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AE: 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 ten o’clock in the evening, and then do my homework at midnight. I found it very hard waking up at seven o’clock 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're always in the evening. The worst 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.

AE: 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.

AE: 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 seventieth 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.

AE: The concert video, The Tank, The Swan and The Balloon, which was filmed in 1992, was released on DVD in 2004. What goes through your mind when you look back at old concert footage?
AB: I do quite like looking at it. I’m very vain, so I think, “Oh, that’s an ugly angle.” I also sometimes wish I was a trained dancer like Madonna. Going through all the proper steps.

AE: But you do move very well onstage.
AB: Yeah. I’ve always loved dancing. I find it quite surprising how just holding those notes and carrying off the whole song and dancing at the same time and going all the way through--there’s not a band for you to fall back on. Sometimes I have felt like a monkey on a barrel. I do look at them with fondness. At the same time I can’t quite imagine that we pulled it off. All the organization and having.

AE: You have the proof on film.
AB: (Laughs) But I can’t quite think of how we ever did it. It feels the same whenever you’re getting ready for a new show. It’s a bit like when you were putting on a play in school and it’s coming up to the night and you think it can’t possibly be ready in time.

AE: 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 eighteen 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.

AE: I’m glad that you mentioned electro, because I was wondering what you think of the new generation of electro artists who are following in Erasure’s footsteps?
AB: I love it, really. I don’t know all the stuff that’s going on, but the best clubs to go to now in London are the electro clubs. It’s kind of still underground, but at the same time is that what’s ironic about it is that it’s all these kids making the music for themselves at home and then getting all dressed up and putting on a proper show. I think it flies in the face of all the manufactured pop music. It sounds great, when you’re in a club, on these big bass amps to hear these electro bass lines and things. They sound amazing.

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