Andy Bell

His powerful voice, bittersweet lyrics and flamboyant stage manner have earned him millions of fans around the world. Andy Bell has been one of Britain’s best loved pop icons for 25 years. His powerful voice, bittersweet lyrics and flamboyant stage manner have earned him millions of fans around the world.
As a performer, re-mixer, collaborator, solo artist and DJ, Andy is a byword for great music and feel-good attitude. Even in the face of personal and political adversity, he lights up the toughest of times with sunshine, passion and romantic optimism.
Born and raised in Peterborough, Andy is best known as the singer and co-songwriter of chart-topping duo Erasure, former BRIT award winners for Best British Band who have sold 25 million albums and scored dozens of Top 20 hits during their long and glorious career. One of the most enduring partnerships in British pop, Andy and Vince Clarke are loved around the world for their irresistible melodies, outlandish costumes and spectacular live shows.
Andy is rightly famous for being one of pop’s most dynamic, energetic performers. With Erasure he has been privileged to play sold-out shows at some of pop’s most legendary venues including Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, the Los Angeles Forum, the Hollywood Bowl, the historic Fillmore in San Francisco, and the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville – home of the Grand Ole Opry. At home in Britain, he and Vince also entertained 60,000 people at the gigantic Milton Keynes Bowl, and packed out London’s prestigious Royal Albert Hall at the climax of their 2007 tour.
Right from Erasure’s early years, Andy has also been involved in numerous outside projects including musical collaborations, charity events, TV and film work. In recent years he has established himself as a solo artist and DJ, tapping into his lifelong love of classic electro. “Doing stuff on my own is important to me because I really love dance music,” Andy says. “I always love doing Erasure but also I like going off and doing gigs by myself. Vince isn’t always around anyway, he’s got his family in Maine. My heart’s really in club music. I’m still waiting to make that big club record.”
Andy sang the role of Montresor in Peter Hammill’s opera ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, first released in 1991, then remixed and re-issued in 1999. Andy guested with KD Lang on her 1994 single ‘Lifted by Love’, and with Ant & Dec on ‘Shout’ in 1997. He has also remixed several Erasure singles as well as Sandra Bernhard’s 1994 cover of the Sylvester disco classic ‘You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)’, Goldfrapp’s ‘Ooh La La’ in 2005, and the 2008 re-issue of Yazoo’s ‘Nobody’s Diary’.
Andy has also been involved with numerous charity projects, including the Ferry Aid single ‘Let It Be’ in 1987. He performed with Level 42, Sir George Martin and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at the all-star Prince’s Trust Gala at the Birmingham NEC in 1989, where he was introduced to Prince Charles and Lady Diana. He and Vince covered Cole Porter’s ‘Too Darn Hot’ for the 1990 album ‘Red Hot + Blue’ in support of AIDS and HIV research, and collaborated with Lene Lovich on ‘Rage’ for a 1991 PETA benefit album.
In 1995 Andy performed a selection of traditional folk songs with a group of Bosnian musicians at a Manchester Free Trade Hall concert hosted by UNICEF ambassador Vanessa Redgrave. The first San Francisco mayor to ride in the city’s Gay Freedom Day Parade, Art Agnos, also presented Andy with a key to the city in 1988.
Andy has sung at countless AIDS benefit shows and twice on the True Colors tour, with Erasure in 2007 and solo in 2008. Designed to raise awareness for the LGBT lobbying group Human Rights Campaign, these tours featured an all-star bill including Cyndi Lauper, Debbie Harry, Rufus Wainwright, The B52’s, Joan Jett and The Gossip.
Projects like Red Hot + Blue and True Colors confirm Andy’s trailblazing role in promoting equality and fighting prejudice. As one of the first openly gay front-men in pop, he first became famous during the intensely homophobic Thatcher years. But in 2009 ad 2010, to celebrate LGBT History Month, he was invited to Number 10 Downing Street to meet Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Andy has helped make history with his courageously open approach to sexuality and human rights.
“I can’t take credit for all of that,” Andy says, “because it doesn’t mean what it did any more. It mattered to me then, and you think it’s going to matter for life. But then things start happening: the age of consent comes down, gay people getting married, all that stuff that you fought for. In general, we’re in a much better place.”
In 1993, Andy and Melissa Etheridge co-hosted the festive TV variety show ‘Camp Christmas’ on Channel Four in the UK. Their all-star guest list included Quentin Crisp, Derek Jarman, Ian McKellen, cult Parisian artists Pierre et Gilles, and Paul O’Grady in his Lily Savage guise.
In 1994, Andy appeared in Doric Wilson’s stage play ‘The Night We Buried Judy Garland’, a historical drama about the gay rights struggle, at London’s Shaw Theatre. One of several guest stars who played Garland during the play’s run, the part included seven show-stopping musical numbers. Andy made his screen acting debut four years later playing a porn-film director in Len Richmond’s comedy ‘Merchants of Venus’, starring Michael York and Brian Cox. He also acted in the short films ‘I Hate Christmas’ and ‘Victoria Hotel’.
In 2005, Andy released his debut solo album ‘Electric Blue’. Showcasing a wide variety of musical styles, the self-penned album featured 14 brand new tracks, including duets with Claudia Brucken (of Propaganda and Act) and Jake Shears (of Scissor Sisters). It also featured beats by Manhattan Clique, and generally took more muscular and club-friendly direction than Erasure’s recent work. The first single from the album, ‘Crazy’, featured a dazzling sci-fi video created and directed by the genius of Al and Al.
“His zest for living and enjoyment comes over very strongly throughout,” gushed the BBC website, “and his enthusiasm for pop music is as strong now as it ever was.” Pop Matters described ‘Electric Blue’ as “lyric-heavy dance synth-pop that overachieves and succeeds in its mingling of emotion and sexuality” while All Music Guide branded it “triumphant” and “downright blissful.”
Andy followed ‘Electric Blue’ with a fresh round of Erasure commitments, co-writing the lush gospel-pop confessionals on the duo’s acclaimed 2007 album ‘Light At The End of the World’. Then came the mighty career-spanning retrospective ‘Total Pop! 40 hits’, released to rave reviews in February 2009.
“I decided I really needed a year and a half off from Erasure,” Andy says. “Just to get my head together and work out who I am outside this Erasure thing. I’ve spoken to Debbie Harry and she always refers to Blondie in the third person. I could never understand that before, but now I do. You don’t get bored but you just become consumed by it, you are no longer your own person.”
A second solo album ‘NonStop’ – recorded and co-produced with Pascal Gabriel (Kylie Minogue, Ladyhawke, Miss Kittin, Little Boots among many others) – sees Andy steer his solo career in an altogether darker direction than on ‘Electric Blue’ and was released in 2010. ’NonStop’ combines Andy’s long-standing love of electro with contemporary club beats and the kind of irresistible pop hooks that saw media tastemakers – including Radio 1 and Kiss – embrace the album’s first single ’Will You Be There?’ long before its commercial release.
As if ‘NonStop’ wasn't enough to occupy Andy in 2010 he and Vince have already written fourteen new songs for Erasure’s fourteenth studio album which they plan to record in early 2011 and release later in the year.
Besides recording and performing with Erasure and as a solo artist, Andy is also building his profile as a DJ playing hard-edged electro and classic 1980s dance-pop. This marks a natural return to the singer’s teenage roots as a “soft punk” infatuated by New Wave icons like Japan, Siouxsie, Lene Lovich and Nina Hagen.
“I was doing electro anyway before I met Vince,” Andy nods. “I was in a band called The Void, writing with Pierre Cope and producer Pete Gage, doing the usual demo-tape hiking around the record companies. That was the reason I moved to London in the first place. What I really love is electro has always been underground since that big splurge in the ‘80s. Once you’ve been to a club like Nag Nag Nag and heard those tracks on a bass amp, they sound really incredible. The bass goes right through your bones.”
Whether on stage or screen, in the studio or behind the decks, Andy remains an icon of party-friendly positivity. Even when times are tough, he provides passion, sunshine and romance – plus lashings of operatic drama, of course. Everybody needs a bit of Andy Bell in their lives!