Erasure
Regeneration Tour
In 1985, he was working in a meat packing plant, when he responded to a newspaper advert that was looking for a singer. He was picked by Vince Clarke and together they formed the group Erasure. The pair has sold over 20 million albums worldwide.
Apart from his work with Erasure, he has taken part in numerous charity recordings. These included Ferry Aid’s cover of “Let It Be” (1987); a cover of Cole Porter’s “Too Darn Hot”, that was included in 1990s Red Hot + Blue album to raise funds for AIDS and HIV research; re-making Lene Lovich’s “Rage” alongside her to be included in PETA’s album (1991) in favour of a wildlife campaign; and performing twice on Big Spender’s Red Hot and Dance events to support various AIDS projects (in both December 1994 and November 2004). Bell also performed on the True Colors Tour 2008.
Bell sang the role of Montresor in the opera The Fall of the House of Usher by Peter Hammill and Judge Smith, released in 1991 and reissued with a new recording in 1999.
July 2005 brought the announcement of Bell’s first solo album. He signed a worldwide solo recording contract with Sanctuary Records, and announced details of his debut album, which was released on 3 October 2005 and entitled Electric Blue. The album featured fourteen tracks, including three duets, with Claudia Brücken of Propaganda and Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters.
The first single, “Crazy”, released on 26 September 2005, included club remixes from his Erasure partner Vince Clarke, plus Cicada, MHC and King Roc. Electric Blue was co-written and recorded throughout 2004 and 2005 with Manhattan Clique (Philip Larsen and Chris Smith) who have worked with Erasure, Moby, The B-52’s, Stereophonics and Goldfrapp.
Bell released his second solo album, Non-Stop, on 7 June 2010.[1] It was co-written and co-produced by Bell and Pascal Gabriel, who previously remixed “It Doesn’t Have to Be” for Erasure. It also features a collaboration with Perry Farrell.
Using the pseudonym Mimó, Bell released two Pascal Gabriel-produced singles on Mute Records: “Running Out” (2009) and “Will You Be There?” (2010) prior to his second solo album. The name, used as a “tribute to good friend Tomeau Mimó”, was not used on any subsequent solo releases, as a legal block was issued against Bell by another artist already using the Mimó name. Both songs will appear on Non-Stop. Both of these singles have since been re-branded as Andy Bell.
In the summer of 2013 Andy Bell joined Howard Jones on the highly anticipated Regeneration tour.
