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How come you've not jumped on the '80s bandwagon with the 'Hear and Now' tour they're all doing at the moment? Were you tempted?
Andy: It's just looking back on former glories. We always live for the next thing.

I want to ask you about your eponymous album you released in 1995. You took a different direction and, in some peoples' minds, your career never recovered. Do you think it was a mistake?
Andy: No. I don't think it was a mistake because I love the album. I think it's a great piece of work. 'Cowboy' and 'Loveboat' didn't set the charts alight and you can get really depressed. You have to get used to questions like "Where have you been for the past ten years. Are you still singing?" But I do feel really proud of what we've done and we do really high quality work and I don't think we've ever compromised. .

What do you think has been Erasure's high point? Do you have a favourite Erasure album?
Vince: 'Cowboy'.

Andy: 'Chorus' and 'Erasure'.

Did you have any contact with Benny and Bjorn during 1992?
Vince: No. Their accountants phoned.

Andy: Agnetha said she liked it. If I met them I would curtsey. That's the girls.

Vince: And the boys?

Andy: I would be quite nervous. They're like your great uncles, like Uncle Bulgaria.

What's the next project?
Vince: We'll be writing an original Erasure album this year. I'm living in New York at the moment so we're going to be travelling around there and going to Spain.

Andy: So, we'll have some New York dancey-vibe mixes, won't we Vince?
Have you thought about what the style of the album is going to be?
Vince: No. Every time you make an album you say it's going to be different. It is different but people say, "Oh, it sounds just like the last".

Andy:I'd like to have a really rip-roaring album, so people are exhausted by the time it's finished.

Is it a problem when you're on stage to keep going?
Andy: Last time it was a problem because I wasn't fit before we went on but this time I'm much fitter. I still get out of breath after three songs.

Vince, you've always been a big fan of the anologue sound. Are you still anti-digital sound?
Vince: I'm not anti-digital but I've been using analogue equipment for years and, for me, it's easy to use. I'm slowly starting to get into digital stuff because it's compact and easy. I like synthesisers when you've got lots of knobs and things to change around with rather than one little knob that does everything.

Andy: I don't know how he does it. When you watch him, he'll work on a sound for 15 minutes or 2 hours and I think "I wonder if he knows in his imagination where this sound is going?"

Do you sit there and think "I want it to sound like this?"
Vince: I start off thinking like that. I've already got the music written, so it's playing the little melody and what I do is change the sound. You aim for a certain sound and it ends up being something completely different. If you've got a synthesiser with pre-set sounds then you'll go over the brass section and that's as far as it takes you.

Throughout your career you've been very flamboyant and yet everyone's seen Vince's penis (Vince posed naked for the photographer Rankin a few years back). Discuss.
Andy:I only show mine in private.

Were you not tempted to do anything like that Andy?
Andy:We did 'Boyz' magazine this morning and I thought, 'Maybe I should do a wet t-shirt and no knickers" but then we wouldn't be on the front cover it would be in the back. No, I'm glad I've got a pop career and not one as a rent boy.

Vince:I'm still doing both.

To read Erasure's biog,