Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet don’t strike you as the sort of people who play
mind games with each other. But if they were, Clarke would be winning right
now. Twenty minutes after Clarke was due to turn up at this Covent Garden
private members club, there’s no sign of him. As a result, Moyet – already
nervous about seeing her sometime Yazoo sidekick for the first time since
they both attended a friend’s wedding 18 years ago – simply doesn’t know
where to put herself. Seeking to reassure her, I suggest she merely picks up
where she left off with him. “Um, we don’t want to do that,” she jokes,
though quite why, she doesn’t explain.
At the beginning of the synth-pop era they helped to popularize, fans and
critics referred to Yazoo – the songwriter who left Depeche Mode aged just
20, and the ballsy soul voice known to Essex punks then as Alf – as the odd
couple. Fittingly, there’s no shortage of oddness about this reunion. There
have been no phone calls, no protracted negotiations prior to this moment.
Just three emails exchanged between Moyet, Clarke and their promoter have
taken us to this point. After holding out for 25 years, the stars (or,
rather, their schedules) aligned for Yazoo’s return. Moyet had finished
promoting the acclaimed torch pop of her last album The Turn, while Clarke –
now in his 23rd year with Erasure – had done the same. In Your Room, a box
set which gathers everything they recorded together, was already pencilled
in for release. But, before proceeding, Clarke asked Erasure singer Andy
Bell if he had any objections to the reunion, Bell apparently said, “Only as
long as you get me tickets for the shows.”
She’s such a formidable presence. Clarke is anything but. And yet, when the
small, unassuming, shaven-headed Clarke ambles into the room, and addresses
Moyet with a simple, “Hello, mate!”, this 46 year-old mother of three
children (aged 22, 19 and 11) almost falls apart: “I just… that really
freaked me out, actually.” She turns around to a cameraman, who is here to
film the moment for the website. “I’m sorry. I can’t do that,” she tells
him. He leaves the room. I offer to do the same, but she says it’s fine. “I
suddenly felt all stuttery.” Then, as estranged friends do, she grabs the
first piece of conversational driftwood she can find and goes with the flow.
Does Clarke still have the house in Chertsey, Essex? Yes, but it’s been on
the market ever since he and his wife moved to Maine.
Some reunions reek of desperation. Others scratch the itch of nostalgia. The
Yazoo one, though, merely formalizes something that is already in the air.
The duo’s stock seems to be at an all-time high. Andrew Butler, DJ
mastermind behind Hercules & Love Affair cited Only You and Don’t Go as the
first formative pop experiences of his life. LCD Soundsystem explicitly
referenced them on Losing My Edge. But then, they were no less hip the first
time around. On cuts like Situation and State Farm, the synergy of Moyet’s
soul power and Clarke’s sequenced beats presaged the emergence of deep house
by five years. Moyet remembers David Bowie, Joey Ramone and members of
Talking Heads in the audience at their 1981 New York shows. “We were
supported by rope climbers,” she recalls, “Although I can’t quite remember
why. They had everything but their t**ts hanging out.”
Moyet might have been cool, but she was miserable too. Why, exactly? Though
the answer seems no simpler to Moyet, time has allowed her to get a handle
on the reasons. “If you think that we got our deal because Vince already had
a deal [through Depeche Mode] then that already puts me in a vulnerable
position. And then, to suddenly become well-known on top of that…”
What’s easily forgotten is just how famous they did become. Yazoo’s debut
album Upstairs At Eric’s spent a year in the British top 40. And yet, in the
austere indie microclimate that was Mute Records, Clarke’s pop sensibilities
were treated no differently to the musical whims of lesser-known artists. If
Yazoo wanted to record, they had to wake at dawn and fit their schedule
around that of labelmates Fad Gadget, who recorded between 11am and 11pm.
And yet, having already written New Life and Just Can’t Get Enough for
Depeche Mode, Clarke was already a proven hitmaker. Nevertheless, Yazoo
still required a leap of faith from their label boss Daniel Miller.
“When I did our first demo – which was Only You – I tried to give it to Daniel
and he didn’t show much interest.” Moyet is amazed at this point. “Wow! I
didn’t know that!” Clarke continues: “Yeah, I brought it in and put it on,
and the whole time it was playing, Daniel was messing around with a
synthesizer. Only when the publishers took an interest did he brighten up.”
It wasn’t just Miller who was slow to register the brilliance of Only You.
With Depeche Mode’s aversion to the song cited as the reason for Clarke’s
departure, Yazoo naturally took an interest in how Depeche Mode were coping
without them. Moyet mischievously notes that, between her and Clarke, there
was “an awareness that Only You was far superior to [Depeche Mode’s first
post-Clarke single] See You.” Moyet turns to Clarke, suddenly unsure that
she should have said that at all. “Is that really bad?”
“No, it’s all right,” says Clarke, drily, “No-one in Depeche reads The Times.”
Whatever bonded Yazoo to each other at the beginning of their alliance, had
all but vanished by the time their posthumously released second album You
And Me Both appeared. Their final Top Of The Pops performance in 1983, for
Nobody’s Diary, told its own story. Sporting a giant, meticulously teased
quiff, Clarke cut an impassive, emotionless figure and Moyet looked
anguished and uncomfortable. It was a perfect microcosm of their alliance.
“Creatively, it was fine,” says Moyet, “The thing I found difficult was the
lack of warmth. I wanted to feel more likeable, and you can’t feel likeable
if someone doesn’t want to interact.”
If Clarke is a different creature now, he puts it down in part to his sidekick
in Erasure. “Andy Bell is the most laid-back person you ever met, and over
the years that has rubbed off on me.”
This isn’t without a certain irony. Bell has admitted that his early singing
years were spent trying to imitate Moyet. Despite or because of that, Moyet
admits to feelings of envy as Erasure notched up a string of hits. She adds,
however, that, “I stopped feeling that way the moment I met him. He’s the
loveliest guy you ever met.”
Post Yazoo, of course, Moyet was first to hit the ground running with a
high-profile career of her own. Hits such as Love Resurrection and All Cried
Out propelled her to a plum spot on Live Aid. Fearing the answer, it turns
out that she never dared ask what Clarke thought of such solo efforts. “I
always assumed you thought it was s**t,” she says. “Really?” comes his
response. “I was actually quite jealous of you. I loved all the songs on
that album [Raindancing]. You had proper producers who were famous in their
own right [Jolley & Swain]. It seemed a far cry from Daniel Miller.”
Both find this hilarious: the glacial synth boffin gazing inquisitively at the
mainstream success enjoyed by his old singer; while his old singer assumes
that her old Basildon mates must be repelled by her new mainstream cachet.
It’s hard to imagine that they were ever this comfortable in each other’s
company the first time around. “I lacked the life-skills of communication in
a relationship,” he admits, “I felt confident in the studio, but starting a
chat with somebody…” His voice trails off.
Does this amount to a tying up of loose ends or a second life for the duo
whose influence seems to expand with every passing year? Tantalisingly,
Moyet reveals that she has retained a total recall of several unrecorded
songs that Clarke played for her without ever having committed them to tape.
“I can remember not only tunes that we never recorded, but tunes that he
played to me on a guitar that I would have sung twice and then he changed
his mind about recording them.”
It isn’t too late to take care of that, I suggest. “I’ll sing them to you
later,” she says to him.” Then, in almost perfect synchronicity, both remind
me that we’re getting ahead of ourselves somewhat. “For God’s sake, we’ve
just met!” It’s true. They have only just met. But had I been there to
witness the moment with my own eyes, I would never have guessed.
Yazoo’s tour starts on June 4, 2008, at the Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow (0870
0404000). In Your Room is out in May
