Andy McCluskey

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Andy McCluskey (born George Andrew McCluskey, on 24 June 1959, in Heswall, Cheshire, England) was the lead singer and primary songwriter for the band OMD. He met Paul Humphreys in school, and played with him in several bands, including Hitlerz Underpantz, VCL XI and The Id. McCluskey briefly joined Dalek I Love You as their lead singer, but left because he wanted to sing his own songs.

McCluskey teamed up with Humphreys again to form OMD in the late 1970's. They were extremely successful, especially in their native England where they had several hit singles. They are best known in the United States for their song If You Leave from the Pretty In Pink soundtrack album.

Humphreys and the rest of the band split with McCluskey in 1989, with McCluskey retaining the OMD name. He released three more albums under the band's moniker to diminishing sales. However Humphreys and McCluskey reformed OMD for a performance on German TV in June of 2005, with the promise of more gigs to follow.

[edit] Atomic Kitten and Gypsy Queen

In 1997, he founded the UK pop group Atomic Kitten. Their song Whole Again, co-written by McCluskey, was his first UK No.1, and he and his fellow songwriters were nominated for the Ivor Novello Award for excellence in songwriting. In 2002, the band sued to terminate the songwriting/production agreement between themselves and McCluskey.

More recently, McCluskey formed White Noise Record and publishing label where he tried to recreate the formula of Atomic Kitten with Liverpool girl group Gypsy Queen. Even though Gypsy Queen were featured in the Observer Music Monthly they are now more famous as being the band that World Cup "WAG" Abigail Clancy was in, before she became widely known in the UK tabloid press as girlfriend to Football player Peter Crouch