On Nightbird (Mute), their first new studio album of all original material in five years, Andy Bell and Vince Clark of Erasure don’t alter the recipe that makes their brand of ear candy so tasty and addictive. You can dance to it with abandon or with tears in your eyes. The pairing of Bell’s powerful and distinguished vocals and Clark’s keyboard carnival allows the songs on Nightbird to take wing. I spoke with Bell shortly before the domestic release of the disc.

Gay & Lesbian Times: 2005 is the 20th anniversary of Erasure. After all the years and nearly a dozen albums, how would you say your collaboration with Vince (Clarke) has evolved over time?

Andy Bell: I would say that it’s a match made in heaven, really. We’re a great songwriting team. When we first met, Vince was a cult hero of mine. I was thinking, of all the people that I’d like to work with, in the music industry, he was probably first. I was a Yaz(oo) fan. I thought his stuff was really cool and he always had great reviews in NME (New Musical Express) and always did very left-field stuff. I went to one audition when first I moved down to London at 19. It was for a spinoff band of a group called Bow Wow Wow. I didn’t even know how to hold the microphone or anything, so I just kind of pretended. I remember seeing Vince at the studio, Blackwing, which he used to half-own, and he had split from Depeche Mode then. I remember seeing him there on the Space Invaders machine with big fringe hanging down, and I thought, “Wow! That’s Vince Clark!” He’d always been in my mind’s eye and after he split with Alison Moyet, I thought, maybe I should write him a letter and see if he needs a new singer. In that same period, I was living in a cooperative house in London with some people who worked for Gay Switchboard and Shelter. We would listen to Alison Moyet, and one of my flat-mates said to me, “This is going to be you in a year’s time.” I was like, “What’s he talking about?” And so I answered this advert on this one weekend, because I was in a band already, but I got fed up because we weren’t doing live gigs, which said “Established songwriter looking for versatile singer.” I phoned it up and it was Vince Clark. I just couldn’t believe it. I thought, “Well, I’m going to go down, have a great day, and whatever happens I’m going to really enjoy myself, be in the studio with the man himself.” I was a big fan of Jimmy Somerville at the time as well, and a falsetto just came out of my voice, which I hadn’t even tried before, it just sprang up there. They said, “Would you like to work with Vince on this album project?” And I said, “Oh, yes, please.” He had two singles out in the meantime as The Assembly. One with Paul Quinn and one with Feargal Sharkey. I remember praying, “Oh, please let them be flops” (laughs). Because I want to hook up with Vince. They put me on a retainer of £150 a week, which was a lot of money in those days, especially for an unemployed boy. So, I went to Ibiza for a little while and then came back and started working with Vince. I was totally enamored in the studio. I didn’t say a word for probably a year while we were working together. I would just stare at him the whole time and think, “I really want to get to know him.” Slowly but surely I did get to know him and we started collaborating with the writing. He’s the most fair and diplomatic person that I know. When we were writing for “Oh, L’Amour,” he’d written the whole song and had the chorus, and I said, “Let’s put in ‘Oh, L’amour,’ for the chorus line” and he gave me 50 percent of the writing credit. I thought, “How generous!”

GLT: That’s amazing and very generous.

AB: He’s fantastic. He’s really brilliant. We’re both quite down-to-earth. I just like to go out, do my own thing with my friends. None of this star “let me in/don’t you know who I am” kind of thing. That’s what he’s like as well.

GLT: It’s wonderful to know that. Other than releasing the new album, Nightbird, are there any other special plans to commemorate Erasure’s anniversary?

AB: We don’t have any commemoration plans really. We thought maybe we’d wait until we were 21.

GLT: Then you’ll be legal.

AB: Right (laughs). We’ve got this acoustic album, which we’ve already recorded with violins and slide guitars and stuff. It’s Erasure ballads from past albums. It sounds so nice. It’s a bit bluesy, kind of Ella Fitzgerald style, which was recorded in the same studio as Nightbird. Also, we’re doing a nursery rhyme album because we’ve got lots of little godchildren. The record company’s been talking about re-releasing some of the old stuff as the year comes round.

GLT: I understand that the album’s title, Nightbird, refers to your bouts with insomnia. Can you please say something about that?

AB: It’s one of those things where the more you fight against it, the worse it gets. I’ve had it since I was a kid. I’ve always had big bags under my eyes. When I was a kid, I’d never go to bed until about 10:00 in the evening, and then do my homework at midnight. I found it very hard waking up at 7:00 in the morning to go to school. I was usually late for school, but it came to be kind of a running joke at school because I was fine with my homework and my exams and stuff like that. It’s one of those natural things with being a performer. You don’t really warm up until supper time. That’s why I love doing gigs because they are always in the evening. The worse thing is having to go off and do these drive-time morning shows and sing first thing in the morning. It’s better if I stayed up all night because it’s already warmed up; otherwise, it’s a bit croaky. The same with photos. They always want to photograph you first thing in the morning and I look, like, two years older.

GLT: Did songs on Nightbird such as “I’ll Be There,” “All This Time Still Falling Out Of Love” and “Sweet Surrender” start out as fully-realized dance numbers or did they evolve into them?

AB: I think the tempo’s usually up there, around the 120 BPM (beats per minute) mark. Sometimes we just whip it up a bit. Usually what can happen, with a song like “Oh, L’Amour,” you know when you get these songs that are anthems, they’re almost like hymns, you sing them in half time, but then you put a dance beat behind it and it makes it even more uplifting.

GLT: What do you have in the works for the Nightbird tour?

AB: So far, we’ve got a fairy forest. And then I thought, “Who will be in the fairy forest?” Aside from having a crouching stag and a little fairy statue would be Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. So they’re going to be there. I had no idea it was his 70th anniversary or anything like that. It was just one of those things where he’s just been tapped in. I was weaned on Elvis, as well.

GLT: I read about an Andy Bell solo album that is waiting in the wings. What can you tell me about it?

AB: That’s all done. We’ve got 18 songs so far. It’s all very up and electro and clubby. I feel like I’ve been let out of cage on this one. It’s quite diva-ish.