Vince Clarke has spilled the secrets behind Erasure’s success.
The musician was a member of Depeche Mode and Yazoo before he met Andy Bell – after placing an ad in the Melody Maker newspaper – and began recording as the duo.
Speaking to Pop Matters, he explains of those early sessions: “Andy was incredibly shy, and I was only a bit more confident, and we just started writing songs and putting ideas together.
“That was the foundation of our relationship. That was the point where I went, ‘Oh, I can trust this guy, he has good ideas’,” he adds.
While, in the beginning, Vince “wrote most of the songs and Andy contributed a few ideas,” now it’s a “50/50 split” according to Vince, who describes his relationship with Andy as being, “like a really lucky marriage”.
“The reason we get on so well is that we both share the same political views, pretty much,” he smiles. “We both have similar musical tastes; things that outrage Andy are the same things that outrage me, and the things that warm his heart are the same things that warm my heart, also.
“Our career has been longer than most people are married for, and it’s because there’s this give and take, there’s a shared feeling of what’s right and what’s wrong,” Vince notes. “That’s the thing that’s kept us together.”
Erasure released their 18th album, The Neon, earlier this year, with the record flying into the UK Top 5 – their highest placement since 1994.
