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Your
new single's selling pretty well. You must be happy with that.
Yeah
I am, especially after the last one, I thought that would be it
now. You know how people's patience is so short these days.
Do
you keep an eye on the charts? Is that still how you rate success?
A
little bit. It's very nice, you know. I thought it was going to
be about number 47 or something like that. I imagine you'd have
to sell about three copies to get it into number 47. I suppose I
do really to be honest. I kind of think, well, Erasure's done its
thing really and now it's time for someone else to do something.
You'd think I'd be over it by now, a 38 year old man, but to be
honest, no!
How
do you think you've kept going? What's the secret of your longevity?
There's
no secret really. I think me and Vince are pretty down to earth
and we really like making music. I particularly like playing live
and travelling around. I don't think we've been hyped ever, like
beyond our means. I don't know, I think it's just our approach.
What
was the idea behind your album of cover versions?
Well
it was kind of something I promised myself I would do for a long
time. It was going to be my first solo album. It was going to be
album of Phil Spector songs because I was thinking "What would Dusty
Springfield be doing?" I wanted to do something like that and also
to be known as a singer, not just Erasure, the group.
Then
Vince became involved. He thought it was a really good idea and
said "Let's make it the Erasure project". So we did. He's very good
at getting things finished quickly and is very organised. Otherwise
I think I still might have been doing it. It might only just have
been finished by now!
How
difficult was it to get it down to 12 songs?
It
wasn't that difficult really. There were loads of quite bizarre
song choices. Gareth (Jones - producer) had some of his suggestions
as well. One was Black Dog by Led Zeppelin, When I'm Sixty Four
by the Beatles and also Over the Rainbow which we'd done live. Vince
had Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush. One of my suggestions was
Love Of My Life by Queen. So it's a really varied selection of songs.
We just chose the ones that we all agreed on.
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| Andy
Bell |
Let's
talk about your stage show for this tour. Is it as flamboyant as
we've come to expect from Erasure over the years?
It's
not so much flamboyant. It think it's much lower key than it has
been. I dress up in an Edwardian costume to kind of start the show
off with. Basically, it's a striptease and I come down to leather
undies with a leather corset and leather pants and high leather
boots….the usual thing really!
What's
the most bizarre thing you've worn on stage over the years?
That's
probably the most bizarre thing because there's a hoop on underneath
to hold the skirt out and it does look very scary. It's a bit Hannibal
Lecter with no face masks. I've worn some pretty stupid things,
like I've worn some Marlene Dietrich type outfits with the bum that
goes up at the back so you can see all the knickerbockers through
it. I think the worst thing was a big yellow, fluffy big bird coat.
It was supposed to be a big long fluffy coat but it looked like
big bird!!
Are
you looking forward to the whole process of touring again?
Yeah,
it's great. We're kind of half way through already because we did
the UK and then I had to postpone the last three shows because I
had bronchitis so I completely lost my voice. We've just come back
two weeks ago from a month in America and that was brilliant. That
was really, really good fun apart from the war. There was no escape
from it on the TV anywhere but the gigs were fantastic. It was really
great and I just felt like my voice had become really strong. So
I'm looking forward to it again. I'm just off to Spain on Sunday
and I'll be doing my exercises while I'm there!
What
made you move to Spain?
Well,
my boyfriend's from California so it's kind of a bit of California
countryside but closer to home. It just takes a couple of hours
to get there. I don't know, it's just very laid back, nobody knows
who we are really. We've just got our friends there who are kind
of outside Erasure and everything. It's just very nice.
Is
it difficult to keep Erasure going when you and Vince live in different
countries?
No,
not at all. Vince is in New York now so I'm really looking forward
to going there in July. I think they're talking about putting a
Best Of Erasure album out again in September and we're doing an
acoustic album to go along with it.
Do
you see yourselves as pioneers because the elecro-synth sound is
still very much around?
Not
myself, Vince definitely. There were bands that were around before
him that he would call his pioneers, especially the Human League.
He's a folk hero to loads of people, Vince is.
How
did you get together?
We
got together through an ad in the Melody Maker.
Who
put the ad in?
Vince
put the ad in. I was kind of in a duo already with another guy who
was a bass player. We did kind of similar stuff. We were just listening
to what was in the charts and copying it, like Soft Cell and Eurythmics.
And then I met Vince.
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