All I knew when I was 16 was I was right-handed, so I turned it upside-down and learned with the strings upside-down so that the E string is at the bottom for me. I learned left-handed bass that’s correct. Mettler: And you play your bass upside-down without restringing it, right? I thought, “Right, Gary wants it to sound like our early stuff.” And back then, we usually had me playing bass guitar. To be asked to do exactly the opposite was quite a challenge. And we’ve been trying to avoid “pastiching” ourselves we’re always trying to go forward. Mike Mettler: Tell me what Gary Barlow wanted you to do musically for “Thrill Me.”Īndy McCluskey: Gary was very specific in what he said: “I’d like you to actually consciously try to write in the style of and with the sounds of something from the early 1980s.” That was interesting - and it was quite a challenge, really, because OMD, and many of the artists who are on the record, have quite distinctive sounds and styles. McCluskey, 56, at left in the above photo, called from across The Pond to discuss the genesis of “Thrill Me,” why electronic music continues to thrive and how they get modern/retro synth sounds, and wrestling with the concept of streaming. OMD helped usher in the electronic age, right from the initial crackling impact of their first single in 1979, “Electricity,” to the Top 5 success of “If You Leave,” a pivotal song from the popular 1986 John Hughes/Molly Ringwald coming-of-age movie, Pretty in Pink.Īfter an initial feel-out meeting in London, Barlow and McCluskey co-wrote “Thrill Me,” the song that was also turned into a cool video featuring many of the artists on Fly. “It’s all become a bit too easy the last few years with computers being at the heart of our studios, so I think many of these artists were excited to revisit those old skills that seemed forgotten.”Īmong those up for the challenge were Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys of OMD, a.k.a. “We all got very romantic talking about getting the old hardware synth sounds,” Barlow reports. Barlow personally recruited many ’80s heavy hitters for the Fly project including Howard Jones, Paul Young, Nik Kershaw, ABC, Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and Midge Ure of Ultravox. To date, Barlow, 45, has penned 14 Number 1 singles and 24 Top 10 hits, and he’s also sold over 50 million records worldwide as both a solo artist and a member of Take That. Helming the project was Gary Barlow, one of Britain’s biggest songwriters and a longtime Vaughn collaborator and confidant. It’s an intriguing concept: Get a number of recordings artists who made their initial impact in the 1980s to record new music in the style of that decade for Fly: Songs Inspired by the Film Eddie the Eagle (UMC), an album to accompany a movie directed by Matthew Vaughn ( X-Men: First Class, Kingsman: The Secret Service) and starring Hugh Jackman and Taron Egerton about the titular, underdog British ski-jumper who gave his all at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. ![]()
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