Erasure • Features • Interviews
Andy Bell (2006)
The new album Union Street is released next month, with its mix of classic Erasure songs re-interpreted in an acoustic / country and western style. What was the desire behind recording a country and western style album?
It was one of those ideas which we just bandied around. Before we did Other People's Songs, I was thinking about doing a similar kind of thing but with country and western songs, which is something that I would still like to do sometime.
So when we were promoting Other People's Songs we did some acoustic sessions in America for the radio, and we did a one off gig in New York. It went down so well, it such a different vibe, with a different way of singing and much more laid back and not flailing around and doing the can-can and stuff so it's better for me!
So Vince came upon with this idea of doing versions of our own songs, but in that style. But also it's for promoting our back catalogue from albums that didn't do so well, just to show our songs in a new light, and to make people realise that we are still here and still writing stuff, and it doesn't matter how the songs are recorded as long as you have a song in the first place.
What influenced the choice of songs?
Well it was quite easy - when we were doing the acoustic sessions in America, we did versions of the Buddy Holly song and Oh L'Amour, and they came out so well - Oh L'Amour sounded really beautiful. But we didn't want to pick all singles, as we thought that would be too obvious to do that, so we choice tracks that we thought we really good stand out tracks from the albums that weren't necessarily singles, that would work more in that kind of acoustic way. It would be quite good to do them with an orchestra as well - but that's a bit expensive!
Did you and Vince find it easy to agree on the selection of songs?
Well Vince mainly chose the list of songs, and sent them to me, and I just suggested some of the other ones, such as Tenderest Moments and maybe Love Affair from Cowboy. And also there was another b-side, Dreamlight State, but I don't think that it would have stood up enough on its own.
Do you have a favourite song on the album?
I really love Boy, and I like Rock Me Gently as I've always loved that song. But I think that they work really nicely some of them. The only one that we won't be doing live is Blues Away, as it's too high! (laughs).
The co-producer for Union Street was Steve Walsh, who also worked on Nightbird. How did this relationship come about?
Well he was found, I don't know who found him! He was found as part of the acoustic sessions that we did in America and he had all of these musician friends, as he's in about four different bands himself, and we saw his own band when we were in New York who are really good, who are called Red Time I think, and his wife is in the band, and is really good at doing vocal arrangements, Jill. I had met a few of the musicians, but a lot of it has been done before I got there, but they were really cool.
I don't know if it's going to be the same musicians live, but they should be quite fun!
Could you tell me a little about the song 'Boy'?
I can't really remember what state of mind we were in when we wrote it, it's one of those songs that reminds me of coming home when you've had a night on the tiles, and having to explain to your lover where you've been and who you've been with. It's one of those last chance songs really, now you've had your taste of freedom, don't come crying to me if it all goes pair shaped. It's made up, but still quite sensitive.
Could you tell me a little about the song 'Rock Me Gently'?
Rock Me Gently - I love the original version of the song, and I love what Jill did with the vocals, I'm in there as well - it was quite a Celtic treatment. But I think the song stands on it's own, there is not so much of the gospel choir in there and I'm not sure how the choir is going to be done live, whether it is going to be a recording of them.
That song is a bit of the same as Boy, where it's a bit of a "up all night song" and just wondering what was all that for, was it worth it going through all that just for a little bit of pleasure you know.
It's certainly a fan favourite.
Yeah - I love it, it's was a shame that it wasn't released in the UK, it was on the Czech single, but I love the single and all the remixes.
Could you tell me a little about the song 'Alien'?
Alien... It's a bit of a surreal nonsense song I think. It was in a similar vein to Rock Me Gently, the vibe just comes from, the main line comes from one of Paul's ex-boyfriends, a guy called Raymond who passed away, who had a tattoo on this arm which said "Loves Young Dream", so that was there that line came from.
So it was really about that you never know where love is going to come from, in what guise it is going to be in. And I just thought it goes in lovely with Mad As We Are from Loveboat. And it just goes from being solo, on your own and just trying to tune into the radio rather than being on Gaydar or something! Like that search for extra terrestrial intelligence, SETI, but like doing it on the radio and thinking of all those little twiddles going out!
One thing that I love about your songs being on the radio is that they are just going out into outer space and that someone might pick them up! I think we are the perfect candidates me and Vince you know!
Also coming up is an acoustic tour. Erasure has done brief live acoustic performances before, however this is the first all acoustic tour. How has preparing for this tour differed from previous tours?
I'm not really working that hard, I'm just going to take it as it comes, as I think the whole thing is quite laid back. We haven't started rehearsals yet, I'm going to be meeting up with Val rehearsing this side and the other singer is working with the band in Nashville and they're going to meet up with Vince and they're all coming over. So we'll all be rehearsing together for about four days, but we all know the songs inside out anyway, so it's really just getting my voice back in shape.
I'm not going to go to the gym, well I might go for about a week or something, but it's not like before. Really just enjoy the songs and I'm quite looking forward to some of the Erasure songs that aren't on the album done in an acoustic way, especially like A Little Respect and Blue Savannah and those sorts of songs.
You are going to be joined on stage with a number of other musicians, how does that make you feel?
Don't know - it depends on how cute they are! I'm sure there won't be a lot of posturing or anything like that. Steve's great and so is his wife, so if the musicians are anything to go by, by them, it should be really good fun.
Whenever Erasure play live anyway, by the end of the tour there's a great family vibe so having all those musicians with us should be fine.
I'm looking forward to having the pressure taken off me anyway, it will be nice to throw the ball backwards and forwards a little bit you know!
What ideas are being planned for the tour, such as costumes or sets?
None! There are no ideas! It's all totally off the cuff and out the suitcase, that's it!
I guess that means that the audience can concentrate more on the songs rather than the stage and costumes.
I hope so. I hope they're not going to be shouting "Get Your Kit Of!" and all that sort of thing, as that's not what it is going to be like.
What's next for Erasure? There has been talk of a b-sides album, nursery rhyme albums, a dance album... What's the status on these?
Well I don't know if the B-sides thing is still going to come out, the nursery rhymes is half done, so we thought we might do it in tandem with a new Erasure album, which Vince has already sent me ten tracks already of the music and I've written about six melodies for him, not complete ones. And there is one track in particular which we're really excited about it.
But I would quite like to take it easy and take care over it. I know Vince is really excited 'cause he wants to make it the best album that we've ever done, especially after having the acoustic one.
And he's taken some inspiration from how I worked with the guys from the solo record, 'cause we've always written from scratch. I'm not saying we won't do that this time, I'm sure we will with half of them. The music tracks he's sent me are really good. We were thinking of doing a whole dance record, which might seem a bit old fashioned now, I'm really looking forward to it and it's going to be very pop.