Having danced and acted the eejit to the many tunes over the years on the dance floor, Andy and Vince good afternoon, how are you?
Both: Good afternoon!
Good to talk to you! Thanks for all the good times by the way lads!
Both: Thank you, thank you!
Some fantastic music over the years, what are you up to at the moment, what are you doing?
Vince: Well we're promoting out new record, our 14th, 15th or 20th record I'm not sure which!
You've lost five or six on the way!
Vince: It's called "Light At The End Of The World".
Have you been recording all this time?
Vince: No, we've been doing… This record we started writing in the middle of last year. Prior to that we made an acoustic record. We took songs that we had already recorded and did them in an acoustic style. And that we toured as well, we've been busy!
Have you always just been writing stuff for Erasure, doing stuff for Erasure? Have you done anything for anybody else?
Vince: I actually did a song recently for an all girl teenage teen band, called Girl Authority! It was via our management in the US. So that was something different!
Totally different! The Erasure days were fantastic days, there wasn't a length of time that you didn't have one record or another record in the charts. Do you miss all those, all the attention and the glamour and all that?
Andy: No!It got to be too much. In 1992 it was too much, honestly! I did say could you please turn it off! So you have to be very careful what you ask for!
But not permanently off, just turn it down maybe…
Andy: We don't need the tap dripping though!
Those were the days! You had so many classic records, Erasure, didn't you? So many great records that you were never going to be turned off were you?
Vince: Well at the end of the day we love what we do, we love writing and recording and making music. It's in our blood. There's nothing else we could do actually, not at this stage.
What about this album? What's different?
Vince: Well it's very electronic, it's very uptempo and upbeat. We purposely wanted to make a dance record this time. So it's kind of returning to the sound of our earlier records.
You have so much pedigree, when you sit down to write an album, do you think "God, we've got so much to stand up to"? You've set the goal posts, it's always going to be difficult. Do you think that when you write a song, or do you think, "that's never going to be good enough for Erasure" and throw it away?
Andy: I don't think you think that really, we always start from scratch when we're writing, it's really good to try and be fresh and not have any of that baggage with you. When it comes to recording, I'm quite amazed 'cause when you listen to like, Light At the End Of The World… I know we did the Abba-esque EP in 1992, and I was like listening to their last material before they split up, and it was like… in comparison to what we're done, ours was really high quality and really good…
Go on - be bitchy!
Andy: Oh no! You know you get an idea in your head, oh this group is really amazing and fantastic and stuff, and the vocals are pristine, and when you listen back again, and they're not so much. Know what I mean? Maybe not!
You are being bitchy!
Andy: I'm not being bitchy, honestly! I love them, you know I do!
What about… You recorded the album, where did you do it?
Vince: It was written and recorded in the state of Maine, which is just north of New York on the Canadian border.
Oh yes?
Vince: I live there, so Andy was kind enough to come over the the States for eight weeks in total for something, as we did all the writing there.
And you're still living there?
Vince: Yes I still live in America
Yeah? What's life in America like? Obviously the fact that you're there means that you're enjoying it. Is it difficult when you start to write you being so far away just using electronics again to do it.
Vince: Well as I say, we were together for the writing and the recording process, and it's just at the end of it…
What all of it?
Vince: Yeah, and it's just the mixing that was done in London, so it's case of sending MP3's and emails and using the Internet to exchange ideas.
How long did it take then to write and record?
Andy: Probably… Let's see, two months, five… probably about seven months or six months.
Do you get on all right together? Are you still sort of buddies and pals and stuff?
Vince: Yeah - we get on better than we ever have, I mean we know each other so well. And sitting down and writing songs, its's a very comfortable suitable for both of us.
And what about performing now, are you going to come up this way and see us in the Midlands?
Andy: Yeah I think we've… Well we're going to the Corn Exchange. Where are we playing in Birmingham? Do you know?
Vince: I'm just looking at me dates now!
Go on then lads!
Vince: We've got Manchester, Newcastle, Preston, Manchester, Wolverhampton, Leicester
Andy: Oh Leicester then! We're up there somewhere anyway!
Oh right! What are the gigs like now? Cause in the heyday, they were massive, massive gigs. What about the audience? Are they the old audience that have come with you, or have you bought a few young dudes along the way?
Andy: Well it's mixture, it's a bit of a mish mash! We've got old ladies, mums and dads, suns and daughters and all kinds of in between.
And still a fun gig then!
Andy: Yeah really good fun
Pick me a track off the album lads.
Andy: Sunday Girl.
Vince: Yeah Sunday Girl, it's going to be the next single.
Is that the next single?
Vince: Yeah
Fantastic - listen thanks for taking time out to chat to me this afternoon.
Both: Thank you very much!
It's been a pleasure. Here is Sunday Girl. Cheers Lads!
Both: Thanks, bye!