'Hot pants and catsuits are not the real me - I'm only Andy Bell on stage'
Out of a little respect for the passing of time, sometimes we tone down our dress style as the decades go by. But not so Andy Bell, whose energetic dance moves and sparkly catsuits lit up the 80s and 90s as frontman of synth pop duo Erasure.
He refuses to tone down his flamboyant style despite the passing years and the inevitable vicissitudes of age. Go to an Erasure concert today and you’ll still find Andy, who turns 60 next year, vigorously sashaying around the stage in an outrageous outfit. And the singer says he has a very good reason.
“Andy Bell is a character I developed right at the start,” he explains. “Wearing hot pants and catsuits is all part of that character. But that’s not the real me, I’m only Andy Bell on stage. “Just before you go on stage, you take a deep breath, walk on, and all of a sudden you’re Andy Bell. It makes me feel freer when I’m dressed up. But the rest of the time I’m just Andy, who’s a bit lazy, well very lazy actually. At home I don’t walk around in hot pants.”
It might come as a surprise to lifelong Erasure fans that during their first months Andy was actually just as reserved as Vince Clarke – the famously deadpan keyboardist and other half of the duo who stands mostly expressionless and motionless during gigs. In the beginning I really didn’t know what to do on stage,” Andy says. “One day we had a show when Vince’s computer broke down and all the sound and lights stopped working.
"They were all saying, ‘Tell a joke, Andy’, but I’m a useless comedian, so I started trying impersonations. And then I thought, this isn’t very good, I’ve got to liven up my act a bit, so I kind of just developed this character that people know today.”
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Andy sings in hotpants at gig in 2016 (West Lothian Courier)Like it or not though, he’s not as young as he used to be – which means their tours today aren’t quite the same as back when they were one of the world’s biggest bands. “Dancing takes its toll these days,” says Andy. “I should work out more. I used to feel fantastic going on stage, back when I was really fit, but not any more. I wish I was more disciplined.”
But Andy, who has been married to American husband Stephen since 2013, insists he has no problem with turning 60 next year. “I’ve always looked up to and admired older people, and now in the music fraternity we have Debbie Harry and Mick Jagger and Elton John, so I just think there’s still so much to look forward to,” he says. Being old is definitely something I aspire to. I want to be one of those cranky old ladies with a cardigan, you know, a bit like The Lady in the Van.”
Andy will be back on stage in the coming months, headlining this year’s Rewind Festivals in Cheshire and Oxfordshire, the annual events where fans can celebrate all things 80s. He says some of his 80s idols will be there too. “I’m looking forward to seeing some of the other bands,” he says.
“On the last one I met Kim from Mel and Kim, who was really lovely. She said they used to get really nervous whenever she was on Top of the Pops because Erasure was on there. I just laughed and said, ‘really?’. It was kind of the opposite way round for us.”
Before he was a pop star, Andy was just a music fan himself, living in Peterborough where he worked in a women’s shoe shop. Aged 21, he answered an advert in Melody Maker magazine, from an unnamed songwriter looking for a singer, and was invited along to an audition. It was there that he found out the musician was Vince Clarke, of Depeche Mode and Yazoo fame, and one of his biggest idols.
Andy in New York in 1990 (Getty Images)
Vince and Andy as Erasure (Getty Images)Andy remembers: “I was really shy at first, being so enamoured of Vince and stuff. The first time in the studio he and the others were telling jokes and things to try to make me laugh. It took me ages to warm up.” Once he did warm up, Erasure took the world by storm. For 20 years from 1986, the pair had five No1 albums and 17 Top 10 hits, including Sometimes and A Little Respect. The duo also won Best British Group at the 1989 Brit Awards and have sold more than 25 million albums worldwide.
Andy, who has also released two solo albums, has recalled how that fame also came with pitfalls, which left him battling a 10-year cocaine addiction. In 2004 the singer also announced he had been living with HIV since 1998. He also went through a devastating loss in 2012 when his long-term partner and manager Paul, who was also HIV positive, died aged just 62.
And after years suffering from avascular necrosis, a painful bone condition which causes bone tissue to die, he also had a double hip replacement – but it hasn’t stopped him dancing. He remembers: “The surgeon came to see one of our shows and she was hiding her eyes because it wasn’t that long after I’d had my hips done. But it’s been fine, They’re made of titanium, which is supposed to last forever. You can leave them to science after you’re dead. I haven’t signed the form yet, but I’m going to.”
His hips are clearly not the only gifts Andy will leave to the world. But he says one thing he has never considered is having children. He says: “I’m already a great-uncle. But I don’t want kids, I prefer other people’s kids.” He says the young people in his family don’t know how famous he is – and he wants to keep it that way: “All the Erasure stuff is just on YouTube, so unless I’m on a TV show or something they don’t watch it. But I’m quite glad really, I don’t think it’s very good for them to say, ‘Oh, my uncle’s Andy Bell from Erasure’. I’m just Andy.” Unless he’s up there on stage again, of course.
* Rewind Festival North, Macclesfield, Friday to Sunday. Rewind Festival South, Henley, August 18 to 20. Tickets at www.rewindfestival.com
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