Andy Bell and Vince Clarke are to start work on the new Erasure album this summer.
The British synthpop duo released their 17th studio LP ‘World Be Gone’ in 2017 and the pair have made plans to go into the studio in July to write their next batch of songs once Andy has finished his upcoming ‘Let’s Rock’ festival headline slots.
Andy, 54, admits he and Vince, 58, never have any tracks ready before they reunite and do all their writing in the studio together.
Speaking exclusively to BANG Showbiz, he said: "I’ve got some of those retro gigs, ‘Let’s Rock’ they’re called. I’m doing them around the UK, Vince won’t do them but I do them for some pocket money. Then we start writing in July and we’ll see what comes out of that and then hopefully we’ll have something recorded, or half-recorded, for the New Year and then we’ll aim to go on tour next summer."
After 33 years of working with Vince, Andy says the pair share a "bit of psychic relationship" and they know what the other is thinking when it comes to where a song needs to go.
He said: "On the first album I was employed as a singer and then there was a song that Vince was writing and he said, ‘Do you know a word for this song for the chorus? I’m missing one.’ I called it ‘Oh L’amour’ and Vince gave me 50 per cent of the royalties, which I thought was very generous and since then we’ve co-written everything, almost, and it’s 50/50. You kind of get a bit of psychic relationship really as musicians."
The ‘A Little Respect’ has revealed he and Vince don’t really keep in touch when they’re not recording or touring as Erasure but insists that’s not because they don’t get on, because they actually still really "like each other" after all these years.
Andy said: "We don’t really stay in touch, no. Vince has got his family and his radio shows and things and that’s why I do shows on my own and charity things. We pretty much live separate lives and probably just say hi on Christmas Day and things like that.
"Erasure is Erasure and this way it’s fresh when it is.
"I think most bands hate each other. We’re lucky, because we like each other … Although when we haven’t seen each other for a while it’s like meeting an embarrassing ex-girlfriend, you have to kind of warm up again to the person!"
Andy can currently be seen in ‘Queereteria TV’ a musical stage show which is playing at London’s Above the Stag Theatre throughout April that has been written by Barney Ashton-Bullock and Christopher Frost and is being directed by Robert McWhir.
In the show, Andy once again plays the character Torsten, a polysexual, mythical being who has lived for over a century, a role he first brought to life on stage in 2014 in one-man story ‘Torsten the Bareback Saint’ and then again in 2016 with ‘Torsten the Beautiful Libertine’.
Andy has recorded the play’s soundtrack, ‘Torsten in Queereteria’, and he believes he will return to his fascinating alter ego for a fourth production.
He said: "We knew there would be at least three incarnations of him and a possibly a fourth. Each show isn’t necessarily joined up to the previous one, and there’s not a continuity. They’re episodes, sort of like ‘Black Mirror’. That makes it fun."
‘Torsten in Queereteria’ is out now.
Andy Bell to start work on new Erasure album this summer
