Artist POV: Erasure’s Andy Bell On His ‘Ten Crowns’ Solo Tour, Haunted Venues, Merch, Staying Fit On & Off The Road

By Tamara Palmer

In May, Erasure singer-songwriter Andy Bell released his third solo album Ten Crowns, which features production by GRAMMY-winning remixer and producer Dave Audé and a guest duet with Blondie’s Debbie Harry. Vince Clarke, Bell’s longtime Erasure partner, recently remixed Bell’s latest single, “Dance For Mercy.” Bell is now embarking on a three-month tour of U.S., stopping at notable theaters across the country to show audiences why he’s one of the greatest live singers in the world. (Erasure may have some good news to share next year as well.)

Bell, who won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2023 British LGBT Awards, sat down for a transcontinental Zoom chat just before setting off on the U.S. leg of the Ten Crowns Tour. The itinerary begins Fri., Oct. 3 at Basement East in Nashville and concludes with a pair performances at The Fonda Theater in Los Angeles on Dec. 12-13.

Pollstar: How would you say that your approach to this solo tour differs from an Erasure tour?
Andy Bell: I would say it’s different because Erasure is Erasure. It has its own character, it is a thing. I mean, people come and see us, we have Vince fans, Andy fans, Erasure fans. But seeing the solo thing, it kind of lets me out of my comfort zone and puts me in a standing to be recognized as a singer, not as a duo. Because I really love my voice, and I feel like sometimes it doesn’t get the recognition as much as other people. The reason I like playing is, and especially with a band as well, is people get to hear it in another format, rather than with synths, which I still love, but it can become quite clockwork-ish, you know. So it’s nice to have a bit more fluidity.

[Holds up pin] I wanted to show you that I saved this pin that I bought at the Erasure concert at The Wiltern in Los Angeles in 1992 because it’s still one of the most beautiful pieces of fan merchandise that I’ve ever purchased. Do you spend time thinking about merch when you tour?
We do — this time, my partner Stephen Moss has done it, along with Richard Evans and our art director Paul Taylor. I’ll often do the artwork for the album or come up with the ideas for the merch usually and then Vince does the logistics of whether it can be done or not. You throw the ideas up in the air, your imagination, and they see if they can make it work within the budget and have the people that we want to work with.

Are there any cities that you particularly love playing?
I always love playing in San Francisco, Chicago, Texas — you have to see the place, you have to see the people to know it’s not all what you read. I always seem to have an adventure, whatever happens, wherever we are. But again, you have to keep a smooth ship as you’re going along, so you can’t wander off too much.

Do you ever get time to check a city out when you tour with Erasure, or are you always on the go?
I had a flavor for the nightlife of the city. The girls [on the tour] are really good — they’ll get up and they’ll go to museums and things like that. But I was much more of a night person, especially being in the U.S., and because you wanted to know how your songs were performing underground. So you went to the clubs and you went and met the DJ. That was some of my funnest moments ever on tour, was being with the DJ in the booth playing the music at these gay clubs way off the beaten track. Vincent, he used to worry about me so much — he thinks I’m fearless.

You released your own album. Are you footing the financial responsibility for the tour as well?
Yeah. it’s good, though. We feel really good about it. So even if we lose, it’s money well spent.

Were your recent shows in the UK in a similar style of theater performances?
We’ve done a whole mixture. Vince and I were just in four 40th Anniversary shows for the fans in lecture studios, which were really nice. But then our last show on the “Ten Crowns Tour” was this little Victorian theater in this town in Wales that was used for soldiers in the second World War. It was teeny, about 500 people, right out in the middle of nowhere. The promoters wouldn’t touch it so we paid for it ourselves and it was the most lovely trip. It was like Priscilla, Queen of the Desert or Fried Green Tomatoes. You know, when all the people from the village come in, it’s like you’ve got the young ones in there, the little gay ones and their parents. And the people are so grateful that you’ve been to their town and they’re and they all fundraise for the hall, so you’re helping the hall. 

I said, “Is this place haunted?” And they said, “Oh, yeah, we’ve got six ghosts here. There’s one little boy who’s on the stage. There’s one old lady, she’s under the auditorium.” And I thought, “Oh, I thought there was.” Not that I could see them or anything, but I just had this feeling of somebody being there on the stage. And I’ve done shows before where somebody’s come up to me afterwards and says, “Andy, so you cannot open yourself up too much.” She said, “You’re opening yourself up too much. I saw your nan there on the stage. And she’s saying, you’re being too open.”

You need to close the portal a little bit, ’cause things can happen to you. So I do get quite superstitious about the backstage folklore and things like that, which I love… I really feel like theater is a metaphysical experience. What you create on the stage comes alive in the universe. 

Totally — I’m still mentally living inside some of the Erasure shows that I saw decades ago, do you know what I mean?
Yeah, I love it!  So when you capture it, it’s, like — oh, I loved “The Wild Tour” as well. I loved that show, being on Wild, because I really felt like I was on another planet.

You’ve got a lot of shows planned. How do you take care of your body and your voice in order to go through months and months of this?
I used to get really fit for being on tour and I really loved being on tour because it got you ultra fit. And then I got into a habit of, because the tour was so long, once it was finished, I felt it was like radioactivity. You had to have like a half shelf life of how long the tour was for you to come down afterwards. So if the tour was six months, you’d need at least three months to cool down. 

So I didn’t want to do anything and basically, I became a bit slobby with not being on tour. I was using the tour as a crutch for me to get fit. And then the time period was getting shorter and shorter and shorter. So I’m trying to find that balance, still. I know Mick Jagger, all those people, they have it down to a T, but I’m still in the process, which I quite like.

I remember one time — I’m going to name drop now — Sting came over to our house. He had a show that night and he was with his wife and daughters, they were little babies. And he said, “No, Daddy can’t eat ice cream on show day.” And I was like, huh, because I thought, oh, I can do anything. But now after years, I realized you can’t. You have to have, like, live yogurt. You can’t drink milk or take milk in your tea. Just things like that. The most important fundamental thing is rest — rest and sleep. If you don’t get that, it’s a disaster. That’s why I grab it when I can, like a bear, because you never know. Well, they can say, oh, you sleep when you die, but you’re not going to know anyway, are you?