Erasure heads

Andy Bell tells LAUREN MURPHYhow band partner Vince Clarke saved him from the curse of Phil Spector – and why coke isn't it

You’re about to head to the studio to finish your new album – how’s it going?

It’s going really good so far. We’ve been writing over two years at this stage. Vince lives in Maine now, and he’s got all of his synthesisers there in one studio that he calls The Shed. It’s in the middle of pine trees, by the sea, so it’s very romantic and scenic. There’s loads and loads of bugs there, so when you walk from his house to the studio you have to run the gauntlet – especially those deer flies. They’re bastards! Apart from that it’s a great working environment. We did some writing there, some in New York, some in London, so we’ve been all over the place. We wrote about 20 songs, and now we’re working in the studio with Frankmusik this week.

You’ve been making music for more than 25 years. Is there anything you wish you’d done differently?

My one regret was probably doing so much cocaine in the mid-1990s. Because you’re sort of rewarding yourself with something, it kind of takes away the true meaning of what’s really going on. It blinds you. Erasure had a really good run for about 10 years, then we decided to make this experimental album called Erasure in 1995. I really love the album when I listen to it, but I wish I’d been present when we were making it.

What made you snap out of that phase?

Well, really it was when Paul, the guy I live with, had his stroke. I don’t want to get too heavy, but yeah, it was personal reasons.

You and Vince must have an intuitive relationship at this point, but there must have been some disagreements?

Not really. I think only one time – before I did Electric Blue, my first solo album – I was thinking of doing an album of Phil Spector cover versions. That album turned into Other People's Songs, because Vince asked if it could be an Erasure project instead. There were some songs on there I wouldn't personally have chosen, but at the same time I think he rescued me a bit, because then there was that big Phil Spector court case. So it was a bit of a blessing in disguise, ha ha.

You’ve kept your sound quite varied over the years. Union Street, for example, was an acoustic album

Well, I think Vince would be very happy to make synth albums the whole time, because that’s what he loves, and he can be quite experimental. Because Erasure was formed out of The Assembly and Yazoo, we did go very pop, and it’s sometimes quite hard to break out of those parameters. But I do like to do different things to keep it interesting and fresh. Vince is snowed under with the programming side of things, but I think he’s starting to realise how much physical work it is for me, too, with the whole performance aspect. I love being the monkey on the barrel, but it does wear you out.

How do you look after yourself?

Really just by going to the gym, and trying to cut down on my smoking, which I really hate. I stop every now and then, but it’s just one of those things.

You’re one of the few pop acts still innovating and not playing afternoon shows in Butlin’s. What’s the secret?

Apart from working with an innovator in Vince, I think it’s because I’ve been so upfront from the very beginning with my personal life, so we’ve never really had a battle with the press. There was a time we were on the television a lot, and now we’re hardly on at all – so in some ways, it made us a bit of a national treasure, a bit of a secret, and I think that makes people cherish us a bit. It’s not like a lot of these bands now, they’re schooled in how to do interviews – it’s all very safe. We’ve never been like that, and younger fans especially love that. It’s got a bit of that Lady Gaga aspect to it, where she sticks up for gay rights and stuff like that. We’ve always been champions of the underdog, and maybe that’s how people see us. Erasure have been in the system and been outside the system, and we quite like how it is now. And maybe that’s why it works.

Erasure play Dublin’s Olympia Theatre on Monday and Tuesday, and Live at the Marquee in Cork on Wednesday