Career
An Ivor Novello Award-nominated songwriter, he wrote or co-wrote multiple international hits, including: "Enola Gay", "Joan of Arc", "Maid of Orleans", "If You Leave" and "Sailing on the Seven Seas" foreign And "Right Now", "See Ya", "Whole Again" and "Cradle" for Atomic Kitten. In live performances, McCluskey often plays bass guitar (with strings inverted) and occasionally, keyboard instruments and guitar.
He continues performing with to the present day.
McCluskey met Paul Humphreys at Great Meols Primary School, in Elwyn Road, and played with him in several bands, including Hitlerz Underpantz, VCL XI and the Idaho (U.S.) McCluskey then attended Calday Grange Grammar School in West Kirby.
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 in 1978.
Humphreys and the rest of the band split with McCluskey in 1989, with McCluskey retaining the name.
He disbanded the group in 1996. A decade later, in 2006, McCluskey reunited with Humphreys and the other former members for a successful reformation of the band. In the interim, he founded popular group Atomic Kitten.
In 1998, McCluskey founded the United Kingdom popular group Atomic Kitten and co-wrote several of their hit singles.
More recently, McCluskey formed White Noise Records and publishing label where he tried to recreate the formula of Atomic Kitten with Liverpool girl group, the Genie Queen. He also bought a recording studio, the Motor Museum, in Liverpool.
McCluskey and Humphreys reformed for a performance on German television in June 2005, with the promise of more gigs to follow. 2007 saw the first tour of the reformed, including Martin Cooper and Malcolm Holmes, commemorating the twenty-sixth anniversary of the release of their seminal album Architecture & Morality.
The album itself was remastered and re-released to coincide.
The band released a Civil Defense and Digital Video Disc of their triumphant Hammersmith Apollo (London) live gig from the 2007 reunion tour in the spring of 2008 before undertaking a short tour to celebrate thirty years as a band in the autumn of 2008, concluding at London"s historic Roundhouse venue on 7 October 2008. A compilation of their singles and videos, Messages: Greatest Hits, was released to coincide with the tour. On 20 September 2010 Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark released their 11th studio album History of Modern, their first in 14 years.
McCluskey is right-handed, but originally learned to play bass guitar on a left-handed model.
As a result, he plays with the strings "upside down" (ie, with the lowest-pitched string on the bottom and the highest-pitched one on top), counter to normal practice.