May 30, 2006

For electro-pop aficionados who grew up with '80s and '90s dance-floor staples such as "Oh, l'Amour," "Sometimes" and "Victim of Love," the notion of Erasure doing a primarily acoustic, country-and-western flavored album must be at least a little confusing. The groundbreaking British duo -- instrumentalist Vince Clarke (founder of Depeche Mode and Yazoo) and singer Andy Bell -- has been cranking out indelible dance pop for two decades now, helping to invent the synthesizer-based music that has come to dominate international dancehalls and airwaves. Now comes "Union Street," an organic collection of old and new Erasure gems that makes prominent use of steel guitars, a string section and, perhaps most shockingly of all, a human drummer. For those who have followed Erasure's craft for the last 20 years, the sounds may be surprising, but the versatility of the material -- including dusty deep cuts such as "Boy," "Piano Song," "Stay with Me" and "Spiralling" -- is not. Clarke and Bell are currently on an intimate club tour to support the record; live sets include nine songs from "Union Street," as well as a rockabilly version of "Victim of Love," a bossa nova arrangement of "Love to Hate You," a ballad-ized "Oh, l'Amour" and "Ship of Fools" re-imagined as a Celtic hymn. Bell spoke to MSN by phone to discuss the album and the tour.

MSN Music: I guess the first question is fairly obvious, but what was the impulse behind making a record that sounds like this?

Andy Bell: We did some acoustic radio sessions when we were in the U.S. promoting [2003 release] "Other People's Songs" when we were on tour in America, and they went down really well. We thought it was a really nice vibe. We played a couple of acoustic shows at the Spy Bar in New York -- those were kinda short, half-hour shows -- and we just thought it would be a nice way of promoting some of our back catalog and songs from previous albums that we thought might have been missed by people, just really doing them in a different way. It's really nice for me being able to kind of express myself as a singer and have more room.

When you say more room, do you mean in the arrangements of the songs? It's striking how spare these versions are compared with the original electronic arrangements.

Yeah, and I'm really enjoying singing the songs live as well with the band, 'cause we've got quite a few additional musicians playing live with us onstage. I just really like being able to explore my vocal range and the interpretations of the songs rather than having to keep the whole thing up-tempo and dancing around and singing all at once, you know?

After 20 years, Erasure has obviously had a massive influence on dance pop, which has in turn become more and more popular. Do you feel that making this more organic sounding album is a reaction to the mainstreaming of the style you pioneered?

Well, I think in some ways. Doing "Other People's Songs" was the beginning of making the first steps towards this album, for me as a singer anyway. I've always felt much more akin to [the] kind of singers like Dusty Springfield and the Ronettes and Tom Jones, even Freddie Mercury is my -- I feel like I'm kind of competing with him, working toward being a performer of his stature, really. I think it's taken a long time for people to appreciate my singing. I think it's coming -- it's much more coming out of America -- the appreciation -- than it is here in the U.K., 'cause the U.K.'s much more about bands and people, who's hip and who's not. People are very current and very fashion-minded. I think the longevity that we have in the U.S., 'cause we played there so many times, it's just really stunned us, in a good way, that people seem to be listening more now.

It's always seemed to me that Erasure was more a songwriting duo than your typical dance-synth act. Your melodies have always been exceptionally, almost criminally, catchy. This record really puts that in the foreground. Are you doing the same thing with the live show?

In the past, we did some kind of our Erasure spectacular shows, and it was the all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza, you know? In some ways, your own personality gets drowned out by those things, so having the live band with us is kind of -- you just get to project yourself more in a raw way. It's kind of puts me closer to being a kind of Broadway singer -- one spotlight and an orchestra -- which is something that I like as well.

How do the more austere arrangements that you do onstage affect your physical presence?

I was quite surprised, because before the last tour, we did 60 shows in all, and I'd had a double-hip replacement, so I was kind of worried. And so after the last tour, I was promoting "Electric Blue," my solo record, so didn't really have that much time off for myself. I've kind of been concentrating on my personal life and really haven't gone to the gym or anything. But I've thought all this time, it's really about the songs; it's not about my physical appearance. We've done five shows so far, and I'm very surprised how quickly your body just tunes back to how it was, you know? My -- what do you call it? My metabolism seems to be quite fast.

That double-hip replacement must make your trademark high kicks a bit harder to execute.

No, no, it's fine. I mean, I'm not really into the high kicking at the moment. I'm more really just concentrating on the voice.

Can you see this version of the band keeping going and making more records like this? Even writing new material in this vein?

It's a one-off thing. The new record that we're gonna make is gonna be electronic pop again. But I think [the acoustic style] is something that we will re-do, 'cause it's just been such an enjoyable experience, and for Vince [Clarke, Erasure co-founder and co-songwriter] as well. He's really loving being on the guitar and being part of the band, you know, having other people to kind of banter with.

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