- Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), the electronic pop band behind hits like “Enola Gay,” have revealed they were permanently in debt despite their success.
- Keyboardist Paul Humphreys told The Times that money made at the height of their fame was funnelled “back into the band to keep it alive”, while OMD “kept having to take advances to make new records so we were always in debt”.
- OMD signed a seven-album deal with Dindisc, an imprint of Virgin Records.
- According to Humphreys, the band owed £1m to Virgin Records around the time they returned from a 1988 US tour with Depeche Mode. Co-founder Andy McCluskey described it as “soul-destroying”, adding: “We made a best-of album to clear the debt but by then we were exhausted”.
- Humphreys, who left the band in 1989 due to burnout, reunited with McCluskey in 2009, and the band remains active, releasing their latest album in 2023 and currently touring.
IN FULL
Electronic duo OMD sold millions of records but ‘we were skint’
