Erasure • Features • Private Ear
Erasure Interview
When the EIS visited, Vince and Andy were working on a new track, provisionally entitled "Tears Before Bedtime". The following interview was conducted to get quotes for use on local radio to promote the 'Tiny Tour'.
What are your first memories of being on stage?
Andy: I remember being in the choir in the Junior School, I was quite good at singing the high notes. I had a couple of solos but I couldn't look at the audience so I just looked at the clock at the back of the school hall and fiddied with my shorts. I was SO eager I always used to come in before everybody else and then run out of breath before the end of the line. 'Once In Royal David's City', that was the song.
Vince: I was in the Christmas Carol Bonanza at Infant School and I remember the elastic on my halo was too tight. I started crying and they pulled me off the stage. That was my first memory.
Andy: It's a common complaint isn't it?
Vince: Yeah, your halo doesn't fit!
What were your first ever professional petformances?
Vince: When I was with Depeche Mode, we did a gig in Victoria, for some children's charity. So the first show was for kids, and all the money that they'd raised from it went to the charity. Then in the evening was the adults' version where the money went to the bands. [Laughs] We had £50 between us and we couldn't believe we had so much money! We gave our old roadie a fiver. We thought that was fantastic.
Andy: I remember playing one time in this duo in a West Indian dominoes club in Southall. They asked us to turn the sound down, so they could hear the telly. They thought I was like Boy George 'cause I had sparkly trousers on.
Vince, what do you remember about Yazoo's concerts?
Vince: I remember the first tour because it was quite elaborate - we had all these screens that we back-projected a slide show onto. On one of the songs, 'In My Room', there was this animated light bulb that was supposed to smash. The synth wouid play this smashing glass sound, and Alison would get the micstand and go as if to hit the projection of the light bulb and it would smash - but invariably in every show, every time she went to hit it, the bulb would smash five seconds afterwards! [Laughs] That was quite funny.
What about your first gig as erasure?
Andy: I remember one gig in Bristol, it was at another dominoes hall, wasn't it? Andy Franks was looking after us then and it was a club that his friends worked at. It was a really good gig. We were talking about doing that again, weren't we?
Vince: Yeah. Mostly it was just our friends that went so that was why we got a good reception!
Are there any of the other really early gigs you remember?
Andy: Only with people not showing up, like at Sheffield. Having 80 people or maybe less in a 200 or 500-capacity hall.
You then went on to tour colleges and Universities...
Vince: The Universities were quite good, firstly because they paid quite good money, but also because we were kind of winning peopie over. A lot of the students went along because they were there for the cheap booze and not necessarily to see the band.
Andy: People just got drunk, mostly. They could've booed us off the stage but they didn't.
Vince: Because they were so drunk. Not 'cause they liked us" [Laughter]
The early gigs were very simple - two backing singers and no set. Do you look back at that fondly?
Andy: I don't know how we got away with it really! We were hoping we could do something similar this time, not too elaborate. I was thinking that I should move around more, because it seemed like the bigger the set got, the less work I had to do on stage. I'm looking in trepidation at the next tour because I'm getting on a bit and you have to keep on jumping around to keep peopie excited!
Andy, you then adopted a rubber leotard as part of your costume. Were you choosing costumes to create controversy?
Andy: We didn't have any costume people or anything then, and so I would be tearing around Kensington Market two days before the tour, not having anything. I was thinking, "Oh, what can I have? What's convenient? What don't I have to wash?" and saw the rubber leotards in there and I thought, "Oh, they'd be ideal!" You just have to rinse them out afterwards, powder them and hang 'em up. They didn't really take much maintenance at all - all you needed was a puncture repair kit!
How did you feel about Andy's costume, Vince?
Vince: The rubberstuff? Well, the thing is, all the outfits happened really gradually. It wasn't like one day Andy was in jeans and a t-shirt and the next day he was wearing a dress. It was all subtle. He started off with the stockings, then all the other bits of costume crept in, so I didn't really notice it that much I quite enjoyed it... I guess.
Andy: But Vince did think I was colour-blind. [Laughs]
Vince: Yeah, you're terrible. Well, you are! Combinations!
After "The Circus" tour you toured America with Duran Duran. How was it being a support band?
Andy: I thought it was quite a good exercise for us. I mean, the audience is never there for you, so it's really difficult to get any kind of response from people when you're supporting. Especially with the Duran tour, because they were very popular then and they had a huge teenybop audience in America and the very fact that we weren't Duran Duran and not good looking was against us. But people still seemed to enjoy the music.
Your next tour was for "The Innocents" album...
Vince: "The Innocents" tour was the next big step up for us. We were playing bigger venues, so we had to have a more elaborate set. What was "The Innocents" tour?
Andy: The dresses got bigger. The costumes got bigger for the singers, It was like, because the stages were bigger, we had to have bigger things to fill the stage up more, otherwise we'd have looked like little specks. I think "The Innocents" was one of the first ones that got majorly filmed. It was at the NEC, with Emma and Val and the big heart dresses, wasn't it?
I remember when it was filmed, there was this riser at the back where we could go up and down the stairs, and all the fences and barrier were made out of papier mache material so you couldn't lean on them. So that was the beginning of those kind of unreal sets that weren't really solid or anything, you know.
For the "Wild!" tour you had a much more elaborate set and were playing arenas. How did you feel about that tour?
Vince: I remember the set. They spent a lot of time and attention on the set because we had all these flowers and all sorts that moved, didn't we? But that's all remember about it.
Andy: That was the "Supernature" one with all the little risers with semicircles, with those signs in them lit underneath. You had your big drum thing.
Vince: Oh, that drum thing, yeah.
Andy: Space drums.
Vince: We just got more and more ridiculous, really, didn't we?
Andy: The big places are pretty weird places to play because your voice doesn't seem to go anywhere. Because they are so huge your voice just seems to go out and float in the middle of the audience and you don't really feel like you're talking to people. It makes you ridiculous, playing those places, because you feel you have to scream and shout.
You went to South America and you were being greeted like Michael Jackson-style superstars. How do you feel about that sort of adulation?
Vince: It was totally weird. What was a shame, though, was the fact that we did quite an elaborate tour before that and then when we went to South America money was so short we couldn't bring any of the set, and so we ended up with a bunch of balloons, I think, and a stage.
Andy: Yeah, a packet of balloons!
Vince: And so most of the time we just felt guilty. It was a shame, because we played these really big places as well. Lots of people came along. Last time we went to Argentina, it was the same, with people waiting at the airport for us. It's quite unnerving, actually.
Andy: I think it's very Latin, though, that mass-hysteria. We were just lucky there because the record company we were signed to had a monopoly on the TV and radio. [Laughs] I don't know whether they still do.
After that tour you played outdoors in 1990 at Milton Keynes Bowl, the largest gig you've played in this country. Did you enjoy the show?
Vince: I didn't, as I remember, because we'd been on tour for a long, long time and some of the gear that I was using went wrong. My roadie disappeared strangely shortly after the gig so I couldn't thrash him for not turning one of my keyboards on! It was a funny day, actually.
Andy: It's almost as if that gig has never happened, really, because we were completely punch-drunk from the tour. There was all so much going on with teams of people running around and we weren't there for the whole day so we hadn't really got into the vibe of the festival or whatever it was. We just came on at the end. It was almost like doing a PA.
What was the concept behind your most recent tour, 'The Phantasmagorical Entertainment'?
Andy: It was just everything, that one.
Vince: That was the concept!
Andy: Anything that we could think of! [Laughs] All the pantomimes you've ever seen and all the musical movies all thrown into one. It was very chaotic, that one. Organised chaos. We went a bit a haywire.
Vince: It made us go a bit mad!
Who thought up the ideas for the costumes and sets?
Andy: We had a huge team of people helping us - we have some of the same people this time. That really was a circus. We just started the ball rolling and it all went out of control, really.
Did you enjoy it?
Vince: Some!
Andy: I think it's really important after something like that to remember who you are and that it's about the music and it's about the fans and not about being pompous and making a spectacle.
On that tour, Vince, you actually started taking part in some of the dance routines. What prompted that?
Vince: He did! They asked me if I wanted to do one of the dance routines and I said, "No," and then they said, "Go on, it'll be alright", so I did. I did feel very awkward doing it, even at the end. I didn't feel good about it particularly. It was funny, but it's just not me, you know, So I won't be doing any dance routines on the next tour.
What happened to the costumes and the set after the tour?
Andy: We've got parts of the set scattered about over the country. All the costumes are in about twenty cardboard boxes at home, filling up two bedrooms.
Vince: My Mae West costume is with a theatre group that my cousin belongs to, so that's quite good. And my tank is in my garden.
You didn't tour with the "I Say I Say I Say" or "Erasure" albums. Why was that?
Andy: That was because we had to exorcise the chaos of the last tour and calm down a lot. I think we feel prepared again now.
Vince: It kind of lost its excitement, you know. Especially because we were playing these multiple nights on the last tour, it did feel a bit like a job. There wasn't any excitement in it, for us, at the end.
Andy: I think we really concentrated a lot on the music for the last three albums and the music became really intricate and I think the idea of having to program all that stuff again was just too heavy.
So then you did a short series of acoustic concerts. What was the thinking behind that?
Vince: Well, that was the idea of the people who represent us in America. Our publicist suggested that we play this acoustic gig in New York, just for an invited audience, which we did. We hired this club, invited a few people along, and got another guitarist in. It was just a nice thing to do. I was quite surprised and really enjoyed it so we decided to do a few more in the UK.
Andy: Yeah, it's lovely to sing to the acoustic versions. It's a bit strange not having the beats behind you.
Are there any plans to do anything like that on the forthcoming tour?
Vince: We may do some acoustic numbers in this show, possibly. We're still deciding on the set but I think we could try a few guitar songs.
Andy, what do you think about when you're on stage?
Andy: Usually I don't think about anything at all. Most of the time I get stumped - it's kind of like trying to keep half a conversation going. You realise how boring you are. I think what happened with the last show was, because we were doing so many multipie nights in places, I started forgetting about the fans a little bit. I remember when I was watching the video, I thought, "Oh! There's Robyn and there's Morag," and all the other people. I was kind of taking it for granted that they would be there, singing all the words and dancing, and I thought, "My God!", you know, "Don't forget that!"
Do either of you have a particular favourite song to perform?
Andy: I like songs that you can kind of act out a little bit on stage, like "Hideaway". "Home" works really well live.
Vince: Yeah, "Home" was a good one on the last tour. "A Little Respect" is good as well.
Are there any that get a particularly good audience reaction?
Vince: Well, more people know the words to the singles but having said that, though, it's quite good when you do really old stuff - the front row know all the words.
Andy: Always "Sometimes". I thought it might be quite a good idea this time to do it first! Like just come on stage and go "Woah!" Then it'd be downhill from then on, wouldn't it?!
Vince, you're often portrayed as looking miserable on stage. Do you actually enjoy playing live?
Andy: Do you actually enjoy being miserable?!
Vince: I was just born with a miserable face, it's not my fault! Underneath it all I'm smiling. I do quite enjoy it. I just get embarrassed, sometimes, that's all. Especially if I have to do anything, like walk along or something.
Andy: Walk along! [Both laugh]
Vince: Well, I feel very self-conscious.
It's not a calculated image to have the quiet one and the loud one?
Vince: No, it just turned out that way. He's just got louder and louder.
Andy: It's not true though, is it?
Vince, do you use backing tapes for the sound?
Vince: You know I don't use backing tapes for the sound! Why are you asking that question?
This is for the radio!
Vince: No, I don't use backing tapes. I use live sequencers. I use the same equipment I use in the studio to reproduce the music on stage.
Andy: And I don't use tapes!
Vince: Don't you?
Andy: No!
We want to know how rock and roll you are on tour...
Vince: Oh we are!
Andy: Yeah. Don't mention it. It's awful. It's terrible. I think anybody is.
Vince: Yeah, the worst thing is because you've got people working for you, you do tend to abuse your position.
Andy: Getting your socks washed and things like that.
Vince: Yeah, getting your laundry done.
Andy: One time when we were in America, we were going out and it was one of those crabby nights where you start taking it out on the room service. I remember I'd asked them to clean up my tray and they hadn't cleaned it, it was just left outside the door for ages. So I phoned them up and said, "Oh my God! I just looked out of my room and there's this woman crawling on her hands and knees eating off my tray!" and then scattered a few of the chips down the corridor. And the guy says, "Oh my God! We'll send up security straight away!" Just things like that.
How do you think the audience feels after an Erasure concert?
Andy: Maybe it's like going to a football match, you get really hot and sweaty and everything. I think that's the best part, when you're going out dripping and all calmed down, feeling that you've expended loads of energy. It's usually quite a party atmosphere, like a really good night out.
Do you get a different audience reaction when you play abroad?
Vince: It depends where you're playing. I mean, when we played in Norway for the first time... Was that on the last tour?
Andy: Finland. Was it Finland?
Vince: Finland, that's right. And we'd never played there before, and so, as we hadn't been selling that many records, we didn't get such a good reaction. It all depends on how high your profile is at the time.
Andy: It was quite strange because it was like a gymnasium where we played and we came out and everybody was sitting down in their seats and clapping politely. Then a few little groups started standing up and I think by the end...
Vince: They'd all sat down again! [Laughs]
Andy: No, they stood up and clapped.
Vince: I thought they'd all walked out!
Andy: But the further up North you go, the calmer the audience. Apart from in the UK.
Vince, do you ever have any problems with the keyboards?
Vince: All the time, yeah. But not as many problems as we had in the early days. We used to get power cuts and all sorts when we first started. I mean, the first London date we played at Heaven, in Charing Cross. That was really embarrassing. That was supposed to be our London debut. We had a power cut and spent twenty minutes just running about trying to fix things
Andy: You could see right through my costume, apparently.
Vince: When?
Andy: At Heaven.
Vince: Could you? Yeah. that was quite good, that costume I liked that one. It was a sort of net curtain affair, wasn't it?
What have you been doing since the "Erasure" album was released?
Vince: Writing. Writing and recording. Went to Ireland for a while to do some writing. Andy's been in Spain, singing.
Andy: Went to Hamburg...
Vince: Went to Hamburg for a while, to do some writing and drinking. Just the usual things, really.
Andy: Did some promotion...
Vince: Yeah. It's only been a year since the last album, hasn't it? I mean, we've recorded an album every year for the last three years, almost, so we've been pretty busy just doing that.
Andy: It's nearly one a year, isn't it? Over the whole time.
Vince: Not like The Beatles,though. Used to do one every 2 weeks!
Vince, after the last tour, you were quoted as saying, "I'll never tour again." What changed your mind?
Vince: I don't know, I don't know!
Andy: Older and wiser?
Vince: No, actually, what really changed my mind was when we were in Canada last, and we did some promotion there and we did this radio programme in a shop front. And we were doing this interview and there were these six or seven kids there...
Andy: What, outside, you mean?
Vince: No, they were inside, lined up in chairs and they were just listening to the interview, you know, it was live on the radio. And the woman interviewer said, "When are you touring next?" and I just looked round at all these kids and they were all going like this [Cranes neck as if looking up for an answer], and I thought, "Oh well, best get on tour. Best do it." Then we did the acoustic gigs and they worked out quite well, so I thought, "Well, it's not so bad."
So on this tour you'll be playing fairly small venues round the country. Is there a reason for this?
Vince: We can't sell any more tickets, that's why! [Laughter]
Andy: Yep. We can't afford the sets... [Laughter]
It gives you a better chance to relate to the fans, as well?
Vince: Oh yeah, there's that as wel1. The thing is, we haven't toured for three years, so you've got to test the water first. People might not want to come along, which is fair enough! We'll just see how this tour goes.
Andy: I think it's better for us as well to go back smaller anyway
Vince: I think that the Agent's tried to pick venues right round the country, so we're playing places that we've not played for years. I mean, last tour we just played the main kind of city centres, you know, Manchester, London and Glasgow.
Andy: No, it was Edinburgh - that's why we're playing Glasgow this time. And a lot of the places are quite a nostalgia trip, like Leicester.
What are your plans for the tour?
Andy: It's a bit early days, as we're just kind of getting the set list together. We'll be playing stuff from the last two albums that haven't been played before, not electronically, so that's quite exciting. And we're just picking ourfavourite singles and so hopefully it'll be quite energetic and dancey.
Vince: And do a couple of songs from the new album as well, which'll be the first time we've done that for ages, played songs that've not been released yet.
Andy: And it won't be too OTT.
So do you have any ideas about backing singers?
Andy: We thought we'd have three singers and two dancers. Oh no, three singers who can dance. Or who can walk! We'll just have to see how it goes, really.
How long does it take to put a tour together?
Vince: This one'll be quite quick. I've got a guy that's helping me to program all the songs up this time round - he started about six weeks ago and he's about 90% of the way through now. But we haven't really done the staging or stuff yet, have we?
Andy: No. The last tour took six months and this one's going to take six weeks.
Vince: Yeah. Slap it together! [Laughter]
You said you were working with some of the crew from the last tour...
Vince:Some of the same crew and some of the same creative people. We're working with Dean, our costume man, and who else?
Andy: Les, our 'placement' person. And back to Andy Whittle, for the sound.
Vince: And Mike Hall for moaning. [Laughs] And the same tour manager, Super-Mans.
Do you think your support band have a difficult job 'warming up' for you?
Andy: I don't think I'd like to do it!
Vince: On the first Yazoo tour, because we were so cheap and everything, instead of having a support band, we had an alternative comedian supporting us. He got £50 a night and he died every single night of the tour. He died after ten minutes. I mean, I didn't understand his jokes. It was really, really embarrassing. And he'd come off stage and you'd say, "Oh it was quite good tonight" - and people were booing and everything. [Sniggering] It was terrible!
Do you have a favourite place in Britain to play?
Vince: I like Scotland. We always have a good laugh there, you know, it has a bit of an edge.
Andy: I'm glad we're going back to Giasgow. I mean, the last time we played the Barrowlands it was really rough and there were people spitting on us and stuff , but that's not because they don't iike you.
Vince: What, it's because they like you? Is that why they do it?
Andy: Yep, it's because they like you.
Vince: Oh, that's what it isl
Andy: Northern Ireland is a bit of a similar vibe. We went to Glasgow on the acoustic thing, didn't we? That was a bit of a disaster - not the gig, but the organisation, because the Post Office were on strike (surprise, surprise!) and so people didn't get to hear about it. But we had a really good time there, so it'll be good to go back. And Manchester's always one of our favourite places.
You've played something like 150 gigs in the UK. Which were the most memorable?
Vince: I have quite fond memories of when we played the "Crackers International" thing. That TV special. That was Birmingham, wasn't it? That was quite good. And we had that percussion player with us as well. That was pretty cool. I think it was because things were sort of looking quite positive for us at the time, weren't they? [Laughter]
Andy: We were on the crest of a wave and didn't even realise ill
What about touring abroad?
Vince: The very first Paris gig was good.
Andy: At the Rex club, downstairs.
Vince: People quite liked us in France then - and then it just went downhill! [Both laugh]
Andy: Sweden's always good, because of the whole Abba connection.
Will you be doing Abba songs on this tour, then?
Andy: We can't live it down, can we? Maybe one.
Is there any cover version that you haven't done that you'd really like to do?
Vince: He'd do cover versions all night, if it was his choice!
Andy: Or karaoke!
Vince: May as well do karaoke!
Andy: I'd love to do one of the Ronettes' tunes, like 'Baby I Love You', or something like that, a Phil Spector song, I think that'd be quite good. And 'The Crystal Chandeliers' by Charlie Bride [?], the only black Country & Western singer.
You've recently both been involved with a film, 'Good Vibrations'. Andy, how did your acting part in that come about?
Andy: Well, we have this friend, called Jill Creter, who used to be a PA to Seymour Stein, the guy that signed Vince and erasure for Sire in America. Then she left to work on the 'Red Hot & Blue' project that we got involved with, and we got to know her throug hthat. She moved to LA because she wanted to get involved in the film industry and she kind of put the whole thing together. I think it was a bit of a bribe to get Vince to do the music - and it worked! It's oniy thirty seconds on screen, anyway.
Vince: He acts very well, though. Very convincing.
Is there anything else you would like to add to this interview?
Vince: There was this white horse and he goes into a bar and he says to the barman, "I'll have a pint of bitter, please," and the barman says, "There's a whisky up there named alter you."
He says, "What, Eric?"
Thank you Vince and Andy.
[Note for overseas readers' White Horse is a type of whiskey]