Andy Bell is an English singer-songwriter, and one-half of the legendary electronic duo Erasure. His latest solo record, Ten Crowns, is out now.
(Photo Credit: Sean Black)
My parents, because they were teenagers in the 1950s, had this book of singles they’d bought. I went through them, and they had songs by the Kalin Twins, “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley, “Rockin’ Goose.” My dad was a huge Buddy Holly fan, my mom was an Elvis fan, and they both loved country music as well. It was this whole mixture of music that we had at home, and so I was always shifting through my mom’s records. Then one day, I happened upon Phil Spector’s Greatest Hits. I put it on, and I just couldn’t believe it. I would listen to it over and over and over again.
I did music in school as a kid, and it’s so boring in school because it’s music theory. They were quite advanced in our school, so we had a musical blackboard that had a stylus attached to a wire, and you would point to the notes on the blackboard. But I could never. My mind wasn’t scientific enough to process notes. I understand it a bit now, and I can follow it vaguely on paper. But with Phil Spector, it was just the sound. I read that he would use session musicians, and he would have them play all at once; he would record the guitar part with them all playing together, and then have them play again and record the drums, and so on. On Wikipedia, he’s described as “Wagnerian.” As a kid I wasn’t really exposed to orchestral music apart from Glenn Miller and stuff like that, so probably it was the nearest thing that I could get to something being so grandiose.
I especially loved The Ronettes. With The Ronettes, there were three singers, but they made it sound like it was a whole choir. One of my favorites of theirs is “Walking in the Rain,” which is really atmospheric. There’s this thunderstorm, and it’s almost like the rain’s pouring down and she’s singing this song. Erasure used the thunder in the beginning of “Blue Savannah,” which also has multiple vocals on it.
Ronnie was incredible, and very much undersung. When she sings “Walking in the Rain,” she’s so forlorn. There’s this real sadness in her voice. There’s another song called “Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine,” which is similar. It’s wistful, it’s kind of like a Hollywood movie. She wishes that she’d never seen the sunshine, because the sun is shining so brightly that it’s too good to be true for where she is in her life. And then another of their songs, “Do I Love You,” is one of my favorites. That’s, to me, a precursor to Northern soul music, which was a huge genre in the UK; it was kind of our version of Motown.
I didn’t realize how big Phil Spector’s influence was on the whole rest of music culture. He produced “Let It Be” by the Beatles, “Imagine” by John Lennon. Loads of people cite him as an influence. ABBA, the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson wanted to recreate his sound. When Erasure was signed to Sire, one of our first songs was “Oh, L’Amour,” and we were doing a concert in LA somewhere. We were with Seymour Stein, and he invited this man into the limousine with us — and it was Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys! He brought Brian to our show because he thought he would love it, because of the vocals on the beginning of “Oh L’Amour.” So there are all these twists and turns that I didn’t know he was responsible for.
(Also, I didn’t realize he nearly lost his life in a car crash. He went through the windscreen and was quite badly scarred. So that’s where he started wearing wigs. I can see why Andy Warhol did the same thing — he had the same wig look. I’m sure he was inspired by Phil Spector doing that.)
When Erasure did our cover version album, Other People’s Songs, in the beginning the idea was to do only Phil Spector songs. But that was around the time he was tried and put in jail, so it was like, “No, that’s a bad idea…” I really wanted to do “Baby, I Love You” or “Be My Baby,” but Vince [Clarke] wouldn’t do it because he said we’ve had the word “baby” too much in lots of our songs. But I insisted that we do “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” and “Ebb Tide” by the Righteous Brothers. The Human League had already done a version of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” and I think Vince was influenced so much by their version that he made his version along those lines. So I didn’t get the feeling from the album that it was like this big Wall of Sound.
When you’re writing, you always want to be as honest as you can, as raw as you can. When you go on stage, it’s almost like there’s a divine source — I don’t believe in God, but I think you open up your crown chakra when you’re singing, and it comes into you and goes down your body and through your feet into the earth, and you’re sort of like a conduit for this energy coming out. For me, when you’re on the stage is when you’re as free as you possibly can be. I love the concept of being a bird in a cage — somebody’s carrying you around and looking after you when you’re not singing, and then when you’re on the stage, that’s where you’re allowed to fly around and let your spirit soar.
When I was younger, I think I was mostly drawn to the theatricalness of Phil Spector’s sound. And with the Ronettes, they bring so much joy to it. It’s just so uplifting. I think we should celebrate those female doo wop singers, because the record business owes so much to those ladies.
As told to Annie Fell.
(Photo Credit: left, Sean Black)
