If you want a song singing, do it yourself
WHEN in doubt, knock out a cover version. That’s often the rule for bands or singers who’ve lost their way or for talent show wannabes hoping to cash in quick.
So when electropop veterans Erasure re-emerged earlier this year with a whole album of cover versions of songs originally done by Elvis, Buddy Holly and The Three Degrees, they got a lot of flak.
Though over their career - which is longer than you think - they’ve sold bucketloads both here and in America, their last two releases hadn’t set the charts on fire. Harking back to a previous success, the Abbaesque EP which kick-started the Swedish supergroup’s revival, some saw Other People’s Songs as a lazy option from a band who’d run out of ideas. After all, does the world really need yet another version of You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling, no matter how heartfelt?
Seems, though, that wasn’t really the plan. The record was originally meant to be Andy Bell’s solo project, aimed at establishing his own identity. Bell was working as a butcher in a supermarket store, as the Human League might have sung, when Vince Clarke, a successful veteran of Yazoo and Depeche Mode, hired him. Though they’ve been together for 17 years, the perception that it’s the latter’s band still hangs around slightly. After trying a few karaoke sessions in his local pub - self-promotion on the side, he calls it - Bell decided to get serious.
"There were a few things I wanted to do for myself," says Bell. "One was to do a country and western album because I love country music. For some reason it was always a big thing in Peterborough, I love Jim Reeves and Charley Pride, all these old fashioned people.
"The rest of it was to do some kind of torch type songs, because people don’t really know me for my voice. I suppose it’s a bit of an ego thing. I love Elvis, Buddy Holly - my mum’s and dad’s favourite singers. Then Dusty Springfield, she’s not here anymore, and Freddie Mercury, he’s gone, so I wanted to kind of bring some of that back," he explains.
But life, as they say, has a way of making other plans. Bell’s partner Paul had a stroke two years ago, falling into a coma as a result, he says, of years of cocaine which had become a large part of their lives. They’d been together for 18 years - a golden wedding on the gay scene, some might say.
"He’s fine now but he lost his voice and had a tube feeding him for months," says Bell, matter-of-factly. "It just made me realise how much I loved him. I was questioning it a little bit before it. When you’re doing drugs all the time, you take each other for granted, you don’t focus on it. It was like a frying pan to the face, making me think ‘do you love this guy or what? Yes!’ It’s brilliant now."
After helping nurse Paul for a while, Bell re-thought his own life and scaled down the partying. "I just can’t do it anymore. I’m 39 and you can’t, for your health. It’s nicer being in and not going out so much. We stay in and watch TV. But I’m fine," he says happily. When he sings the ballad Goodnight (with the lyrics "I hope that if you dream, you dream of me") in concert, it’s dedicated to Paul, he adds.
Meanwhile, though, the solo album was not getting anywhere. Bell had recorded a couple of tracks but couldn’t find the right musicians to work with. Perhaps his mind was elsewhere, or maybe he wasn’t used to working alone. Then Clarke, who’d been writing soundtrack music with Martyn Ware from fellow synthpop outfit Heaven 17, came to visit him at his home in Spain. He made a few suggestions and the record turned into an Erasure project which the duo did most of the recording and production work on themselves.
There’s something sweet about him helping out. "Yeah, it was really sweet!" says Bell instantly. "Vince always seems to rescue me. I was actually going to do an album just of Phil Spector songs. Can you imagine how that would have looked when he got arrested? I’m glad he talked me out of that."
Clarke came up with some of his own favourite songs, from a more recent period: Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill (their comeback single), Steve Harley’s Come Up And See Me and Buggles’ Video Killed The Radio Star were among his choices.
"The songs that Andy chose are records his parents listened to when he was a kid, crooner songs. The songs I chose are ones that I listened to as a teenager, so that was kind of the theme," says Clarke, who is much more jolly and talkative than his taciturn image suggests (of that, he says: "I look serious but actually I’m smiling inside. I think it’s because the first record I ever bought was by Sparks and I thought I’d like to be like Ron Mael but without the moustache").
However, his helping out must have changed the dynamics of making the record completely. Clarke has a reputation for being a perfectionist and it sounds like Bell’s half-formed ideas got squeezed out.
"I do get those pangs, I must admit," says the singer. "Sometimes . . . when we did the last B-side for Solsbury Hill, we got all the music together and were doing a remix and I’m saying ‘try this, try this’ and he wouldn’t try it. Just wouldn’t. But he said afterwards, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t let go’. When I first started off with him he would tell me exactly what to sing, what key, what notes. Have I got more say now . . . I should hope so." But Bell did have some limits. "I wanted to do Black Dog by Led Zepplin, but Andy wouldn’t have it," mourns Clarke. Despite their differences, the pair seem to be genuine friends: "We don’t do rows", says Bell.
"We have not argued in 17 years. Not many couples can say that," agrees Clarke. "I think we’re not too precious about our ideas. If someone comes up with an idea and the other doesn’t like it, we don’t mind."
One other thing they agree on is that their stage shows should be glamorous affairs. Last time they played the Playhouse they had bingo in the interval; this time, there’s a period theme. There is crinoline involved.
"It’s still costumes and dresses, the set is like something from an Edwardian melodrama and we all wear top hats. It’s fun for everybody concerned, we always have a laugh playing live. I couldn’t really see us as a serious band," says Clarke. "But that does not mean I’m not passionate about it. We take our songwriting very seriously."
Which may sound ironic given the current record, though he explains that studying how the "other people’s songs" work has made them eager to get back to writing their own.
Bell puts it more emotionally: "When I hear Walking In The Rain by the Ronettes, it just gives me goosebumps, every time. I don’t think our version does but it’s quite a relief to be singing someone else’s words.
"At first I felt like a bit of a sellout, like these songs didn’t belong to us. But people have said to me that I actually sing them better than our own songs. Because I didn’t write them, I can take them on more and really live them.
"And really, I just wanted to do them. It’s a labour of love."
Article by Andrea Mullaney