COVER BOY BELL

Erasure singer ANDY BELL has revealed his plans to mark his 40th birthday - by recording a covers album.

Bell - who along with Vince Clarke releases a new album 'Loveboat' through Mute on 23 October - told nme.com: "I've mentioned to Vince that I'd quite like to do a solo thing and maybe do it on my 40th birthday, so that's four more years. That would be doing standards, doing covers, but really old ones, that your parents used to listen to, like 'The Last Waltz' and those kind of things. Do it half that and then half disco originals."

He also said that although the duo would not be touring to promote the new album, they had initially planned to put on shows where Bell would perform live and Clarke would perform via the net.

Bell added: "Vince doesn't want to tour, he's adamant about not touring, and as a compromise he was going to tour live from his house via the Internet. But we couldn't get any companies interested enough. A lot of promoters thought that when people pay their ticket prices they want to see Erasure."

'Loveboat' will be preceded by a new single, 'Freedom', on 9 October.