Q1 Who came up with the album title, "Nightbird"?
Vince: "Nightbird" was Andy's idea, for the album title. Originally we were going to call the album "Snail," but no-one liked that, so it's now called "Nightbird".
Andy: I think when... last time I was over in New York with Vince, doing the vocals, I kind of tended to make myself scarce, so I'm kind of the perfect guest, really, because they never know that I'm there and I thought it just kind of sums me up, really, "Nightbird". So we called it that, instead of Night Owl.
Q2 Where was the album recorded?
Vince: The album was recorded in London at Mute studios, but the programming for the record was done both in New York and London and I was working with a programmer called John Collyer and we would exchange ideas via the internet.
Andy: I think Vince did loads of the music at home, in Brooklyn, and I did the kind of demo vocals here, in London, on my Mac and because I'm not really very well... good at editing and all that kind of stuff, I thought, well, I need to go somewhere and because we'd recorded the vocals for the acoustic album at Steve Walsh's studio in Brooklyn as well, who lives round the corner from Vince. It was just a really good vibe and I just... I kind of felt that I sang really well there and I just really like the place, and so I wanted to go back there and it's a good excuse for me to have a trip to New York, anyway, which I love.
Q3 Do you think the location of the recording affected the album's sound or style in any way?
Andy: Apparently there was quite a vibe going on about... with the Electroclash music, because that was all coming out of Brooklyn, anyway, and Larry T had a club there, which we did an aftershow party at and I mean, I just love the vibe of the studio - Steve's studio - and it's kind of down in the cellar, underneath the house, but I don't think it really has that much effect on where you record. It's just keeping myself and Vince occupied in our spare time. But it was freezing cold. It was about minus twenty or something like that.
Q4 Who produced the album?
Vince: The album was kind of produced by all of us: myself, Andy and JC.
Andy: It was kind of a collaboration, the production. Vince had been working with JC, who did the Dave Gahan album. He was doing rhythm and drum programming and a few kind of little keyboard lines and the whole thing was mixed by Tom Elmhirst at the back of the Hammersmith Apollo, in a studio there, but it was kind of... We were sort of sending things backwards and forwards and just kind of like building on it, really slowly. Well, some of the demos are kind of quite... like the finished tracks, but other ones are kind of unrecognisable.
Q5 Has the songwriting process changed for you since the earlier albums?
Vince: The songwriting process has kind of stayed the same for this album. Andy stayed with me for a few weeks and we'd work, using an acoustic guitar, getting some basic melodies recorded. I did some more programming for each song and Andy would go away and work on lyrical ideas.
Andy: Well, this time, with the songwriting, we decided to just keep writing and writing and writing, as much as we could, because we'd got a bit lazy, the last few albums and we always wrote the minimum amount of tracks that were needed, usually like ten or eleven and this time, I think there was probably about seventeen or eighteen songs, I think, and some of them were... we didn't finish them, because we didn't think they were good enough. Other tracks were going to be B-sides and then they turned out to be better, so we thought we'd include them. It's a bit like doing homework at school, you know, and the more you do, the better you get at doing it.
Q6 Was there a lyrical inspiration for the album?
Andy: I don't know. As far as the lyrics go, it's really boring. I mean, I just can't seem to write anything else apart from love songs and I don't know why. Whether it's kind of being an old romantic or always questioning where I am, with Paul and what's going on and... and it's always made up!
Q7 How would you say this album differs from previous albums?
Andy: I think this album is... quite... It's melancholic, but it's not as gloomy as, say, "Loveboat" was, and not as acoustic sounding as "Loveboat" was. It's much more electronic. I mean, Vince has been really turned on by all the Electroclash stuff, you know, and all these bands, the new electro bands, like Ladytron and WIT and... so it's very creamy and I think... I mean, I think lyrically, even though they're still love songs, it's kind of... they've matured a bit. I suppose it's to do with being forty and also, your voice grows with you and I think I've become a man!
Q8 What are your favourite songs on the album?
Vince: My favourite song of all is "Breathe". I really like the track entitled "All This Time Falling Out Of Love." That was actually mixed in New York and we worked with Mark Saunders, who's produced an album for us before.
Andy: My favourite songs on the album are "No Doubt", "I Broke It All In Two", "Breathe" and... what's the last song called? It goes da-da-da-da-da da-da-da-da-da da-da-da-da-da. Oh, "I Bet You're Mad At Me".
Q9 What can you tell us about the single "Breathe"?
Andy: "Breathe" was... It's quite typical, when you're writing on an album, the best song usually comes out last and the last two songs on "Nightbird" were "Breathe" and "No Doubt". The same with like "Chorus", the same with "Loveboat": "Freedom" was the last song. I don't know, it's just one of those songs like... because the notes are really long, you can't have kind of like loads of little intricate words, so it had to be a long word and... I think "Breathe" kind of goes... It's OK to say that word as a long word, because it's... because you're kind of like sighing.
Q10 Can you tell us about some of the other tracks on the album: "I Bet You're Mad At Me"?
Andy: "I Bet You're Mad At Me," I think it's a grower, not a shower, that one, because it's not immediate and I think the more you listen to it, the more infectious it becomes, because I wasn't really a great fan of that song in the first place, although Vince was and he seems to know these things and as I've been listening to the album, it's always... I love hearing that song, especially since it's the last song on the album. I was kind of thinking about my mum when I wrote that song and kind of just the thing of going home and that I don't see her very often.
Q11 "Here I Go, Impossible Again"?
Andy: "Here I Go, Impossible Again"... Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da... I hate to mention Abba again, but I kind of feel like if they were still around and still making music, "Nightbird" would be the kind of album that they might have made, because the songs kind of sound like a continuation from where they left off, like "The Visitors" or "Super Trouper" or their last album and this is the most... the most kind of Abba sounding song, I suppose, or I could imagine Frida singing this song and... it's another one just about being out in the evening and causing a drama with your lover, just for the sake of it, because you're bored. You cause a drama because you love making up.
Q12 "Sweet Surrender"?
Andy: "Sweet Surrender" had the hideous title "GI Joe" in the first instance and it was kind of an anti-war song, really, because of all the stuff going on in Iraq and everything, which makes me sick, so I suppose it's kind of toned down a bit, but it's just that... It's just a song of frustration, really. Also a song to say that I would never ever fight in a war situation and the only flag that I like is a white one... is a white flag.
Q13 "All This Time Still Falling Out Of Love"?
Andy: "All This Time Still Falling Out Of Love" I think is a kind of a typical uptempo Erasure disco dolly song.
Q14 Any others?
Andy: Well, I love "No Doubt". That's my favourite one, because it's the most soul-y song and I love the intro - all the voices - and it kind of sounds like the beginning of a movie to me.
Q15 After the success of the Other Tour, are you looking forward to touring?
Vince: I'm quite looking forward to touring. I really enjoyed the last tour. It was a kind of a surprise for me. I was really happy to see that so many people were out there, still interested in our music. Hopefully the next tour will be equally as inspiring.
Andy: I'm quite looking forward to touring. I started doing the playlist of all the songs already and started thinking of ideas. So far, we've got... it's about 22 songs. I think what's the most difficult thing for us is not being bored, which sounds... not very respectful, but I mean, I can't imagine being Frank Sinatra's age and still singing "Sometimes" after all those years, you know. The hardest thing is making the list of songs, because you still have to sing the kind of hits for people, because they'd be disappointed, and it's just that and kind of like mixing them in with the new songs from the new album, maybe four or five and then old tracks that people will know, like B-sides and stuff like that or album tracks that people will know and just making them all flow together and having some kind of coherent idea for the show. But I'm sure it'll be alright. I'm looking forward to some dancing, now I've got a decent pair of legs or I will have by that time, anyway and I won't be in agony next time, like I was last time, but I don't think I'll be doing any more Can Can!
Q16 What are your plans for the "Nightbird" live show?
Andy: I don't know yet. I think it would be quite nice to reproduce the album design - the sleeve - for the stage set. I would love an enchanted forest, but it just depends on the money. But I'm sure we could just go and you know, go and get a few twigs from somewhere and paint them white and put some lights on the end of them! I did think about starting the show in my pyjamas and having a clear plastic dress up box, but we'll have to see.
Q17 Were you disappointed about the cancellation of the 2003 Hogmanay show?
Vince: We were disappointed about the cancellation of the gig in Scotland for New Year's Eve. It was a real special thing for us. We'd never played at an event like that before and it was... the whole thing was cancelled last minute. However, we carried on drinking and had a great New Year's Eve.
Andy: I was disappointed. I mean, I was disappointed for the crowd, for all the people that had come down. I was in two minds about it, I must admit, because it was 5 below, I think, and me and Vince were going commando with our kilts and we did the soundcheck in the afternoon and it was freezing. I mean, I probably sound like a wimp to the Scots people and I don't know why, I kind of had this premonition that it wasn't going to happen, for some reason. I don't know why, but at the same time, we were all really psyched, you know, psyched up for it, because it was like five minutes before the show when it was cancelled, so we were all ready, all dressed up, had all the stuff ready to go down there, and it was cancelled and we just had all this like pent up energy left and this kind of... with nowhere for it to go. I mean, thank God it was New Year's Eve!
Q18 You've recorded an acoustic album. Could you tell us something about this?
Vince: Myself and Andy recorded an acoustic album last year - it's not been released yet - and what we did was we took the... our favourite tracks from all of our previous albums, the songs that we felt perhaps could have been singles, but weren't and then recorded acoustic versions of those songs. We were working with a guy called Steve Walsh, who's an excellent acoustic guitarist, and we recorded the album at his little studio in Brooklyn.
Andy: Well, that's kind of a dream come true, really, for me, the acoustic album, and it was all arranged by Vince, of course, you know. He really looks after me. I said a few years back (that) I would love to do a Country & Western album and this is kind of a half-half. It's done in the country style on some tracks and we got violins, cellos, all different kinds of instruments and it was really a pleasure to do it and rediscover some of the old songs that we thought could have been singles that never were. It's just really different singing with acoustic instruments than singing with synthesisers. It's just a different space, a different head space and... There's more room. I think it's some of the best singing that I've ever done on that one.
Q19 Do you have any ambitions left with Erasure that you'd like to fulfil?
Andy: I think making it to twenty years is quite good... and also... I'll never leave Vince, anyway, you know, whether it's Erasure or whatever it is, because we're a great songwriting team. I think probably we'd like to do more... maybe film stuff and I know we've always talked about a musical, but that's going to take at least ten years or five years out of your life, so I think probably a movie or... yeah, that's kind of more realistic, probably.
Q20 How do you see yourselves now in relation to the rest of the pop world?
Andy: Pretty detached. I mean, I can't really relate to all the stuff on the TV really, because it's all kind of like grunting and groaning and very sexually explicit, which... I think it's fine, I mean, I'm a bit jealous because I can't do that, all the hip thrusts and everything and I mean, I know I'm a bit of a slut, but I don't know how they portray themselves like that on the TV, because I'm sure they're not really like that in real life! I think songwriting seems to have disappeared, which is our main stay, really, me and Vince and... the game's changed. It's much more cut-throat than it used to be and very commercialised. Everybody seems to know how much money you've made before your record even comes out now.
Q21 Are you working on other projects at the moment?
Andy: There's one single out that's... I think it's only been released on Sony Greece, with a group called In_Vox, and then there's another track with Larry T called "Matthew", which is out in 2005, which is about a gay guy who was murdered in 1995 and mock crucified on a barbed wire fence, which is lovely! And then I've been working with the Manhattan Clique guys, who supported us on the Other Tour. We've got about 18 songs nearly finished and it's all dance club material and... it's very good and hopefully that'll be out next year as well, but it's... We've got a kind of a backlog of releases!
Vince: The other project that we're working on at the moment is an album of lullabies or nursery rhymes. We're taking traditional nursery rhymes and twisting them a little bit. It's more like a kind of a nursery crimes record. Hopefully, that's going to be finished soon.
Q22 If Erasure didn't exist, what do you think you'd be doing?
Andy: If Erasure didn't exist... I don't know. I mean, hopefully I would have shunted my way into some kind of amateur drama production or something and I'd be singing somewhere. I would be singing somewhere, because I couldn't help myself, so it would either be in one of those kind of singers evenings or Karaoke night, down at the local pub, or I'd be in a Working Men's Club band...
Vince: If Erasure didn't exist... then I would probably be a trans-European truck driver.